Yanking Bootstraps: Bootstrap Your Business to Success

By Tammy Hawk-Bridges

One thing I know for sure is that I was born an entrepreneur. However, that hasn't always meant that I had to literally own a business. I have always assumed great responsibility in every job that I've held. It was always extremely important to me that I was able to have a sense of ownership and independence. In that freedom, my needs as an entrepreneur were met. However, when subjected to leadership that was more of a dictatorship, I wilted like a flower without water. My creativity would be suppressed and as I started to feel suffocated it would become clear that it was time to move on. When faced with having a career that I loved for many years practically taken from me, I decided that I never wanted to be in a position again that someone else had that much power over my life. I decided it was time to do this entrepreneur thing for real. The beginning of this journey was one of the hardest things I have ever endured to date. I wasn't working for shoe money, but was the primary income earner in my family. Failure was not an option for me. It was succeed or loose my house. The only thing rivaling fear that first year was incredible loneliness. I have never felt so alone in my life. Some of it was surely self-inflicted, while a good portion came from just not having the right guidance and mentors. I would have given anything to hear someone say, "It's okay to be afraid". I isolated myself from my husband, my children, and my friends. I was terrified, and didn't feel that I deserved to feel unburdened. I didn't deserve to laugh and have fun. I was after all, jeopardizing my family's well being. My first attempt at being a real entrepreneur failed. Despite shutting myself off from the world like a mad scientist and working 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. However, without wound licking, driven by fear of losing everything, I quickly regrouped and leveraged my skillset to transition into another business. While I was in transition I knew that it was time to get real with myself. I couldn't fail again. I made the realization that the failure of my first business was simply due to ignorance. I had no idea how to market a business. I thought that because I was a successful sales executive, had a great business sense, and was willing to give it 150 percent of myself that I couldn't go wrong. I was so naive. I quickly found my flaws. It was structure I needed. Structure, accountability, and more than anything, I needed a plan. I was an award-winning sales executive many times over. How did I miss this important component? I knew what it took to create a successful business, and I wasn't doing any of it. I was too busy riding the hamster wheel. I was too busy being self-employed. Perhaps I related the structure of having goals and accountability to the life I was so desperately trying to escape? The only thing that mattered now was I had to get really serious, there was absolutely zero time to waste, and my cushion was gone. I created a structure that quickly got my second business off the ground. I started working smart, instead of working hard. I stepped off the hamster wheel and learned how to strategically market my business. The light was finally on. I wasn't bitter about the first failure, as it was my path. The path that was necessary to discover the second business - the business that would lead me to my purpose. I wrote this book to tell you everything I didn't know in the beginning in hopes that it will save you some pain. I also want to tell you it's okay to be afraid. It's even necessary.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 061575628X
• ISBN13: 9780615756288
• Release Date: February 2013
• Publisher: Yanking Bootstraps
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.2" x 6.0"