Read the full transcript of Kiki Ayers’ talk titled “How to Know If You’re Meant to Be An Entrepreneur” at TEDxBuckhead 2021 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Meaning of Entrepreneurship
KIKI AYERS: Okay. By show of hands, how many people in here are entrepreneurs? How many keep your hands up if you know the definition of what it means to be an entrepreneur? Okay. So some hands went down.
So how are you an entrepreneur if you don’t know what it means to be an entrepreneur? At that point, you have to ask yourself, are you really an entrepreneur, or are you just trying and aspiring to be something that you weren’t meant to be? Right now, in today’s society, entrepreneurship is glorified. Right? Everybody on social media is an entrepreneur, or they think they are.
Right? So they ask themselves what I call perception questions. Right? The perception of what it means to be an entrepreneur. They’ll ask themselves, you know, “Do I want to work for someone else my whole life, or do I want to work for myself?”
Yes. I want to work for myself. So they ask themselves if they want to make their own schedule. Right? We’re all going to say yes to that.
We want to make our own schedule. They’re going to ask themselves if they want to live a life that they don’t need a break from. Right? We’re all going to say yes to that. But I like to ask what I call reality questions, and these are the realities that also come with entrepreneurship.
Like, do you want to work 24 hours a day, or do you want to work 8 hours a day? Are you willing to take every last dime in your bank account and risk losing it? You have to also say yes to those questions as well because that’s the reality of being an entrepreneur. We can’t just take the perception of something and not take the reality.
Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught?
So people hate when I say this, but I think entrepreneurship is something that cannot be taught. They hate when I say that, but I really stand by that. There are skills that can be taught. Right? You can go to a zillion summits, conferences, workshops. You can find great, amazing entrepreneurs to mentor you all day long.
Right? You can do all of that. You might even come from a wealthy background and have the finances to back this vision and monetize off of it. But can you be taught to get up and go chase those rewards that come behind the risk that you’re taking? Can you be taught to get up and work when no one is over you and monitoring you and holding you accountable because you have to hold yourself accountable?
I don’t think so. I think that’s something you either have or you don’t. It’s something that you’re born with. For entrepreneurship, it’s oversaturated, just like rapping. Right? Everybody wants to be a rapper. In LA, everybody is an actor and model. They all drive Uber and work at a restaurant. Everyone there is an actor and model. Right?
That’s oversaturated. And now entrepreneurship is. And I didn’t realize how oversaturated entrepreneurship was until earlier this year. I went to go speak at a middle school. This was prior to the pandemic.
A Lesson in Entrepreneurship
And the principal reached out to me, and he said, “I want you to speak to these kids because they equate entertainment with success.” And he wanted me to talk to them about entrepreneurship. And I’m like, okay. I’ll do it. So I go there and I talk to the kids, and a few kids come up to me after.
I talk to them about business. They come to me after. And there’s one kid specifically, he’s a 12-year-old boy, and he was like, “Hey, Kiki. Can you teach me how to start a business?” And I’m like, yeah.
Of course. Like, I could teach you how to start a business. I’m so excited because I’m like, okay. At 12 years old, this little kid is already thinking about being an entrepreneur. I wanted to talk to him about the harsh realities of entrepreneurship.
Right? Not just the glamorous stuff. So I’m telling him, you know, it’s stressful sometimes. Sometimes it’s borderline depressing. You never know, you know, if things are going to work out, but you have to keep going for it.
But as I’m talking to him, I’m looking at his face, and he looks terrified, and I’m just like, okay. I hope I didn’t just scare this little boy into not being an entrepreneur because that’s the exact opposite of what I wanted to do. But so then I go into rewards. Right? But I don’t talk about materialistic rewards.
I go into the rewards of being able to provide opportunity, of creating a business that has legacy and creating generational wealth. You know? Explaining as well as I can to a 12-year-old, you know, being able to make your own schedule, having, you know, freedom. And he’s excited again, but then he goes, “You know, I’m really interested, but how do I know if I’m meant to be an entrepreneur, and what if it doesn’t work out?” And that question was so important to me, and that’s why he stood out.
But before I say how I answered it, I want to stop right there because I think we’ve all had those moments. Right? Especially as a kid, where we think that we’re going to just grow up and do something, and then we try and we’re like, that’s not for me. Or maybe our parents pushed us into doing something, and we just thought we were going to do it just to make our parents happy, and then we realized, that’s not for me. For me, that was ice skating.
Right? When I was 8, I used to love watching ice skating, and I thought I was going to be the black Michelle Kwan.
Right? It just looks so beautiful and fun and graceful and easy. Right?
So I begged my mom to take me to the ice rink, and I put on the cutest outfit, asked her to put my hair in one of those ice skating buns, and I went out there. So I’m getting ready to get on get out on the rink, right, and to go on ice. And then I just get so confused how in 2 seconds, I’m going to be graceful, and my face is literally on the ice. Right? So then I’m literally like, trying to get off the ice, literally swimming at this point.
