Happy Independents’ Day

That headline is not a typo.

Other than summer jobs during high school and college, a stint helping my Uncle Sam prevent the Domino Theory from becoming the Domino Law, a cup of coffee at an insurance company after the service and a brief interlude at a major Philadelphia white-shoe law firm to learn the ropes of my new profession, I have always been self-employed. Coming, as I do, from a long line of Irish farmers who had to coax a hard-scrabble living from unforgiving ground and dicey, to say the least, weather, I suspect that working for “the Man” was very likely bred out of my genetic code multiple generations ago.

As it happens, an astonishingly large number of my friends, virtually all of my clients and the vast majority of visitors to this website are also long-time businessmen: tradesmen, professionals, restaurateurs, shopowners, service providers. Entrepreneurs have always been, still are and, I suspect, always will be my primary market. I understand them and they understand me. A mutual admiration society of sorts, if you will.

Periodically, clients for whom I have resolved some legal issue will make me job offers and I always tell them that they would be making a huge mistake to hire me. That disarmingly honest observation always astonishes them because they are so used to reading the thought balloons above the heads of job applicants that invariably say “Oh, please, please, please hire me!” When they ask me why it would be a mistake for them to hire me, I tell them the truth: “I’m not manageable.” That’s a trait that I suspect that I share with most, if not all, independent businessmen and one that would be a continual annoyance in an employee but is a sine qua non in an entrepreneur.

So, on this greatest American holiday, when we celebrate and commemorate our outstanding Founding Fathers who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor in order to midwife this greatest nation of all time into existence, let us also salute ourselves, the men and women entrepreneurs, the independent businessmen and women, whose labor provides the goods and services, whose innovations create the jobs and whose drive and enthusiasm generate the energy that, in the final analysis, are what make the United States of America the greatest place on Earth to live.

Here’s to you, my fellow independent businessmen and women! Happy Independents’ Day!