I spent eighteen months encountering formerly homeless veteran entrepreneurs. During that time I developed the question "How do entrepreneurs who are extraordinary because of what they have overcome become exceptionally resilient?" This article investigates the resiliency of the human spirit. It is about those who experience discontinuous identity narrative change. I find that entrepreneurial storytelling is a central explanatory process. Expanding upon this, I develop a taxonomy of both temporalities and contexts within which entrepreneurial storytelling takes place. Temporally, entrepreneurialstorytelling occurs in the future, the ongoing, and the past. Contextually, entrepreneurial storytelling occurs within tactical creation, embodied narrative dialog, and strategic discovery. In the typical sense entrepreneurial resiliency emerges out of a dialog between tactical creation and strategic discovery. Importantly, I find that exceptional entrepreneurial resiliency emerges out of the embodied narrative dialog that unifies tactical creation and strategic discovery. These findings have important implications for research on entrepreneurial resiliency, the emerging conversation surrounding entrepreneurialstorytelling, and generally for research in the individual- opportunity nexus.

Key words: Entrepreneurial, Resilience, Storytelling