In a nutshell: stop procrastinating by taking classes, listening to podcasts, reading books, perusing blogs, and any other manner of “absorbing inspiration.”
I’m as guilty as it of anyone, so I feel justified in telling you to knock it the hell off. There’s certainly a time for filling your well, but if that’s all you’re doing, stop seeking outside yourself and instead free your artist within.
In other words, make shit. Ready, set, CREATE.
Read more in my latest for CAKE&WHISKEY.
That’s right – you can lean back instead of leaning in, work ON your business instead of IN it, and choose not to grow.
And still be wildly successful.
It worked for me and it’s right for me. Is it the right strategy for you and your business?
Read more in my latest for CAKE&WHISKEY.
Are you busy? Are you CRAZY busy? Why is this the most common answer to the question, “How are you?”
Personally, it drives me batshit – and it doesn’t have to be the tired refrain of our times. Rushing around and being scheduled to the hilt aren’t the same as getting shit done.
Read more in my latest post for CAKE&WHISKEY.
People, I was a confirmed night owl for eons. Then I woke up (quite literally) and reclaimed the morning hours to attend to my well-being. It’s been a huge boost to my creativity and productivity – and yes, it shocked the hell outta me.
Read more in my latest post for CAKE&WHISKEY.
There’s this misconstrued belief that “doing your own thang” (i.e., being a business owner) means you have gobs of time to pursue your passion. But what non-entrepreneurs don’t understand (and frankly, what I didn’t understand when I set off on this solopreneurial path) is that owning a business is all-consuming. There’s, of course, the work itself – what you’re making, creating, building, selling. But if you’re not doing the work, you’re chasing it. And if you’re not chasing it, you’re working behind the scenes – the bookkeeping, hiring, firing, tax filing, contracting, invoicing, collecting, benefits administering. And when all of that’s said and done, your brain is constantly thinking about what’s next – which clients do I want? What should I create? Where’s the next paycheck coming from?
But the beauty of Your Own Thang is that you definitely have more flexibility than the nine-to-fivers when it comes to scheduling your time. So you can choose to build in time for passion projects. You might have to also choose to make less money (I did). Or give up part of your evenings or weekends (I didn’t). But you get to choose. And having options means you have control – over your time, your life, your work. YOU DO. So take the reins and make it rain.
Read more in my latest post for CAKE&WHISKEY.
Quick: Name someone you know who has a perfect life.
Go ahead – start ticking off everything about them and their life that’s perfect. They have the perfect house (3 beds, 2 ½ baths in urban suburbia), the perfect job (work they enjoy + $$$$), the perfect family (2 kids – boy and girl), the perfect car (hybrid SUV, right?), the perfect vacation spots year after year (Hawaii, France, Iceland). They picnic in the park every Sunday, send their kids to private school, volunteer for a worthy cause, donate to the arts, bring their own reusable grocery bags to Whole Foods, and own a rescue dog that never sheds.
Oh wait, sorry – that’s not the person who has the perfect life. The person with the perfect life is single, has no kids, their own business, a flexible schedule, gobs of money, a great home to call their own, and jetsets all over the globe – often solo, mostly at the drop of a hat. Oh – and they’re fit and attractive and ever-stylish.
Oh wait, THAT’S not the person with the perfect life either.
See, this is what’s wrong with The Perfect Game. It’s that perfect is a) indefinable and b) therefore doesn’t exist, except in your own mind, a figment of your own imagination, meaning it’s completely possible – and necessary – to change your mind about the concept of perfect before you drive yourself mad.
Perfect is the result of one of two things – sometimes both: 1) comparing yourself to others because you’re blind to their humanity and believe that if you could just be like them, everything would be right in the world, or 2) imagining an existence with no struggles, no worries, no fights, no arguments, no money troubles, no sick children or sick parents or lost jobs. It’s actually believing that if you get something, get somewhere, have something or someone, you’ll arrive. You’ll have it all, and everything from that point on will be a cake walk or gravy or the icing on the cake, some food euphemism for having everything you need – and then some.
You’re probably familiar with this awesome quote from Theodore Roosevelt: “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Some may interpret this as a recipe for misery because it means turning a blind eye to your own blessings. They’d say we need to want what we have, rather than have what we want – or love who we’re with, not who we think we WANT to be with. But the real danger in comparing yourself to someone else – and then striving to mimic their every move in attempt to ensure the same outcome for yourself – is that you don’t know the whole story. People do an incredibly good job of putting up fronts (we can thank social media for that). And unless we’ve known someone for a very long time on a very deep level, we only know our perception of the story – which is often not the reality.
We also fall privy to the belief that because someone has what we want, they’re as happy as we imagine them to be. Or that we imagine WE would be, were we in their oh-so-fortunate shoes. And THIS is where we really get into trouble, especially if we decide we’ll associate with that person – make them our friend, colleague, partner – because somehow we’ll absorb their endless life satisfaction via osmosis. This is how people get put on pedestals and how relationships become lopsided, because one person is operating from a place of envy and admiration, as opposed to really SEEING someone, in all of their gristle and glory.
