Bulk Trash Pick-Up Week - The Entrepreneurs Are Out!

Here, in our neighborhood, the bulk trash is picked up once a month. This week is pick-up week. Looking out my front office window, I saw that same Gritty Entrepreneur from a few months back! I was reminded of my past post about this guy and how I admired his grit.

This week he had quite the haul - looks like he hit the "junker" jackpot! Sometimes I envy the simplicity of his business structure as I stare at the multi-page tax packet my CPA just sent along. Sometimes, I'd rather sort through other people's trash than complete my taxes. Just going to have to "grit" and bear it, I suppose.

Great Forbes Article: "5 Warning Signs You May Have Entrepreneurialism"

This is the best, comical article on the disease sweeping the nation: Entrepreneurialism Disease. I found this piece to be spot on! Gosh, the constant urge to work for oneself coupled with all of these crippling symptoms really does feel like a disease sometimes! I thought the author showed a great deal of insight. I love that moment when all of things you've been feeling are finally capture perfectly!

I particularly liked this happy quote:

"A natural optimism and a cheery, cooperative personality could, unfortunately, spell entrepreneurial success as you age."

The only cure to ED… start your own business. Plain and simple folks!

Enjoy!

5 Warning Signs You May Have Entrepreneurialism

- Stay Gritty

Sarah Gilbert: Human Love and Stubbornness

I very much enjoyed this talk by Sarah Gilbert on "Your Elusive Creative Genius." Not having a creative business that relies upon my own creative abilities, I couldn't relate to this talk entirely until the very end.

Loved her gritty sign-off! Poignant and motivating.

Hobby as a Career?

There's a pretty mangled and misquoted piece of advice out there being distributed by a number of actors, entrepreneurs and philosophers which says, in essence, "Do what you love to do and you'll never work a day in your life."

So, I researched the quote a found a few variations. There's a strange evolution of this somewhat wayward inspirational quote:

I take the above quote to mean that you should take your favorite hobby and turn that into a living. Well, there are a few problems with that - if you love to play video games, very few people can truly make a lasting, long term career at playing video games. That's not to say that you shouldn't reach for the stars and really make a go of something you love if you have a good plan to monetize your hobby. But, I think there's something to be said for being realistic.

Marc Anthony says something very similar, "If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. Again, I think this is a little backwards. I don't think turning what one loves to do into what they do for a living is sage advice for the masses. Trying to eek a dollar out of your pastime, your creative outlet, your coping device can be a steadfast way to kill your spirit. My mother loved to sew until she started her own upholstery and drapery business. What she once loved to do became a chore. It became a job. It became work. 

Now, this one I liked quite a bit better. I have a feeling that this idea of doing what you love everyday began with the all-knowing Confucius's original quote, "Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life." So, its saying instead that choosing a job that's well-tailored to you, that you enjoy is a great way to infuse happiness into your life.

You don't have to necessarily to turn what you love into a job - you just need to find and choose a job you love. Which, a-huh, in this economy can be hard enough! Its not exactly simple to know what you'll love until you're in the thick of it. But, all the same, I think this is better advice for the everyman. Just find SOMETHING that you love to do. The best part is, I don't think that it has to be any one thing.

Steve Jobs takes it a step further and says that the only way to do great work is to do something you love. He urges us not to settle in some field of work that we don't love. Being in "like" with your career or profession is not enough!

So, in all, I believe in this whole loving what you do thing - it just has to happen in the right order! The truly gritty will try and try again until they find what they love to do and the rest will sort of just happen!

Inspiration: Richard St. John

I loved this quick and simple presentation by Richard St. John. I stumbled upon it in the TED.com archives - it dates all the way back to 2006 but it still rings true today! Richard St. John interviewed 500 people over 7 years and has distilled what he's learned into a quirky, fun three and half minute presentation.

Are you a work-a-frolic?

Unexpected Inspiration: Ashton Kutcher

Ashton Kutcher is clearly a wealthy man but, knowing what little I do about the entertainment industry I never truly considered actors much in the way of entrepreneurs. After watching his acceptance speech at the 2013 Teen Choice Awards, I wondered why this group of wealthy Americans escaped my, and I'm sure others', consideration because Mr. Kutcher is truly an inspiration!

Sure, the best actors are generally very successful at making large sums on money; however, whether or not they can retain those funds and keep their savings accounts in the black varies greatly. But, really I think I overlooked actors as businessmen and women because it often takes a team of managers and public affairs representatives to make an actor a lucrative business.

Sure, nary a member of the billionaires club did it all alone, but we've all heard so many times that actors didn't know they were broke until their manager told them they were. Since the attitude towards money varies so greatly in the acting profession - it just never occurred to me that actors could truly be gritty entrepreneurs. Shame on me!

