Do you recall the story of Rip Van Winkle? He’s the villager in colonial America who falls asleep and wakes up 20 years later only to find he has missed the entire American Revolutionary War and all the changes brought about as a result of the war.

Let’s pretend for a moment that its March 8, 2009 —- the stock market is hitting the bottom (down 56 percent from its all-time high), unemployment is exceeding 8 percent, the TARP program has been put in place to help major banks free up cash for more loans, and Lehman Brothers bankruptcy has triggered a global recession.

Exhausted by living through all this, you fall into a deep sleep, but unlike Rip Van Winkle, you wake up only 10 years later.

It’s now March 2019. Wow! How things have changed. The S&P 500 is up 322 percent, and after-tax corporate profits increased 175 percent since the bottom of the market on March 8, 2009. Unemployment is now 3.8 percent.

Self-driving cars have been invented. The innovation of ridesharing apps allows you to order a car using an app on your phone, which also tells you your driver’s name, type of vehicle, the cost to get to your destination, and how long it will take — all cheaper than taking a taxi. And, to your amazement, the U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil producer.

How did all this happen in just 10 years? One word — entrepreneurialism.

It has revolutionized the world over the last 10 years. It’s also what has been driving the stock market and economic growth. Imagine what will happen in the next 10 years.

Washington Irving, the author of Rip Van Winkle, described Rip’s character as a “ … composition (that) was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor,” meaning that Rip didn’t work for wages or engage in any labor that would be profitable to him or his family.

We can all be thankful that there are fewer Rip Van Winkle-types in our economy than entrepreneurs. The spirit and ingenuity of the entrepreneur has taken this country far over its relatively short history and will continue to lead us into the future. Don’t fall asleep or you might miss it!

Wendy Bennett is a senior financial adviser in Butler.