May 7, 2010
Give It A Shot
Give It A Shot by Cheryl Demas www.WAHM.com My daughter was only seven years old when she was diagnosed with diabetes.Those first few days in the hospital were challenging, as my husband, Nickiand I came to terms with the disease. We learned what we all needed to do tokeep her healthy. We had to learn how to do Nicki's blood tests and giveinsulin injections. Try getting a seven-year-old to stick herself with aneedle. And then tell her that she'll have to do that several times a day forthe rest of her life. It wasn't easy. The nurse gave us an orange to practice on. She told us that giving theorange an injection would feel the same as giving our daughter an injection.Which was true, except the orange wasn't crying, digging its fingernails intomy arm, and asking me why I didn't love it anymore. Other than that, it waspretty much the same. But this wasn't something that we could choose not to do, so we managed. Wecould have given shots to that orange all day long and it wouldn't have comeclose to the experience of actually doing it. Now, almost nine years later,we're so used to needles that we hardly give them a second thought. Somethings just have to be experienced in person. We did it because we HAD to. I hear from a lot of people who run home businesses. Some are successful,many are not. I try to find similarities among the successful, and they oftenmention that failure is simply not an option. That doesn't mean that theydon't make mistakes, they do. But they don't let setbacks stop them. Theypick themselves up and give it another try. It's almost as if they HAVE to besuccessful. I can tell you what it's like to run a business, and you can get advice fromother business owners, that's all good. But just like injecting that orangedidn't really prepare us for the real thing, nothing compares to theexperience of actually running your own business. Now I'm not recommending jumping into your new business without preparingyourself and doing research, but when the time comes to get started, don'thold yourself back. You will probably make some mistakes. But you'll belearning every day, and there's no better teacher than experience. If you've been thinking about starting a business, now is a great time to getstarted. Work at it as if it HAS to be a success. Go ahead--give it a shot. Cheryl is the founder and publisher of WAHM.com . She lives and works at herhome in California with her husband and two daughters. She is also the authorof "It's a Jungle Out There and a Zoo in Here" (May 2003, Warner Books). Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com

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