You’re a Modern-Day Kit Carson

Kit Carson was a 19th-century trapper, scout, and soldier whose adventures in the American West made him a legend. Today throughout the West, cities (including the capitol of Nevada), schools, counties, parks, roads, an Army post, a valley, a mountain, and a forest all bear Carson’s name.

Carson was a solopreneur — 160 years before the term was coined.

Carson was hired to lead epic explorations of the Continental Divide, the Oregon Trail, and California. He didn’t have a resume, because he was illiterate, but in the book Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West, author Hampton Sides describes Carson’s skills.

He was a fine hunter, an adroit horseman, an excellent shot. He was a shrewd negotiator. He knew how to select a good campsite and could set it up or strike it in minutes. He knew what to do when a horse foundered. He could dress and cure meat, and he was a fair cook. Out of necessity, he also was a passable gunsmith, blacksmith, liveryman, angler, forager, farrier, wheelwright, mountain climber, and a decent paddler of a raft or canoe.

As a tracker he was unequaled. He could locate water in the driest arroyo and strain it into potability. He knew little tricks for staving off thirst — such as opening the fruit of a cactus or clipping a mule’s ears and drinking its blood. He knew how to make smoke signals. He knew all about hitches and rope knots. He knew how to make a good set of snowshoes. He knew how to tan hides with a glutinous emulsion made from the brains of the animal. He knew how to cache food and hides in the ground to prevent theft and spoilage. He knew how to break a mustang. He knew which species of wood would burn well and how to split the logs on the grain, even when an axe was not handy.

These were important skills, all of them, though they were hard to measure and quantify. But in the right person, a person who was also cheerful on a trail he already knew well, who had a few jokes up his sleeve and possessed an absolute honesty — they were invaluable.

You don’t know how to drink the blood of a mule’s ear, but as a 21st-century solopreneur, you possess an impressive list of skills.

You can fix a copy machine, add RAM to your computer, and customize a website with a bit of CSS. You’ve honed your copywriting, become a decent public speaker, and learned a sales style that fits your personality.

You can size up the worthiness of a potential client or partner, you can write a contract that would hold up in court, and you can paint an office.

You can pick apart a P&L statement, find the best cellphone plan, and crank out awesome client proposals.

You can do a lot more than that, too — and you probably have, in the past week.

You really are a modern-day Kit Carson, a hero on an epic quest of discovery that will improve the lives of others and change the world.

(So pat yourself on the back, tie a few knots, and cure some meat. And cache a few hides while you’re at it.)