Hard Work

Fear / Hard Work / Thinking like a Slayer — 4 Comments
11
Mar 12

Scary Things I’ve Done That Could Have Killed My Business (& Some I’m Gonna Do)

Today’s a Sunday. That means I spent >90 minutes on Campfire with my 30×500 students, answering questions, talking about biz and shootin’ the shit.

Today, I wanted to get my students’ opinions on some changes I’m making for the next 30×500. I’m always trying to increase the number of students who stick with it all the way through to shipping.

Here are some of the ideas I presented:

  • an application process
  • distributing 100% of the materials a month early to people who attend
  • major changes in the software I use to run the class (tossing out a lot of the functionality, turning the rest on its head)
  • a significantly higher price, which may require a payment plan

David Richards, a member of the current 30×500, weighed in on that last one:

Something in my gut says a payment plan might be a headache while dealing with student retention. First payment of $xxxx, sucking air after some Safari work, next payment’s due… naw, I’ll just bail.

I agreed with him. It’s certainly a possibility. There are parts of the class which require a lot of personal investment in time & energy to complete, and who knows?

But, I said,

…one thing I really worry about is NOT doing things I should do, out of fear.

The fact is, each one of these steps is scary to me.

I worry people might just “stop paying” on the payment plan

Even though the first Year of Hustle class had a payment plan, and nobody “just stopped paying,” I worry someone might.

I worry about raising the price

Even though I’ve successfully raised the price by over 300% since the first class (and worried about it every time).

I worry about sending students the 100% of the materials in advance

Even though last time, I gave away the “secret revelation” behind 30×500 (1, 2, 3), and three of the meatiest lessons (from deep inside the class 3 & 4, 5) — and it resulted in an even more productive, profitable class.

I know this one, particularly, sounds ridiculous. Why would I worry that more people will drop out or ask for refunds if I give them the material all at once, when my refund rate during class is already so low? People who have already passed the application process and already paid?

Well. Ever downloaded a bunch of ebooks or PDFs or slide decks, and because you had so many, you never dove into any of them? Yeah. I worry about that. And that a new student might read it all — and say “So, what?” Despite the fact that only one person out of nearly 300 students ever said anything like that. Yes, less than 0.4%. It’s still on my mind.

I really worried when I first offered the 100% money-back guarantee

It was a >$1,000 class. What if people take advantage of me? What if they took it to the end, took all the materials, got a lot out of it, and then dicked me over?

Every time I revise the sales page, and I leave that guarantee in there, I worry anew. Even though I’ve only ever given a handful of refunds per class.

It doesn’t matter.

What Does Worry Mean??

Worry isn’t always rational. Hell, most of the time it’s not. Worry is a sign you’re doing something you haven’t done before. Or it’s a sign you’re doing something you have done before, which worked just fine, and your subconscious is refusing to learn the lesson.

Or it’s a sign of absolutely nothing.

So yeah, I’m worried. About allllll kinds of things.

But whenever I feel worry, I’ve made it a habit to remind myself:

I should be much more worried that I’ll straightjacket myself with fear. That the real thing to fear is doing the same thing, forever.



NB: This blog post was inspired by Brooke Riggio, a 30×500 alum, who’s worried about his money-back guarantee:

I gave him that advice because when I was worried, other people gave it to me. And they were right. And I am right. But it is still scary and we still worry.

Day to Day / Getting Started / Hard Work — 7 Comments
1
Mar 12

Letter to My Struggling Baby Business – Feb, 2009

Par Avion

The date: February 2009. Two months after the (unglorified) launch of Freckle Time Tracking, one month after the surprisingly not bad launch of the JavaScript Performance Rocks! beta. What with all that, the consulting, and the traveling, and the drama with our flakey partners in Freckle, and being newly married and in a foreign country where I didn’t speak the language, and and and… I was having a really, really tough time. So I sat right down and wrote myself a letter. And signed it “with love” the way you do. Wait, that’s a song. Anywayz…

Dear new business,

I know you feel like you’re having a rough time these past couple months. Things seem really swell, and you’re up up up, until suddenly a needle appears, and bursts your little bubble, and crash! Back down to earth again.

Or lower.

Because after the impact—smack!—you realize that while things were feeling so wonderfully amazing and fresh and new, that was probably because you were selectively forgetting about less happy-fun things that “have” to get done.

It’s like hitting the ground all over again. Smack! Smack! Ow!

I know that when this happens—and it’s happened several times—you feel guilty as well as deluded. You end up wondering if the happy stuff can only ever come out of denial.

New Business, I want to tell you something important: Change can be really hard.

I know you’ve experienced a couple of overnight life-changing epiphanies, which seemed effortless at the time, and were just totally awesome.

But that’s not usually how things work. And those lucky, beautiful, awesome breaks have made it unfairly difficult for all the ordinary, long-term slugging-it-out change that has to happen most of the time.

With ordinary, long-term, slugging-it-out change, sometimes there are “casualties.” Sometimes things don’t get done. Sometimes people don’t like you any more. That sucks, but not changing sucks more.

And I think that sometimes you forget that those beautiful overnight changes came from years of not changing at all. They were unacted-upon but desperately needed change, bottled up for years. The change champagne cork just finally exploded, and thank god for that.