I’ve been in a friendship like this. I was spending time with a woman I felt could really be a true friend. We seemed to have much in common and were bonding and connecting over long, in-depth conversations – my utmost favorite thing in the world. But over time, I started feeling like more of a life coach than a friend. When I analyzed our time together, it became clear that much of our conversation was about me – me telling my life stories, me giving her advice, me standing on that damned pedestal and screaming from my megaphone. Me feeding her perception that if she could just be like me, her life would be perfect too. Don’t get me wrong – this type of relationship feels really, really good for a while because it’s an enormous ego boost. But at some point, you want a friend – someone who sees that, although you may have some stuff going for you, there are still things that aren’t right. Sometimes in big, glaring, four-color, glossy ways. You want someone with whom you feel safe when you’re in doubt, when your self-esteem is shaky, when you need to just fucking fall apart in a massive, heaving meltdown. When I had a self-confidence crisis of epic proportions in front of this new friend, she looked at me like I’d told her I’d just eaten a small child for lunch. I not only fell off the pedestal, I crumbled – exposing my doubt, my fear, my humanity – and shattering her perception of perfection. See? If she became like me…this kind of shit would still happen.
Then there was a conversation with another friend about an acquaintance who’s a successful singer/songwriter. My friend went into immediate Compare & Despair mode, lamenting about how he’d carved this great career for himself as an independent recording artist, doing exactly what he loved, making the music he likes, playing for audiences all over the world. I initially started to go down the rabbit hole with her, then pulled us both back to ground by reminding her that – in his eyes – he probably doesn’t have it all. Perhaps he’s not making the exact music he’d like to make. In any creative field, there are always sacrifices – from the studio, the publisher, whoever’s going to give the green light for production and distribution. I also know that his personal life suffers greatly, because it’s hard to hold a relationship together when you’re on the road 150 days a year. Having figured out that this is now something he wants, he’s trying to figure out how to continue doing what he loves in a way that allows a relationship to blossom. Not an easy task. No place for envy here.
And if not envy, then this perception of a perfect life is often pure imagination. I’m not one to shit all over setting intentions and creating a vision of how you’d like your life to unfold. I’m actually a huge proponent of both, having done them and garnered results. It’s the concept of “arriving” that makes me nuts. Instead, try thinking of life as a very long, winding road littered with mile markers that read differently for everyone, depending on where you want to go. But when people say, “It’s all about the journey,” it’s really not ABOUT the journey – it IS the journey. Because when the journey ends, you’re dead. That’s why it’s dangerous to think that once you arrive at a particular mile marker, you’ve indeed ARRIVED. Even if you think you have it all, you don’t. Something will either be given to you – or taken away – that will make you have to shift course, probably when you least expect it. So you actually didn’t arrive at your final destination. You arrived at the mile marker pointing to a fork in the road or an enormous flashing “Detour” sign. You may have a choice and you may not, but if you’re not dead, the journey ain’t over.
The problem with assuming that once we get this, have that, meet this person, do this thing, life will be perfect – is that you’ll probably get, have, meet, and do all this stuff and still not feel satisfied. Because, like I said up top, perfect is indefinable and non-existent. And also because when we assume perfect is even attainable, we forget about all that shit life throws our way that clouds our blessings, but also helps us evolve.
That’s why it’s not such a bad thing to be grateful for what you have and where you’re at. To stop setting goals for a while and love life for what it is, not what it could be. To embrace the Japanese concept known as “wabi-sabi” and find beauty in the imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It’s simple. It’s easier. It’s calming. And it’s as close to perfect as you can get.
One thing we learn as we grow and evolve is that life often doesn’t look like we thought it would. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong or off-course. Instead it’s a lesson for us to learn to accept what we’ve been given and find the beauty in it. It’s often better than we could ever have imagined – perhaps precisely because we could never have imagined it.
Read more in my latest post for CAKE&WHISKEY.
Oh man, I learned this lesson the hard way – by getting pretty sick and losing half my hair in late 2011. That was sexy. And well worth the sacrifice (P.S. Um, NO).
Trust me, it is NEVER NEVER NEVER acceptable to work yourself into the ground and neglect your well-being or your business vision. Especially for projects or clients that aren’t a good fit (or who don’t appreciate what you have to offer). No is acceptable. No is necessary. No is power.
Read more in my latest post for CAKE&WHISKEY.
When I realized my second entrepreneurial venture – coaching creative solopreneurs on the logistics of starting and running a business – was a mistake, I developed a major case of What Will People Think. I’d sunk thousands of dollars into a business vision, a beautiful brand, a perfectly executed website. Would the brilliant creative firm behind the brand and the talented web designer be disappointed in my failure, ripping me from their portfolios while clucking their tongues? I’d paid a pretty penny for a Photoshop course so I could create branded blog images. Would my classmates – who had put their skills to good use building their online presence – think I was a quitter? And what would my friends and followers think after I’d teased the business on social media, then launched the business on social media, then gone dark on social media because I hated the work?
