Everybody’s quick to honor our teachers, support the troops, or tip their hats to firefighters.

But it’s time to honor the courage of a different kind of public servant: those who fearlessly risk their time and money to move civilization forward.

Those who tirelessly work 80 hour weeks with little to no pay, yet do not receive standing ovations or ticker tape parades when their mission is complete.

When was the last time you thanked an entrepreneur?

When was the last time you pondered the emotional sacrifice of those who brought us the stuff that makes our lives better like Netflix, cloud computing, air conditioning, or the countless other innovations that cumulatively create our modern standard of living?

Let’s start with the brutal reality: 80 percent of U.S. entrepreneurs will fail.

That means 8 out of the 10 people who are trying to figure out a way to offer you some product, service, or experience will crash and burn trying.

Emotionally, spiritually, and often financially.

Entrepreneurship is hard.

If you’re an entrepreneur reading this, realize that you are a public servant!

You are heroically risking your financial resources (and emotional sanity) to make the world a better place. You are a public servant, in the deepest and most meaningful sense of the term.

Teachers educate our future leaders. Soldiers are willing to go into harm’s way. And yet it’s our entrepreneurs who hustle eight days a week to create a society that’s worth fighting for in the first place.

Entrepreneurs are public servants, too.