Have a Dream? Start Today Making It Come True.

At one time or another every person has thought about following their passion. Leaving the corporate world behind and following their dreams. Maybe you’re dreaming of it now with excitement in your heart and making plans to take that leap of faith, maybe you have already left your job and are working towards your dream, maybe you have been working for a period of time on your dream and are reaping the rewards of your labor OR maybe you shutter at the thought of the unknown, maybe you’ve been told by nay sayers that you are just a dreamer, maybe you’re the income earner and you don’t want to put your family into financial hardship by starting a new business. Where are you in all of these scenarios? Does it excite you or scare you to death?

If you answered yes to both, that’s OK. Being scared isn’t necessarily a negative thing. If you’re so scared you can move forward, then you have a problem, but fear can be a good motivator as long as it doesn’t cripple you. When fear creeps in, replace it with thoughts of success. Visualize yourself having already reached your dream…what does it look like? (seriously….stop right now, close your eyes and visualize yourself having already achieved your dream, this is a powerful exercise you should do daily)

If you ask anyone who’s started their own business, you will find that there were times they were scared and unsure, too. Like life itself, there will be ups and downs, but as long as you don’t lose sight of your goal, your dream, you will overcome any mistakes or problems. Here are a few of my favorite quotes by some very wise people to help put you at ease:

If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes. -John Wooden
Mistakes are the portals of discovery. -James Joyce
The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way. -Dale Carnegie
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. -Winston Churchill
Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. -Winston Churchill
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. -Theodore Roosevelt
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. -F. Scott Fitzgerald

The key is to start. Start today. Start now. You don’t have to have every detail planned out before you start. If that were the case, you’d never start. Even if you did plan everything out, you would quickly find holes in your plan. Again, like life, you will be thrown a curve ball or two which may take you off course but keep your eyes focused on the goal and get back on track. Businesses evolve, they grow slowly…which reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Abraham Lincoln…

If you don’t have the luxury of having a lot of time and/or money, don’t let that stop you. Don’t make that your excuse. Start anyway. Start slowly. Devote an hour a day or two hours a day to your business. Once it grows and evolves enough to cover the bills (and then some), quit your “day job” so you can devote more time growing your business. Don’t expect success to happen overnight. It takes time, but work diligently with enthusiasm and faith and you will be on your way.

Back in 1994, when we started our wholesale business, Primitive Folk, we were nose deep in bills. I had quit my job to start our family and approximately 8 months after Kyle was born, Kevin was laid off. He was off work for 6 months when we headed to the first trade show in hopes of starting a new chapter in our lives……and guess what, it worked! The business grew and evolved and morphed into my licensing career that I enjoy now. The business is still evolving and changing. Looking back from where we started, I would have never guessed it would have evolved the way that it did, so don’t get hung up on planning too much……just get started.