STARTING UP THE MOST IMPORTANT KEY TO STARTING A BUSINESS by Shannon Ferguson S tart a business, they say. It’ll be fun, they
say. Oh, but those of us who have dove head-first into entrepreneurship know first- hand that the fun you have is not as abundant as the hard work it takes to get there. There are many keys to creating a success- ful business and just taking the first step often means you have found that first key of creativity and faith- the initial idea to build upon and the bit of craziness to make it happen while believing it will be worth while. In fact, when you become an entrepreneur, it’s almost as if you’re taking everything you’ve learned in your life (and things you begin to learn along the way- thanks YouTube and Google) and you’re putting each of these things, these keys, all together on a keychain. Your entrepreneurial keychain. You put them all on the little loop; One at a time, building your keyring to a better future, each key as valuable as the next. The key for Desire: As you desire a better life for yourself and your family. The key for Passion: This one is what gets you out of bed every day and excites the flame within. The key for Hope: When your first attempts fail but you keep going and hope for a better day tomorrow. The key for Overcoming Obstacles: This one helps you hurdle through the early, mid and late obstacles that every entrepre- neur faces and must overcome. Each entrepreneur’s keychain will look a bit differ- ent but those keys guide both the business and the person throughout their entire journey. Some keychains start small, with only Hope, Passion and a Prayer dangling from a thin loop while other people bring years and years of experience to the table, their heavy keychains wrought with
opportunities and keys that are bent, chipped, damaged and fraying. It is all these keys together that create an entre- preneur and these keys that help you through each door of your journey. The problem is that many people lose sight of their keys along the way. As their keychain grows, it sometimes can become harder to find that first key for Hope or that tiny one for Faith. Those keys get overshad- owed by some of the bigger ones and eventually it all becomes a big jumble, hard to sift through and impossible to unlock the door you’ve been waiting outside of. The door for the next oppor- tunity. And this is often when entrepreneurs stop having fun. But the key to unlocking these opportunities and actually enjoying your business and the life you’re creating should actually be the one you never lose sight of: Resilience. This is the most important key for any entrepreneur as this is the one that pushes you to keep trying to unlock the barricades in front of you, even if it seems they’ll never open.
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JANUARY 2021 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • JANUARY 2021
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