The power in realizing - without rushing to fix

Coming to you from inside the holidays...

Over the past few years, I played the same mental game with the holidays that I used to play with motherhood, and with adulthood in general. I.e.: I started out by trying to force myself to do the holidays “right.” But no matter what I do, they just don’t feel all that right.

Because of social media I've discovered I’m not alone in my discomfort.

My Instagram is full of men and women confessing they just don’t feel that merry, or they hate having to get dressed and put on makeup and go somewhere and tell their children to behave. Bless everyone who has shared their own holiday struggles.

Those Instagram posters aren’t trying to fix their discomfort, or themselves. They are just observing that the holidays - the way we celebrate them in our present societal moment - aren’t fun for them.

I’m not good at feeling uncomfortable and just stopping there.

When I don’t like something, most of the time I want to fix the thing so I can escape feeling uncomfortable.

For the last few years, that’s how I’ve approached each holiday. I figured the solution lay within my power. I’ve tried to host (more control over what and when we eat!) and not host (less mess to clean!) I’ve tried leaving town and also just staying home.

I’ve tried taking more time off and spending less money. I thought one of these things would “work” and I would start to enjoy myself. But I didn’t.

This year, I ran out of ideas for how to “fix” the holidays and escape my discomfort. So I’m living with it instead.

Like those wonderful Instagram posters I mentioned, I have found power in recognizing that I don’t like the holidays that much.

This year, I stop short of rushing to fix it. I stop at recognizing.

…

Earlier this year a friend told me that she liked the book All the Rage (the best book I read this year). But her issue with it was that the author, Darcy Lockman, didn’t offer solutions. She simply identified the roots of the rage that erupts inside many new mothers in the U.S.

But Lockman didn’t spend enough time telling us what to do about it.

I felt so incredibly validated by All the Rage, that I would have felt a little disappointed if Lockman had decided, after writing a book’s worth of facts that validate the rage that accompanies being a mother to young children, to “wrap up” with a summary of how to escape ALL. THE. RAGE.

We have the rage. It’s not just a here-and-there thing. It’s not something each of us brought on ourselves individually, and it’s not something we have to “fix” individually.

We can stop at recognizing. I believe we will find power in that space between recognizing and rushing to fix.

Remember when people used to smoke cigarettes?

I'm reading Motivational Interviewing. It’s a psychology textbook my husband kept telling me about.

I just started reading it yesterday and btw I have no training in psychology.

If you can accept those caveats, I will share some nuggets with you. Because this textbook is the juiciest, nuggetiest textbook I’ve ever read.

One of the things I love about this book is the method - ”motivational interviewing”- was borne of an exercise in asking a different question.

Everyone asks, “Why don’t people change even when they want to?”

A lot of people say they want to change. But they don’t do anything about it. They stay in the relationship. They keep drinking. They stay at the same dumb job. Whatever.

But instead of asking why people don’t change, these authors asked, “Why do people change?”

It turns out lots of people do change. They quit drinking. They quit the job. They stop dating people who are bad for them.

People do change.

But why? And I don’t mean “why” in some cosmic sense. I mean, what is the mechanism? What’s the finger that flips the switch?

Here’s what I got: People have to rerecognize the discrepancy between what is happening and what we want. And it has to bug us, a lot. “The larger the discrepancy the greater the importance of change.”

Pretty obvious.

But here’s an example I love from the book:

“[A man] dates his quitting smoking from a day on which he had gone to pick up his children at the city library. A thunderstorm greeted him as he arrived there; and at the same time a search of his pockets disclosed a familiar problem: he was out of cigarettes. Glancing back at the library, he caught a glimpse of his children stepping out in the rain, but he continued around the corner, certain that he could find a parking space, rush in, buy the cigarettes, and be back before the children got seriously wet. The view of himself as a father who would ‘actually leave the kids in the rain while he ran after cigarettes’ was humiliating, and he quit smoking.

