Our children must be offered an education up to par with thier potential-and equal to the needs of the Twenty-first century.

Our children must be offered an education up to par with thier potential-and equal to the needs of the Twenty-first century.

Small business people have gotten us out of nearly all modern recessions - not by waiting for others to fix things or turning to government, but rather by applying leadership, inventiveness, creativity and originality.

Perhaps our most debilitating rut as a culture is a dependence on experts. Until we kick this dependency, how can we rise above the statistics and become a nation of entrepreneurs and leaders? The answer, as challenging as it is, is for entrepreneurs to show us the way, and to keep at it until more of us start to heed.

The next step is for the great teachers to arise, and for them to clearly understand the challenges ahead and mentor accordingly. Where most generations focus the education of their children on preparing to make a living or succeed financially, leadership generations are taught by parents who see a higher role for their children.

This is the crisis! Difficulty getting credit, slow growth, high unemployment, low consumer confidence-these are challenges entrepreneurs can overcome with hard work, smart risk and tenacious teamwork. This is precisely what entrepreneurs do!

Thinking is like exercise, it requires consistency and rigor. Like barbells in a weightlifting room, the classics force us to either put them down or exert our minds. They require us to think.