I’ve been an avid reader since I can remember. Even before I could read I would beg my mom to keep reading books to me at night while I was in bed. My parents read to me almost every night as I went to sleep and when I could read we would read together. I never realized how much I read until I went to college and during my first year of college I filled up a shelf about four feet long with books that I had read during the school year. It was probably 30-40 books, and I had read most of them twice, and none of them had anything to do with school.
But I’m never been much of a writer. Sure, I have a blog, but whenever I would sit down and try to write a book I would get about a page into it and give up. I could sense something was missing and I wasn’t going about it the right way, but I didn’t know what the right way is. I still don’t, although I think I’m onto something as far as one book might go.
A little over a year ago I wrote a post on this blog called What it Means to Be an Entrepreneur. While writing it I was surprised to find how easily everything flowed out. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I was writing about something I knew a lot about–my own experiences.
I don’t know if my own experiences are of much value to anyone. I’m still relatively young and unaccomplished. But I figure if I’m going to write something about being a young entrepreneur now is the time. For one, I’m getting older, so I’ll only be “young” for so long. Second, if I wait to write until I’m 60 years old and successful then I’ll have forgotten much of the pain, stress, and angst of being a young, struggling entrepreneur. It’s easy to sit back when you’re old and say “Just do this and this” but only right now at this time of my life can I say to another young entrepreneur “Hey, I know what you’re going through, because I’m either going through it myself or I just did, and here’s what I’ve learned, maybe it can be of some use to you. Take it for what it’s worth.”
What I’m going to attempt to do each day starting today or tomorrow is write one post on this blog about one of the 75 items on the What it Means to Be an Entrepreneur post. If I can write an average of two pages per item, I should have something approaching a full book.
Before I get started I should say a few things:
1. I may or may not tell all the facts. There are people I don’t want to offend or embarrass too much. I may change names or do other things to try and hide identities. The people themselves will probably know who they are, but few or no other people will have a clue who I’m talking about, and it shouldn’t matter anyway.
2. I will be revealing a lot about myself and my business. Perhaps even things that I’m ashamed of. Hopefully it won’t make you too uncomfortable.
3. I have a tendency to not read what I write. I may write something and not word it quite the way I would if I read it again, and therefore things that I write might sound different than I intended them to. For example, I may say something that sounds insulting to someone else, when in reality I don’t mean it to be that way at all. Feel free to call me on things that seem inconsistent, out of character, or where you think I may have made a mistake. And bear in mind what goes here on the blog may not be the final version of what I end up writing.
4. None of this is intended to be a pity-party, offensive, or vengeful. If it comes across that way then read it again. I’m just trying to share some lessons I’ve learned.
Will this ever get published anywhere other than here on this blog? I don’t know, I suppose that depends on whether it’s of interest to more than two or three people. For now I’m just going to enjoy the ride.