It was the meaning of his smoking--the perception that it had become more important than his children--that suddenly became unacceptable to him.

When a behavior comes into conflict with a deeply held value, it is usually the behavior that changes.”

…

So, not willpower. Not beating yourself into submission. Not throwing out all your cigarettes, lighters, and matches. (Then buying replacements 4 days later after half a glass of wine. Just FOR EXAMPLE.)

And not just naturally being better than everyone else.

It’s the discrepancy. It’s about recognizing when your behavior conflicts with what you value.

That was interesting to me.

Also. Change is never achieved because someone got “the perfect advice.”

In fact, if someone gives us advice to do one thing, and we’re feeling ambivalent, we’ll feel compelled to argue for - over even choose - the OTHER thing instead.

The 2-person interaction - advisor and advisee - is a real-life representation of the ambivalence the advisee feels inside.

THAT was interesting to me. Although I know that people hate getting advice for all sorts of reasons, I’d never thought about how our inner ambivalence gets personified in the interaction.

And here’s a sweet, sweet open-handed smack for us advice givers:

“What we have learned from this is that it can be important to inhibit the ‘righting reflex.’ It is analogous to something that anyone must learn who is going to drive a vehicle on snow and ice. When the tires begin to slide off the road to the right, there is a natural tendency to turn the steering wheel to the left, because that is where you want to go. Doing so, however simply decreases control and increases skidding toward the right. Wrong as it feels in the beginning, you must turn in the direction of the skid, turn the wheel to the right when the vehicle is skidding to the right. This provides traction that allows you to redirect momentum back on to the road.”

...

You already knew all this, I’m sure.

So what implications does it have? What if knowing that gives you the power to motivate yourself to change? To help others in your life connect with their motivation to change?

Just thoughts. Just in case all those sparkly inspirational quotes on Instagram aren’t doing it for you lately.

My Wish For You in 2020

In 2020, I hope you don't create a content calendar for your business. Creating a content calendar is a swell way to do a few lousy things.

Maybe you love nice and neat content grids. But you know what else is a nice and neat grid?

THE BARS ON A JAIL CELL, PEOPLE. (At least the jails on TV.)

It’s a trap. You WILL fail to stick to the content grid at some point. And you’ll feel bad about that failure.

But what would happen if you didn’t create a content calendar, AKA a measuring stick to beat yourself with?

....

Earlier in 2019, I wrote about why I think weight loss is a goal that doesn’t work. I also wrote about how I approach financial planning, meditation, and exercise without a rigid plan.

What do all of these things have in common with each other, and also with a content calendar?

A rigid plan for them manipulates our approach to improvement. Now we are talking about willpower. We are aiming for perfection. Following the plan “perfectly.” Then inevitably falling short of the mark, and then hating ourselves for “messing up.”

Who the hell wants to do that?

...

Even if you do manage to follow the content calendar plan week after week, you might be spending time writing stuff that doesn’t make a difference to your business. That feels like anyone in your field could have written it. That doesn’t inspire you or anyone else.

So, great. You stuck to the calendar. But did you love it? Did you LIVE?

What if improvement in all these areas—health, finances, and writing for your business—could be about exploration and discovery, rather than perfection?

It’s effing hard to go from following the plan to just experiencing what it’s like to write for your business.

But the "falling off the wagon" approach with the content calendar shreds my self-esteem, and I’m sick of it. I know there’s a better way. You can even have fun. If you experiment.

You know how they say, "Dress for the job you want"?

I say, "Write for the business you want."

You need to write for the clients and allies you want to attract, not for the ones you already have. And you don't have to wait until 2020 to do it.

Worried that the topics you're coming up with are all wrong, or that you won't actually follow through? Or that you won't know what to do if people actually start to pay attention?

I coach entrepreneurs who are writing for the businesses they want to create. Hit reply and tell me if that's you... or you want it to be.

