Ever since I graduated from college, I have been fired from every job I ever had. Each time, I decided that the timing was right for me to start my own company. In retrospect, I failed whenever I focused entirely on my "vision" and succeeded when I learned to rely on my "peripheral" vision. This is a tough time to be an entrepreneur. It is too easy to think of the current downturn as just another economic setback. Instead, we need to think of this as the end of a 60-year cycle. Since 1949, the Chinese have been lifting themselves by their bootstraps, initially with their communist ideology but eventually by manufacturing low-cost consumer products and by reinvesting their earnings in foreign debts to keep interest rate artificially low (sort of like the Opium War in reverse). Now there are two World powers competing for markets and resources, fundamentally changing the long-term prospect of the American middle class. But for every crisis, there is an opportunity. Going forward I encourage all bootstrapping entrepreneurs to be patient, to keep an eye on the peripherals and to maintain discipline by consistently ask ourselves these really tough 20 questions (I find the YouTube video to be inspiring). This is not a race. When my son and I climbed Kilimanjaro last year, the porters would constantly sing in Swahili, "Haraka haraka haina baraka, Pole pole ndio mwendo", meaning "hurry hurry has no blessing, slowly slowly the world moves." Sounds about right.  I also hope that you enjoy the following which is Part I of my two-part trip report.  Good luck, everyone.<p><a href="http://www.startupforless.org/2009/09/startup-lessons-learned-while-climbing-kilimanjaro-part-1-by-denny-k-miu.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.startupforless.org/2009/09/startup-lessons-learne...</a>