Living on the Edge of Entrepreneurship

byKristieK

596 followers

Updated 10 years ago

1) If at first you don't succeed try and try again. When I first started out as an entrepreneur it was due to being laid off (company wide budget cut) and I immediately went into survival mode. Two days later I filed a fictitious name and hoped for the best in the midst of the worst. From that moment on I decided I never would allow any company, person or circumstance to hold the cards to my financial destiny. I was determined to succeed in every area of my life.

Through the corridors of time I've had business ideas to FLOURISH and more than I care to count to FLOP! What has carried me through fourteen years of building has been the discipline to develop an indomitable will. The word indomitable is defined as: impossible to subdue or to defeat! In other words UNCONQUERABLE! Why do you need an indomitable will to succeed? Because you are going to face adversity and unrelenting challenges that test every fiber of your being. Your dreams may take years to manifest and if you are not careful frustration will tempt you to quit. In that split second, allow your frustration to fuel you forward to your future freedom.

2) Cultivate an insatiable appetite to learn, expand and change. One day looking back in retrospect I came to the realization that as I was building my business, my business was building me. Everything matters in life and nothing to be discounted. After working at the University for six years I was completely uninterested in the 8 to 5 especially since I had no creative outlet to express my true passion. I believed it was time to see if I could pull off entrepreneurship full time.

So, I leased an office space to house my business. Day and night I labored in decorating for the grand opening. We had a ribbon ceremony and many family and friends showed up. It was only two months later that I was moving out of that building because there was no traffic! What was that? I thought if I build it they would come. Hogwash! If you market strategically, consistently and build strong brand awareness they will come. I always think of words once heard, “If you are not visible, you are invisible.” For beginning entrepreneurs it is essential to keep your overhead low in the initial stages until you are comfortable increasing expenses pertinent to business development.

I experienced great disappointment from falling flat on my face and I spent a year in a dark fog trying to figure out what to do next. I couldn't hide under the covers forever. That was one of my most painful and valuable lessons that allowed me to discover:

A) People love to come to the after party and reap the benefits of your labor. After you have toiled in silence to create something that never before existed they are 100 % on board. Don't take it to heart, welcome to the wonderful world of leadership. Treasure the ones who are willing to kneel low and fight with you in the trenches before you win the war.

B) It is not healthy to wallow in self pity. We can either be powerful or powerless! Eliminate all excuses. Do not take rejection personally! Every no is bringing you closer to hearing a YES! Life is really one big mind game and you must prepare to win at all times.

C) One of my most noted quotes of reference is by Theodore Roosevelt, “Do what you can, with what you have-right where you are.” Often times when I make a move forward in a new direction, its a calculated risk. As you know in entrepreneurship there are no guarantees but when you strike gold, every hour invested becomes worth it! Many individuals admire entrepreneurs yet unfortunately they are to petrified to take a leap of faith towards the unknown to ever partake in unfathomable adventures.

3) Defy the odds stacked against you. My whole life has been about defiance against the status quo. I know what it's like to be put in a box of limitation and have institutional organizations mislabel you before you are capable of articulating who you are and what you were born to do. Which ultimately leaves you miseducated, misunderstood and misused. As a result of a faulty system I made a personal commitment to educate myself on any and everything I needed to know.

My mother gave me a coin once that said, “The secret to wisdom is to be curious.” There is not a day that goes by that I don't read something that can change my life forever. I rarely watch TV because it is such a waste of time and I squandered many years aimlessly wandering with no specific direction. Every day push yourself to become better.

Your success will inspire others but deep within it will invoke you to new levels of gratitude because you open handedly walked through fire to obtain each prize. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.,“A man who does not have something for which he is willing to die is not fit to live.” It is easy to take the escape route when times get tough but if you desire to reach unprecedented heights you must burn your ship full of excuses. Refuse to be casual about your vision and set out to blaze eternal trails of undeniable victory. "Excuses are tools of the incompetent which create monuments of nothingness.Those who specialize in them are seldom good in anything at all." -Author Unknown

I leave you with an excerpt from the classic book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, with a powerful message entitled “Burn your Ship”. A long while ago, a great warrior faced a situation which made it necessary for him to make a decision which insured his success on the battlefield. He was about to send his armies against a powerful foe, whose men outnumbered his own. He loaded his soldiers into boats, sailed to the enemy’s country, unloaded soldiers and equipment, then gave the order to burn the ships that had carried them. Addressing his men before the first battle, he said, “You see the boats going up in smoke. That means that we cannot leave these shores alive unless we win! We now have no choice—we win, or we perish!"

They won. Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to burn his ships and cut all sources of retreat. Only by so doing can one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as a BURNING DESIRE TO WIN, essential to success. “