The Joys of Being a Woman Entrepreneur

Biking, running and writing have always brought me peace during challenging times. Yesterday as I ran along the beautiful Erie Canal pondering the task of packing up my last son to bring to college on Thursday, I realized this time of anticipation has given me a gift – the gift of living in the moment. For the past three months, I have relished every single moment in my life – whether personal or work related – because of the upcoming changes. The now unwrapped package revealed this simple gift to me this weekend – I can make time slow down if I want by relishing every moment of every day I’m given.

As women entrepreneurs we need to realize this same gift should exist in our business life. We start every Monday with a big to-do-list, hyped over the tasks and duties ahead, we rush through each day hoping to accomplish everything possible until its Friday and the work week is a blur. Weeks become years and years become decades before we realize we have missed the joy of running our company or missed much of our personal life.

I hope today’s post inspires you to contemplate the joys your business has brought you and continues to bring you; and to slow down. Here are just a few of the joys I’ve experienced as an entrepreneur the past two decades. I hope they provide you with some wisdom today:

* The vast amount of friends, trusted advisors and warm relationships I’ve developed. If I never opened the door to becoming an entrepreneur and walked through it, I wouldn’t have met the hundreds of members I’ve met the past 8 years running Women TIES, the 1,500 women who have attended my events annually or the thousands of women I’ve had a privilege of meeting across the state. Life indeed would have been less colorful and rich.

*The money I’ve needed to sustain myself as an entrepreneur for two decades helping to pay for my son’s college tuitions, my own retirement and reinvestment funds to add more services and benefits to my company for my members.

*The wisdom I’ve learned from hearing countless female speakers present at my events and conferences or reading their words in blogs and social media. I’ve learned more from other women’s words than I could have ever learned reading books.

*The ability to “fail forward” and to take more risks than I ever wanted to take. Entrepreneurship has a way of making a person push past their comfort level time and again building their strength and resilience. I know I couldn’t have learned that in a paid corporate position the same way.