The Resilient Entrepreneur

I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. My mom and dad both built businesses from the ground up and my brothers both founded and built successful businesses during their careers.

My first foray was as a teenaged peanut vendor at NY Jets football games. I wasn’t old enough to sell beer so I never made much money. One particularly bad day, my boss told me that if I didn’t do better at the next game I should forget about coming back.

On my way home, I thought about what I could do sell more peanuts. I decided that my best strategy would be to hang around the guy who was selling lots of product to fans.

I came back the next week, got ahead of the beer guy and screamed “beer and nuts.” When folks would ask me where the beer guy was, I’d tell them “he’s right behind me, how many bags of nuts do you want?” My plan worked and when the beer guy figured out what I was doing, he liked it so much that he thought we should team up. That was the start of a beautiful autumn relationship.

Entrepreneurship depends on coming up with new and creative ideas. Sometime you throw a touchdown and sometimes you drop the pass. Being resilient is like the old Japanese proverb. “Fall seven times, stand up eight.”

© Richard Citrin, All rights reserved, 2016

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