Speaking of champagne, don’t forget to celebrate the victories you’ve already won… just because you find yourself looking around and what you see is a lot of stuff you’ve still got to do before you’re really free.

Think about it… you’re already ahead of schedule. You wanted to be in place by January 2010, and yet you’ll be in nearly full force by April 2009, instead.

That’s pretty awesome! And yet you are all angsty and morose that it’s not now, dammit.

I don’t want to say you SHOULD still be high on that, but it’s worth thinking about when you’re feeling in the dumps because not everything is done and perfect yet, and leftover bits of Old Business are still hanging about in in the corners, glaring at you and making you feel tremendously guilty.

I know you feel stressed out, and harried, and overcommitted, and totally overwhelmed right now and pissed at everyone.

But remember: you’re still in transition. You’re fucking up. You’re also kicking ass. At the same time. That is possible, and yes it’s awkward, but that’s where the value lies, doesn’t it? If it were too easy, that’d make you mopey too. I know it would—I know you.

Butterflies look great a couple days after they come out of their cocoon. They really look neat inside the cocoon, too. It’s the bit in the middle, with the squeezing, and the wrenching, and tearing, and wrinkled wings, all damp with cocoon goo, that we don’t tend to think about. It’s amazing and miraculous, but also tough and uncomfortable and really quite gross.

But you can’t have the before & after without the in-between.

As long as you can survive my redonkulous butterfly metaphors, you’ll be all right.

Love and admiration,

Me

February 25, 2009

Horrifying butterfly metaphors aside, I was right. Now, it’s 3 years and one week later. I quit consulting in January 2010 as planned, even though our product income wasn’t quite there yet. It was hard, again. I should have written another letter. But I made it through, and our business is going awesome. All our dreams are coming true.

I am so thankful to the Me of Yesteryear who, for once in my life, broke out of her cycle of short-termism, who for once didn’t give up, and stuck it out through all the hard shit. It was worth it.

What would you put in YOUR letter to yourself?

Hard Work — 3 Comments
14
Nov 11

Success: The Boring Way! The Only Way

Boring Art - “I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art” by John Baldessari (probably a lie!)

One of the things I keep telling my 30×500 Product Launch Class students is this:

Success is boring.

A Peek into the Success Sausage Factory

Imagine a movie made from my daily biz life over a period few weeks… I guarantee you, the time lapse would bore you to tears. Even with popcorn.

All you’d see is me doing what works. Over and over. Because that’s what it takes to create a success:

Design a live class.

Email your list. Sell seats.

Write a blog post. Sell seats.

Give the class.

Revise the class.

Email your list. Sell seats.

Write a blog post. Sell seats.

And give the class again.

And give the class again.

Take the class and turn it into a self-serve product.

Get people to sign up for the announce list.

Get people to sign up for the announce list.

Get people to sign up for the announce list.

Email your list. Make sales.

Write a blog post. Make sales.

Email your list. Make sales.

Write a blog post. Make sales.

Ship it.

Email them.

Email them.

Rewrite the sales page.

Tweet about it.

Email them.

Email them.

Ask them how they like it.

Make it better.

Email them.

Tweet about it.

This is my life, folks. For serious.

*Yawn*.

How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?

Excuse me, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.

carnegiehall.png

Hey! It’s Carnegie Hall! Somebody musta practiced! cc t_a_i_s

So. This boringness?

It’s the fact of life for anyone who strives for awesome — the concert pianist, the public speaker, the teacher, the basketball player, the dancer, the painter, the writer, the chemist, the doctor.

Boring is not boring.

It’s system, it’s practice — it’s a game, always trying to out-do yourself, and money is one of the ways you get to keep score. (A particularly fun way.)

For every improvement you make while pracitcing, you get to enjoy the thrill of signups, sales, and emails from happy customers.

Boredom’s the Way to Go

Contrast this to the what the Legends of the Startup Founder Heroes tell us: excitement, thrills, near-death misses… straining, and huffing, and puffing, and not sleeping. Big dreams and bigger dramas. Elation and depression.

Waiting & dreaming of the big payoff.

And almost always, eventually, the failure.

No. Thank. You. I’ll take boredom any day.

Hard Work / Purpose / Thinking like a Slayer — 17 Comments
10
Nov 11

You Are So Damn Lucky – Stop Blaming Your Family, Your Friends, & Your Society & Get Off Your Ass

I’ve traveled the world. Well, quite a few parts of it, anyway. Enough to see a pattern, certainly. First of all, everybody, everywhere, is convinced that their countrymen are the worst drivers in the world. And…

Everybody, everywhere, is convinced that their country/city/family is the worst environment for creating a great business.

In Austria, people tell me how hard it is to create a business, and how terrible the taxes are. (Two things that I can tell you from first hand experience are, in fact, not so bad at all.)

In London, I’ve heard about how nobody will believe in you — and even investors will refuse to acknowledge your brilliance by giving you their money. I once read an essay that claimed that “only 1 in 10 business people ‘get it’” in London. Only.

In New Zealand, I’ve been told that folks daren’t do great things because of “Tall Poppy Syndrome” — that is to say, the tall poppy gets mowed. They say people in NZ resent and cut down anyone who strives to go above & beyond. You know, “Who do they think they are?”

