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You are here: Home / Home bottom / Something from Nothing

Something from Nothing

Josh Grootenboer

When I was younger and people told me to ‘mind my own business’ I didn’t think I’d eventually be able to take that into account on multiple levels besides being nosey. In the past year, I had the pleasure of starting my own business; a painting company specifically. It was possibly the worst year I could have chosen to start a business with the whole, you know, global pandemic and all.

However, I can proudly say that it was simply a hurdle that I had to overcome. I think the oddest thing that I had to take into account this year when starting, was that I’d never actually sat down and written out a goal before. Weird right? But the weirdest thing of all? When do we ever just sit down and actually write down what we want to accomplish? I would argue almost never. Aligning my life around a focal point was odd, and in this case, the focal point was to run a business worth at least $100,000. 

But that was not the only challenge that was to be overcome, when starting a business you have to think about how you are going to get your name out there; how are you going to get what you have to offer in front of the people that want your services. For me, I needed to find homes that needed painting, so, what better way of finding the people that need work done then to just simply knock on people’s doors.

I live in Canada, the temperature in the winter months goes down to sub -20 Degrees Celsius. I would within the hours of 5-8 pm most days be knocking on peoples doors to see if they needed work done. Most people looked at me as if I was crazy, and to be fair, I just might be. But more importantly, it worked, and I sourced tons of work simply just ringing people’s doorbells. 

I, however, was also in school when I decided to start this endeavour. Balancing school and the business sometimes felt like I was trying to balance a refrigerator on my nose while riding a unicycle. Although it felt impossible (hence my metaphor), it was do-able, with strict time management and a little coaxing from my mentor, Luke Fenn.

If there is one thing I learned this year, is the excuse of ‘I don’t have enough time’ is simply false. Unless you block out your day 12 hours a day, 7 days a week with actionable activities, then you have time. Even if you’re not amazing at balancing a new activity at first, you will get better. I was once told anything worth doing is worth doing properly. Take from that what you will.

The best thing I learned this year from starting a business when I did was that anything is possible if you put your mind to it. Yes, it is the cliché, but oftentimes, this is expressed by the world through the philosophy of ‘shoot for the stars, land on the Moon’. Meaning if you set your sights high enough, the simple standard that you set for yourself will not allow you to do anything less than excellence.

So write that song, run that marathon and start that business, because the worst-case scenario is that you were challenged in ways you never thought possible growing you for the better, for the future. 

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