“My advice to other girls is to work hard, try your best, and remember NO is just an abbreviation for Next Opportunity!”

These wise words come from the 11-year-old entrepreneur, Gabrielle Goodwin. She is the CEO of Confidence, a business that sells innovative hair clips and hair products specifically targeted toward young girls. Her business came to be through her personal experience of losing hair clips. Hair accessories can be notorious for falling out of hair and disappearing, the beginning of the never-ending cycle of buying ridiculous amounts of hair accessories. Gabby was determined to fix this problem. Gabby and her mother came up with a new design of hair clips that would never fall out. Gabby’s success in her business clearly shows how real of a problem this is for mothers and their daughters around the world.

In addition to running her business, Gabby is a sought-after keynote speaker. She shares her story with others, in hopes of inspiring them to persevere in pursuing their dreams and ambitions. This is what drives her to keep running her business and making it better. Her initial idea of hair clips has now expanded into other products including: a hair product line, a children’s book, and a makeup box. Expanding her business is evidence that Gabby is not stagnant in her efforts, but she wants to continue to make her business better through hard work and harnessing her passion.

Gabby’s story is unique in showing other young girls that they can strive for their dreams like she did and still is doing. Many times, children become intimidated by their imagination, but Gabby is a great example of how ambition and drive can get you far, no matter your age. Additionally, her idea is unique in how she approached the design. She wanted the hair clip to have a design on both sides, and she wanted the clip to be effective in how it held hair. In pondering these two problems, she invented Gabby Bows that precisely solved them. Through Gabby’s personal experience, there was no other design of bow on the market that solved these problems, so Gabby decided to take on the solution herself in motivation to help her own hair needs and others. All these factors are what makes Gabby’s idea great. Through the process of coming up with a hair clip solution then arriving at the final product, Gabby showed strong entrepreneurial traits that simply cannot be taught. Her eye for the problem that needed to be solved showed her maturity and ability to carry out the innovative solution.

From Gabby’s story, I have been inspired to keep an eye out for the problems that I experience in my everyday life and to not be discouraged when I hear a “no”. I love that Gabby put such a positive spin on the word “no”, that is largely looked at as a negative. She spreads the message that when one door closes another one opens so that no one ever gives up on their dreams.

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