Maggie

PS: Until the end of 2019, I’m offering this personalized, one-on-one coaching for $1500. On January 1, the price goes up to $3000. If you want in on the 2019 price, email me

Roll Around in That Beginner's Luck Glitter

It’s so hard to start things, isn’t it?

OR IS IT?

...

My first time bowling was in Big Bear Lake, CA. My parents drove us up to the mountains for a long weekend. It was summer, so no skiing. Just fresh air and pine trees.

And I was 9 so I was bored out of my skull. So my mom took me to The Bowling Barn, an alley that had just opened in town.

My mom bought us an unlimited hour of bowling. The Sunday afternoon special.

We rented the shoes. We shuffled from rack to rack, looking for the right bowling ball. I chose an orange creamsicle one.

We sat down in the hard plastic seats at the end of our lane. This was 1990, so no gutter guards! Parents weren’t protecting their children’s egos like that back then. At least mine weren’t.

In my first game, I bowled 107. One hundred and seven. With an 8-lb ball. At 9 years old!

Beginner’s luck.

It only manifests under very precise conditions, which keeps its existence kind of mythic. But beginner’s luck is very real.

So, what are those certain, very precise conditions?

1. No expectations. When you’re a beginner, you don’t fear being bad at the thing, because… of course you will be. You don’t know how to do it yet.

2. A sense of fun. "I’m here to enjoy myself.

I’m not here to excel, to prove, or to produce. I’m not here because I need it. I don’t need it. I just want to do it.”

After I bowled that 107, we started again. I was starting Game 2 with expectations. I thought I knew how to do it. Or I thought I should know.

I bowled a 41. My luck had evaporated.

I must have bowled 50 or 60 times over the next few years. But I never broke 100 again. Until...

Ten years later, I bowled a 133.

Beginner’s luck again? You better believe it.

I had slid back into those precise conditions I described above.

And I know why. The Big Lebowski. I had watched it the night before we bowled and it delivered me back to the beginner’s luck mindset.

I was rusty. But I had no expectations. I was there to have fun.

We can bring this beginner’s luck mind to everything we’re rusty at, but it’s hard when we’re not kids anymore, and it’s really, REALLY hard to bring to our work.

Bowling is just a game. But how can I approach work like a beginner? I’m supposed to be an expert!

Stick with that expectation and pressure - “I’m supposed to be… - and beginner’s luck will evaporate on you.

Just like it did on my second game at The Bowling Barn.

One less threatening way we can approach work like a beginner is to take up a new thing once in a while.

Maybe 90% of our work is stuff we are just so damn good at. But 100% can’t be that way. Otherwise we’d get more bored than I was on that day in 1990 when my mother and I piled in the car to go bowling.

So let’s say we allow 10% of our work for stuff we are new at or kind of suck at. Skills that feel rusty.

For a lot of business owners, one of those skills is writing for the business.

Taking up writing if you haven’t done it in a while (a year? 5 years? Since college?) can result in a lot of procrastination, pressure, and heaviness.

Or you can tap into the beginner’s luck mindset. It’s usually something silly that triggers it. Like The Big Lebowski. Or playing a game. (Not competing, Ace. Just playing.)

Maybe writing out a thought or a story that’s been fascinating you but has nothing to do with your business.

And that’s all well and good but...

What exactly do you do when you arrive at the blank page and the blinking cursor? Just how do you maintain that beginner’s mind?

I have 3 ideas for you. I put them in this PDF.

You can download it here.

Roll around in some of that beginner’s luck glitter. Let me know how it feels.

M

PS: Use this guide whenever you're staring at a blank page and a blinking cursor.

"I just don't enjoy it."

Good day,

Let's start with some reader feedback.

I hear this. Unsurprisingly this comment on my FB page comes from a mom. You can tell because

1. Moms know ourselves. We know what we like to do and what we don't like to do because...

2. Everybody demands we expend our energy on things we don't like to do all day long. LEAVE US ALONE. Someone else do it for a change. GAWD.

