The Imperfect Entrepreneur.

Feb 16

Entrepreneurship isn't easy.

Well, I suppose you could say that life isn't easy.

Ain't that the truth. I entered the path of entrepreneurship out of grief.

I have always had ideas that I wanted to bring to life, but I never had the guts to do them until I lost my father unexpectedly.

“What do I have to lose, now?”

Money, rejection, failure….all of those things felt irrelevant when you lost one of the most important people in your life.

I already lost, in my mind. In my heart.

Thus began my new path to actually doing the damn thing.

It's almost comical, to be in that state.

I remember my first business, ACE Backpacks, and how problem after problem, resulting in thousands of dollars of mistakes…

I just couldn't give up.

There were so many times I wanted to, trust me.

I especially wanted to give up when I actually hit my kickstarter goal.

I raised $13k in 30 days to do my first production run.

People actually invested in the thing I created.

I was honored.

Then, I realized that it was just me running this show and I'd have to box and ship every single backpack to these people.

I had to take multiple trips to the USPS store since I couldn't carry all 50+ boxes at once.

In New York City, for those of you who know, a trek anywhere outside of your apartment is a LOT.

But I did it, you know?

Same with My Gold Standard. This business wasn't even supposed to exist for at least a year. I felt powerless, and for the first time ever, was not bringing in any income.

I was under a noncompete and had to get really creative about how I could begin this business within those limitations.

I created PAY UP 1.0 out of it.

I made lots of mistakes, except, they didn't cost me thousands of dollars since I learned all the rookie mistakes the first time around.

A year ago, I would wait anxiously by my email to see if anyone inquired about working with me. For months, it was complete radio silence. I doubted myself. But I kept going.

One of these days, someone would say yes.

And I was right.

A year later, I have a sold out 1:1 wealth coaching program and a waitlist.

There were days within the wins, the losses, the mistakes, the lessons where the grief was so heavy I would spend hours, days, weeks, completely heart broken wanting to give up on whatever I was trying to make happen.

There are still those days, like today.

Nobody talks about the hard stuff. You just see the end goal, the highlight reel.

You never see the journey. The highlight “real” if you know what I mean.

So this is my highlight real. There is nothing special going on. I am not some extraordinary human being with magical super powers.

My success exists because I just don't give up.

I keep going.

They say, “It's a marathon, not a sprint.” And it's true.

I've been marathoning this whole time within my entrepreneurship journey.

Sometimes I pause and catch my breath. Sometimes I take a step back and hydrate. Sometimes things don't work out, so I pivot.

And sometimes, I just let go and surrender.

“Let the magic happen,” I say to the Universe.

Sometimes, you just have to let the magic happen, because you are the magic.

(p.s. if you watched my kickstarter video of lil 25 year old me - my given name is Danielle, my chosen name is Stella Gold - more on that in another money love letter)