And Tall Poppy Syndrome, of course, sounds remarkably like the “the nail that sticks up gets hammered down” — a Japanese proverb.

The Austrians believed that London and the US was better; the Londoners, New Zealanders thought the US was better.

Of course, the US is my home turf. I’ve lived most of my life in the US, and have more connections there than anywhere else. I’ve got enough material about the US for hundreds of essays:

People complaining about the system. About their jobs. About their families’ lack of support.

And, perhaps most brutally of all, complaining about the absolute hubris and gall of their compatriots.

How dare they.

Mike Lee & The Clattering Claws

You know that famous, experienced iApp developer guy who announced he would start charging $1,000 an hour?

Well the “community” full of alleged “entrepreneurs” — mostly American, it seems — couldn’t have piled on faster with:

  • Who does he think he is?
  • Ha! That’ll never happen in a month of Sundays!
  • HA HA

Yadda yadda yadda. Honkhonksnore.

Gee, This Sounds Familiar…

Could it be Tall Poppy at work? Or perhaps Stick-uppy Nail?

Call it what you like. I call it the Crab Bucket (after Terry Pratchett).

But… It’s Americans! The Land of Milk and Honey and Outsized Optimism and Supportive Parents and Embracing Failure and Money Money MONEY!

And yet…

An Intimate, Open Source Example

You probably know about OSCON, the mega-conf that O’Reilly Media puts on every year, all about Open Source. What you probably don’t know is that I was on the committee for several years running.

One year, I argued strongly against a certain talk proposal because it was badly written, without value for the audience… and I had bought the speaker’s book and found it to be positively dreadful.

My overall feeling was: Not On My Watch.

Later, when I was walking the halls during the conference, I happened upon a conversation. I happened to overhear that would-be speaker talking to a friend…

Railing about how her talk was “barred” because she was a woman.

It took all the self-control I had to keep my mouth shut.

Stop Lying To Yourself… And Everyone Else

That right there is the same principle at work, dear reader. The principle of the Big, Sexy Excuse.

It’s not my fault, it’s Society.

It’s not my fault, it’s my family.

It’s not my fault, it’s my vagina — and what other people think about it.

All lies.

All Big, Sexy Excuses that’ll get you a little righteous anger, a little clucking sympathy, and a fat lotta nothing done.

Successful People Struggle. End of Story.

Everywhere you find folks who buck the status quo, you find them drinking and moaning and blogging about why their family, their friends, and their society fails to support them. Why there aren’t more people like them. Why people don’t understand them.

Why they feel so damn alone.

This is a universal experience. It can’t be escaped.

And yet, there are those who kick ass anyway.

Those who don’t cuddle their excuses close like their favorite blankie. Who don’t hang their whining out in public like a white flag. Who don’t wait for some magical time when the stars align, for everything to be easy before they get to work.

Who show up, who do awesome shit, and who do it all bravely against the grain — because true success is always against the grain.

Because they know that their excuses don’t matter, only their efforts do. And they know that nobody will ever invite them to do great work. They have to invite themselves.

Choose to be one of them.

Hard Work — 25 Comments
13
Aug 11

When You Do What You Love & Are Still Miserable

You are not alone.

Right now I’m living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and the weather is beautiful, and I look outside (over our attractive park) and feel nothing about it but, “Meh.”

I know I should try to enjoy it before we leave — for 2.5 months — but I can’t. I can’t bring myself to leave the sofa, much less the apartment.

I’m looking at the brand spanking new version of Charm that we deployed to our beta customers yesterday, and I want to love it. I want to feel proud of all the work and suffering that’s paid off.

But I don’t. I don’t love it, and I don’t feel proud.

Today, all I can see is what’s wrong with it. Bugs. Awkwardness. Missing features. Frustration. I want to punch it.

I’m scared that we’ll miss our August launch. (There’s no reason to worry about that, but I won’t let that stop me.) I’m deeply anxious that after all this, after all the work — we’ve been building it for a year now — and the reworking, and the research, that I’ll turn out to be wrong.

That people won’t want it.

That my “revolutionary” interface designs, that I struggled with for months, are so much gilding on a self-indulgent pile of crap.

And that very thought, of course, leads straight to another nauseating tug on my heart: that Charm won’t cover its own monthly costs any time soon. That we won’t make back our investment. That it may turn out to be nothing but a giant sink of time and money, and we’ll struggle, and I’ll be incredibly embarrassed because hey, here I go trying to teach other people how to duplicate my success. What would I do with such an obvious flop?

That alone be enough to ruin anyone’s day, but I never do anything by half-measures. There’s something else.

A sickly, whispering little doubt that maybe all this growth is a mistake.

Bigger, more involved projects, renting an office, hiring a team… today, it’s making me feel trapped. With a team, with more important products, comes responsibility. I can’t just skip out whenever I want or work whatever hours I want. Straightjacketed. Stuck. Doomed.

Maybe, that nasty little doubt whispers, we have doomed ourselves to a workaday existence by our own hand.

But wait, there’s more.

We had a bug in our (human) email workflow last week. Some people’s emails slipped thru the cracks. Then they thought we were ignoring them and got angry. On a good day, I can handle this with no problem, soothing bruised egos with expert skill.

This is not a good day.

I’m antsy with guilt and shame. It makes my fingers curl. I want to hide under a rock, or maybe a pillow, and not come out.

