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.

To Have One Million Dollars

So, my mom and I have been keeping each other motivated to keep on entrepreneur-ing by saying we're going to make one million dollars. Each new investing idea, sales outlet or general business-like epiphany results in some great e-mails back and forth, keeping each other chugging along.

But there's this thought that nags in the back of my mind when I say it. When I say, I want one million dollars. Whenever I type it out or say it out loud, I have to admit that I imagine one million dollars plopping down in my lap. Its not that I want something for nothing or that actually I think one million dollars should or could fall from the sky and be directly deposited by ACH into my back account. Its just that I wonder what it really means to have or earn or make one million dollars.

I think...what counts as a million? What kind of one million dollars?

If mom and I are going to use the power of positive thinking to convince these million dollars to come on by and stay for a while, what is it that I really want? I need to be specific in my goals, here.

Naturally, one million dollars is 1,000,000 one dollar bills. But, really... I've done the retirement calculators online and I know that it takes about 1.5 million for the average American to retire. So, do I want one million dollars or do I want one million in my retirement account now, to earn interest over the next 35 - 40 years? Or do I want one million to spend on additional entrepreneurial goals? Or, it is enough to have one million in net worth? Maybe five hundred thousand in my retirement account and five hundred thousand in my savings/spending accounts.

I don't know what I mean when I say I want one million dollars. How odd is that?

What I do know is that I want to work hard now so that I am comfortable for the rest of my life when the time comes to retire. Even though, I full well know that I'm never going to retire in the sense that I stop earning money and start spending it all.

Maybe I really want about five million dollars...

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?

Update: My Bucket List

I've updated my bucket list. I added:

Have the time and ability to be a first responder volunteer for national disasters.

Helping others during their direst time of need has always been something I've wanted to do. I don't have any training or experience in such things, but living in tornado alley, every spring and fall there is some small city in Kansas, Oklahoma or Texas that's seemingly wiped off the map. And every time I see the footage, I think to myself that I wish I were there helping. 

I heard recently that one woman in New Jersey took in 15 people into her own home. That's simply an amazing feat of selflessness. While, I don't aspire to house and clothe 15 people, I want to help all the same, make a difference.

Having quit my job this summer, I technically have "spare" time now, not having to calculate vacation time and negotiate taking that time off with a boss. All I need to do is get the financial resources together to be able to take off at a moment's notice. It won't be long before I can do that, I am just ready for the day to be here. 

When I quit my job, I knew I'd be living a sparse existence for a while. I did the math, I knew what I was giving up financially and what I was gaining in terms of quality of life. But all the same, I had these goals and ideas of what I could and would do when I had the joy of working for myself.

As it stands now, I have the freedom to work as hard as I can to meet my financial goals so that I can eventually mark things off my bucket list. That just requires working many hours a day to meet those goals.

My updated Entrepreneur Bucket List:

- Quit my day job. Stop being an employee - Start an online retail business
- Create multiple streams of income:
   - 2
   - 3
   - 4
   - 5+
- Invest a portion of my earnings and savings with the purpose of creating additional income
- Save significant amounts of money to, in effect, have my retirement funds squirreled away at at an early age.
   - Don't use the above for anything except income generation and retirement
- Self-manage at least a portion of my brokerage account
- Invent something, manufacture and sell it
- Have the ability to work remotely, abroad
- Give 10% of my income to worthy causes
- Make my first million
- Save my first million
- Go to an exotic location for Google for Entrepreneurs Week
- Go to more conferences, exhibits and fairs related to my businesses
- Have the time and ability to be a first responder volunteer for national disasters

Being Sick is Hard for us Gritty Folks

I've been pretty sick for the past week - just a nasty cold. Fall allergies have been the worst this year here in Texas. Even the dogs are having sinus problems! At any rate, I have to tell you that yesterday was awesome. It was the first day that I was able to wake up and stay awake! Oh boy, I'm in trouble if that's considered a big accomplishment! I got so much done and my inner entrepreneur was screaming, "Hallelujah!" 

I felt I had been stagnating in terms of growth - not looking for new enterprises, outlets, ways to make money. The guilt and self-loathing was all compounded by the fact that I'd been sleeping about 50-70% of my day. Having a cold is not helped by my already compromised immune system and lots of time that could be misconstrued as "free" time to spend getting well, aka sleeping. One day, I woke up at 10 am, decided to take a nap by 1:30 pm and woke to the sound of my significant other coming home. He came in to check on me and I snarfled awake saying, "Is it 5:00 already?!" He laughed, I groaned.

Needless to say, I feel the same way about being sick as the wise philosopher, Sweet Brown. She said, "Ain't nobody got time for that!"

At any rate, I was thrilled to get back to work yesterday. I made great strides in accomplishing some new goals, found a new sales outlet and have made some good progress in my investments. It was an all-around great day! I hope my rediscovered energy holds out while I continue to fight off the remnants of this cold. Fall is a great time to be a retailer and I need to have my wits about me to take as many pieces of the pie as I can!

Grit it together, woman!