When the Entrepreneurial Bug Bites and So Do The Critics

Do you remember as a kid selling cookies for the Girl Scouts or Christmas ornaments for a school fundraiser? I did those things, except I sold cookies as a Brownie and miles for the walk-a-thon. I sold gift baskets for the neighbor across the street when she started a business and I even tried a lemonade stand at one point.

I remember my Dad building these test thermometer thingies in the garage when I was a kid as a side hustle to the corporate job before I understood what a side hustle really was. Thank you Pam Slim!

I even watched him build a second business out of  the garage when I was in high school. That same business paid for my college tuition and that same business he retired from about 12 years later.

Looking back, I see how and when the entrepreneurial bug bit me and for years a had little scratches here and there. I made greeting cards. I started to write a book a couple times. I became a Cookie Lee Jewelry representative. I started an online business as a trinkets distributor.

Although I held corporate positions throughout the last twelve years or so, I always worked on a side hustle or what turned out to be different hobbies, like blogging. The bug bit me a long time ago and the itch to start my own business never went away.

If you are reading this because the bug bit you, I have to tell you that your dream is yours, no one else’s. You probably know that yet sharing it with others can be scary. It’s the whole box of chocolates thing where you never know what you will get (from others that is). People  will tell you what they think whether friend, family or foe and whether you want to hear it or not.

“How are you going to make money?”

“You know you have to pay taxes, right?”

“Why would you want to do all of that?”

And my personal favorite…

“Ya know, you can always go get another job if it doesn’t work out.”

aaack!

If you don’t know of Pamela Slim, she is the author of Escape from Cubicle Nation. I recently read a post on her blog about this very thing  which included her brilliantly articulated statement.

” When you get older, you realize that this actually has nothing to do with you, it is just the other person projecting their own stuff on you. When you feel yourself shrinking, call up a person or phrase to help shift the energy and claim your authority.” Pam’s response,

“Get your boot off my neck.”

I love it! So if you are like me, your dream has been with you since you can remember (or maybe it’s a new epiphany). We can rest assured that there’s no shortage of boots out there.

We simply can’t control what others will say. We can however call upon our own strength  when we feel that shrinking occur as a result of the fifty questions. That’s their stuff not ours.