I respect this conclusion.

The question I'm asking myself today is whether it's possible to go from... hating writing and also--crucially--finding it energy-sapping

to...

finding it enjoyable and looking forward to it.

What makes writing enjoyable? Being good at it must make it enjoyable, right?

Ok. But not everyone's good at writing, right? What makes a person good at writing?

Innate talent? That's what I used to believe. In school, I grew up reading a set of authors who were the Great Writers of their times. I think that experience teaches us that some people can write but most people can't.

Some people are talented, and the rest of us should stay away.

...

It's true. Some people are more talented writers than others. But we all live a lot of our lives online and that means we all have to write.

It's kind of like saying that some people are more talented cooks than others. So even though we all have to eat, maybe those of us who are just middling cooks should... always eat out?

Leave cooking to the greats! Never put your own spin on those recipes. Your meals are only yummy if they're as good as a professional chef's.

We know this isn't true for cooking. You can enjoy it without being great at it. But can the same be true for writing?

...

What makes writing enjoyable?

From the cooking example we see that we get joy from it when we don't compare ourselves to innately talented cooks, or to pro chefs. Everyone deserves to cook her own food if and when she wants to. ...

Wanting to write. That's another thing that makes writing enjoyable. "Feeling like it."

You know what makes me feel like writing? Having some important shit to say that no one else is saying.

I was talking to a biz buddy a couple of weeks ago who told me that when she's really compelled to write something to her audience, she writes it, and she never checks the "stats" on those emails, podcasts, or blog posts.

"I don't care how many people opened, clicked, unsubscribed. I don't care if people liked it. Whatever. 'Y'all need to hear this.' That's all I'm thinking."

A-ha.

I'm the same way. When I have that "y'all-need-to-hear-this" feeling, it feels good to get out of my head and into the world.

So, where does that YNTHT feeling come from? And how can we get more of it? ...

You get it by taking the fangs out of the writing process. Remove the pressure to write something that will immediately result in a sale or some other productive metric within your business.

That may sound like sacrilege coming from a marketer. But the truth is, when you write to convince people, you’re not going to get good results, and you’re not going to enjoy the process, either.

When you write because you have something to share, you may or may not get good results, but you’ll enjoy the writing. You’ll say what you need to say. And you’ll be able to respond to feedback, because you’re not putting pressure on the writing to “make something happen” within your business.

The freak flag flies whether you like it or not.

A few days ago I watched a woman give a presentation who is smart, funny, dynamic, a terrific speaker. She's got that Grit. She tells it like it is and she's not afraid to be seen in all her gesturing, funny-face, loud-voice glory.

So when she said toward the end of her presentation, "my personality is nowhere on my website or social media channels," I felt... sad.

Because that means if you never meet her in person (and you probably won't, since she can only do so many speaking gigs), you never get a taste of her "freak flag."

She's not flying it anywhere on the internet. Not on her website. Not on her social media channels.

You never get to hear her approach to her work. Her shouts, her claps, her eye-rolls (swear to God they're audible).

You don't get to hear her logic behind comparing picking a target market to driving a car.

The way she successfully pivoted her business to offer a completely different service - and what it taught her about business planning and strategy.

None of it.

...

After her awesome presentation, no less than 6 women (including me) stuck around to chat with her for almost another hour. She was that compelling.

"My personality shouldn't be highlighted online, because someday I want to sell this business," she told me. "That's the problem with personal brands. You always have to be the face. No exit strategy."

She explained that if she ever wants to step away from her business, she needs to create a business that is independent of her. That means repeatable processes, and procedures in place that she can hand off to employees who know how to do what she does.

As she pointed out, we all need to step away sometimes. Illness, moving, vacation, kids vacation, or just being completely wrung out, energy-wise are all unavoidable reasons to take time away.

She wants a business that functions without her.

If you set up your business to function without you, she reasoned, the business shouldn't rely on your personality always needing to be "out there."

