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?

Life Gives You Lemons? Make Lemonade. Then Sell It.

In my last post, I talked about looking for entrepreneurial avenues and ways to make money. One of my proudest entrepreneurial moments is turning a huge life-lemon into a good, old-fashioned lemonade stand. Heck, why not? I found out several years ago, in my mid-twenties, that I was whole-hog allergic to gluten. In fact, Celiac Disease runs in my family, many of the women on my mom's side of the family suffer from gluten intolerance.

So, my sister and I started a gluten-free related business and turned the tables on that nasty little protein that has made life so difficult. Its one of my smallest sources of revenue, but the most meaningful.  Now, I see life problems, even someone else's life problem, as a hole in the market. That's an entrepreneurial perspective I'll never be able to unlearn. Its in there, in my noggin, waiting to help me turn a profit on something else one day in the future.

I love talking to other entrepreneurs and listening to TED.com talks so much because I invariably get a "nugget" of an idea that I can store away for the day it becomes relevant. Some of them are so exciting that they stay in the forefront of my mind, cropping up when I'm in the bath, about to fall asleep or while I'm cooking. Annoying me, reminding me that I don't have endless capital... yet.

At any rate,  like I said, "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade then sell it!" That's the best way to conquer an obstacle - turn it into opportunity.

The Grittiest Entrepreneur, Ever

I'm sitting at my beautiful West Elm desk, typing on my super fancy Apple Macbook Pro laptop, drinking expensive Teavanna tea while crunching numbers and ordering inventory that I no longer even touch, lift or pack myself. As I looked over my recent sales and expenses, lamenting how large my business loan payment seemed this month, really thinking that I was bootstrapping this business together. Hanging on to make it work. Gritting my teeth and scraping the barrel...

When I see an old man stop in front of my house to dig through the bulk trash we've put out. I couldn't believe the things he found value in! Just last night, I finally threw out the window blinds the previous owner had stored in our backyard shed. They were bundled together unceremoniously in a stack, bug leavings and strings everywhere. I cut the strings that had become interwoven so that I could move this mess to the curb in manageable hunks. Not even one set of blinds were spared from my crazy knife wielding exercise. I finished by piling the rest of our stinking, sopping wet trash on top - I had collected random bits in our wheelbarrow before it rained heavily this week.

Nothing stopped this guy! He examined each of the sets of blinds and found three that were in reasonably good shape. As I watched, I said out loud, "Really, dude? They're all broken and worthless!" Then he dug through the box of soaking wet, old electronics I'd dumped on top - stirring the box with a nearby stick. He didn't find anything he was interested in, but he was sure to look thoroughly.

As I type, here comes a second trash capitalist. Today is the day the pickers come out to pick - just a few days before the real trash men come to collect! However, his style is very different. He has a business partner, it seems. He sent his passenger out of the truck a ways down the street and they reviewed the piles on each side of the street and met back up mid-street, in front of my house. Much like how the laziest parents trick-or-treat with their kids!

It occurred to me that as gritty as I think I am - this guy had me beat by a long shot. He was out there digging through refuse to fund his small business. Saving reusable consumer goods from the garbage dump and reselling them to less picky buyers at some sort of secondary market outlet. Perhaps he's a professional garage sale-r? Perhaps he fixes up the trash and goes to trades day events. Who knows, but after I finished my critical thoughts and opinions, I was struck that entrepreneurs really do come in all shapes, sizes and styles... Do you think he's incorporated?

All jokes aside, this reminded me of a bit of motivational advise my sister passed on to me years ago. And it happens to be exactly how we both got started in our small-business ventures. If you're broke, but you are an entrepreneur at heart, there is money somewhere in your house. We started with our college textbooks. I don't even recall how much money I made on Half.com, but it couldn't have been too much more than $500 because many of the books I listed were outdated by the time I got started selling. I sold these books, however, because there were community college courses using these outdated books to keep the overall price of their courses low. The content was still perfectly viable.

At any rate, I knew Half.com wasn't where I wanted to stay but it sure got me started and watered the seed! It taught me the true meaning of the old adage: someone else's trash can be someone else's treasure. It taught me to look for any and all avenues in which I could sell. This same seed, I feel, is still being watered and developed. I want many streams of income and I'm excited to develop the streams of income I've found so far, but am anxious to find more.

My observation today also reminded of my absolutely favorite TED talk...the one that really got me excited about being an entrepreneur early on, Cameron Herold's 'Let's raise kids to be entrepreneurs.' He tells his story about feeding his entrepreneurial monster by selling none other than the dreaded... "wire hangers!" back to dry cleaners... among a number of other incredibly insightful and opportunistic ventures. Cameron Herold is one of my favorite creative thinkers and bootstrappers. Enjoy:

I hope this got just one other person's cogs turning! Remember, grit don't quit.

Down to the Nitty Gritty

I think its fitting to start "The Gritty Entrepreneur," a blog about my adventures in the realm of self-employment, by discussing the very inspiration for this journal's name: Angela Lee Duckworth's theory on Psychological Grit and its relation to success.

I started my third week as an entrepreneur by watching a TED video...or two... or three per day.  There's never a dull moment over at TED - so many golden nuggets of ideas! I sorted by "business" and just let the videos play. If I didn't grab an actionable idea from a talk, I almost always found that I was reassured of the path of self-employment-enlightenment-enjoyment-fulfillment that I'm on. I was reassured that I can do this 'workin' for myself' thing.

By the third day of my motivational marathon, I stumbled upon Angela Lee Duckworth's talk about her research on "The key to success." A seemingly intangible, enigma many have tried to grasp, define and understand over the years. I think she and her team have unraveled the mystery. She has determined that true and simple grit is the key to success. Grit. That's it.

Well, what is grit? Grit is a psychological trait measured by one's passion for their goals and their innate motivation to achieve these goals despite set-backs, extended time frames and lack of peer support. Sound familiar, fellow entrepreneurs?

She explains it best:

Being a native Texan, the grittiest of the gritty, this spoke straight to my gritty little heart! Grit don't quit and this little lady ain't afraid to get dirty!