Last week, I was a guest on a local radio show where we talked about entrepreneurship and work/life balance. I shared that, for me, getting back to an entrepreneurial mindset has been essential to attaining balance in my life, and we had several callers that expressed similar opinions.  At the close of the show, one gentleman called and very tactfully asked what suggestions I had for people “that didn’t have the option of being an entrepreneur.”  We rushed through some ideas, but didn’t really get to finish the thought because our time was up.

Over the weekend, I spent some time with my Dad and was telling him about the radio show. His immediate response was, “Where do people learn that?” (In his mind, being an entrepreneur is the default option.)

And then on the drive back, I was listening to an old audio book (circa 1998) from Robert Allen as he theorized that the future of the “mere employee” is increasingly weak – that success in our current economy required a different way of thinking. The relevance of his commentary struck a chord with me, given that all we’ve heard lately is how “different” the world is now.  How can that be if folks like him were talking in 1998 about how the economy was changing and what skills were needed?

Is it possible that the Great Recession is more accurately the Great Reminder? A lesson that the collective world was out of balance, consuming far more resources than it was generating. A lesson that some tried to teach us decades earlier, but that we didn’t heed.

Is it possible that, somehow, many of us bought into the illusion of security (from corporations and governments) and quit accepting full responsibility for our lives? We equated having a job to providing an income stream for as long as we needed it, affordable insurance, and enough free time to enjoy our families. Oh, and the government was going to handle retirement if the companies didn’t.

Is it possible?

I think so.

Here’s my two cents . . . To get out of this mess, I think we all have to become entrepreneurs, meaning that we accept responsibility for allocating our time, providing our own financial security, obtaining adequate protection (insurance) for our families, and planning for the future.  It’s how it worked for the first 1940 years, and it still makes sense now.

I’m not saying that paychecks and W-2’s should be obliterated, but the idea that they provide security should be.  And I’m not saying that Social Security should go away, but the thought of solely relying on it should.

What we should have learned from this economic collapse is that there is no institution (government or corporate) that can – or should – take responsibility for our lives. That’s our job. No one can do it for us.  And as my pastor says, if a CEO or President had the power to fix it all, Jesus would have come back as one of them. (Nope, just an ordinary guy with an extraordinary purpose.)

There are no set rules for being an entrepreneur. You can even keep your day job if you’d like. But don’t stop there. Become an intrapreneur. Or an investor. Make the leap and build your own business. Take responsibility for providing your own safety net.

Our rallying cry for the future ought to be: Entrepreneurs Only. In fact, it’s the ONLY option ALL of us have.