Personal Business

When I read about the String of Pearls blog my first thought was, “This is definitely not for me.”  Businesses, entrepreneurship, marketing, and money, are all words I find extremely intimidating and make my insides cringe! I’m guessing this is most likely due to insecurities surrounding my lack of knowledge and experience in the corporate world. The desire to learn is there but the opportunities and the willingness to learn are often not present at the same time. 

Over the past 10+ years I have been on what seems like a never ending road leading to the middle of nowhere. Life seemed to only be filled with pain, hurt, depression and isolation. About 3 years ago I started my journey on the road to healing. I tell you this as background information for what follows. 

I love learning new information that will aid in becoming a well-rounded person. Striving to find out who I am and my purpose in this world has been my top priority for several years now. I have often criticized myself for the knowledge deficit around personal finances, business opportunities, marketing, and money. During some quiet time yesterday I realized that I might know more about entrepreneurship than I give myself credit for. I had this abstract idea that I have been learning how to run my own business for years now. I am my own ‘business’. I realized that taking risks and investing in myself is the training which must first occur before I am able to invest in others or in this world as a whole. I can’t skip steps A and B and still expect to reach step C. I think there are physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of every business requiring attention and acknowledgement. I do (we do) have internal assets. They might have been buried for a long time but can be rediscovered. By uncovering our assets they begin to appreciate (to increase the value of an asset in excess due to improvements or additions made to it)! 

From accounting or finance 101, I randomly thought about the concept of absorbed accounts (an account that has lost it’s separate identity by being combined with another account). In a personal sense, I can relate to this term as I am often tempted to give up my own identity so to be more accepted by others. This account usually gets me “stuck” and causes my assets to depreciate or to become buried again. 

So, in the end, because I have been on this journey of self-discovery, of investing in the business of me, maybe I'm not as far away from being an entrepreneur as I thought!

What about you?  Does the idea of being an entrepreneur intimidate you?  Tell us about it.

-Brianne Gibson