Starting a business is HARD!

Both my parents have been small business owners for as long as I can remember, and let me tell ya - it ain't easy! I've seen them at their best of times and most recently at their worst of times. I always told myself I could never run a restaurant like my dad or open a hair salon like my mom because it was way too much work, too much time away from their family, and honestly too much stress.

Like they say, "Never say never!"

Now, over 15 years later I find myself doing the very thing I feared most - starting my own business. Say WHAAAT?! I've got a ways to go but just the idea of it gives me an adrenaline rush like none other I've ever experienced. Seriously, even more than that one time I went cliff diving in Cancun. But why? Why is being an entrepreneur ever-more appealing? Maybe it's the control of my own success (and or failure, but we won't think about that). Or maybe it's the fusion of a passion with the challenges of running a small business. Maybe it's the idea of having clients and having the chemistry to CONNECT with them. Maybe it's the accolades I dream of receiving. Maybe it's all those things and more that finally has me itching to follow the footsteps of my parents.

I can take what I've learned from them to avoid making their same mistakes, but I'm guaranteed to encounter quite a few on my own. I'm pretty good at that. :-) After all, even the greatest entrepreneurs of our time have often failed only to succeed, right? I'll leave you with one of Steve Jobs' greatest failures. At the tender age of 30 when Apple had grown into a company worth over $2 billion Jobs was FIRED. Yep, homeboy was kicked to the curb, folks! Long story short, he moved on with resilience and today is the ridiculously successful co-founder and CEO of Apple, Inc. As he said in his commencement speech at Stanford University (hissss) in 2005, "I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over."

Go Apple! Go Connie!



*Yea, so that's a half pomelo fruit peel on my head