I know it’s a long way to go. I also know that it takes time. I just started my journey toward entrepreneurship. This world is new to me and I am just a baby wandering all around taking small steps one at a time.
As a mom of a 4-year-old, my days are full of wonders, entertainment, experiments, and lessons. Most days I am in a dilemma, insecurities, self-doubt, and self-critic mode. The journey is never going to be easy.
Recently I came across a post that boosted me to get going. Many of us don’t explore our true potential and limit ourselves to doing better or more. But this post is inspiring for those who truly want to achieve something.
She started homeless and built a million-dollar business. The CEO of SHEcorporated, Kristy Carruthers, empowers women and helps them to start and scale their businesses with tools, training, and a community to support them on their journey.
She was a single mom to a young daughter and two months pregnant with the second child when she started a new business selling promotional products. She already had a consulting business with international clients that demanded extensive traveling which was not possible at that time.
So she wants to build a new business with local clients to avoid traveling. But the business was challenging and didn’t grow for close to 8 months or so.
She was so under pressure that she worked till midnight sending quotes and emails to clients the night before her son’s arrival and she was with a laptop 48 hours later in the hospital bed.
But nothing much happened. She was running out of money and there were bills to pay. So she started selling out all the valuable items she had: furniture, clothes, jewelry.
To keep the money coming in, she started doing a full-time job with a radio station, side by side her business still growing. But that was not enough to run the family. so she sold her house to pay off the credit card bills.
She was homeless with a six-year-old daughter and a three-month-old son.
I honestly don't remember most of my son's first year of life, and it still makes me incredibly sad. When I was working, he was with other people, and when I was with him, I was so incredibly tired that the memory of it is just gone. But that's when something switched inside me.
She stayed in her parents’ spare room and worked days at the radio station and nights on her business. She managed midnight feedings with emails to clients.
She was clueless about what she was doing and to make herself feel better she made a vision board in her kitchen. On that vision board, she had a picture of a simple home, a small garden to grow veggies, a kitchen to cook with her kids, and a private school for her daughter.
I spent every lunch hour and break in my car, in the radio station parking lot, making client calls to build my business. I hustled and sold and worked, and after six months, the business had grown, and we moved into a place of our own.
She realized she had achieved almost everything from the vision board. The house was a rental one but it was a step forward. Now she pictured a larger, newer home, a new car, a vacation to Hawaii, and the goal of reaching the million-dollar mark with my promo business in her next vision board.
So within the next two years, she moved into a new house, bought a new car, took her parents to Hawaii for their 70th birthdays, and reached the $1 million mark in her business.
She is a hard worker. But only hard work won’t pay off. She has a growth mindset. She shifted her mindset to what was acceptable, what was achievable and what was comfortable. She wanted success because she refused to fail these kids again.
If she can do it, with two kids with no home and two jobs, I thought, why can’t I?
But all you need to do is get started. One teeny tiny step today and one teeny tiny step tomorrow, and those steps will get bigger and more confident, and the momentum eventually will carry you away.
To me entrepreneurship is freedom. It's the freedom to build the business and life that you choose. It's the freedom to take that incredible idea you have been holding onto and make it real and share it with the world.
The first step is to get started and be consistent in whatever you do. You may fail, struggle, make mistakes, and face challenges, but do not give up. You may take a long and others may achieve that in a short time. What you truly desire having a clear vision and believing in yourself would encompass your path to a successful life.
Source: From Homeless Single Mom to Million-Dollar Business Owner: 'The Key Was a Mindset Shift'