Ever since I was about 10 years old, I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Not just a business owner, but an entrepreneur because in my eyes, the two are not the same. A business owner is just someone who owns a business for the sake of making money. An entrepreneur is a creator, they generally have an entire vision and seek to run and open multiple businesses. They seek longevity and often set out to make a difference with what they are doing. Entrepreneurs are dreamers and they often DREAM BIG. As the old saying goes; If people aren’t laughing at your idea, then perhaps it’s just not big enough.
I DREAM BIG…
I come from a very rough background with little to no support. I’ve been living on my own since 16, so I’ve always had the work ethic to get things done by any means. Very self-sufficient, I knew at an early age that I would like to work for myself. From my teen years of working at various different restaurants, I knew that punching a clock and being told what to do for and when to do it, just wouldn’t work for my personality. I originally wanted to become a doctor but unfortunately, my mom didn’t have the money to send me to medical school. That’s okay though, because GOD walked me right to where I needed to be, and a little entrepreneur was born. I opened my very first business at age 18. A business in which I was blessed enough to have sold just 5–6 years later.
We All Have To Start Somewhere…
When I first started Tidy Up Cleaning Services, I was delivering papers from 2 am to 5 am, 7 days a week. I would do this in addition to servicing my clients Mon-Sun, from 8 am-5 pm. This went on for about two years while I worked fervently to grow my business. It was tough but I stuck it out. The journey does not come without sacrifice. And by sacrifice, I mean two totaled cars from falling asleep driving. Are you excited yet? The start of Tidy Up was brutal because I bootstrapped the entire business by myself, never having taken out any loans. I also was the primary cleaner along with a few other of my employees. As the business grew, I just couldn’t keep up with the demand in new clientele, so I decided to sell it to a larger company. Woohoo right? I can now sail off into the sunset. Not even close, let me tell you how it really went down.
I Had A Successful Business but Something Was Missing…
I spent 5+ years growing a business that meant very much to me. I mean we were GREAT at what we did, so great that I had contracts with the likes of large commercial clients such as Ulta beauty stores, lawyers’ offices, doctors’ offices, apartment buildings, in addition to hundreds of residential clients as well. We were doing well over six figures, but still, I felt like something was missing and it was. I was just simply running a business, nothing more, nothing less, and well, that bothered me a lot. Because the truth is, being an entrepreneur has never just been about money for me. It was always about
BEING ABLE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD.
See, I wanted to be an entrepreneur because I wanted to create something that would change the world and make other people happy as well. I wasn’t just interested in making money, I wanted to do both. Make money and make a difference in other people’s lives. This was the biggest reason that I decided to sell the business in the first place. I needed something more than money so I closed that door and moved on to something new. I felt that I could only make a difference if I was FREE. Free to be innovative and free to do things on my own time as I see fit! Tidy Up started to take too much of my time, not allowing me to grow as an individual. That in itself was a problem for me because I value personal growth and development.
My Life Changed Drastically After I Sold My Business
After selling Tidy Up, I decided to open a consulting business. This ended up being a complete failure as Covid hit about 5 months later, right after the sale. Due to the complete shutdown, I couldn’t properly market the business as I had envisioned. This threw a complete monkey wrench into my plans and well, before you know it I found myself burning through cash like no tomorrow. No biggie right? I had lots of cash to burn after the sale but that wasn’t the plan. The plan was to invest and grow my consulting and investment business and neither of them took off. Instead, I burned through most of my savings and everything started to go downhill. This was the beginning of a new life, one in which I voluntarily traded my old one. Yikes!
But What Seemed Like The End Was Actually Just The Beginning
I’m a hustler, I’m not going to dive into everything that I did to get my savings back in order but once I did, that’s when the real work started. The work in which I had to do WITHIN MYSELF. I’m not a person who likes to fail, I found my perfectionism is deeply rooted in childhood trauma. When my consulting business failed, I took it very personally. I started to feel like I was experiencing what we call “Imposter Syndrome”.
Imposter Syndrome: a psychological feeling in which one starts to doubt their own skills and successes.
I felt like perhaps after all I wasn’t as smart and innovative as I thought I was. Even though deep down inside, I knew that it wasn’t true. I was just using those thoughts as an escape to dismiss myself from having to do the real work. Still, I was ready to quit entrepreneurship after having failed at at the business attempt. After all, I struck gold the first time so what was wrong this time? “Perhaps this is just not for me”, I mumbled to myself. Then it dawned on me that for one the businesses hadn’t failed due to myself but rather in large due to COVID. The world was basically completely closed so no marketing could be done. Also, I just wasn’t knowledgeable about this business enough, I needed a little more skin in the game. This was really the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey. It was at this point that I realized that I needed to work on my perception of things. Self-awareness is paramount to building a successful business that resonates with your soul. I had to learn through trial and error like everyone else.
Failing Taught Me a Lot About Myself…
I have failed at multiple things in life and each time it taught me something valuable about myself. For one, it taught me to be a little more vulnerable. Often at the times when I felt like quitting entrepreneurship, it was because I just felt like I couldn’t be vulnerable. I cared a lot about what people would have thought about me. What I didn’t realize though is that
“People admire your strength, but they connect with your imperfections.”
-Pastor Darius from Rock City Church
It’s imperative to be able to open up to others if you want to build a good community and good rapport. This is vital for running a successful business.
Also, I have a terrible need to be controlling and sometimes in order to get to where we need to go in life, we have to Let Go and Let God. No means No, it’s good to redirect that energy if you find yourself repeatedly hearing NO to the same request. Entrepreneurship is a lifelong journey. There’s so much to learn about what it means to truly embrace a life of working for yourself inwardly and outwardly. As I type this, I have now been a proud entrepreneur for 10 years. There have been many ups and downs but GOD has seen me through it all because well, this is exactly where I am supposed to be. Entrepreneurship is home.
To anyone who’s reading this, I hope you see through your trials and FOLLOW THOSE DREAMS! Never let anyone tell you what you can and can not do. It’s just not their place at all.
Thank you for Reading! Chow =)