There has been a lot of huffing and puffing in the media about entrepreneur Tareq Salahi and his pretty wife Michaele crashing President Obama’s first State Dinner.

We have to question the sincerity, or at least the consistency, of much of the outrage: after all, when a journalist threw a shoe at Mr Obama’s predecessor in office, the general mainstream media reaction was somewhere between amusement and admiration.

Given that there is no evidence that the Salahis intended any assault with footwear, they are far more deserving of that admiration.

Indeed, they may – if only in this respect – be role models for the rest of us.

One of the greatest problems we smaller players face is gaining access to the big players. We know in our hearts that we have propositions that will benefit them as well as us, if only they would hear us, but getting to them so that we can pitch our ideas is very difficult.

It is meant to be. Our own propositions are, of course, beneficial to all concerned, but powerful decision makers do not know that yet. Meanwhile, they are bombarded by thousands of other suggestions, most of which are useless. So we can hardly blame them for surrounding themselves with elaborate systems of “gate-keepers” to shield them from people with unwanted proposals.

The gate-keepers should be viewed as no more than an initiative test, the first step in proving to the decision maker that we are a cut above the crowd of time-wasters.

We need to learn to use our ingenuity to get past the gate-keepers. More than that, we need to learn to be unafraid of rejection. In most cases, the consequences of failure are no more than a little embarrassment – but, strange to say, the threat of a minor humiliation is enough to put most people off trying. Those who persevere are those who prove themselves worthy of success.

The Salahis may face sterner sanctions, given that anything involving the federal government usually involves overkill. Yet the enterprise they demonstrated, at least on this occasion, is what built America – and is still America’s best hope for the future.