Entrepreneurs Inspire Others

One of the most rewarding fringe benefits of being an entrepreneur is that you inspire others. You are traveling down a path that many people consider but few ever take. People respect you and look up to you for being able to do that. The main reason that I write this blog is for that very reason - to pass along lessons learned from my experiences in hopes of inspiring more people to pursue their passion.

Today I had an interesting experience when I realized that I was inspiring someone without even knowing about it. Since I only have one day of work left (I am so pumped), I have been making my rounds and saying good-byes and there was one friend that I hadn't talked to much in the past few months. She knew that I had the business but was shocked like everyone else when I announced my resignation.

I expected the typical conversation with the standard questions and my standard responses. Instead, she said that she was inspired by my courage to leave and that she was seriously looking into doing the same thing. In fact, she has done quite a bit of research on two potential businesses (both doing things that she loves) and is entering the business plan phase. She told me that she always wanted to but was afraid until she saw that I was doing it.

That is the type of thing that helps remove any shred of doubt that I have in my mind about my decision to leave my job to run SportsLizard.com full time. The decision to start your own business will be met with much skepticism and you will undoubtedly face many obstacles, but one of the rewards of making it through it all is what you can inspire in others.