Thanksgiving, Pilgrims and Women Entrepreneurs

Several summers ago my youngest sister decided to chronicle one side of our family’s history. Much to our surprise, our grandmother’s descendants traveled from England on the Mayflower. As my sister traced our grandmother’s paternal lineage she discovered distant relatives lived in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York; never moving past the east coast and deciding to stay where the winds took them.

Somewhere in photos from a hundred years ago was an Indian woman dressed in white standing next to a gentleman in a military dress in a grassy knoll. Never able to jog our grandmother’s memory about who the Indian princess was, we assumed part of our history included Native American connections. My grandmother was a dark-haired, dark-skinned woman with some facial attributes of Native Americans. Equally my grandmother’s two brothers and my father have distinctive-looking facial features and skin as our country’s first inhabitants.

Discovering my grandmother’s history makes tomorrow’s holiday sparkle in new ways as I contemplate the brave journey of the pilgrims who crossed a vast ocean not knowing what waited on the shore. Their fearlessness and adventurous spirit, handed down through genes, rest inside their descendants. Could it be my entrepreneurial spirit was based on the bravery of these descendants who took risks to enjoy a different way of life?

The pilgrim’s trek reminds me of the recent travels of Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist, who sailed across the ocean waves on a zero-emissions craft to enlighten the world about the damage of greenhouse gases. There is still so much discovery to be made in this great world of ours. Every day as new women start their own businesses or seasoned female business owners offer new products and services to engage and help their customers, we sense a similar tinge of excitement as our country’s founders.

Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is to inspire you to keep being fearless, adventuresome and tenacious in your entrepreneurial endeavors. Remember most of us came from pilgrims who sailed across the ocean blue with hope in their hearts for a better way to live. Their spirit lives on in us and girls like Greta Thunberg. Smooth sailing isn’t for the faint of heart and either is trying to change the world through a passionate business mission.