Finding My Groove

It turns out I’m an entrepreneur. I’ve known for many years that my husband Houston is, but this is a new realization about myself. It all came about when I met up with a friend for coffee. 

I was talking with her about my role in our farm and how I was struggling because my identity had been so wrapped up in it. I wasn’t sure what my new role was going to be. I just knew that it was going to be different. I felt a lot of shame about changing my focus from the farm and what I had been doing there. She challenged me - in a kind of a way - asking something like, “Why can’t you just be known as someone who’s good at being an entrepreneur?” 

Wow. That really made an impact. So much so that I’m writing about it months later. Around that same time, another friend told me that the best businesses reinvent themselves. And I guess that’s what Houston and I are doing to a degree. We’re continuing the work at the farm, but tweaking it a bit. And we’re creating something different that still has ties with the way we’ve operated on the farm. 

I have a tendency to keep my head down, so caught up in each task that I forget to pop up and see what else might be a good business venture. I tend to think that I have to do the same thing forever when that is simply not the case. 

Houston and I have been so fortunate to have great business people around us, speaking into our lives. It’s with their insight, the encouragement of friends and the support of our community that we’re trying some new (or at least new to us) things.

For me personally, as I’ve begun planning events downtown, I’m finding great joy and fulfillment. The acts of connecting people and sharing small businesses with the community have brought unexpected satisfaction. I finally feel like I’m finding my groove, doing what I’m good at. And I’ve got to tell you: it’s pretty special. Even the nitty gritty planning of an upcoming vendor market has allowed me to use parts of my brain that have seemingly been lying dormant. I love organizing and doing detailed work, and I think I had forgotten that. 

So here’s to all of us who are reinventing ourselves, who are finding our groove, trying new things. I wish all of us the greatest success and joy!

This piece first appeared in Sherry’s column, Finding Myself in a Small Town, in the September 28, 2024 edition of the Corsicana Daily Sun.