My Big Lesson!

One of the biggest problems I discovered that I had while trying to start my own business was my infatuation with studying large and small businesses. Now I know that your suppose to do your research and look into all angles while developing your own product, but somewhere I got stuck in the research phase and spent most of my time comparing, websites, products, and ideas with other handcrafters and would find myself easily distraught and torn away from the goals I had for myself. I would spend hours upon hours online daily studying other handmade entrepreneurs and their work. I can’t calculate the numerous times that I spent, becoming angry with myself when I saw an existing or newer company debuting a new product or packaging that I had conjured up in my mind months before or had written somewhere in my “business plan.” The lesson that I had to learn through it all was that although I had everything outlined in that black notebook of mine, I was missing the key ingredient to making things happen . . . . .I was lacking “action” in my business plan. There were people around me who believed in my dream, and would listen patiently as I would excitedly share my new vision or goal, but as time passed I noticed how even my strongest supporters were beginning lose interest in my enthusiasm. Oddly enough, the day that I came to realize how complacent I had become in my own business affairs, came on a day and from a person that I would have never expected it to come from. As I sat in my bedroom on the large king size bed, gazing at the television screen with my six year old child, I remember her shifting her small frame towards me and gazing at me with her big beautiful eyes. “Mommy, when are you to start making candles again?” As I began to look my young child in her eyes, I found myself without words as she continued on. “Mommy, you have to start making candles again, you have to start making money. You need to go in your office and make candles everyday, one a day everyday. You have to stack up so that one day you will have a lot of candles and sell them to everybody.” I looked at that young girl, feeling as though the roles had been replaced and I was receiving a lecture from my own mother. “O.K. Ajah,” I began as she begin to pause “but what do you think I should focus on, candles or . . “ but before I could complete my sentence she eagerly interrupted and responded “Do everything Mom, I can help. Just go in the office and start making it. Everyday make something, I can help you mom.” As she completed her lecture and turned back to the television, I sat on the edge of my bed in deep thought. What was I teaching my children by doing nothing? I knew that at one point they were both actively engaged in creating soaps, lip balms and candles, but I never took into account how they might be affected that I had completely stopped. My oldest daughter was not interested in the research I had done; she was only interested in the action I had completed. It was the biggest lesson ever taught to me and all by a 6 year old! I am thankful and delighted that she mustarded up the courage to have that talk with me. As I always found it easier to offer excuses to my peers, it was much more difficult to replicate those same lines to the one who I spent so much time in teaching life lessons to. So. . . . deciding to lead by example that very next morning I headed straight to the craft store to gather the one item that I had caused me to lay around and excuse my laziness. Sad and embarrassed to say it was a thermometer!! That one thermometer that I had somehow misplaced while moving my office space into another area of my home had caused me to sit around, offer excuses, search online and feel sorry for myself. Sadly, but effectively it took the wisdom of a young six year old child to give me that needed push to get up and take action!!! Today, I have made many changes in my approach to my business. I decided that I no longer needed to spend hours researching or making excuses but instead create, mix, market my thoughts, ideas and products into action. Whenever I feel discouraged, I go back to the talk and remember how I felt engaged in that conversation with my young child. Jahyah’s Beauty (Ajah and Yah-Yah).