I am an entrepreneur

I have been working on brainstorming my many ideas of what I want my BIG IDEA and $100.00 challenge to be.  I have thought about my experience and what I have learned and what I feel that others would want to buy from me or what service I can provide and frankly it made me a little depressed.  I realized that in the 54 years I have been on this earth that I have not really learned anything that I could use to provide a good business opportunity for myself to make money.  That is when it hit me.  I AM AN ENTREPRENEUR! 

For 34 years I have worked hard to provide a home for my husband and children.  It has been a lean startup.  I have worked to create value by learning all I could about decorating, meal preparation, marriage, raising kids, how to get the stains out of the cloths, and how to get hard water spots off the shower door.  I have had to be innovative and work to see if my efforts where baring any fruit.

I read studies and checked for milestones to see if my staff were progressing well both physically and mentally.  Where they walking within the normal guidelines?  Where they learning to talk at the right time?  Was I feeding them the right foods?  Was I reading them good books?  Since my oldest child had Down Syndrome I was made aware of what the milestones where that my staff needed to work on and I tried to help them meet those.  Some where slow to catch on and some of them exceeded the normal milestone mark.

I experimented each day with different receipts to find things that were pleasing to eat.  I experimented with different chore charts and activities to find ones that appealed to my customers.  If something didn't work I would pivot and try something else.  Sometimes I feel that I should have persevered and worked harder to see if what I was trying was really going to work.

I trained my staff and tried to make sure they knew how to do the jobs that were required of them.  Often times it was harder work for me than doing it myself but I knew that it was important to have a well trained staff.  I have not kept up on the training in the last few years and my staff has become a little lax and do not know their jobs very well, but I intend to work on that.

I showed many leaps of faith as I tried to trust my staff as they left to do other activities that they would be good workers and not get into trouble.  I tried to help my staff be creative with fun activities and new experiences which would build their self-esteem and help them be ready to be their own entrepreneurs.

Throughout all of this I didn't get a degree, no one paid me money to run a good company and provide a good workforce.  A doctor has to work for about 12 years to get a degree and be well thought of.  I have worked for many more than that and no one comes to me for advice about what I have learned or accomplished.  No one pays me the big bucks to help them fix their ills.  But my children still count on me to help them navigate this life and be there for them.  And that in the long run is enough.

Ideas from THE LEAN STARTUP  by Eric Reis