By Mindee Hardin
I live just a few hours from where the school shootings happened recently. It got me thinking about how small we can feel sometimes. When our home, community, country or world is hit by tragedy, it’s easy to pause and scratch our heads and think about how we spend our time every day. Especially in my work, when illness strikes or injustice occurs, I often look around and think “OK and off I go to try and sell more bottles, wipes, PJ’s and poo cleaner uppers. Great. Lovely. Real worthwhile use of your life, Mindee.”
Once upon a time I used to let this feeling of insignificance make me stop, drop and cry for a long while. I felt stuck in work that seemed less than important. I even would refuse to work sometimes. I just felt sad that all I was doing was making booger wipes and mac n’ cheese all day when bad things were happening to good people and I wasn’t doing anything to stop it or help. I wallowed. I felt small and helpless. I felt like I should run away and join the peace corps (not just to escape laundry) but because that’s what we are all supposed to be doing for our fellow humans!
I know a lot of my clients feel this way from time to time and we talk honestly about it. Yes we are making some everyday tasks easier maybe but we are not saving any lives. Deep down we all know the world doesn’t really need more ways to organize, more ways to cook, more ways to clean, more ways to feed or wash a baby and get them to sleep, more ways to wipe boogers, get out stains or clip toenails. Most of us know we fall into the category of making something nice to have, that helps other Moms, but…honestly… no one would pitch a fit if our product went away tomorrow. The reality is, unless you are one of the small percentage of inventors creating a new water filtration system for third world countries or a new vaccine or a dietary supplements for malnourished moms or improved car seat safety belts….your product really, truly is likely very insignificant in the big scheme of world peace, world hunger and world crisis. Truly. Insignificant.
YOU however are not.
YOU are the golden ticket to significance in your business!
YOU! Not your product.
The world needs the significance of YOU very much. The way YOU chose to do things in running your business is incredibly significant. How you sell your product and talk about it, how you care for others while you are working with them. How you light up a room and encourage people when you speak to them, how you spend the profits you make on what you sell, what you say on social media about yourself and others and how you use your influence to influence. How you model leadership, capacity, courage, innovation, balance, dreaming big and working hard – THAT’S THE JUICY MIDDLE OF YOUR BUSINESS THAT IS INCREDIBLY SIGNIFICANT!
Every problem we have every day has a people problem at the heart of it. It’s not a stuff problem, it’s a people problem and solving these problems by being an awesome person who builds cool things while making other people feel awesome absolutely makes a difference in the world. A big one. Your business puts you in situations and places with friends and strangers you would never find yourself in outside of doing your work. You get the chance to travel and go and do and learn. The significance of your business becomes more and more substantial through these experiences. The meaning in your business is not so much in what you are building but how you are building it and who you are building it with and for. Did you give money from your profits to help a good cause, did you give a job to someone who had no qualifications except need and a big smile? Did you give away some of your products to people just because you could? Did you smile and make friends with the people in the booth next to you and did you ask that really intimidating retail buyer about her family and where that picture on her desk was taken? Did you take the day off and spend it with your family or volunteer or bake a cake for a family nearby – just because you have your own business and you can?
These little moments that many of us think to be insignificant are actually the most significant things we do in our business. These moments of you being authentically YOU and giving to others because of what your business gives to you, are much more important than what you make or what you offer. These are the things that solve people problems. They spread love and kindness, positive stories and encouragement and warm fuzzies. That’s the goodness that matters. That’s the goodness people take with them into their world, their home and their own insignificant work. All that together makes everyone of us no matter what we create, invent, sell or sew – very significant.
The next time you are stressing over what color to make the font on your package and you hear about something sad or tragic and much more meaningful than that, fight back with all you can do. Focus on the YOU in your business and turn your emotions into positive energy and love that cover that sadness with joy. YOU – the entrepreneur, the innovator, the hugger, the mama, the game changer and the most significant person you will ever meet.
Be Well and Boogie On! #bettertogether
Mindee Hardin:: Inventor of Boogie Wipes®, Author, Speaker and Business Coach for Mom Inventors. Mindee is the owner of Juicebox Consulting where she helps Mom inventors through the joys and trials of bringing their ideas to life all while they juggle the heart tugs and demands of a family. Mindee recently published her book, Boogie Wiped. She has been an entrepreneur for 12 years and is most widely known for her success as the inventor of Boogie Wipes saline wipes for kids stuffy noses. After finding a business partner, investors and hiring 12 employees, her idea hit $15 Million in sales in 2011 and the company was acquired shortly after by Nehemiah Manufacturing. Mindee has been featured on the Today Show, The Big Idea, Good Morning America, Fox News and in People Magazine, The NY Times, Entrepreneur.com, Inc and Forbes. Recently, she was the keynote speaker for the Disney Moms Social Media Conference, Entrepreneur Uprising and Women Entrepreneurs of Oregon. In 2014, she earned the Spirit of Entrepreneurship award for her work at the Young Entrepreneurs Academy. Mindee’s book, Boogie Wiped, trailing the lessons she’s learned in business in motherhood, will be out Mothers Day, 2015. Her husband, Scott, is in his 20th year at Intel and together they revel in the blended family blessings of coaching, scouting, feeding, growing and taxi cabbing their six kids through one adventure to the next.