My first stab at the entrepreneurial mindset came in Los Angeles, when the little ad agency I was working for went belly-up.

At the time, my nights and weekends were consumed with trying to break into the movie business as a screenwriter.

Suddenly I was broke and on the street. I thought, “Much as I’m terrified of it, I have to start my own business.”

I’ll be a freelancer. I’ll write ads for hire.

I remember vividly sitting down with a friend who was a bookkeeper, as she instructed me in how to set up a DBA—“Doing Business As”—and how to keep my accounting books. She taught me the old-fashioned way, with a pencil and a columnar pad. I still do it that way.

I named my new business ADS2GO. I designed stationery and even had a logo—a California license plate with ADS2GO on it.

All my life, I had worked for other people. I always had a boss. I was always an employee.

It was terrifying to get out and hustle. I hated it. I hate it to this day. But I had a movie-writing dream. I had to support it somehow.

I was in my late forties when I started, with massive trepidation, that little one-man business. I still face all such enterprises with the same trepidation (read: RESISTANCE). But that modest success got me out of the “employee” mindset. It laid the foundation for becoming—and thinking and acting like—an artist and an entrepreneur.