Part 1 – (3 Part Series)

Hi friends, thank you for hopping on the blog today. Glad you are here! Welcome to this special three part series on Developing Entrepreneurial Grit. I’m excited to bring you along the journey of how I ended up here and I’m pulling back the curtain of how it all started. You might be asking yourself, why this post? I’m a big believer in story-telling. Stories are a powerful tool to help us feel connected, learn something new, and feel inspired. It’s my hope YOU will feel inspired through these true stories of taking risks, having GRIT in hard seasons and how you can bring the entrepreneurial spirit to your everyday.

Where it started . . . 2019

2019 was the year, quite the year actually. I had been at that job about four years at that point – learning, meeting great people, and working with a lot of entrepreneurs which looking back has been the common thread to my unconventional start to my career starting back in 2005. I had no idea my experiences running a resort in northern Minnesota, to then working with a husband-and-wife team in Palm Springs, and then coming back to Minneapolis in 2011 to help yet another husband-and-wife team run a business in the music industry would have shaped my own outlook and career trajectory.

Deciding to step out and do it anyway

You never know where life is going to take you and one thing I know for sure, is I’m glad I took the opportunities as they came – jumping in when I wasn’t 100% sure, convincing myself in the hard seasons it would be worth it, and deciding to do it anyway. It wasn’t always pretty and I can confidently say there were a lot of times I thought I made the wrong call. Through all the messiness and good times too, it was those decisions I look back on now and can clearly see “the set up” for my own purposeful calling, pointing me exactly where I would end up today.

Back in 2019, I was sinking in, getting quite comfortable in what seemed like the “perfect” job and “perfect” industry for me. I was dialed in and looking for the next opportunity that would present itself and literally out of nowhere it did, like it really did. Except for what happened was not the thing I was expecting – at all. Right up until that moment, I had been feeling like I was good at my job, but I was starting to feel a pull for something more but I didn’t know what that “thing” was.

So, I showed up to a random out of the blue corporate meeting that got put on my calendar with someone I didn’t know. I remember thinking, what on earth is this as I took the elevator up to the 7th floor. What happened next, changed everything for me – it would be the very reason I’m doing what I’m doing today.

I stepped off the elevator and into the office, meeting someone who was brand new to the company. It was one of those immediate connections where you know you are supposed to meet each other. She mentioned I was there because I had been “chosen” to be part of a leadership program with six other people. Before your eyes roll back, let me explain. She said it wasn’t going to be the standard lunch and learn corporate format or corporate topics, instead they wanted something different, something more connective as a way to build company culture. Before I had a chance to formulate my response, she caught me off guard with a question. She said, “so what are you passionate about?”

As I sat there in silence thinking about I how I wanted to respond, I realized I was not prepared to answer the way I “wanted” to be. A bit of panic set in, but the question was actually a blessing in disguise because the only thing I could truly draw from was my own authentic answer in that moment and I responded, “well, I’m really passionate about this idea of getting comfortable being uncomfortable – doing hard things instead of choosing the easy thing” Her eyes lit up and she said, “that is very reason I took this job.” She shared her story (which was so inspiring) and we talked for a long time around that topic in her office that day and it became the theme for what came next.

“If you do the easy things, life is hard . . . but if you do the hard things, life becomes easier because you are stronger.” – Jim Kwik

If you want to hear more of the story, drop me a note in the comments! I would love to hear from you.

Part 2 – Now LIVE!

-Natalie

(Looking for more life posts? Check out Part 2- Developing Entrepreneurial Grit!)