How Being An Entrepreneur Saved My Life
The life of an entrepreneur is guaranteed to be crazy.
We’re not really “normal” people.
While normal people stop dreaming like they did as a child…
The entrepreneur is still designing their superhero costumes that they will save the world in.
Usually, they are surrounded by those normal people in the process.
Those sleepwalkers. The ones who are happy with things “just the way they are”.
Those ones that want YOU to be happy “just the way things are.”
But if you did that… you’d never… EVER… get to fly in that amazing cape you’re making, right?
Okay… that might not be 100% realistic…
But it’s a fairly good analogy.
Entrepreneurs feel a power coursing through their veins.
They feel something calling to them that tells them… “You can do more! You can BE more!”
And that’s when the trouble happens.
Trouble… like the kind that Martin Luther caused for the Roman Catholic church.
Trouble, like Harriet Tubman caused for slave owners in the south.
Wait a minute… there I go romanticising entrepreneurialism again.
Like we’re all heroes who do great things.
You might think… I know a few of them… that’s not at all what they are.
And I get that…
But if you keep reading… I’ll tell you how this is more true than not… and how being an entrepreneur truly did save my life… no embellishment necessary.
See…
I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was 10.
From mowing lawns to babysitting, from digging tulip bulbs out of the Skagit Valley fields in clumps of hard, finger-mangling dirt at the age of 12 to having a newspaper route…
I’ve been working towards becoming a superhero.
Because *I* needed to have a superhero.
As a young child…
I witnessed the murder of my infant brother at the hands of our own father.
I grew up in a house full of violent anger, substance abuse and poverty.
I wanted more.
Not just more “Stuff”
I wanted more power.
More freedom.
I wanted more control over my life.
I found that work… whether in school or for money, gave me that.
I worked to be a better student because I wanted to get a scholarship since I knew that was the only way I would get to college. I could never afford it otherwise.
From the same age I started working for money, I was college bound.
When I finally got my full ride to college, though…
I was a little to caught up in the mistakes that my “finally achieved” freedom (of turning 18) gave me.
Additionally…
I realized I now had to deal with even more people with their own agendas being shoved down my throat in the form of college professors.
The combination had me dropping out of college. They invited me back with my scholarships intact… and I tried two more times, and still quit before ever completing a second term.
I was done.
There were too many restrictions I couldn’t live with.
And I, like many other of my kind…
Took a harder road than I had to.
But how is it that being an entrepreneur saved my life?
This is that story.
Patterns love to repeat themselves.
The pattern of abuse is no different.
I ended up marrying what was familiar to me. Someone who treated me horribly and was full of rage.
I won’t get into how a person of my level of intelligence and strength tolerated that for as long as I did. Sufficeth to say, I had a lot to learn and it took a long time to learn it.
I had four children, whose lights were dimming in the environment we were in.
I was afraid for them.
For their pain.
For their breaking spirits.
And I was afraid of what would happen to us if I tried to leave. (The threats and the anger were very real and intense)
I had been working from home for 8 years… but I only had supplemental income. It wasn’t enough to live off, even if it was subsidized by welfare aid.
If my ex didn’t kill me… lack of money was sure to.
It wasn’t until I realized I felt dead inside anyway that I decided, I really had nothing to lose.
And so… I went back to work on my superhero cape.
That is to say, I got up the courage to leave.
Slowly, over time…
Through fierce and intense and very REAL battles…
I DID become the superhero I needed.
And I became the hero my children needed.
It’s been nearly 7 years since I left.
We went from our first “Safe house” of 900’ sq with the five of us, right next to the airport and railroad, with no yard and no room to breathe…
To a brand new, never lived in before, large, beautiful, house on the hill. It has 15’ vaulted, pine ceilings and overlooks the city, lakes and mountains.
I’ve created a 6 figure business that I only work while they are at school, and not even that entire time.
I’m there to wake them up gently in the morning…
Cook for them…
Clean for them….
Coach soccer…
And stay up in the middle of the night when someone needs to talk.
I set my own schedule.
I employ friends who cannot get work otherwise.
But most importantly…
I wake up peaceful, safe, free, and full of hope EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
I know not everyone that goes down this path gets to this place.
Which is why I do what I do…
Help others find this same kind of freedom.
If you need help sewing your superhero costume…
If you’re the entrepreneur who is a hero waiting to be born…
But you just don’t know how to bring it all together yet…
Reach out to me.
I can help.
<3