Hmm. Seems like an solid argument, right?

Maybe it is. I thought about what she said for a long while after the group went our separate ways. But there's one aspect of this argument I can't get past.

As long as you're the leader, you can't suck your personality out of a business that is your brain-child. Even if you try.

How did I conclude this? Let's see. ...

I have worked a dozen white-collar jobs over the years. You know what all those companies had in common?

1. We were all briefed on the company's mission statement and values.

(A handful of people far above my pay grade had gone to a retreat to hammer out these things. Maybe paid an agency to help. And then they etched them on to 2 stone tablets and carried them down a mountain. (I.e. they created a very well designed Powerpoint that sat on a shared drive somewhere.) )

2. We had our approach to the daily operation of the business that we enacted every damn day. Day in, day out.

3. #1 and #2 were totally different.

#1 came from what our leaders said they were about. #2 came from what our leaders were ACTUALLY about, but didn't write down. "Company culture," you might call it.

...

The thing about starting your own business is that #1 and #2 can (finally!) be the same thing.

But it doesn't happen inadvertently. You have to recommit to the mission and values every day. And writing your own copy and social posts allows you to do that.

Even if you want an exit strategy, your company will be known for something. And as the founder and leader of the company you are the one who decides what that "something" is.

If you set up one-and-done website copy that doesn't reflect your values or the personality behind your approach to the work you do, you risk misaligning 1 and 2.

You also cheat your potential customers out of getting to know your dynamic, energetic, funny actual approach to what you do. The approach that you designed. Because you're the leader.

I have Schadenfreude (but it's curable)

Back in May I was in Tokyo, jogging.

AS ONE DOES.

I jogged by a school that had a bunch of German flashcard-type stickers pasted to the side of the cement school building. Because... Japan? I don't know why. Anyway, this was one of those flashcards.

Schadenfreude. Not my first brush with the word. I first learned it when I was reading Gawker back in the mid 2000s.

Gawker was wickedly funny, and full of schadenfreude, which basically means, "feeling glee when someone who seems perfect/better off than you messes up publicly."

Back then, I refreshed Gawker HOURLY. They were skewering powerful media people. People I stood next to in the elevator on the way to the cafeteria as a lowly fact-checker in Midtown Manhattan. People who had no idea I existed, and I thought, never would.

And Gawker was cutting them down to size! It was speaking truth to power. "The world needs more of that!" I thought.

And sure, maybe the world does need a touch of schadenfreude now and then. Sometimes it feels good to read a tidbit of gossip that proves that Gwyneth Paltrow isn't always perfect. (Just almost always.)

But 15 years and a bunch of experiences since then have made it clear to me that our German Schatz schadenfreude is poisonous.

Why waste time skewering people when they screw up? Because we're envious? What a waste of energy! What a lame-o, tomato-throwing response from the peanut gallery.

Read some Brene Brown and move on!

That's the obvious (and moralizing) reason why schadenfreude is nicht gut.

??? But I was thinking this week about another, hidden poison that schadenfreude brings about. ???

(And I wish I had realized it a decade ago back in that sleek elevator in Midtown.)

These days I'm working with some fearsomely intelligent moms who are entrepreneurs. They've built businesses, they make money as consultants, coaches, and online business owners.

They're proud of what they've built.

But they know they have something else to contribute.

They have something to say publicly. They've been ready to say it for years. It's that thing that no one in their industry is saying. That dumb way of doing things that has to end. Or that awesome way their industry tackles a problem that no one else seems to be talking about.

They want to write about it. They are ready to write about it!

But they don't write about it.

Why?

Because they might screw up.

I can tell them all day long, "OF COURSE you're going to screw up. Screwing up is part of putting yourself 'out there.' It never goes away."

But. Schadenfreude. They know people will laugh at their mistakes because they've seen people laugh at other people's mistakes. They've even laughed themselves.

They've felt that glee when someone whom they envied tripped up.

