My business is non-essential

My business started to go off the rails about six months after I launched it.

In the beginning, I had no idea what I was doing. Which was actually a great place to be. I didn’t know what I was doing “wrong” any more than I knew what I was doing “right”. I just fumbled my way through, going by instinct, until I decided it was time to develop some skills in marketing.  

I read books and watched YouTube videos and took online courses. I should have been in my happy place – I love learning new things – but I kept getting stuck on the same two questions:

What’s it for and who’s it for? 

This particular phrasing was coined by Seth Godin, but all the courses and the books were getting at the same thing and that’s this: to be able to market your business to the right people in a compelling way, you have to know why you’re doing what you’re doing and who you’re serving.

Sounds simple enough, right? I thought so too. But the more I tried to articulate it, the more confused I became. 

My mind was working on it constantly. I’d hear Simon Sinek’s famous Golden Circle TED Talk in my sleep, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” Shit, I thought. I’m going to have to figure this out. 

So began my epic spiral into uncertainty.

I couldn’t for the life of me come up with a simple, honest answer. It was like searching on a hard drive for a file that didn’t exist. I tried different approaches, different combinations of words, but the “why” file simply wasn’t retrievable. 

In my mind, the success of my business depended entirely on my being able to get clear on why and who. I resisted posting on social media or sending out my newsletter or editing the copy on my website because I felt like whatever I said would be confusing and inconsistent.

It was four loooong years later when I saw an interview with Liz Gilbert that forever changed the way I thought about my business. She had this to say about creating with the intention of helping people and being of service: 

“It’s a heavy mandate for something that should be the lightest thing in your life, which is: how you express your own creativity.”

If I’d been in the room with Liz Gilbert that day I would have kissed her on the mouth. 

I didn’t start my business with the intention of helping people. Helping people is a bonus, it’s wonderful. Anytime someone tells me how much my work means to them, my heart swells. But it’s not the reason I started my business. 

I started my business because I’m a creator.

I create things, I put them out there. I create things, I put them out there. That’s it. I do what I do because it’s what I feel compelled to do. 

I’m not solving the problems in our world with t-shirts. As Liz says later in that interview, there are much more effective ways for me to help. I could donate money, I could volunteer, I could offer up space in my home to people who are stranded. If I put my mind to it, I’m certain I could come up with any number of ways that I can be of service.

Which is why, for the moment, I’m holding off on opening my online store.

Over the past few days, as I’ve been trying to navigate the “what’s OK and what’s not OK” of self-isolation, I’ve been applying the “is it essential” lens. My osteopath appointment. Is it essential? My singing lesson. Is it essential? The answer, more often than not, is no. So why create more risk?

I used the same lens when considering whether or not I wanted to go forward with my Instagram auctions and my online store opening. Both of which, I’ve concluded, are not essential. Not in my estimation. Will I suffer financially? Yes. Will I recover? Yes I will, eventually. Will the people who were looking forward to it be OK? I think they will.

This is a weird, scary, uncertain – and did I mention weird? – time.

I keep thinking about being out in the cold and how our bodies redirect blood from our extremities to our central organs. That’s what I feel inclined to do right now. Slow down, get quiet, and redirect my energy and thoughts to the things that are essential to me. My family, my friends, my health, and how I might best be of service.

I want to sit with the weirdness and let it be uncomfortable instead of distracting myself with other things. I mean, as much as possible – sometimes a girl just needs a bag of chips and old episodes of The West Wing, you know?

The point is, if I’m focused on selling t-shirts, I’m not focused on any of that. And I want to be. What’s happening right now deserves my attention.

But I’m still a creator and it’s how I make sense of the world. So while I may not be updating you with online sales and special offers right now, you can bet I’ll still be showing up here every Sunday with a story. 

It’s comforting to know that someone’s there on the other end. Thanks for reading.

C.

PS - What I think is essential might be different from what you think is essential. That's totally normal and totally OK. *high five* The point isn't to agree on what's essential, the point is to be intentional about where we put our energy and attention.