Entrepreneurship and Courage

Twice this week I have been called ballsy in negotiations. I’m not sure what to make of it. I don’t think I am ballsy but I do think that attribute is important for people to cultivate.

Neale Godfrey author of “Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees: A Parent’s Guide to Raising Financially Responsible Children,” said it best in Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management, that at some point you’re going to have to give up caring what other people think of you and go after what you want.

I don’t think that’s gutsy. I think it’s a basic human right to dream and to choose to go after those dreams. Not everyone has the opportunity to do so, granted, but I wish that folks had the chance, at least once in their lives to sit back, think about what they wished their lives, their businesses, their legacy to be and then decide to do it. If that makes me gutsy, so be it, but I just think it’s about taking the time to imagine a future that you want and then asking and working hard for it.

By no means do I think I’m invincible or infallible. I just think I want to create something—a business in this case—and I have made the decision to sign a few documents to make it into a reality. In my opinion, that’s not brave, that’s following a path of people I respect, a path that’s already laid out before me and I can choose to follow it or I can choose to go in another direction. I think that’s sensible.

I remember before I started a business I looked up to CEOs and managers and thought that somehow they had achieved greatness. I thought that they were so brave and daring to take a step forward in life. I looked up to them. Now that I have my own business, they’re my peers and I look at them instead of up to them. That’s not courageous; it’s just a shift in perspective.

In business school I learned how to do that; in practice I’m learning that just by using the skills I garnered there that people’s perception of me has shifted.

About the Author

Named Top 100 Leaders by 2012 Magazine, Jasmine Grimm has been nominated for Central Penn Business Journal’s “Top 40 Under 40,” and The Lancaster Chamber’s ATHENA Award.

Jasmine founded Ruby, Inc. a personal styling business that teaches women how to dress for their body types and became a two-time nominee for Inc. Magazine’s Top 30 Under 30 Top Young Entrepreneurs in America. She won the 2013 SCORE Business Development Award, won the Central Penn Business Journal’s Top 25 Women of Influence Award in 2013 and the 2013 Leadership Award from the MS Society.

She has been a popular guest lecturer at the Maastricht Institute of Entrepreneurship and has been featured in Under 30 CEO and Productive Magazine, was the cover story for Harrisburg Magazine and her writing has graced National Geographic Television and Film, Harvard University and more.

She’s a 5,3,8,3 on the Kolbe A Index and her strengths include input, relator, learner, responsibility and achievement.

For more information visit her Google + Page.