My Entrepreneurship Story

I forgot the name of the shop, but trust me, it was a weird and probably poorly thought-out one from the minds of an 8 year-old and a 7 year-old.

Those little kids who devised a pretend "shop" with some weird name were me and my older sister. When my older sister and I, now 20 years old and (almost) 19 years old respectively, were bored one day and our aunt was visiting, we devised an idea to present a shop of random candies and other unattended random items we found around the house. In a light-hearted manner, our aunt played along with it and gave us each a $2 bill for a single mini Hershey's bar we found in the pantry. I kept track of inventory on a piece of copy paper while my sister organized the display of a "wide variety" of items on sale. Watch out, Wal-Mart.

Looking back on it, the act of collecting random items and pretending to have an actual customer base was really silly. But there was some determination involved. Determination to build an inventory, to set a display, to find (or in our case, imagine) a customer base. While it seems like some frivolous game from today's perspective, back then, it was my first exposure to the elementary understanding of entrepreneurship.

Most of my exposure to entrepreneurship has been through reading and watching different stories about entrepreneurs.
Recently, I've been watching a series online called Bloomberg Game Changers that provides a biographical account of various entrepreneurs and other leaders in different industries, from tech to comedy to hip-hop. The encouragement and sense of drive I get when listening to and watching these leaders' stories is particularly helpful when I find myself trying to deal with my own personal failures. Two of my favorite episodes are the ones that cover Steve Jobs and J.K. Rowling. I find their stories of early struggles for success to be inspiring. I also find Steve's basic goal to change the world and to not only be successful, but leave a legacy to be motivational. Because of that, I want to look for more in a career besides a starting salary. I aspire towards something that aligns with my interests and is purpose-driven.