What took so long?

A few years back I left a job in a company that I had come to regard as running a kind of legal shell game.  My former manager just looked at me and said he was surprised that it took me that long.  That’s kind of how I’m feeling now – what the heck has taken me so long to get to this point?  Yes, things take longer than I ever anticipate; I’m starting to see a pattern of what I think will happen in a week will actually happen in a month with diligence. That’s definitely a part of it.  But there’s also something to that nagging feeling of not being enough – not knowledgeable enough, not skilled enough, etc.

Now that entrepreneurship is suddenly fashionable again and in the news I’m starting to see that I’ve  unconsciously tried to play both sides of that fence and consequently ended up on top of it.  Nobody can really teach you how to be an explorer.  By it’s very nature, it’s heading into new territory. But those are the people that I’d really like to hang out with and I’ve come to the point where I would far rather fail from trying than waiting for something to happen.  So… rather than waiting I’m going to order the essential supplies I need to make my line of sea glass jewelry.  I emphasize essential because as soon as I sit down with the supply catalog I find things that would be extremely useful but when I really evaluate are not critical right this minute.  I don’t know why I think I can’t place a second order if it turns out I can’t get along with out it.

While I thought I’d be ready to start advertising my bread baking enterprise this week, I’m not – but I am ready to start next week.  My business cards came in and I’ve got the paper to print fliers. I’ve run a test run of multiple batches of dough so I feel more confident and I’ve started calling to find out when real-estate agents will be in the office.  Nothing more to do except do it!

Now I have to head off into the unknown territory of setting up online purchasing for jewelry and photography. I’ve put it off because I don’t know where to start.  Anywhere will do – time to learn and explore and ask questions.

Technorati Tags: career changes, entrepreneurship, Health and Happiness, self confidence, solopreneur, taking risks, the way to happiness

Gradually gaining momentum

It’s amazing what a day off doing something totally joyful can do for you – even when you’re self-employed. Last weekend I did indeed go beach glass hunting on a distant but famous beach that I hadn’t been to before and as you might expect there were setbacks – like having to wait two and a half hours for a ferry for some unknown tidal reason. The delay meant I missed low tide and had to turn back before reaching the ‘good’ beach but I was plenty happy with what I’d found and more than tired from the approximately 1000 toe touches I’d done to get them. Now that I know what the tides and the walk is like I’ll be going back as soon as I can coordinate the tides, ferries and daylight to my advantage.  And even though I ached, got some bad sunburned spots (yes, I should know better)  and had to wait for ferries I had a blast. Somehow that translated to getting even more done during the following week than I might have expected:

• I’ve gotten two class proposals written for continuing ed at the nearby community college and will get those sent out today.
• I’ve got the bread-baking business ready to launch as soon as the business cards show up – so that means ordering business cards, creating a website (http://bread.julietchase.com) ordering food-grade sacks for marketing and writing fliers.  I still have a few forms to design like invoices but I’m ready to start.  So yes, it’s possible to start a business for less than $75 (I already have a business license so that’s not an added expense- but even if I didn’t it would still be less than $200)
• I’ve also updated my photography site so that it’s ready for me to launch selling products. Mostly that meant going in and changing menu items but like anything else you don’t do for a long period of time, half the struggle is remembering how to do it.

Those are the highlights of my status report for the week!  I’m excited because most of these things won’t be coming back on the list; sure, there will be other work to do and  it will mean that I’m succeeding when there is.

Technorati Tags: adventure, crafting a creative life, Health and Happiness, solopreneur, the way to happiness

When not having enough time is actually fun

There’s a huge difference between trying to live life around the edges of an unsatisfying job and trying to live it while creating four different careers simultaneously without spending any money. There are still only 24 hours in the day and there are still things on my to-do list from a month ago that haven’t happened yet.  But I’m happy.  I still have pressure, I still have money worries, and things still fail and I still make mistakes.  The difference is that everything I do now is designed to contribute to a unified goal; something that is supposed to happen in corporate America but I was never privileged to witness.

