What
Do You Have?
Do
what you can, with what you have, where you are — Theodore
Roosevelt
….....................................
Before
I get started on this topic, let me first share a quick story. It’s
the story of a man and his wife, Mel and Patricia. In 1978, Mel and
Patricia both found themselves unemployed after leaving their jobs,
funnily on the same day. They needed to make ends meet. They worked a
number of freelance gigs but that didn’t help much.
They
decided to start a clothing store, but had little money. Seeking out
a loan, they were turned down. Undaunted, they got a business going
by selling at flea markets and later moved to a makeshift storefront.
Through creative means, they made progress.
At
this point, let me share the next bit through quote:
“They
wanted to create a catalog. But they couldn’t afford the glossy,
thick, bound ones their competition had. So, Mel wrote his own. They
couldn’t afford photos. So, Patricia drew pictures of their
clothes. They stapled, addressed, and mailed them all themselves.
They
couldn’t even afford shelves for their store, so they used wooden
fruit crates Mel found in the garbage outside a market.”
They
went on and on, making do with what they had, which was not that
much.
These
two went on to start Banana Republic, a clothing and accessories
retailer, which they later sold to the Gap in 1983. You probably know
the company and it’s size, but their genesis is worth paying
attention to.
“How did they do it? They used what they had, and applied the old classic proverb: “Go with what you’ve got.” — Nathan Kontny.
Note:
This story was written on the blog Signal vs Noise by Nathan Kontny,
CEO of Highrise, a contact management software company. The full
story is in the book Wild Company, written by Mel and Patricia Ziegler.
Why
do I share this? We all have more than we know. So, starting a local
interview project, what do you have? Not much, some might say. The
project is definitely to interact with others, and collect stories,
and document them. Yet to document them, you must have a form of
publication. A place where you can collect your experiences and point
people to follow your journey.
This
is where a blog comes in. A place where you can begin to take small
steps in writing and sharing the stories you are collecting. It may
not be perfect at first, but that’s what you’ve got. Let’s go
with that.
How
do I start a blog, you may ask? In a section below, I share a few
quick tips on how to set up a blog, but you can also get on YouTube
and type in that question, and countless videos will come up to show
you the way. Also, starting a blog is free.
Let
me list some of the things at your disposal right now.
- Your humanity — The fact of being alive means more than you know. To the living, there’s hope.
- Desire — Your will to give this a shot
- Time — A couple hours a day is all
- A local community — The neighborhood is not apart from you. You are an integral part of it, and that means you can contribute
- Gifts and talents — You special abilities need space and pressure ( a challenge) to grow
- Online tools — A free blog, a free facebook account, a free twitter account, and more. This was not the case 15–20 years ago. Established media controlled all of this. This could be your soapbox.
- Freedom to create — no one on the face of the earth will stand in your way to create a personal project that makes a meaningful contribution to your local community while making you a better person.
So
there you have it. Let’s go with that.
