Friends. What a word. It invokes a warm feeling, a smile, a part of life that makes the struggles, the insanity and the craziness of it all much more palatable.
As crazy busy as we all are, it’s brutally difficult to find and make new adult friends that are cool, interesting and like minded. Well a significant part of why I started the Entrepreneur Social Club officially in 2010, after decades of contemplation and a slow drift towards cognating it, was to meet AND ENJOY MY TIME WITH (a most critical component) other like-minded people.
People who develop into real friends. They’re people you get and they get you. They understand what the TRUE meaning of being a “Business Owner” or “Entrepreneur” really is. To most of the world, those are just word phrases, not the grit and blood and tears and dedication and endless hours towards some “silly / crazy / insane” dream that only a fellow dreamer / entrepreneur / visionary can truly understand. These are the Friends we have made at ESC.
These are the people, our friends, it’s ok to get silly with, to share a few (occasionally way too many) drinks with, to laugh out gut-bustingly loud with, to throw paper napkins at, to karaoke with, to argue and disagree and hug and share and create with. These are the people who make up the heart of the ESC – the “S” of the club. People you can’t wait until Thursday for to begin to share this rarified air with – a time and place and energy space – that most of the world can never share, one that is limited to those who are crazy in their brains, the one’s who push into the unknown, those who will NOT TAKE NO for an answer, those who care enough to actually change our world for the better.
Friends who see, speak and hear no evil (when it concerns you and your dreams) are those same friends who will tell you that your business card is shit “hire a professional designer” who will rag you endlessly “it’s not about you it’s about YOUR CUSTOMERS”, those are people I enjoy calling friends, those who tell you what you REALLY need to hear, all while giving you love and support and encouragement. And who remind you to tell your clients to PAY YOU WHAT YOU’RE WORTH, the old “fuck you pay me” adage.
These friends along the way have gotten married, moved away, fallen deathly ill, suffered loss and divorces and pain and misery and joys and births and celebrated victories and wept over bitter defeats. And through it all, we who are friends, all because of these three little words, the ESC, are better people, business owners, Entrepreneurs, parents, uncles and aunts and humans, all because of the love and laughs and support of and from each other. And so 4 years later, here we are laughing and growing and crying and sharing and creating, little by little, a global family of like-minded people, who not only care about themselves, their friends, their businesses and the world, while making each day a bit better than the last, and more often than not hopefully stopping by our weekly gathering on Thursday evenings at NOVA 535 here in downtown St. Pete called the Entrepreneur Social CLub, but affectionately referred to by all of us as the ESC. So join us, the meeting is free, though the booze and dinner cost money, bring your debit card. The rules are simple: no religion, no politics, no liars, no bullies and no thieves, just positive people who want to have FUN and be PRODUCTIVE. Oh and who want to make a new friend or two.