My brilliant idea has been downgraded to a really good idea, due to my inability to be in six places at once. However, I believe I’ll be ready to start marketing it directly next week.  The big reveal:  I’m going to offer the service of baking bread directly in the kitchen of houses on the market that have been there a little too long. Primarily open houses in empty houses that have begun to project the aura of being vacant.  Nothing beats the smell of fresh baking yeast bread.I won’t be  out any serious money if it doesn’t work or is slow to catch on.  The side benefits are that if it does work, houses should start selling better in my neighborhood and I’ll have lots of bread to donate to nearby shelters – everybody wins!  The joy of this isn’t that I’m going to make a fortune, I already know I won’t, but that I can try it, learn interesting things along the way, and meet interesting people.  What fun!

My article composition for blogging is improving (gradually) and I’m starting to find the information sources that are the most helpful to me so I’m not scanning quite so much raw material.  I’ve yet to update my photography site, but I’m hoping to dive in there today so that I can start prepping it for offering things for sale. And because sometimes you just have to make time – tomorrow I’m going to take off and go beach glass hunting for the entire day.  I’m justifying this as ‘work’ because once I’ve got a few thousand dollars extra lying around I’m going to set up my jewelry studio and start selling sea glass jewelry (on top of everything else.)

Technorati Tags: Health and Happiness, life design, multiple profit centers, self-fulfillment, solopreneur, the way to happiness

Being myself

Last Friday was a very interesting day – so much so that most of the following week pales in comparison.  I got up very early so that I could catch the good photographic light in the tulip fields (and avoid the crowds.) I made a quick web check as I was rushing around to make sure things were in good working order before I left for the day and practically swallowed my tongue in surprise.

When I really let my sense of humor out with no reservations, odd things happen so I tend to corral it more than I should.  When I wrote an online personal ad in this voice I had over 200 responses in 24 hours which was nice but overwhelming.  The last time I let it out at work, senior Vice Presidents at a national bank were texting me from a meeting after seeing my email on their blackberries.  So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised on Friday, but the urge had overtaken me earlier in the week anyway and I enjoyed writing something that I figured only a few people would see.  The first comment to that blog ever was posted within an hour of that article going live and from the human subject of the post – you can see it here (scroll down to the first comment and you’ll begin to understand my reaction.)

The sheer odds of that happening for a blog that reached it’s peak so far of 20 visitors later that day had me grinning for the rest of Friday.  And that exuberance of ‘anything can happen’ led me to take some artistic risks with the camera that resulted in some really great pictures. I do feel inspired when improbable things happen, because maybe more are on their way!  Would I have written it differently if I’d thought the subject would read it? Probably, but now that he has, I don’t feel compelled to change a word.  I’m resolving to let that side of me out a little more often – nothing wrong with being caught by a wave of surprise.

Another thing I tend to hold back on is talking about my cat. I’m not fond of the stereotype of single women with their cats so I tend to avoid giving that impression. But… Monday was Isabeau’s 18th birthday- that’s actual years so something like 126 in cat/dog years. I’ve had her since she was six weeks old so it did make me pause and reflect on what she’s seen me through (2 graduate degrees, 4 states, 3 cars, 8 residences, …) When people say that nobody succeeds on their own I think most people are talking about other people which is true enough, but the support of pets shouldn’t be discounted either. Her confidence is me means I can never really lose mine.

Technorati Tags: letting yourself go, removing limits, taking risks

Keeping the plates spinning

I am finding myself much more productive this week, now that I’ve got priorities assigned. And my vegetable garden is even cleared and ready for planting this weekend.

I had a momentary struggle with my great idea, one where I wondered if it was really worth pursuing now that the excitement of hatching it had faded.  I decided it was and have questions out to both an insurance agent and the State to see whether I need to charge sales tax or not. Next week I’ll be working up marketing materials – at least as far as I can until I get answers back.

