Writing a Check or Elbow Grease

What does transforming a trade show booth and exercise have in common? For one thing, to see results, both require a lot of time. Secondly, once the time has been invested, seeing the transformation is rewarding.

The past 3 days I've working on transforming a pre-owned trade show booth. I bought it used off of a community posting. The gal seemed to be really nice and I did not bother to look at the condition until I got it home. Once I opened the cases, I found dry-rot fabric panels, magnetic strips in a bundle, and an odor of vinegar. Well, the former owner came through and refunded a great portion of my money. I needed a booth and they needed to get rid of one!

After calling around for prices to replace the panels - I decided that for those prices I could buy an entire new booth (including frame) - so, that was not an option. Then I looked into buying the hook-loop compatible fabric; the wholesale folks wanted to sell a bolt of 40 yards and the retail people wanted up to $20.00 per yard (with a min. order of $250.00) - again, my thoughts were "a bit more $$$ and I could buy a new booth."

Then I thought, "Chocolate Chip Cookie!" This situation was just like chocolate chip cookies - many ways to make and I'd find the right booth solution for me! I took my son and packed up and headed to the nearest home improvement store. Heck, these people are known to help the do-it-yourself person! And that's me!

I got a lot of ideas, including John suggesting going to the competition for my panel fabric (since their store only carried it online). Now that's customer service! I bought all my other materials with John and skipped out of the store with my son, and my bag of goodies.

Well, I've worked on stripping the fabric off the panels in my garage. It reminded me of removing wallpaper, but the adhesive needed to be scraped off too by hand. Nothing ever just smoothly came off - so, I scraped, and scraped - all while squatting. The next morning my legs were very stiff - I felt like I had the best workout ever and started paying attention to the motions to scrape the adhesive off (yeah, I plan on sharing this with my trainer to max-out my exercise routine).

Same gig on Saturday with the addition of washing off the orange-oil-based adhesive remover - again, doing all of this while squatting...taking photos to document the transformation. In the meantime, my kids played outside and asked me questions about what I was doing, why was I doing this, was I almost done...and even encouraged me with, "Mom, you're doing a great job!"

Sunday came around and I started at 10 a.m. and stopped at 5 p.m.; just in time for a doctoral team conference call. But Sunday's tasks included cutting fabric, taping, and adhering the new fabric to the panels...all the while I was 'dinner' to Minnesota's state 'bird'...the mosquito! My day ended with the 3 front panels competed - just the 6 side panels to go...all in a days work.

Thinking back on the transformation of the booth and exercising; I had a recall moment of a lesson from my dad. He used to tell me that there are people who "write checks" for everything and those who use a little "elbow grease." As I stepped back to look at my accomplishment, I felt like that little girl listening to my dad's advice who put in her own elbow grease and transformed a trade show booth.

Yeah, I could have written out a check and bought a new booth; but doing it myself I gained so much more; I recycled something and saved it from the landfill, I found new exercise moves to add to my routine, and I passed on a life lesson from my dad to my kids...now that's simply cool!

Tack! Grazie! Dakoyu! Ευχαριστώ! Gracias! Dziękuję! Merci!

There are many languages to say “thank you.” No matter how you say "thank you" this inventor/entreprenuer says, "thank you" with deepest gratitude to all my family, friends, colleagues, and friends/family of friends/family for all your votes, support, and messages of encouragement over the past few months with Start-Up Nation SUN) Leading Moms in Business Competiton!


At end of each day, I recorded the tally of votes; I recorded 3 different record-breaking voting days – with the final record-breaking day on August 31st with a daily tally of 75 votes! This in itself is amazing.

As a leader, and person exploring the differences between leader and leadership, I often wonder how I will act as a leader during certain times and what will the results be of my leadership? I find that this situation is a clear example of when I, as a leader, is humbled by the goodness and kind acts of others. It is a clear representation of how it takes a village to accomplish great things. It is also an example of the power and influence of 1 turned many…as well as an example of the 1970’s Fabrege commercial (yeah, I’m dating myself and for those in a younger generation, the commercial’s on YouTube).

Over the next several weeks, the folks at SUN are identifying the Top 200 Companies –as well as special recognition companies. Like the movie Rocky tag-line: “his whole life was a million-to-one shot,” being an inventor/entreprenuer is the same – a million-to-one shot – however, like Rocky, he had a great team to help fulfill his American Dream – and I have mine; thank you, for being part of that team.

With much gratitude,

Debra