They don't want someone else to feel that about them.

And you know what? I can't stop that. No one can stop other people from throwing tomatoes.

But, we can stop engaging in schadenfreude ourselves. Not just because it's lame. But because less schadenfreude makes the world a teeny bit safer for all creators.

I'm working on curing my schadenfreude-istic impulses. Sometimes, deep in the bowels of Frank-Hsu HQ (i.e. at 8:30 pm when I'm planted on my couch watching Midsomer Murders) I scroll Instagram for, like, an obscenely long time. And often, posts will pop up that cause me to have a visceral "who-does-she-think-she-is" reaction.

I'm not proud of it.

But I notice it. So now every time I see a post on Instagram that I feel envious of, a post that makes me want to mock the poster, a la Gawker... I ❤ the post instead. Often I also comment something like "this is so cool!" (when it is cool). I don't try to force myself to stop wishing she'd slip on a banana peel.

But despite that impulse, I wish the poster well. It's not her fault that her post is engaging my insecurity. It's not really anybody's fault. It's just something to notice.

I would just rather support other women who are putting shit out there because I want the world to be full of women who support other women who put shit out there.

...

SPEAKING OF WHICH, I was a guest on #HAMYAW last week, and we dug into why women feel afraid to put themselves out there.

THE #HAMYAWAF episode.

Let's work on re-socializing ourselves. Simple, right? ?

Henry Ford, Celeste Barber, and Faster Horses

You know that quote attributed to Henry Ford?

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

It means, "Don't give people the product they say they want. Give people the product that actually solves their problem."

Right?

The other day, I was thinking about how this applies to what we write when we're marketing our businesses. I talked a bit about this last week as well. The idea that we should be creating content that is "OF VALUE."

Next time you feel like you really SHOULD post something that's "OF VALUE" to your audience, because that's what content marketing is... I want you to ask yourself... What would Celeste Barber do?

Who is Celeste Barber?

That is Celeste Barber. She's an actress and comedian.

If she had asked people to tell her what she should post to show off her skills as a comedian and actress, do you think they would have responded with... this? Uh, no.

But she started posting dumb send-ups of pictures of celebrities and models because she knew that was funny. She had an idea. It was a lark. And she went with it. 

And people connected with her posts in an insane way, to the tune of millions of followers.

I'm not saying you have to be funny.

What I am saying: you know how once in a while you'll have an interesting idea that feels like it came out of nowhere? And you just ignore it for a while until it goes away because you don't have time to execute on it?

STOP.

Stop ignoring it. Write about it. Take the time you have and just write until you're time is up. Share that piece of writing somewhere. 

Every post doesn't have to be a perfect nugget "free value" wrapped up in a bow, before you share it publicly. Sometimes you can post just... what YOU FEEL LIKE writing. It's your platform.

New Year's in September

My son turned 5 in September. That means my business is about to turn 4.

For the first year of his life I worked a full time remote job.

I remember clearly deciding to quit my job. It was a lot of little things that added up to a moment.

Like the time I was literally running out my front door at the end of a workday to rush to get my son from daycare in time for his 6 months doctor's appointment. Like, 50-yard dash running.

Or the times I got to my desk at 8:30 am and realized I'd already been doing work for 3 hours. Waking up, fitting in a quick workout, rushing home to breastfeed, getting him completely ready for the day, getting myself ready-ish for the day, walking the dog and my son over to doggy daycare so that the nanny didn't have to deal with the dog. (He bites.) And then hopping on my first conference call pretending like 8:30 was the start of my day.

Stuff like that happens now, too. Rushing is inevitable when you're managing your schedule and your kids'. But now when I'm running late to dropoff, it's a choice. It's not because the clock or the office culture says I need to stick around until a certain time.

A.J. was the catalyst for starting this business, in so many ways. I wanted him to have a mom who went after things. Also, after spending the first 12 months of his life trying to run my working life like I didn’t have a child, and my home life like I didn’t have career ambitions, I knew I had to try something else.

