Mena Trott finds lessons in all of life’s moments (Video)

Mena Trott has always been a goal-oriented individual. In college, she set her sights on getting straight ‘A’s at least one quarter. She did exactly that in her senior year, while juggling a course load of 25 credits, no less. Over the last decade, the founder of The Sew Weekly and co-founder of Six Apart…

Video by Three Pillars Media of Lincoln. Post-production by Evolve of Des Moines.

Mena Trott has always been a goal-oriented individual. In college, she set her sights on getting straight ‘A’s at least one quarter. She did exactly that in her senior year, while juggling a course load of 25 credits, no less.

Over the last decade, the founder of The Sew Weekly and co-founder of Six Apart zeroed in on a variety of other ambitious objectives: win the weblog of the year award at South By Southwest, make the cover of a magazine by age 30 and sew all her own clothes. Check, check and check.

But for all her focus on goals, Trott isn’t one to linger on unfulfilled objectives. “You can’t regret something that, at the time, you didn’t know was the wrong choice,” Trott said during her talk May 11 at Big Omaha.

During that talk, which was brimming with emotion and honesty — Trott reflected publicly for the first time on the recent end of her marriage — she shared observations on her highs and lows, on the goals met and those unfulfilled. And if there’s one thing Trott’s learned in her journey through entrepreneurship and life, it’s that every step of that journey can help us learn.

“Everything we do can teach us something,” she said. “Every mistake we make, every success we have, every choice and we why choose it will tell us who we are, what we want and where we want to go.”

Trott shares more of who she is and where she’s been in the video above, the eighth in the Big Omaha 2012 Video Series presented by Microsoft BizSpark.

Read our recap: Mena Trott: ‘Every lesson we have will tell us who we are’

About Mena Trott

Trott co-founded Six Apart (now SAY Media) with her husband in 2001 and helped bring blogging to the masses with Movable TypePad, TypePad and LiveJournal. She has been blogging in various forms ever since and is currently a member of the Say Media Board of Directors. In 2010, she began sewing her own clothes and started the blog, The Sew Weekly, to document her progress and has grown from a personal blog to a sewing community.

Find Trott on Twitter: @dollarshort.

 

About Big Omaha & Thinc Iowa, SPN Premier Events

Silicon Prairie News hosts two premier annual events, Big Omaha in May and Thinc Iowa in October. Both events bring together entrepreneurs, innovators, creative individuals, investors and others for a lineup of inspiring speakers, a schedule of unique networking opportunities and a community of support.

To sign-up for alerts regarding Thinc Iowa, which will take place Oct. 10-11 in Des Moines, visit thinciowa.com

 

 

Credits: Photo of Trott by Malone & Company/Big OmahaHeadshot of Trott from twitter.com.


About our sponsor, Microsoft BizSpark

Microsoft BizSpark is a global program that helps software startups succeed by giving them access to Microsoft software development tools, connecting them with key industry players, including investors, and providing marketing visibility to help entrepreneurs starting a business. BizSpark will fast-track the success of your startup with software, support an visibility.

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

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