I founded MemoryBanc after working for more than 20 years in small, growing entrepreneurial firms. I considered myself an entrepreneur because I was adept at helping small businesses define their market and grow. I loved working in small companies where your job lines were blurry and you had to be a jack-of-all-trades.
When my parent’s health was failing and I needed to step in to help, my full-time corporate job required that I be an effective leader and demanded long hours, and I desired to be a good wife and mom; I became overwhelmed by life. I was no longer satisfied and set out to redefine how I was prioritizing family, job, health and my faith.
In caring for my parents, I stumbled onto an unmet market need and started to work on the business plan. It felt onerous. I was using a life coach at the time to help me and she asked me to define “Entrepreneur.” While the dictionary says it’s “a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk” what I needed to learn was that I needed to believe 110% in the business idea and should only pursue it if not doing so would cause me greater distress.
I was scared. I was leaving a great job with good benefits and pay and leaping into an unpaid job with incredible risk and that required at least a $60,000 investment to get started.
I realized that I was passionate about the business I was building when I started to see how what I had been through was already helping others. I saved the money to launch the business and jumped. I’m lucky to have a supportive spouse and the ability to put the money back into MemoryBanc to continue to see it grow.
In 2015, our goal is to make a difference in the lives of a quarter of a million people. That’s right, we want to educate and share our free tools with 250,000 individuals to encourage them to organize the information that surrounds their lives. Being an entrepreneur is the unquenchable desire to build the business and the ability to be ready to make all the decisions, make mistakes, and dust yourself off and use what you’ve learned to build a stronger, better organization.
I will share more on this topic at the Prince William Chamber of Commerce Women’s Leadership Conference on Thursday, February 12, 11:00 a.m. I hope to meet you there.
What is an Entrepreneur?
Kay spent 20+years helping small companies grow and considered herself entrepreneurial. When it came time to launch, grow, and run her own business, things felt very different. In this session, you will learn:
- What it really means to be an entrepreneur
- How listening and mindfulness matter
- What it takes to make it happen
Reblogged this on Dealing with Dementia and commented:
I know I’m one of many who are (or have been) on the caregiving journey and had it change your life in positive ways. My goal is to help everyone realize that having all of your estate plans in place sometimes just isn’t enough. Loved ones need more information to step in and assist. I hope you will download the free list of documents to get started here: http://www.memorybanc.com/thanks/