I shared my fears with a good friend, who just cocked her head and said, “What about you? What do YOU think? That’s all that really matters.”
Sage advice (what good friends are for). Though the truth is there are three responses to all of those questions: 1) my worries were super high school because NO ONE will care, 2) what I think really is all that matters because *I* have to run the business, and 3) never launch a business doing work you hate (even if you’re good at it).
That last one is the first lesson of entrepreneurship and despite the fact that I’m a fairly seasoned entrepreneur, I totally spaced on it. Running a business may be exhilarating and rewarding, but it’s also exhausting, scary, and uncertain – if you don’t like making what you’re selling, you’re in deep shit.
That’s not to say I love every ounce of my nearly-decade-old communications firm. In a nutshell, I write employee and marketing communications for Fortune 500 companies. While I’ve been writing since childhood and always knew I’d write for a living, this work isn’t exactly my passion. But I enjoy it, I’m good at it, I believe in what I do, and my clients are happy (and I like them). That’s incredibly rewarding. The business also affords me the freedom and flexibility to work alone anytime, anywhere; these are core business values for me as they allow me to do my best work – and all of that makes the challenges of solopreneurship worthwhile.
So why did I go sideways with my sophomore start-up?
As for the sophomore slump, I’m over my case of What Will People Think. As a fellow solopreneur advised, “If you’re going to fail, fail fast.” So I did. I shuttered the doors after less than a year of operation. The beautiful business cards have been tucked away. The website is being retooled (yes, this one right here). My LinkedIn profile has been updated so it looks like this never happened. While most entrepreneurs will say their biggest mistakes were made during their salad days, mine occurred after I’d already seen success. Some people might think that’s a head-scratcher. Some might think my first business was a complete fluke, a stroke of luck. Some may think I’m flaky and self-unaware. I think I’m a solid businesswoman who simply got away from myself – my values, my expertise, my passion.
Yes, that’s what I think.
And that’s all that really matters.
I am not adventurous.
There, I said it.
I don’t climb mountains, run marathons, scuba dive, catch waves, take daylong hikes, or pump crazy iron. I will never travel to India or the deserts of Africa. I refuse to do a headstand in yoga class. I’m not adventurous in the physical, adrenaline rush sense – therefore, in the eyes of most beholders, I am not adventurous.
Much like extroverts have long been deemed “better” by societal norms, being athletic-outdoorsy-adventurous is also somehow superior to adventures of the mental, emotional, and spiritual variety. Granted, there are people that can swing both and I find that admirable. But I’m not one of those people and don’t want to be one of those people, so will probably never be one of those people. And I’m tired of apologizing for it.
Those apologies and I go way back. Like many “indoors people,” they started with P.E. class and attempts at playing organized sports. For me, adventure was on the page and on the stage – writing, reading, singing, dancing, violin, performing in school plays. That’s where I was most graceful and most myself. As soon as physical exertion and athletic equipment arrived on the scene, I turned into Gerald Ford. My elementary and middle school years were riddled with bringing up the rear, falling on my face, missing the ball, and being the last chosen for the team (with resignation at that). Those memories never really fade. To this day, every “Oh, come on, just try it!” when it comes to anything involving athletic prowess or outdoor adventure has the ability to move me to tears.
But I do try. Almost every time, I will try. And over the years, I’ve actually come to enjoy the outdoors – on the water in a boat, on a gentle trail in the woods, long walks just about anywhere. I’ve come to love nature and being immersed in it in my own slow, quiet way. And that’s enough for me. There are those who prod me with, “See, you got to this point! Keep going – pretty soon, you’ll be rappelling down a cliff!” But for now – and likely forever – this is enough. And I shouldn’t feel sheepish in saying, “Thank you. This is just fine for me.”
It should be okay – in fact, accepted and encouraged – for the societal perception of adventurous to expand and include taking risks with one’s life choices – career, relationships, personal growth. Where’s the gold medal for leaving a marriage that’s not working, moving alone to a new city where you don’t know a soul, quitting a lucrative job to start a business? Where’s the blue ribbon when you create a new life for yourself, shaped by what feels right to you instead of what others expect of you? Where’s the award for throwing away your inhibitions to spend two years performing improv in a black box theater in Times Square? Where’s the pennant for marrying the love of your life even though it scares the living shit out of you? Where’s the trophy when your business goes gangbusters and, as a single self-employed woman, you’re able to buy your own home – one that meets your every hope, wish, and desire?
Is all of that NOT adventure?
Why yes, in fact it is. Adventurous is “willing to take risks or try out new methods, ideas, or experiences” – that’s exactly how it’s defined. So you’re adventurous every time you cook something new, take a new job, pitch for a new client, move to a new place, let your beliefs evolve as you take in new information.
We all meander outside our comfort zone and elbow our boundaries in different ways. Going out on a limb doesn’t have to involve actually climbing a tree. And if someone suggests that it should, you have every right to say, “Thank you. This is just fine for me.”