Retail Rookie is now OPEN for Growth ✨
I pressed “publish” on my first Substack over a year ago.
Here’s the intro:
If we’re playing the game of life, we’ll probably feel like a rookie at any given moment.
When it came to living my Shopkeeper Dream, it was a game with wins, misses, and many lessons.
I owned and operated my dream store for five years. Through my experiences and observations, I’ve become acutely aware of the Rookie wins and misses in other entrepreneurs, specifically in other independent Shopkeepers.
My goal with this newsletter is to celebrate the wins and misses of the independent retail journey.
Why? Because wins and misses teach us what alignment feels like, what needs attention, and how to course-correct. That is, if we’re paying attention to our lives and the games we get thrown into — or put ourselves in.
I like to think that I’ve been paying attention since writing that over one year ago, noticing what feels aligned and what doesn’t, and course-correcting often.
I pay attention because I’m unabashedly OPEN to personal and professional growth. I pay attention because I spent too long not paying attention. I pay attention because I’m obsessed with conversations about entrepreneurship as personal development.
When we open for business, we open up to immense personal growth.
We’re constantly growing and evolving as we open ourselves up to new ways of thinking, doing, and being within our businesses and lives.
Because of that, it was time to shift gears and bring OPEN for Growth to Substack.
Like Retail Rookie, OPEN for Growth was a book title contender. However, it was a title or statement I felt I needed to explore more on my own and through working with others before making it official. I made it official on Instagram last year (@openforgrowth), testing the waters for what I’d like to share and how. I enjoy that platform well enough, and have yet to utilize it fully, but I relish the pace and space of Substack.
With everything I wrote under Retail Rookie, I tried to tie it back to the heart behind the business: the Shopkeeper, the business owner, the operator. My goal was and still is to bring the emotional, philosophical, and energetic parts of ourselves to our work and how we experience our every day … because entrepreneurial life is so much more than pragmatic checklists and external milestones.
Being OPEN for Growth is less about how to build and more about how to be—in business and life.
We do this through curiosity and openness — playing on both sides of the same coin. We could even say that it’s the same coin used in the coin toss at the start of every “rookie” game we play.
Here’s to playing the game of life and staying OPEN to the possibilities.
-AMM
I had so much fun joining Johan from Your Number Man as a guest on his podcast. We met through the Polaris Business Development Centre here in South Australia, where I’m a mentor and Retail Specialist. Press play to hear our chat on all things retail, customer service, and entrepreneurship as personal development!
If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy my book:
OPEN: Big Lessons in Small Retail and Living the Shopkeeper Dream
"OPEN is an invitation to take personal inventory and design (or re-design) your personal power beyond the storefront of your professional pursuits. As tactical as it is transparent, this is a must read for any Service Provider, Shopkeeper or Serial Entrepreneur looking to become their best self in life and biz."
— Kj Christensen, Speaker / Author / Strategist