Entrepreneurship in the hospital

I have been able to call myself an entrepreneur since 1997. At least on paper, because I am registered with the Chamber of Commerce and I have a VAT number. Furthermore, it should not have a name because unfortunately I still depend on a benefit.

However, entrepreneurship has always fascinated me. As crazy as it sounds, I think the basis for the fact that I am an entrepreneur is laid in the hospital. I say that with a quip because in fact it was a situation that arose from which I could deduce that I was handy in using my USP (unique selling point). I realized at an early age that I could use my physical disability conveniently – or actually abuse it a bit – because a young child with a physical disability has a large cuddly factor. That is, if it is also a sweet and nice child, and of course I was 🙂

Cassette recorder

As a child I loved music, which I mainly listened to in the living room, or in the kitchen when my brother took his cassette recorder from his bedroom and brought it to the kitchen so that I could also enjoy the music.

As nice as it was, in the end I dreamed of being able to record music from the radio myself so that I could listen to it again at any time. My biggest wish was therefore a radio cassette recorder. This was a device that we hardly remember today; a radio and a cassette player in one device. You could record music from the radio without having to connect all kinds of cables. At that time I was not yet as handy with buttons and technology in general as i am today. But the device I had selected had a price tag of 180 guilders. At the time – in the mid-1970s – that was a lot of money, especially if you had to pay for it with your teenager pocket money.

A hospital admission that same year brought part of the solution. As I mentioned in a previous post, I went to explore the ward after surgery and started conversations with fellow patients. That was a nice pastime and fun too. But also handy, because I often brought the conversation to my big hobby: listening to music. In addition, I did not forget to say that until now I mainly listened to the music that was played in the living room, because I did not yet have equipment to make my own music sound in my bedroom, but I was saving money for it.

When weeks later the day came that I was allowed to leave the hospital, I went to all the rooms to say goodbye to all the people I had chatted with so pleasantly in recent weeks. What I didn’t expect but secretly hoped for a bit happened: I got some money from everyone. They hadn’t forgotten my enthusiastic chatter about music and the associated wish!

Storytelling

Without even realizing it, I was already working on storytelling, a principle that is widely used in the corporate world today. So you see, it is not always necessary to have theoretical knowledge. Sometimes you do something right without realizing what you’re actually doing. Although, in this situation I was of course not doing very well 🙂 I wouldn’t have gotten away with it nowadays I think.
Incidentally, I was able to buy the radio cassette recorder. The ‘loot’ from the hospital was not enough, but my parents paid the remaining amount that I needed for me.

The first song

The first song I recorded on a cassette was Rhinestone Cowboy by Glen Campbell. Unfortunately for my housemates, this was also the only song on that cassette for a few weeks, so everyone went crazy. At that time I was quite picky in terms of music, so it took a while before I could choose from a more extensive collection.

Nowadays my music taste is much wider. I like almost everything, except the Dutch songs that most elderly people like, rap and hip hop. Furthermore, I can enjoy classic, nice and quiet ballads, but also hard-hitting symphonic metal can be found in my CD collection.