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“You are not guaranteed the fruits of your labor, only the labor itself.”- James Vicotre
Year 3 one of my teammates sent this to me, in a discussion about ‘grit’ and how to develop a growth mindset within our organization. Something that was crucial for me to learn was the idea that failure is not an end, but a start. It took me until Year 3 to really understand the importance of failure. In some ways, it’s your first win.
The only thing that you are promised is the labor itself. There is no big payoff when running a business. There is not a singular day where you think you made the ‘right’ choice. Your successes become hard to differentiate from your failures, because nothing is really a true “win” or a “loss”, everything is grey. There’s a million wins and losses in a single day, and no real path on how to stomach that. It’s always a little bit of both all at the same time, swaying to one side or another.
Year 1
I didn’t like working at SmokeCartel until I went to my first trade show, and I realized the impact the industry had. I was frustrated at the time it was taking away from my partner, Sean. I was frustrated at the time it took away from my schooling. I was frustrated that my gardening business wasn’t going well, that my house was overflowing with bubble wrapped bongs, and well, I honestly thought the whole…