Today I’m heading out to take pictures in the tulip fields and nearby islands. It’s hard to force a break in routine when there are other things to be done but this also is a priority, not to mention fun. Every year that I go I take completely different pictures so I’m curious to see what this year produces.

I’ve been getting great inspiration for my top projects everywhere I look. An ebook on blogging led to a site on marketing art online, a quick online contest led to a self-publisher I hadn’t heard of before that might be the missing link in my writing projects, and in an article on finding photos for blogging, I figured out that Flickr’s creative commons would actually be a great way to allow others to use my older work; photography from an older digital camera that is now really only suitable for web use but they’re still great shots. So I’m gradually working on adding those as I get a chance.

That’s a lot to keep track of and yet I’m feeling incredibly excited about it all. This is fun:-)

Technorati Tags: inspiration

Setting priorities

This week I sat down and figured out where I needed to be spending the bulk of my time.  The list is still impractically long, at least to be working on simultaneously. It does show me what I need to stop doing, or relegate to spare time so I’ll be working on that.  Blogging and photography remain high on the list.

I’ve been putting a lot of time in figuring out how to best attract and keep the right audience. One step in that direction was to decide to phase out the Google ads; not that they’re bad but I don’t pick them and I can do better with a little time and attention – the same way I handpicked the items in the Amazon book widget.  I think in the long term it will give me and readers better service, but I admit I’ll be missing checking those analytics!

I’ve also decided to bite the bullet and get e-commerce going on my photography site. It’s something people have asked for but I’ve always been leery of dealing with the ordering and payment aspects; an easy thing to push to another day, but I think that day has finally arrived.  I haven’t modified a pixel yet but my plan is to get that in place within the next 60 days.  Feel free to hold me accountable to that, it might help;-)

Also in top place is my brilliant idea from Wednesday, which I’ll wait to discuss until I have it in place – more because it’s likely to morph a bit than for secrecy.  Lower on the list but not requiring much effort right now is submitting two class proposals for continuing education at the local community college.  I’ve got the form downloaded so all I need to do is fill it in twice and get them submitted before June.  I’ve learned my lesson from the last time I did this, when I spent hours crafting the course materials only to have it cancelled at the last minute for not meeting the minimum number of students.

I’m already feeling guilty for not having the vegetable garden in yet and various other chores have slipped while I worked on this but I think the fog is thinning a bit and I’m looking forward to moving forward.

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, inspiration, setting priorities, time management

Gaining clarity

In theory this last week had more setbacks than forward progress and yet I feel much better about life than I did at the beginning. Maybe that’s the sign of an eternal optimist, figuring that the good things are now that much closer.

The short romance story I mentioned a few weeks ago was returned to me with the news that it wasn’t a good fit but that I have a commendable writing style (hmmm, what did they mean by that exactly?)  So no sale there and I’m not sure what to do with it since I’m not aware of any other markets for anything that short.  I may just post it on a writing site for the web to find as it wills. If I do that, I’ll post a link here.  Might as well let it all hang out there;-)

I had two go-arounds with enthusiastic recruiters for contract jobs that had me keeping my cell phone closer than I really like.  Both of which disappeared into thin air after a few days – but leaving me feeling more relieved than anything. One had a very long commute and the other would have involved a drastic pay cut. More than likely a savvy manager somewhere along the way noted that, but I can’t help feeling like a guardian angel or two or three intervened to save me from myself.

My mother added a new injury to a pre-existing one and while she will eventually get back to normal, it’s not happening fast enough to suit her.  And since all her frustration and impatience sounds a lot like what I’ve been saying to myself about other things, I’m trying to take a lesson from it while I search for interesting news to help her with the boredom factor.