It’s embarrassing to my mom and everyone around me because I literally cannot get up. Like, it was just so bad. People can fall and get up. I was literally embarrassing everyone. So, I knew in that moment, like, this was not for me.
And there’s nothing wrong with falling. There’s nothing wrong with thinking you’re going to do something and it not working out if you’re passionate about it. Right? I wasn’t passionate about ice skating. I just thought it looked cute.
So when I realized it wasn’t that cute, I just was like, no. Right? And that was just a girl no moment, and I had more. Right? I thought I was going to be a singer, and my parents were like, “Girl no, like, your voice, please stop.”
So that was also something that I could have done, but I wasn’t passionate about putting in the work to be a professional singer. I just thought it was cool and wanted to make a music video. Right? Because I’m 8 and I don’t realize what goes into that. So we all have those moments where we think we’re going to do something, and then we don’t end up doing it.
Traits of an Entrepreneur
Right? So how did I know I was meant to be an entrepreneur? Well, all entrepreneurs have traits. We have commonalities. Even at an early age, we are doing things that we don’t realize entrepreneurs naturally do.
Right? Every entrepreneur I know, as a kid, they sold something. Right? Whether it was candy, whether it was lemonade from a lemonade stand, whether they were making money doing yard work. Nowadays, these kids, like, they’re crazy.
They used to like, sell brows, boost, and edge control, and real estate down there. Like, they literally do everything, but, you know, back then, that was what we did. We sold things, and we had this satisfaction in making our own money. Even though the country said we can’t make money till we’re 16, we’re making money at 5, 6, 7, 8 doing things, hustling, and we love it. We love the feeling of making our own money.
Right? Entrepreneurs, other traits is that we’re never satisfied. We can have this goal our entire lives. Right? And then we reach it, and then we’re like, okay.
What’s the next thing? We’re never satisfied. Everyone around is like, “That’s so amazing that you did that.” And we’re like, you know, like, it’s cool. It’s whatever.
Like, we don’t care anymore. We’re looking for the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, and we’re really hard on ourselves because we’re never satisfied at all. Destined born entrepreneurs, they also hate being told what to do. If you ask an entrepreneur why they want to be an entrepreneur, 9 out of 10 times, the first thing they’re going to say is they don’t want to work for anybody. They don’t want anyone telling them what to do.
We love being in control. The idea and the thought of someone planning our work schedule, our time, telling us we have to wake up, being in control of our income, it disgusts us. Like, it’s the most disgusting thing in the world. We would rather work 24 hours a day for ourselves than work 8 hours for somebody else. We hate it.
Right? And that’s the same thing too in corporate. When I worked in corporate, I hated it, but I didn’t know why. Because at the time, I did not know that I was meant to be an entrepreneur. So I worked at the biggest TV stations, all of them, anyone you can name, I worked there.
I worked at the biggest corporations, and I would go from job to job to job trying to find happiness. And I thought it was because of the job. I could find happiness in a job, and it wasn’t. So I saw myself changing. Right?
The Corporate Experience
Because at the start of every job, I was super excited. You know, the first few months, I was like, this is going to get a job. It’s going to be amazing. And then a few months in, I saw myself transforming from this bubbly black girl to this angry black woman. Right?
And I’m like, okay. This is not for me because of my energy. While people were turning up on Sunday, going to brunch on Sundays, I literally isolated myself. I felt depressed. Just the thought of going back into work on Monday made me depressed.
Like, I hated it. On Wednesdays, every Wednesday, I was ready to put in my 2-week notice. Like, I hated it. Right? Friday, don’t ask me to do anything on Fridays.
Fridays are just to make an appearance. I’m just here to make an appearance because you took too much from me Monday to Thursday. You’re not getting anything from me on Friday. I’m just here. I’m just here.
I’m not into it. You know what I’m saying? I’m just here, so I hated it. I hated it so much. And I don’t know who’s ever worked in corporate, but there’s always this one person in the workplace that you cannot stand.
And it’s like, the more you cannot stand them, the more they’re in your face. Right? The more they make a presence in your life every day, and it’s like, I don’t know if they know you can’t stand them, but it just happens. Right? Then we have these C fears in the workplace, where you can say literally something.
You can email them, like, “Have a great weekend.” And they will literally loop in 50 other people in different offices in different cities that you don’t know for no reason. Just to say I’m looping in people. Right? I hated it.
I hate it. I hate the people that say borderline disrespectful things, because they feel like they are protected by this thing called HR. Right? So I hate it. So you can see I’m transforming now.
I’m like, okay. You guys are making me so angry. So at that point, I called upon the only person I could, Jesus. And I went to this church, any church. I wasn’t even that religious.