And the money situation. We did too much too fast. I have gotten too used to having a large padding that hand-waving “of course we can” has become my modus operandi.

Now I am paying the price in muscle twitches.

And fat checks I have to write to certain government agencies.

I know, intellectually, that our financials are not dire. I have a plan for fixing it — and, because we have assets in the form of existing products, I can fix it. But not by tomorrow or next week.

So I’ve had to write one email after another, asking the freelancers we work with to hold off on doing new work. Juggling. Canceling stuff we were gonna do. And today I had to nix plans to hire a certain consultant. He would have started today.

Not only am I bummed out by the fact that we have to grind these projects to a halt, but oh, the guilt.

So yeah. Today? Not so great.

I suppose I “know” that it will pass. It has every other time. But it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it. It feels like the weight will never lift and that this, the way I’m seeing things now, is truth.

There’s nothing useful in this post. No action steps for you to take. No suggestions on how you, too, can avoid feeling like this. This is just the way it is sometimes. As far as I can tell, it happens no matter how awesome my circumstances may be, no matter how much I love my work. Like the weather. Maybe it doesn’t “mean” anything, but that’s cold comfort when it sure as hell feels like it.

But if any of this sounds familiar, at least you know you’re not alone.

Hard Work / Idea Unicorns — 8 Comments
13
Jul 11

7 Hardass Rules for Business and Life

Lemme run a scenario by you, and you tell me how it feels.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one

You…

  • Fantasize about not working any more, or semi-retiring to some improbably perfect scenario (the perfect Little Café, Mojito Island)
  • Envy people you know who seem to have time to do everything they want
  • Find yourself uttering the phrase “… I can’t, because…” and madlibbing in either time or money, depending on the situation
  • Have a certain dollar amount in mind that, if you had it, would give you the freedom you want
  • Dream of how wonderfully marvelous your magazine-feature life will be, once you get your business going… sometime in the next 10 years

Well, my friend, pull up a chair cuz I’m here to drop some knowledge on ya.

It’s within your reach

Yep, it’s within your reach.

You can have that amount of money. You can create the time to do what you want. You can say “yes” to things you’d love to do.

You can throw away your pair of ratty crutches Time and Money and stop hobbling one-legged through life.

To have it, though, you’ll have to get off your butt, stop daydreaming, stop fantasizing, stop making excuses, stop pulling random big numbers out of your waxy ear and pretending that they’re truth.

You’ve gotta let go of the escapist fantasies — they’re unicorns, m’dear — and you gotta let go of the if-I-only-had-$x-dollars fantasy, too. You gotta let go of the daydream that there’s some magical line you’ll cross, some tipping point, where you’ll feel free, successful, and rich. Because there isn’t.

Freedom, success, and richness are gradients you achieve day by day or not at all.

Success is like aging, that way: when you wake up on your birthday, you don’t feel older. There will never be a day where you wake up and suddenly feel successful.

If you’re ready to achieve real freedom, success, and riches — even though you will never suddenly feel free, successful, or rich — then there’s a template you can follow.

Ready to start kicking your own ass? Here’s a recipe

You’ll have to fill in the blanks yourself, and keep at it and adjust it for your purposes, but there’s a core pattern to the lives of most successful people. And it’s more than just “hard work” or “persistence” or “irrational optimism,” although those things play a part.

Here’s the recipe I’ve compiled from years of research and my own personal experience:

1. Get real about what you really need to do the things you’re putting off

You don’t need $50k in the bank. You don’t need a year or even half a year off. You may need to quit your job, if your employment agreements stipulates that they own everything you do outside work.

You may need one extra day a week to work on your thing. You may need to fire unprofitable clients, and charge the rest more, and work fewer hours for them.

But do you need an idyllic situation? No. Do you need funding? No. Do you need a sabbatical? No. Do you need everything to be just so, in its right place, all i’s dotted and t’s crossed? Absolutely not.

What do you REALLY need? A little extra time, a little extra money, and the willingness to keep going.

2. Figure out how you can get it

By hook or by crook, dude.

Take a long, hard look at all the unspoken, unwritten assumptions that govern your business/professional life, cuz obviously they are not getting you where you want to go. Unspoken assumptions such as: If I try to negotiate, I will be fired. I can’t possibly fire clients, I need the money. My butt needs to be in this seat for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.

Let’s take that last one as an example. Thought experiment time: Imagine what you could actually achieve with one extra day a week. Got a job? Do they need you? You could negotiate a 4-day work week — I did it, and at least one person I’ve advised did it, too. (And no, I wasn’t “famous” at the time — and neither was he.)

Here’s how I did it: I went along for a whole series of interviews, including a flight to another city, to get a job offer I had no intention of taking. Then I presented the offer to my existing bosses (it was a 20% raise) and negotiated to stay, instead. Was it easy? No. But did I end up with a 4-day work week, of with regular hours, and the same salary as before? Yes indeed.

Freelancer or consultant? Your business is sloppy, I can tell from here. You have unprofitable, energy-sucking clients you can fire. You have bad estimates for how long projects take. You have an hourly rate that is too low. Shore it all up: fire clients, charge more, set yourself up to earn more in less time, stop wasting time, eliminate repetitive crap, stop sitting in front of your computer dawdling when you’re not working. Freckle will help you with all of the above, because it was designed with exactly this purpose in mind.

