Wine & Dine, it’s Number 9
Today I will pause, sit quietly, reflect, scroll the photo reel, smile, shed tears, laugh and legitimately ground myself with grace. I’m humbled for the honour to breathe deeply with heart and wholeness, as today marks the 9 year anniversary of the first-ever World’s Biggest Garage Sale.
On this day in 2013, a team of friends, family, neighbours and even the odd stranger, helped with a crazy little idea I had to raise money for cancer research with the little idea I came up with called…the World’s Biggest Garage Sale…and my oh my, haven’t things escalated since?
It’s been a rollercoaster ride of radical and ridiculously impactful life-changing moments along the way.
As a positive and proactive producer & entrepreneurial style person, I believe in the impossible, I believe pain is gain, and I know that when it hurts the most, you’re likely heading in the right direction. It’s not always fun, no doubt, but life isn’t all rainbow fairy unicorns of glitter and gain.
Being an entrepreneur is:
- Lively & Lonely!
- Intimate & Intense!
- Fun & Ferocious!
- Enlightening & Extreme!
Being an entrepreneur is LIFE!
It’s hard to explain, but there’s an entrepreneurial spirit that ‘just knows’ that what we believe in is uncompromisingly the way we must go ……we absolutely look crazy on the outside, we’re definitely impossible (at times), and we often don’t make sense and we can even be frustrating and difficult to be around…..(I know some of my fellow founder friends appreciate the authenticity & positive approach to talking openly about the overt & outrageous standards we uphold ourselves (& those on the journey with us) to.
At the heart, deep inside, beats a pounding passion & power, a magnified momentum that’s manifesting itself like a methodical metronome…where rest, rules & reason are at risk of making sense to the wider world.
What I’ve learnt along the way, is that an entrepreneur relates to a feeling, an essence, energy, a deep connection to change, to challenge and to chase something that’s got the potential to innovate and invent new ways of living and giving.
It is here in the impossible, where transformation becomes possible.
I often share with my teenage daughters, that one small pebble dropped in a body of water can be the beginning of something special, with the invisible power to bring others together, where eventually over time, more pebbles create enough momentum to generate the power needed to form waves we can all eventually ride together on.
The story between 2013–2017 is shared beautifully on our website. A hobby annual event, bringing products and people together for a philanthropic outcome. But I yearned for more….I could see it & sense it needed ‘all in’.
So naturally, quitting my job, going ‘all in’ and taking a leap into the venture void was the only way!
What I do know is that the past ‘official’ 5 years have been built on the backs of brilliant people, boldly & beautifully bringing the best out of the business.
For me, a memorable moment was in the first year when I pitched ‘Circular Economy’ and someone in the audience said ‘Circular what?’.
I stood there and processed at warp speed #entrepreneurlife that I wasn’t only going to be building a company, I had to ‘make a market’ and carry the additional responsibility of being a highly vocal & vibrant voice for the circular economy, to take people on an even bigger journey…..much bigger than the lofty brand of ‘World’s Biggest Garage Sale’.
It was here, in 2018, just 9 months after officially creating the company, that an even bigger vision was born. It was here, that we created the brand ‘Circonomy’.
The future is Circonomy!
Generally, I’m not in the habit of celebrating….but I promise there will be wine & dine and a quiet moment I celebrate the number 9.
I will pause tonight and reflect on all of the moments that have mattered (including the pretty, the gritty & the sh!tty).
In closing, I want to sincerely thank the unwavering posse of people…..those most wholesome humans who without question, believed in me as a founder, not only when we’ve been ‘killing it’, but also (and most importantly) when it’s near on been ‘killing me’. (figuratively speaking)
