Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Ask the Founder & Executive Director

What is it about you that you think makes you an entrepreneur and how have you utilized past experience and personality attributes to get to this point?   

I have been told many times before, when talking to someone about taking risks or speaking out, that it’s "easy for you" or "you don't understand you’re good at...", but the reality is that is not that it’s not that easy or simple for me.  The reality is that I work hard and sleep very little, but I believe in what I am doing and I know that given time and dedication it will be successful and worth every moment good or bad.  So what makes me an entrepreneur is not that I have this special talent to lead or I know more about an area than others, it is that I took that jump and decided no longer would I continue to have a bunch of notebooks full of ideas, but that I would have an organization full of people with ideas and that together we could turn ideas into realities.  The attributes that help me to make that jump are lots of falls along the way and a stubborn resilience to being told "you can't"...you either choose to let the hardships and negative get the better of you or you use if for fuel to move beyond and empower others.  I get told often that I am so together and that people think that it’s so easy for me to take risks, to approach people to talk, to stand tall and walk into a room with confidence and that its natural for me, but the reality is that it’s not...I have stood many a days in front of that mirror after dragging myself out of bed and stood there looking myself in the eye saying; "you can do it", "you’re smart", "your worth it", "today is your day", "You can have anything you want"...You have to believe and you have to remind yourself that it’s OK to fail at times, but don't let it keep you down...there is an entrepreneur in all of us, you just have to believe and let it out. 







Do you have a question for Cassandra? Send your questions to blog@btff.org

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