Avoid dwelling on mistakes. Failures serve as a springboard for success. In simple words, a “NO” is a way of asking, “How can I do better?” How many of us have stumbled before? Take lessons from those errors.
Many successful people reinvent themselves later in life. For example, Jeff Bezos worked in the Wall Street industry before reinventing himself and launching Amazon. Similarly, before launching Spanx, Sara Blakely marketed office supplies. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was a wrestler in WWE before becoming a successful actor and filmmaker. Arnold Schwarzenegger went from a bodybuilder to an actor to a governor. Ray Croc worked as a milkshake device salesman before opening the first McDonald’s store in his fifties.
What is the most effective approach to reinventing oneself? What difficulties must be overcome in order to change one’s life trajectory? How do you overcome these challenges?
Another person on the list is Connie Balcher Inukai, a grandmother-turned-entrepreneur who took an entirely different path in her senior years, becoming an inventor, speaker, author, and more. Connie graduated from high school in the late 1960s, and her main reason for going to college was to find a career that would allow her to stop living paycheck to paycheck. Her parents divorced when she was a child. As a result, money was a continual source of concern for her.
Connie majored in French and graduated from The Ohio State University with a B.A. She planned to work as an interpreter for the United Nations because she could speak Spanish, Hebrew, and Japanese. However, she later decided to become an ESL instructor because of her English proficiency.
Connie began teaching Technical Writing at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland after getting her M.A. in Linguistics from Columbia University. She retired after more than 40 years and decided to spend more time with her family, be creative, and help others. Connie began working as an inventor at the age of 68. She had minimal business experience at the time, but after retiring, she assumed it was the path she would take.
Assuming the roles of an inventor, an author (“How I got My Product on QVC, The Today Show, The View, and More…In Retirement“), a speaker, and a grandmother to two grandchildren, Connie transformed herself into a “Grandmapreneur” in her second act. As the founder of Write Your Selfie, an application that enables users to record their life’s events in photos, she is currently developing her “third act.”
“Grandmapreneur,” Inventor, Speaker, Author, & More
In her second chapter, Connie takes on the guises of a “Grandmapreneur,” an inventor, speaker, author, and so on. She established a firm, filed one patent and three trademark applications, and worked out how to make money from her second venture, Write Your Selfie, and her first innovation, Tip ‘n Split. During the epidemic, she began working on Write Your Selfie because she wanted to do something that she could accomplish from home.
Connie was ready to quit the classroom at the age of 68 because she wanted to devote her time to being an innovator going on the adventure of entrepreneurship. Time, money, and skepticism about her abilities to develop a viable corporation were some roadblocks in her path, to name a few. Despite retirement, Connie had little free time since she prioritized spending much of it with her grandchildren, hence the name “Grandmapreneur.” Connie now assists people in constructing their life narratives using photographs and words, and she is living an extraordinarily fulfilling second chapter of her life.
If your current job does not excite you, Connie strongly advises you to find something that does.
Connie’s Success Speaks for Itself
Connie authored a book titled How I Got My Product on QVC, The Today Show, The View, and More…In Retirement after Tip ‘n Split was mentioned in several news articles. Although the book is available on Amazon, she frequently distributes it to other inventors. In addition, her other work, Write Your Selfie, has been featured on a number of podcasts, including Brand Ambassador Select and Woman’s World Magazine.
Connie is currently a retiree advocate who writes blogs focused on supporting other retirees in finding their true passions. She has written for Thrive Global, Fem Founders, Authority Magazine, and Entrepreneur Magazine, among others.