And there’s no room in this equation for self-pity or other self-denigration such as, “Oh I’m not important enough,” or “I’m not skilled enough,” or “Nobody would pay me to teach them anything.” Everybody who’s ever sold anything has felt this way, sometimes or all of the time.

We all love to have a little pity party now and again, but it sure as hell doesn’t take you anywhere. So give it up like the self-indulgence it is, and get crackin’.

These techniques will help you free up time and money… what little extra you actually need to get started. One day a week will do it. Yes, really. Lots of people have built empires on less.

3. Let go of your dreams. Yes, really.

Should you follow your dreams? Sure. But you have to acknowledge what you can and can’t achieve at once.

Dream your big dreams, but recognize that you’re unlikely to reach them for years and set them aside so they don’t distract you from the reality of today.

Once you eliminate luck and perfect storms, major successes are all snowballs: they start as many small successes (and small failures). You have to aim for a small success.

You are building a cathedral. You can’t start with the spires: first you have to dig a hole for the foundation.

Digging holes is unsexy as hell, but there’s no fucking way around it.

4. Get over Soulmate Syndrome

You wouldn’t expect to find one single person who’d fulfill all your needs for people in your life, would you? Of course not. So don’t fall prey to the myth that one “job” (business) can fulfill you in every way.

Is charitable work one of your personal values? That’s wonderful, but it’s not a business.

Take care of your financial needs first, and then you’ll be able to volunteer or donate (or engage in your hobbies) without stress. Don’t try to turn non-business pursuits into a business — you’ll shortchange everybody, including yourself.

This is the same principle as “secure your oxygen mask before aiding others.” If you pass out and die, the little stubby-armed people next to you are going to die too. That is the opposite of charity.

5. Recognize your strengths and limits. Beg, borrow, steal any advantage you can.

There are no medals for heroism in business. So stop trying to be a hero. Find the easiest possible route to success… and take it.

Don’t fight an uphill battle. Work with what you’ve got. You can shore up your weak areas — or hire help for them — once you’ve achieved a solid income.

6. Embrace boredom

Here’s a fact most people won’t acknowledge:

Most success is boring.

Success is, by definition, figuring out what works and doing it over and over again: Writing email newsletters. Sending out discount codes. Tweaking your copy. Doing the same type of product again and again for different audiences. Taking what you’ve already made, and repurposing it for a different price point and different audience.

Keep doing it until it stops working. Which, by the way, it almost never will.

Don’t let yourself be seduced by novelty. Don’t let yourself be overcome by the self-indulgent anxiety of “Well I already posted on this topic last week,” or “I already ran this blog post a year ago.” Nobody cares but you.

Look at bestselling books and movies for inspiration: they’re pretty much the same thing, over and over. There are only so many human stories; as the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun. And yet people keep buying and nobody complains. Why? Because we like it. Because it works. Because it doesn’t matter.

7. Investigate the true nature of business

Is it unethical to sell something you think is obvious? (No, of course not. Who died and made you the ideal customer?)

Why do people buy, anyway? (Things that kill a pain or create a profit. And only people who seek out & willingly buy new things will buy it.)

What’s a good price? (The absolute maximum you can charge without cutting into your profits.)

What about the people who tell you you charge too much, or your product’s no good? (Fuck ‘em. People who bitch instead of buying aren’t customers, by definition.)

These are the questions you will face. The answers are not what you think. You can’t just take mine at face value, you’ve gotta do your own investigation — but be prepared to start from zero, as if you knew nothing, because your half-voiced assumptions and beliefs aren’t helping you.

Bonus Rule: 8. Claim your baggage

Fact: Business is hard.

Or is it?

Life is hard. Relationships are hard. Being a good person in the world is hard. Business is a subset of all of those things, and in some ways a magnifier. But the hard of business is no different than the hard of life.

But nobody suggests you avoid life because it’s hard. Nobody says, “Oh, life is too risky. Better to die early and save yourself the trouble.” Nobody says, “Oh, are you sure you want life? My sister’s best friend’s cousin’s husband’s brother had a real problem with his.”

Tell people that running a business is hard and you should keep your day job, and they’ll nod sagely, as if you imparted something wise. Tell people that life is hard and you should keep your coffin handy, and they’ll back away slowly and stop inviting you over for tea.

And yet — business and life are the same damn thing.

Most of the problems you’ll have in your business will mirror the problems you have in your life. Are you a self-indulgent worrier? You’ll worry self-indulgently about your business. Do you have a problem telling your friends and family “No”? You’re going to have a hard time telling your customers “No.” Do you fail to finish any of your projects around the home? You’re going to have a hard time finishing anything for your business.

They’re the same damn problems.

The corollary, of course, is that a great business with lots of money won’t solve your personal problems.

But business, like life, is very worth pursuing.

Done lazily or lackadaisically, it’ll be just as messy and screwed up as everything else.

Done right, it’s an endeavor that will help you grow as a human being… show you new depths to yourself and others; teach you persistence and perseverance; make you feel competent, useful, and adult; give you resources to help other people and to leave a positive, lasting legacy on the world.

Believe me: that’s worth it.