I knew I had to carve out a realm where I could reclaim my identity separate from that of “mother,” while also integrating just how important becoming a mother was to my sense of self.

Yes, both things. That’s what our culture's current version of working a job just doesn’t allow for. So, I set to carving out that space for myself. I quit my job and started my business. My business makes money that supports my family. My business allows me the flexibility to stay home with a sick kid or start work late so I can go to a parent meeting at school. I love that. But that’s not why I’m doing it. I’m doing it for the realm.

That's why I love talking to other mothers whose entrepreneurial ambitions are fueled by their drive to address a need they've experienced personally.

Today I shared one of those talks on Facebook Live. Jennifer Duann Fultz about her freelancing career and her new venture giving advice and support to other Asian American freelancers and creatives as Chief Executive Auntiepreneur.

Check out our interview.

The business is not you.

"The business is not you. The business has its own fans, its own energy. ... You are stunting your business growth by treating the business and you as the same thing, especially if you are a solopreneur."

I jotted this down while I was interviewing Denise Duffield-Thomas a couple of months ago. (You can read that interview here.)

It’s funny that this is the part of the interview that stuck out to me so strongly, since I teach women how to put more “them”—their personalities, tastes, and attitudes—into the way they write for their businesses.

And I practice what I preach. My weekly email isn’t written by censored, careful, “business-flavored” me. (She went out with the Goodwill bag full of office-appropriate, pre-pregnancy clothes.) It’s written by plain, old, unflavored me.

Hi. ?

Yet my business is not me.

***

The business is not you. Here’s why I got so hung up on this concept: it’s actually a lot harder to relax into sharing your personality in your marketing writing if you’re selling you, rather than the products or services of your business.

Stick with me here for a second.

If I am using my writing to sell me, that whole process is flippin’ fraught. If I’m selling ME, and people don’t buy what I’m selling, how does that make me feel... about me?

Well, it makes me feel like shit. Like rejected shit.

Conversely, if I’m selling me, and loads of people buy… now I feel like they’ve each bought a piece of me. They own little pieces of my time and energy. That feels shitty, too.

BUT. If I’m infusing my personality into my copywriting in order to demonstrate my business’s approach to solving my customer’s problem, then I’m attracting people who want/need/love that approach. I’m repelling everyone else who doesn’t want or need that.

I'm still deeply connected to the business. Still intertwined in some ways.

But NOT indistinguishable.

***

I’ve tried a few things to make this concept more concrete. One thing has worked better than anything else. It’s not a copywriting thing, but I figured I’d tell you about it anyway because I want to know if you’ve tried it:

I organized the business’s finances. I set up a business checking and savings account. Yes, I had a business checking account before. But often I also paid for things for the business with my personal account. Also, when a client paid me, it all went into my personal checking account. Once in a while I kicked some back over to the business account whenever I felt like the business account balance looked too low.

A sound strategy, to be sure! ?

Now, the business has revenue, expenses, profit, and losses of its own. (I know those of you reading this who are financial professionals are smacking various parts of your bodies because this is so obvious. Also everyone who has read Profit First, which I haven't, but I've heard this is in there.)

To the rest of you: I want to let you know that getting organized in this way isn’t just about... getting more organized.

It’s the thing that has helped me create a business that is separate from my identity as an adult human who shows up to work each day with a whole range of moods and energy levels.

That separation protects me. And that protection allowed me to run my first launch ever this month... without pinning my entire sense of self-worth on the outcome.

Sure, I still struggle with tying my self-worth to how much I sell. But I have created a crucial bit of distance. …

If you want to read someone else's thoughts after wrestling with this concept, go read Tyler J. McCall’s piece. I’m always of the mind that someday, when I’ve “made it”... I won’t struggle with panic or low self-worth after something too bad (or too GOOD) happens within the business. But then he wrote this post. It’s really good.