The Whole Wheat Entrepreneur

During my teen years, many of my friends got their first jobs. Some went to work for McDonald's while others found employment at the local grocery store. Admiring their newly acquired cash-flow, I was eager to join this jingling-pocket club. But I had something else in mind—something more…me. I was going to start my own business—be an entrepreneur like my mom who owned and operated her own family day-care center in our home. Mom was her own boss—she set the rules and determined her income. I wanted this too.

So after looking into several possibilities, I dove, hands-first (literally) into a business I could do from home. I started my own bread-making business. Mom had a wheat grinder (and a seemingly endless supply of wheat), a bread mixer, and a killer 100% whole-wheat bread recipe to boot. How could I go wrong?

Before you could say, show-me-the-money, I’d taken out an ad in my town’s local paper and was in business. By week’s end I had a few orders. Beyond excited, I was mentally polishing the cherry red Camaro-of-my-dreams which would soon be parked in front of my house.

Life was good.

Saturday came--bake day--and with mom loosely hovering, I got busy. But baking bread took way longer than I’d ever imagined (that dang dough was incredibly sticky). Mom, and even The Little Red Hen, made this bread baking thing look way easier than it was. Not only that, but it sucked up the better part of my one-and-only Saturday in the week.

Before sunset I’d delivered all four loaves of 100% whole-wheat bread to my customers and had roughly eight dollars in my pocket (and I don’t recall hearing a single jingle). Mom, in her mercy, didn’t charge me for the cost of the ingredients, or even the gas to deliver my goods, but she sure-as-heck made me clean up the horrific mess I’d made in her kitchen (the woman has her merciful limits and a kid-induced mess was one).

This same scenario continued for only a few more weeks. I never renewed the newspaper ad and never attracted that customer loyalty necessary for ongoing orders (which, honestly, was okay by me). My bread-baking business fell flat and I moved on to my next teenage adventure— house-cleaning if I remember right (never mind that I had trouble keeping my own bedroom clean).

That cherry red Camaro was never parked in front of my house.

But…I never lost that fire within to build a business, to be my own boss, to set my own goals, dreams, and expectations.

Over the years my entrepreneurship has delved into many directions. I’ve had many home-based businesses (one of which kept my very young family in food an entire school-year while my ex-husband finished college). In the past decade or so, I’ve focused my entrepreneurial endeavors towards my writing, publishing a newspaper column, eight novels, and now this blog. At this time, I also work a day-job (still trying to keep my now-not-so-young-and-much-larger family in food) ironically, as a bakery manager, overseeing, among other things, the baking of some very delicious 100% whole wheat bread. My entrepreneurial mindset and work ethic, applied to my position as bakery manager have helped build sales percent increase into the double digits over last year. Needless to say, my boss is very happy.

But am I happy?

I’d have to say that I’m a work in progress. I have an amazing husband who is my best friend. I have nine beautiful and healthy children. And every day off from the day job, I spend writing--creating--because this is my passion.

Some might call this craziness, but I like to look at it as Terry Orlick, world-renowned leader in the applied field of sport psychology, mental training, and excellence, and a former gymnastics champion and coach. He sums up my feelings perfectly:

“The heart of human excellence often begins to beat when you discover a pursuit that absorbs you, frees you, challenges you, or gives you a sense of meaning, joy, or passion.”

My heart beats every day…for my family, and for my writing.

They are my passion.

What is yours?

Tamra Torero is Wife to Paco, Momma to nine, Grandma of two, Bakery Manager, author of Shayla Witherwood: A Half-Faerie Tale and co-author of a Christmas novel,The Lost Son, with her son, Preston Norton. She has eaten many 'a loaf of 100% whole wheat bread over the years, but none as delicious as her mom's.