Hard Work / Ideology — 61 Comments
11
May 11

21 Lessons Learned from 16 Years of Hustling

21lessons.png

Today I turned 27. For whatever reason, this feels like an important birthday. And it has been one helluva year, with huge changes (good and bad) that I’m still only now coming to terms with.

While reflecting (and all that touchy-feely jazz), I realized something: Just how long I’ve been at this, the project of my life, the Project of Me. I’ve been hustling since I was 11, when I got my first freelance gig and realized there was a whole other world outside of middle school.

At 12, I hustled and scrimped and wheedled and bought my very first computer that was all my own, a deal I found on Usenet. At 14, I dropped out of high school to homeschool myself. At 15, I moved out of my abusive mother’s house and never looked back.

At 20, after years of unremarkable, dilletante-y freelancing, a pathetic and anxiety-producing (lack of) social life, and desperate, mindless clinginess, I got:

  • dumped & kicked out by my long-term boyfriend
  • scammed out of 3 months’ work by a pathological con artist
  • ran up a bunch of credit card debt as I ran completely out of money
  • caught a bad case of mono
  • got so sick I couldn’t work
  • had my car stolen (by my ex-boyfriend, no less)
  • nearly got sued by a client whose work I was too ill to complete

Yep, all in the span of about 6 months. I hit rock bottom, and there was nothing for it. So I got real and rebuilt my life. I changed just about everything… except my name and my sense of humor.

In short: I went on a completely life-altering Crusade of Amy. Nobody who knows me today would recognize the me of 7 years ago, if they hadn’t watched it happen. I’m still a work in progress, but I have learned oh so very, very much. (All the hard way.)

So, for those of you who love list posts, and who love a take-no-prisoners kind of philosophy, and for those of you who are in the midst of great change yourselves, I present to you: A big old grab bag of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my entire, eventful, dramatic 27 years on earth and 16 years of intentional hustling (both personal and professional).

These are numbered for ease of use, but not arranged in any particular order.

21. Be yourself on your own terms

Don’t compare yourself to other people. No, really, I mean it. Don’t identify with any labels, or traits, or habits, or tools, or things you do — and take careful note when you find yourself doing so automatically, anyway.

It took me years to embrace being a woman. You know why? Because I believed in the label, despite hating it. I believed that “woman” actually meant something… and then I’d look around at all the girls and women I knew, and the way they behaved and what they valued, and I’d feel embarrassed to be “one of them”. Or, if not embarrassed, just terribly out of place, because I couldn’t identify with them or understand them at all.

But you know what? Turns out the label doesn’t mean a damn thing. There is no such thing as Women, The Group. It’s just a bunch of people who have the same anatomy (mostly) and some shared traits (sometimes). By buying into the label, I was not only alienating myself, but insulting & denigrating other women for not living up to my idea of what it should mean. What a total ego trip!

So now, every time I see some kind of “holy war” rage on the internet (whether it’s about gender, politics, industry acronyms, or programming styles), or a rift form in a real life community, I thank my lucky stars that I’ve given up the job of defining & judging the world.

(It also took me years to get over the idea that I ought to be Serious Business. That the right thing to do was to Think Serious Thoughts, Do Serious Work, and Look the Part. That, because I was so smart, it was embarrassing and wrong to love silly music, be loud and boisterous, to wear flamboyant colors and draw attention to myself… Needless to say, I’ve got green hair. And I’m wearing candy-striped socks and a neon yellow hoodie right now.)

20. Everyone can change, but almost no one ever does

Be an exception. Become a student of life and a student of change. Journal. Take notes. Analyze what you do that achieves what you want, and what you do that doesn’t, and figure out how to change the latter into the former.

You only get one life. Make it count.

19. Admit it: the problem is probably you

And if it isn’t, you should claim it anyway, cuz nobody makes progress by blaming others. The path of blame leaves you with no further action except to sit on your butt and share your woeful tidings. Taking responsibility (and blame) for yourself, on the other hand, gives you a path to becoming a more excellent individual.

Even if it really was somebody else’s fault, and there was absolutely nothing you could have done to change the outcome that time, you still win. Because you’ll be stronger, better, faster, smarter.

18. Be your own harshest critic… but only with love

It’s rare that anyone will pay enough attention to anything — a book, a poem, an album, a painting, a piece of software — to truly understand what went into it, and what didn’t. You, on the other hand, as a creator, know. You know when you’re phoning it in. You know when you cut corners. You know when you didn’t do enough prep work or spend enough time on it. You may be the only person who will ever know. So you have to call yourself on your own shit (but with love).

Don’t rip on your work or yourself, just tell yourself, “C’mon now. That may be pretty good, but you know you could do better. Here’s how.”

17. Make no room for whiners, users, or vampires

Imagine that you only have so much energy for life, and that there are two types of people: 1. people who add energy to your life, and 2. people who suck it up or waste it. Do your very best to only associate with people in the first category. Haters, nonconstructive critics, attention whores, apathetic losers, chronically needy people, sycophants, and toadies are all drains on your energy bank. Get rid of them.

16. Don’t make excuses for people

Make it a goal to not become an obstacle to growth in the lives of others. If people you love (or even just like) fuck up, don’t make excuses for them. Treat them like an adult, and act as if you assume, at all times, that they are responsible for their own choices and their own behavior.