And to top it all off I’ve committed to spring cleaning my house over the course of the next month; mattresses off the beds etc.  I hate it. But I do like the results.  Since I can’t do that level of effort flat out everywhere, I’ve divided the house into sections and will tackle one per week.

Each thing that looks like a setback, a failure, or a no is helping me to decide whether it’s something I really want to pursue or tackle in a different way.

Technorati Tags: dealing with rejection, setbacks, spring cleaning

Subtle synchronicity

I suspect that the last day of March is going to turn out to be a pivotal one for me.  In trying to follow my own advice on problem solving, I was researching in the ‘people also bought this’ section of Amazon for potential expertise. I saved off a couple of interesting books, one of them being Barbara Sher’s Refuse to Choose, but I was a little too impatient to wait on shipping.  So while I was out running errands I stopped in at the local used bookstore just to check.  They had it in stock.  Another book practically leaped off the shelf at me, This Time I Dance!, by Tama Kieves, a recounting of how she stopped being a lawyer and started being a writer (and she’s upfront with the bumps in between.) Getting them home, I poured a glass of wine and read, and read, and read.

I found myself described in both books, pretty much on the first page. One described my personality and the other my journey.  Wednesday and Thursday, I finished my first go through and then re-read certain chapters of each all the while wandering around the house feeling like someone had pulled about the half the stuffing out of me.  I didn’t feel sick; just weak.  I’ve been introspective enough over the years to have spotted my pattern of indepth obsession with a topic or career only to find that I had absolutely no further interest in it about ten years later.  But I’d subconsciously classified it as a character flaw and a case of bad choices combined with poor analysis.  Seeing it all described in Refuse to Choose as normal, predictable, and something to be celebrated instead of fixed was a shock – so was letting go of that internalized profile. Seeing my very same dilemmas and self-doubts described in This Time I Dance! was comforting and encouraging, maybe I’m not doing it wrong after all… I’m very curious to see where that takes me next.

Technorati Tags: self-doubt, self-perception, synchronicity

Determination

If there was a theme for this week, determination was it. I woke up Monday morning determined, some might even say it edged over into stubborn. Determined to find some other way to get by than return to a cubicle, determined to keep pressing ahead with what my intuition says to do even if the numbers are not encouraging, and determined to let the fear go. That last one is an ongoing challenge – every time I think I’ve vanquished it, it crops up again.

All of this led to a weekly to-do list that was two notebook pages long instead of the usual one. No, it’s not all done yet but I think I’ll make 80% by tomorrow. I’ve tried things and found web pages I wouldn’t have explored otherwise and started the romance short story I was nervous about even trying; but there’s a magazine that pays well for that and so it’s worth a try. A part of me is afraid I might be good at it, which has more to do with other people’s opinions than my own. Even if the magazine doesn’t like it, it’s time to see if I can do it! Basically my determination has led me to be a lot more open to things that I was either hesitant about or doubted my ability. Many are likely not to pay off at all but I’m confident that the overall effort is my true path.

Technorati Tags: intuition, trying new things

Spring is here (maybe)

The head cold kept me down for most of this week, enough for me to start entertaining conspiracy theories regarding germ warfare.  In between bouts I managed to do final selection for three photographs for the upcoming hospital show (see below), UPS delivered the frames, I wrote the label copy, got Google advertising set up for this site, posted all three blogs to five or six blog directories (I’ve no idea if it really helps build traffic, but it can’t hurt), and cleaned up tags and cross-references on Nurdle Net.  Not bad for a week when I didn’t get anything done…

What my subconscious really means is that I didn’t bring in any money last week, even if those activities were all critical for that to happen at a future date.  So I felt frustrated at being sick, frustrated at not having things happen immediately.  Most definitely a week of the lizard fears.  I think it’s one of those lessons that will keep repeating for me until I let go of that fear and focus on the constructive tasks.  That’s the goal for this coming week.

Technorati Tags: fear of running out of money, getting things done, time management

« Previous Page — Next Page »