So, where did all this love for Ashton Kutcher start? I found this amazing t-shirt with the quote, "Opportunity Looks a Lot like Hard Work" a few weeks ago at iwearyourshirt.com. I circled back around to it, considering finally purchasing it when I read the description of the shirt for the first time:

If you haven't heard Ashton Kutcher's speech at the Teen Choice Awards, you should watch it immediately. Not only is it surprising coming from him, it's also extremely poignant, and it hits home for so many entrepreneurs.

Naturally, I followed the directions promptly and looked up Ashton Kutcher's speech. I was blown away. I'd always considered him to be as goofy and dim-witted as his doppelganger Kelso from That Seventies Show. Again, shame on me!

His acceptance speech was indeed poignant, meaningful and inspiring. I think it was so wonderful that he crafted a speech such as this for an audience of teens - those who, unfortunately are least likely to remember his words but have the most to gain from his experience and advice. Cut to 1:35 for the good stuff:

Here it is transcribed:

So, its really three things. The first thing is about opportunity, the second thing is about being sexy, and the third thing is about living life.  

So, first thing - opportunity, I believe, looks a lot like hard work. When I was 13, I had my first job with my dad carrying shingles to the roof, and then I got a job washing dishes at a restaurant, and then I got a job in a grocery-store deli, and then I got a job in a factory sweeping Cheerio dust off the ground.  

And I never had a job in my life that I was better than. I was always just lucky to have a job. And every job I had was a stepping stone to my next job, and I never quit my job until I had my next job. And so opportunities look a lot like work. 

Number two: being sexy. The sexiest thing in the entire world is being really smart, and being thoughtful and being generous. Everything else is crap. I promise you. Its just crap that people try to sell to you to make you feel like less. So don't buy it. Be smart, be thoughtful and be generous. 

The third thing is something that I just re-learned when I was making this movie about Steve Jobs. And Steve Jobs said, when you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way that it is and that your life is to live your life inside the world and try not to get in too much trouble, and maybe get an education, and get a job and make some money and have a family. But life can be a lot broader than that when you realize one simple thing and that is that everything around us that we call life was made up by people that are no smarter than you. And you can build your own things. You can build your own life that other people can live in.  

So build a life, don't live one. Build one. Find your opportunities and always be sexy.

The Time Will Pass Anyway

My sister and I have a knack for thinking up amazing business ideas that inevitably will require hours of training for us to implement and develop. Being gritty, determined and altogether ridiculous we usually cobble together a long-term plan to accomplish our goals and create this new venture.

Once we part ways, we sober up a bit and realize how large of an undertaking we've imagined up and simultaneously, we lose interest. Justifying our new found disinterest, we always cite how long it will take to bring this idea to fruition...as if our time could be better spent on some other entrepreneurial pursuit we have yet to come up with.

Fortunately, the other day I ran across this extremely motivating quote from Mr. Earl Nightingale: "Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use."

So poignant and true. Its the same idea that's always rolled around in the back of my head but I'd never let myself grasp the idea long enough to word it as eloquently as Nightingale did. I'm so glad I stumbled upon this quote at the right time! So, now I will tell myself:

Imagine if you do buckle down, grit your teeth and make this idea come to life. You'll have used your time wisely and you'll have a brand new source of income. And, you'll have checked another thing off your bucket list!

Now, imagine if you crap out and let this idea sit at the bottom of your pile. Then imagine repeating that with the next bright idea you have and the next idea and the next idea. 'The time will have passed anyway' and you'll have no new businesses and no new sources of income.

Typing it now, it makes no sense that my brain thinks this way! But when I'm in the moment, its easy to say to myself:

That's too hard and its awfully time consuming - I need a better idea. A quicker idea. An easier idea.

What idea is going to be acceptable for that lazy person inside my head? The state lottery? Sitting on ass all day and magically getting money from the sky? I don't know, but neither of those are likely to produce any cash!

I love it when I find inspirational nuggets that help me rediscover or reignite my grit.

Unexpected Inspiration: Macklemore

I love this song, "Cant Hold Us" by Macklemore. As I was listening to it, realized that it was pretty inspirational for me as a small business owner. "So we put our hands up like the ceiling can’t hold us
Like the ceiling can’t hold us" Heck, yea! No ceiling. No glass ceiling. No earnings ceiling. The sky's the limit, people!

Also, Macklemore is a true inspiration, a true gritty entrepreneur. He worked for 13 years as a rapper and hit it bigger than he ever expected. All without a label. His story is repeated so many times because very few artists in the music industry have accomplished what he has without the support of a record label. Its remarkably impressive and its exciting to think that he keeps a huge percentage of each sale on iTunes. Brilliant.

Well, played Macklemore. Well played.