Hold yourself to a higher standard (see Lesson #19) and model productive, growth-oriented thinking for everyone else.

15. Laugh at yourself first

You can’t be blackmailed by something you admit publicly — and neither will laughter hurt you if you start it. Bullies and haters rely on cringing fear, and secrecy. So abolish those things. Laugh at yourself first, and the bullies will have to sniff elsewhere for their kicks.

Plus, life’s just more fun this way.

14. Be what you want to have, and do it first

To have friends, be a friend. To gain love, be loving. To gain others’ trust, be trustworthy and trusting. To connect with people who will create energy in your life, learn how to create energy in others’ lives. To laugh, learn to make others laugh. To hear others’ experiences, share yours.

Don’t get caught waiting for somebody else to make the first move, because that moment may never come.

13. Get real about what love means

Deep down, we all wanted to be adored and cherished for exactly who we are, right now. And fuck anyone who tries to tell us otherwise. But that is the thinking of a child — and we are adults, so we know, however deep down, that to have the love we want, we must earn it.

True love (platonic and romantic) is about opening, and growing, and thinking of others. And it is the best reason to strive to be a better person.

12. Be honest about what you really want in life.

Don’t steal others’ goals (money, beach bum lifestyle, dreamy hobbies) out of laziness. You not only won’t get what you really want, you’ll never even have the drive you’d need to achieve the stolen goal, either. And that means you’ll get nothing but half-assed effort and full-assed disappointment. So get real about what you truly want in life. Take the time to figure it out. When you figure it out… don’t deny what you truly crave, no matter how much you think you shouldn’t want it. The heart wants what the heart wants, and chances are, your heart knows better than your brain.

11. Always admit when you’re not giving your best effort…

And when your best effort doesn’t work, redouble your efforts, and quadruple if necessary. (Not just working harder and longer, but trying all the different ways and angles you can.)

10. …but know when to quit, without regrets and without looking back

When you’re doing your absolute best, but you’re making no headway for a good long while, cut your losses without regrets & don’t look back (except to learn from it).

Some problems can’t be solved by working harder. A few can’t even be solved by working smarter. (Especially the type of problems where you have to convince someone else to change — when in doubt, see Lesson #20.) There’s something to be said for knowing when to quit.

(These two lessons have been especially meaningful for me over the past 12 months, when I closed a partnership that wasn’t ever going to work (despite trying many different approaches), decided to move back to the US for my own happiness (despite trying all sorts of ways to make a happy life here in Austria, for nearly 3 years), and decided to have surgery to help me correct a health problem I “could” but knew I never would be able to fix on my own.)

9. Expect the best of everyone, but always believe the evidence

Be trusting by default (except when it comes to contracts and negotiations). But take note when a person shows or tells you what they’re really like. I don’t mean when a person makes a mistake. Everybody slips up once in a while, does something that they regret (and that makes others cringe).

But when a person tells you up front what they’re like (“I’m kind of a jerk,” “I’m not interested in anything serious”) — or when they show meanspiritedness, hatefulness, cowardice, dishonesty, apathy, or a tendency to control or use others more than a couple times — take note. Take their behavior at face value and believe it (and especially don’t make excuses for them — Lesson #16 in action).

Corollary: the more a person talks about how great, honest, giving, etc., he or she is, the greater the chance they’re anything but.

8. Stop waiting for an invitation

Cuz it’s never gonna come. You’re never going to receive an invitation to greatness, or even pleasant mediocrity.

Everyone on this planet is self-absorbed. Too wrapped up in their own lives to have any energy to devote to worrying about yours. Nobody will care more about your life and your achievements than you will. Nobody knows more about what you can really accomplish. Nobody is going to invite you to do your best work, do something really awesome, or to change the world. Nobody but you.

So get on it.

7. When it comes to business, always know your power ratio

You need to know when “they” need you more than you need them. Figure it out and then make your decisions accordingly. (And “business” includes regular old employment.) If you’re in a business arrangement with somebody, and you’re getting a crappy deal, you have only yourself to blame.

6. Everything is negotiable, so negotiate.

Haggling and negotiating can’t physically hurt you, so why let the fear stop you from doing it? Bonus: (if you’re any good) chances are that your boss or your clients need you more than you need them. Again, nobody will advocate for you more than you will, so get on it. And if you’re scared of negotiating, pick up a couple books and then create a practice program for yourself.

That’s how I managed to negotiate a 4-day work week (of 8-hour days) at the age of 22 at my second, staid, semi-corporate job… and many other lucrative deals since.

5. Ask

Every job I’ve ever had, I got by asking for it. Yep, that’s right, I didn’t apply for a job listing — I asked someone in the company, specifically, if they had (or would create) a place for me. And I told them why they ought to.

Again, everyone is self-absorbed — they don’t look at you and think, “Gee, I wonder if she could help us out?” No. You gotta take initiative and plant that idea yourself.

Asking works, and rejection won’t kill you. Try it.

4. Unless you’re a humongous ego, you can always charge more

True fact. The smarter and more thoughtful people just about always undercharge. This is out of an absurd, misplaced sense of guilt. It helps no one, and hurts you (and sometimes even your customer/employer), so quit it.

Educate yourself on value and price accordingly.

