I love trying new things.
I have a sense of curiosity and adventure that has served me well throughout my life. Since I was young, I’ve been having an utter blast participating in all kinds sports, and extreme sports. 
Whitewater kayaking, downhill skiing, water skiing, sailing, racing lasers, motorcycling, cycling, and the most outrageous sport I have ever learned is kite boarding. Yes, the very sport Richard Branson developed an island around. Two years ago I took the leap. In Cabarete, on the northern tip of the Dominican Republic, there is a unique intersection of the required conditions at a tiny beach called Kite Beach. Wow!
Talk about extreme. The first day you learn how to fly a 15-meter kite, way up in the sky, on the edge of a populated tourist beach surrounded by swimmers, and other super kite boarders. Once you’ve mastered that, they strap the kite to you in a body harness and then you get in the waves. It’s disconcerting. You learn “body dragging” in the ocean, first in piggy-back style on the back of your instructor. (I was lucky enough to have a gorgeous, tall, male instructor named Morten from Denmark…this did take some of the edge off of the fear). Then you repeat the lesson with you in the front, all while the waves are moving in, and you’re trying to beat high tide!
Once you’ve mastered having this incredibly huge kite power you through the ocean, you’ve earned the right to do the walk of shame back up the beach, since you haven’t learned how to tack the kite. At this juncture you have “graduated” to go it alone! Now get this; you put on a helmet with a radio inside. You enter the surf alone, and your instructor is talking you through it, from the shore. The sense of fear is colossal. I think I was hyperventilating through this entire section of my private lesson. But it is also so exciting I could barely breathe. Needless to say, this is a very intense experience, and I haven’t even gotten onto the board yet.
Once you’ve mastered body dragging on your own, and have repeated it with proficiency, now you’re ready. As if this wasn’t plenty enough fun, you introduce a small surfboard under your feet. This becomes a totally new sport. Being up on a surfboard with a harness, with a kite, is totally new territory. You should be getting the picture….
I have to say, for me, it’s the most exhilarating sport I ever attempted, and it is also the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done in my life. Oh wait, that’s not exactly true, being an entrepreneur is the most exhilarating and terrifying extreme sport I attempted, and continue to advance, 27 years later!
Why do people start their own business?
Some people say it’s because they don’t want to work for the “man” any longer, or they want to see what it’s like to work for themselves. Some begin because they have been laid off from a job, and getting back in is too tough. Others are seeking a particular kind of freedom.
My first business was started shortly after I graduated from college. I’d landed a great job as a junior designer for a very preeminent package design firm on 45th Street. It was a time of process innovation in the design field, transitioning to digital technology. This was a sweet spot for me. Within about nine months, it was clear that I was to start my own business, advising products corporations how to transform into the digital world, and help design firms embrace the new technology and re-tool for the future.
I coerced my roommate and his best friend to start a business with me. Our first technology acquisition was a multi-function copier. It was so cool! We lived in a large loft in Tribeca at the time, and had three roommates. So we put the copier in the kitchen. I was so proud of our copier. So- we went about the business of starting a creative design and consulting firm.
Most people don’t go into business to be an entrepreneur; most people go into business because they see an opportunity or way to do things differently. You set up shop, you design services and products, you invent, you get your hands dirty doing the things you love. If you’re lucky and you’ve managed to pay the rent, one morning you wake up and find yourself a business owner, a.k.a. an entrepreneur. Yooowzah!
“Oh my what have I done” I had no idea what I was getting into”, you may think to yourself. No truer words have been spoken! It’s an adventure, one that you only have limited roadmaps and guidance for. You set your course, you pick a target, yet the business journey has an energy, a mind, and a spirit of it’s own.
I absolutely love being an entrepreneur and mostly everything that comes with it. The exhilaration, the sense of being fully alive, fully awake, the discovery, the competition, the freedom, the sense of flying in the sky, The mistakes (or what I like to call the mis-takes), the screw ups, the lessons. The fear, oh yes, let’s not forget to honor the fear. It is terrifying at times to be at the helm, to hold the wheel. If you’ve ever sailed a large sailboat in a competitive race, during a storm, wearing bright yellow rubber jackets, you may have a sense of what I’m talking about. It’s exhilarating isn’t it? Wheeeeeee! But it’s also extremely risky, and downright dangerous at times.
Entrepreneurship is an extreme sport. It is not for the faint of heart, it is not for the procrastinator, or for someone who constantly second-guesses their choices. It is risky, it is rewarding, and it’s worth every moment of the experience, in my opinion.
At Brandscape, one of the major components of our work with start-up entrepreneurs is finding, and sometimes reclaiming the inspiration that fuels the bravery, to step into the unknown. I’ve heard others call it “cultivating courage”. I take a different perspective on this. I don’t think you can cultivate courage, I think you have to source it.
This is where my clients truly inspire me, and always bring me to tears. It is such a privilege to help someone go in and find, identify, claim their source of their courage. You cannot teach courage to someone, you cannot give this to someone; you cannot follow someone else or model someone else. This is authentic identity, which is exclusively yours to be found, articulated, expressed and amplified. This is what I’m talking about when I’m talking about bringing your whisper to a roar.
This is the core, the ember of the central force of the entrepreneurial spirit and in turn, brand success.
Have a fantastic weekend!
©2012 Brandscape Atelier LLC. All rights reserved.
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Kerri Konik, the entrepreneurial bravery and brand identity leader, founder of Brandscape Atelier LLC, specializes in igniting entrepreneurs who dare to dream. Develop resonant brands, grow your tribe, and multiply your results. To get your FREE Branding Secrets report, and FREE access to Brandscape Academy video classroom, visit www.brandscapeatelier.com.