Cameron Herold reflects on entrepreneurship through personal anecdotes. He emphasizes that entrepreneurship often appears easier than it is, recounts seeing entrepreneurs play golf midday as a young teen (the benefit of running your own business is control over time), and shares early sales experiences that taught him practical business lessons.
Chapters
Entrepreneurship did not become cool until I was around 30 years old. I was battling some headwinds. But I think the disservice is that too many people think that it's easy to be an entrepreneur and they miss the point. We've made it look too easy. It takes a long time to get to the night before you become that overnight success story. I was lucky that all of the influences in my life that were running their own business used business as a way to have a better life. So they all had a lot of free time. They loved the free time. They spent time with family, with friends, with hobbies. I remember my dad taking me to the golf club when I was only 15 years old. We went to play golf at 12 o' clock and he showed me all the people coming in to play golf. He's like, that guy owns a car dealership, she owns a clothing store, he owns an accounting firm, she owns a law firm. And then we went and played golf. And at the end of the day, we were sitting up on the balcony looking over the 18th green and he was showing me all the people coming in to play golf at five o'. Clock. He said, she works for the clothing store, he works for the car deal dealership, he works for the factory. Do you notice the difference between who is playing golf in the middle of the day and who's playing golf at the end of the day? I said, yeah, entrepreneurs were playing golf in the middle of the day. And he said, that's the biggest benefit of running your own business, is you can do what you want. I was obsessed with golf at 15. So I'm like, this is amazing. I can play golf all the time. And then he. So he showed me those lessons. He showed me that I could make a little bit of money from everybody else. And if I could take care of all those people, make sure that they were really happy, they wouldn't quit. Business would be easy. So it was really being shown those lessons that I think was a bit of an unfair advantage. Or in education, if you want more leadership tips and systems from me, they're free at YouTube. Amronherald and that's H E R O L D. The school system now at least recognizes that entrepreneurship is fun, is cool, is valuable. When I was growing up, we were vilified. We were greedy capitalists and entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship did not become cool until I was around 30 years old. 1995 through 2000 in the rise of the Internet boom and the first.com era is when entrepreneurship became cool. And then with the Rise of social media 2007 through 201012 entrepreneurship became the thing. So I was battling some headwinds, but I think the disservice is that too many people think that it's easy to be an entrepreneur and they miss the point, right? They're not getting the whole story about how hard it really is. We've made it look too, too easy. It takes a long time to get to the night before you become that overnight success story. I remember doing door to door sales at 9 years old where I was handling objections. I remember one guy selling license plate protectors and he's like, no, I don't really need one. And I said, really? The license plate on your back of your car is all bent, come and look with me. And of course he's going to kind of humor the nine year old kid. And he goes out and he sees it and he's like, yeah, I guess I'll buy one. And I said, yeah, but you have a front license plate too. And he goes, okay, I'll take two. And I said, and you've got your wife's car. And he starts laughing. He goes, how old are you? I'm like, I'm nine. But that lesson, right, of selling multiple things to one customer, that no only means no in the bedroom. You know, I learned all these lessons at a very young age and then I took those with me into the business world.