A Turning Point
I just needed something to make me feel better, so I went to the nearest church near my job. And it’s funny how, you know, sometimes you go to church and you say you know, people say they feel like the pastor is speaking directly to them. So that was my situation, my first time there. And it wasn’t just Sunday. No.
The way I hated my job, I had to go on Wednesdays too, so it was midweek. So I go, and the pastor’s talking about happiness, and he’s talking about imagination versus reality. And in that moment, it hit me. And I don’t know about you guys that there’s always signs in our life. Right?
And we ignore them, we get another sign, and we ignore, we get another sign. And sometimes that comes in the form of heartbreak, sometimes that comes in the form of, you know, befriending someone that we shouldn’t friend. Sometimes that comes in the form of making a bad business choice. But when you ignore it, things continue to happen and tell you to stop. So the pastor said, “When your imagination does not match your reality, you often find yourself depressed because you feel like you are missing out on the life that you were meant to live,” and that resonated with me so hard.
It just totally put everything in full circle. That’s why I wasn’t happy. Because when you work in corporate and they give you these positions, you think, oh, I can do all these big things. Right? And then you have people over you who put you here.
But natural-born entrepreneurs, we dream big. We want to do the impossible. We don’t want to do what’s here. We want to do the big things. Right?
So they gave you this position. They make you feel like you have all this power and control. They give you a little raise, and you think you’re going to do amazing things with that company just to know, stay here, and that’s why I hated it. So that was my sign, and I did eventually leave that job, but what did I do? I just looked for another job.
Right? I ignored the sign, and I’ve always had a job from the moment even in college, I interned so much people used to joke and say I minored in internships. I was always working and always doing something, but this time I couldn’t find a job. I was applying differently. I was looking for a job specifically that would make me happy, not just any job.
And for the first time ever, I wasn’t getting any callbacks. I wasn’t getting any of my emails returned. I had nothing. So I took my time and invested in something I like to do, and it was journalism. I became a celebrity reporter.
I interviewed any of the biggest celebrities you can think of. I interviewed them. Any of the biggest red carpets, I was there. I was on it. I was working.
But the only problem with that is the income. Right? The corporate income versus this income was completely, drastically different. So now I’m making, like, you know, maybe $50 here or there, maybe $150 if I’m lucky. If I’m editing, hosting, and writing an article, I might get $150.
And mind you, I’m living in LA, and I’m not from LA. So I eventually end up homeless, and I thought it was going to be short term. It ended up being 16 months I was homeless. So I went from couch to couch. I went from floor to floor. I exhausted every option.
I had friends, but in LA, people tend to have, like, 3 or 4 roommates because it’s so expensive. So I could only stay there for so long because they do have roommates. Right? So then I went to hostels. I would stay in a hostel with 16 plus people, men and women, and I would just condense all my stuff.
I showed up with a lot of suitcases and had to condense my stuff down to one backpack. By the time I was, like, 14 months into my homelessness. Right? So all I had is my laptop and a couple of shirts and a pair of pants. So then one night, I had nowhere to go, and I had no money for a hostel.
The Birth of an Entrepreneur
So I walked into a hotel bathroom lobby, and I’m scared. I’m like, I hope the people at the front desk did not see me walk into here and not walk out. I go into the stall. I open my busted laptop I had since freshman year of college, and I connect to the hotel lobby Wi-Fi. And I go into survival instincts, because that’s what entrepreneurs have.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t dwell on it. I was like, what can I do? And that’s what entrepreneurs have. I didn’t cry, I didn’t dwell on it.
I was like, what can I do to make some money that I deserve, get the credit I deserve, and live the way I want to live in LA? And that’s when I founded my publicity company. Survival instincts, that’s what entrepreneurs have. So then I did all that. I came up with a great plan, and then I was like, you know what?
I can do this. I’ve worked so hard for other people’s companies. I’ve worked 80 plus hours a week for other people’s companies and slept under my desk because by the time I get home, I have to go right back to work. I flew out to LA to work for a company 60 days straight before I got one day off, because they needed me to launch. I didn’t even have anywhere to stay.
They put me in a hotel for 2 weeks, and I was rushed. I figured it out on my own. So if I can do that for somebody else, I could do that for myself. That’s what I told myself. But then I started doing what a lot of entrepreneurs do, and a lot of people, a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs do.
I started thinking, you know, what if this doesn’t work out? I asked myself the same question that the 12-year-old boy asked me, what if it doesn’t work out, and what if I was not meant to be an entrepreneur? I had to let that go, because fear is the number one reason people do not do what they were meant to be. So I let it go, and I say, you know what? If I fail, I really have no other option right now.
Right? I’m literally at the bottom. I literally hit rock bottom and below that, like, I have no other option, so I’m going to try it. And it ended up working out beautifully. So the number one way to know if you’re meant to be an entrepreneur is simply to try.
