Are You an Entrepreneur?

 An entrepreneur I am not, and will never be. All my audacious attempts at “business” were a dismal failure. All my investments fell under one category: sad. So why was I excited to read “The Happy Entrepreneur,” a book by Ardy Roberto? 

Ardy is a friend, a faith brethren, and a writer, with whom I share a book publisher. I bask in the successes of fellow pilgrims on a writing journey, leaving tracks of words that hopefully will, as Bud Garner wrote, “echo down the ages.” 

“I have just finished writing my first novel,” Ardy told me in one author gathering. 

“A novel!” I gushed. I personally know very few people who have attempted a novel and succeeded. 

“I can’t wait to read it,” I said. 

“The Happy Entrepreneur,” published by ABS-CBN Publishing Inc., hit the bookstores a few months after that meet-up. I believe it will just be a matter of time before it becomes another bestseller like Ardy’s other books, which are contextualized (Taglish) for Filipino readers. 

What riveted me was not the thread about conglomerates but the parallel, and more moving, story of redemption. Beneath the mentoring of a business wannabe with mental issues, there lurks a triumphant tale of discipling, a mandate for followers of Christ to embrace, which shone brighter for me.

Tim, a successful businessman enters into a one-on-one relationship with a not-quite-yet a believer Eddie and guides him through the Word, based on Tim's own highs and lows in the business arena.    

Here’s a made businessman, whose genuine interest in the life of a nobody makes him reach out, way beyond anyone in his shoes would be willing to go, and help a goner meet and grow in the Lord. 

This entrepreneur teaches endurance and the joy that accompanies the learning; he teaches forgiveness the way we are edified in Scripture; and most of all, he speaks the language of business when he talks about the Truth to hard-nosed businessmen like the John Gokongwei in, of all places, the clouds inside a cramped airplane.  

I have met and heard the real people (fictionalized in the book’s pages) speak about their early beginnings, and what led them to success. But it is in the book’s dialogue, peppered with Filipino words and nuances, that the power of discipling comes alive. 

The reader is invited inside the mind of Tim, who is astute about the spiritual needs and struggles of Eddie—and able to communicate them. 

In their travels together, Tim witnesses for Christ with clockwork precision, carrying the Great Commission that should be in every Christian’s soul-winning program—preceded and ended in consultation with God through prayer. 

How Ardy was able to interlace entrepreneurship with discipleship is, for me, a work of grace. May the business world, Ardy’s milieu, be blessed with Tims so that the Eddies will one day discover the right path. 

“Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.” (Proverbs 3:6 NLT)