On Friday, President Obama, during a campaign event in Virginia, told the crowd that people with successful businesses couldn’t give themselves a bit of credit:

Look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart….Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

There are a number of people who might be startled to hear this. In The Call of the Entrepreneur, three men describe how they did “get there on their own”. For instance, Brad Morgan, a dairy farmer from Michigan, had to figure out how to save his failing dairy farm. And he did. HE did: not a government program, not a nebulous “somebody”, but Mr. Morgan himself.

In his book The Entrepreneurial Vocation, Rev. Robert Sirico says this about the men and women who take financial risks to create jobs for themselves and others:

What is unique about the institution of entrepreneurship is that it requires no third-party intervention either to establish or to maintain it. It requires no governmental program or governmental manuals. It does not require low-interest loans, special tax treatment, or public subsidies. It does not even require specialized education or a prestigious degree. Entrepreneurship is an institution that develops organically from human intelligence situated in the context of the natural order of liberty.

To tell a person who has made personal and financial sacrifices to create wealth for themselves and others that he or she owes it all to someone else…well. Maybe that’s the way it plays in politics, but not in entrepreneurship. Certainly, there is always room to recognize those who have helped along the way: mentors, guides, partners and cheerleaders, but the creators of wealth and business know that the words of Frank Sinatra ring true: I did it my way.