4 Things I’m Grateful for in my 4th Year of Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship will humble you. But it also has brilliant moments of giving back.
With four years under my belt as an entrepreneur, I’ve come to appreciate the grind, learn from failures, and navigate unknowns with more confidence than I did in my early days.
While I am no longer in my rookie season, entrepreneurship continues to teach me and I continue to evolve as a founder and a leader of SizzleSociety.
On this week of Thanksgiving, I’m sharing four things I am thankful for.
- My Legacy
I have never been good about balancing work and family life. My best strategy has been to look for moments to blur the two and involve my son in my work.
He used to go to fitness conferences with me to hand out free class flyers and play under my desk during work days.
Now, he’s part of my team.
I’m grateful to have the opportunity to work with him and teach him things that he wouldn’t otherwise learn in school. He edits videos for SizzleSociety and plays in social media. As his first boss, I aim to expose him to creative projects and entrepreneurial career paths.
He is my most critical employee and talks back more than anyone I’ve ever worked with. But I love that we get to work together.
2. My Team
A great team is important in any company. But in a start up, your team covers more ground. My co-founder, Samantha Salas, is the perfect example of this. She’s our Chief Vibe Officer, team mom, and the lead on two brands. It’s a “whatever it takes” kind of mentality and it takes a lot!
The success of SizzleSociety is a testament to the dedication, creativity, and expertise of the people I’ve surrounded myself with. Each team member and contractor brings their unique talents and a relentless commitment to excellence, often going above and beyond to deliver exceptional results for our clients.
As an entrepreneur, the lesson here is clear: choose your team carefully, trust them to make decisions, and give them the freedom to excel.
3. My Fails
Four years of entrepreneurship have taught me the value of resilience through failure. It’s not about failing and admitting defeat; it’s about taking a loss and pivoting the project in a new direction. Fails are just feedback. Move in a different direction.
I am grateful to be evolving my relationship with failure. I’ve had a number of fails in 2024. One of them was applying and not getting accepted to speak at VeeCon, Gary Vaynerchuck’s annual conference. I wrote the speech anyway and posted it here on Medium.
That’s a small example, but resilience is a muscle that needs to be trained. It’s best to practice resilience on small things. Your ability to bounce back after bigger losses will be dramatically improved if you have a healthy relationship with failure and have practiced along the way.
If you’re thinking about starting a business, realize that fails are a part of the game. Get good with failure and keep going.
4. My Mindset
The past four years have taught me that entrepreneurship is not about a destination. It is about playing a game continuously over a long period of time. And staying open to possibilities you haven’t considered.
While my early years of entrepreneurship had me mentally connected to an end point, I’m no longer in pursuit of a goal. I’m more so in pursuit of my best daily process that brings me happiness and allows me to sit in my super powers.
Entrepreneurship is a mind game over anything else. It’s pushing yourself to show up day after day without seeing immediate results. It’s playing a long game when there is so much flashy click bait about playing the short game. It’s looking into a future of unknowns and carving a path not for the sake of a destination but just to create a beautiful path that feels good to walk along.
I am grateful that I have settled into the unsettled nature of entrepreneurship.
If you’ve been considering entrepreneurship, take a small first step. Get a taste of the energy, the freedom and the uncertainty. You’ll either love it or hate it!
Four years ago, I was at the beginning of this adventure, full of uncertainty but driven by passion. Today, I’m thankful for the incredible journey that has unfolded and the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