3. Everything is a skill

Can you learn to be funny? Can you learn to be outgoing? Can you learn to give inspiring talks? Can you learn how to sell? Can you learn to be a great kisser, or to be one of those magnetic people who draws interest? Can you learn to be a person other people love to be around? Most people don’t think so. But I can tell you for a fact, the answer is “YES!” You can learn all of these things and more. How do I know?

Well, until I got totally fed up with my tiny, sad, insular life at the age of 19, I was a wallflower with social anxiety who always managed to interrupt at the wrong time and who made loopy jokes that nobody ever got, who talked way too much (to the point of awkwardness) to compensate. I spent all my time with people trying to decide what to say, and so I was a terrible listener. I butted in. I forgot people’s names. I didn’t realize when I was making one horrible faux pas after another, because my working understanding of people was so poor. I was terrified of rejection, of every type. I literally hyperventilated my way through my first serious public talk.

Now, everyone thinks I’m a natural, and naturally hilarious, extrovert and gifted speaker. That’s all because they have no way of knowing how hard I sweated it out to get there. Thanks to years of applied effort, I now understand people (perhaps too well), am no longer held captive by my fear of rejection. And I have it on good authority that many consider me to be an excellent listener, too. (I even got to be great at names — but sadly, that’s something that my chronic illness wiped out. Sigh.)

You, too, can create an “exercise” program and “obstacle” course for any “natural” skill you want. There are books on everything (even kissing). If you remain bad at something you want, get real and admit it’s cuz you don’t want to put in the effort.

2. It’s never about you

Read something on the internet and get all offended cuz the author dissed your favorite life choice/programming language/company/90s band/vampire novel? It’s not about you. Somebody thought you weren’t worth their time, attention, kindness, or money? Not about you. Somebody slammed you or you work? It definitely wasn’t about you. Somebody made a sexist, racist, ageist, weightist, whateverist comment to you? No way it was about you.

Somebody tried to screw you over, to manipulate you, lie to you, hurt you? It’s not about you.

Remember how I said everybody is self-absorbed pretty much all of the time? It’s the god’s honest truth. We’re all trapped in our own little darkness behind the eyes, and so just about everything we do is about us. Some need we have, some problem or desire or bias of ours. We so rarely even imagine the other people as being fully functional beings like us… we tend to look at them as paper cutouts that walk and talk. And who pays attention to paper cutouts?

So when somebody does something that pisses you off or hurts you, remember: it’s not about you. They’re probably barely even thinking of you. Don’t wonder, “What does this say about meeee?” Because the answer will almost always be, “Nothing at all.” Ask, instead, what it says about them. (And then analyze your own actions the same way. Fight the animated-cut-out syndrome. Remember: there are real people in there.)

And lastly, but not leastly…

1. Memento Mori

Finally, my grim but beautiful secret, one so important that I plan to make it the theme of my very first tattoo:

Memento Mori. Remember EVERY DAY that you’re going to die.

Look at your life as it is currently, and ask yourself, “How would I feel about myself on my deathbed if I lived out another 40, 50, 60 years exactly like this?”. Do an Ivan Ilyich on yourself. Then, if the vision horrifies you, figure out what you need to change, and do it.

When you think about your eventual death, everything changes. The things that seem “little” on a weekly or monthly basis can suddenly become critical — and things that seem catastrophic right now can look trivial.

Maybe today you’re spending too much time on work that doesn’t feel worthwhile to you. Maybe you are working with people you don’t hate, but you don’t really like either. Maybe you’re living in a place that doesn’t feed your soul, and telling yourself you’re doing it “just for now, for the money/family/convenience/whatever.” Maybe you don’t spend enough time with people who lift you up, people you love. Maybe you’re in denial, imagining that if you just tough it out a little longer, your real life will begin.

Today those may not seem so important, but if you stretch that out over the rest of your life? Compounded by the fact that nobody’s gonna do a course correct for you? Whoa nelly.

On the flip side: Bummed today cuz you quarreled with someone you love over something trivial? Or because you can’t afford something fancy you want? Or because you owe taxes or student loans? Or you think somebody on the internet is wrong (or angry at you)? Well. These things shall pass, you know they will.

And if these little nagging problems truly dominate your life, use your deathbed fantasy to realize how little you will care about them in the future.

Take the teeth out of death. Use it as a lens to improve your life.

Fin

The list goes on, but I’m tapped out (and you probably are too). So, tell me: what lessons have I missed that you’ve learned the hard way?

Hard Work — 12 Comments
21
Apr 11

“Let’s cofound a baby!” and other phrases you should never speak

Three years in, I’ve learned a lot of hard lessons from bootstrapping a real paying product. The biggies are:

  1. Whoa, okay, so maybe we’re working a lot since we’re doing it on the side, but this isn’t so bad. I should have started years earlier.
  2. OMG it’s so awesome to wake up with money in my inbox.
  3. The more we market it, the more money it makes.
  4. A product can survive a lot of abuse and still make a profit.
  5. Nothing beats owning and running your own product, with no one to answer to except your customers.
  6. Be extremely, extremely, extremely picky and careful about who you work with. That’s for freelancers… when it comes to partners (who have a share in your profits), be extremely, extremely, extremely picky times 100.

And that last one, #6, was the hardest to learn.

Lessons 1 thru 5 were almost all positive lessons, learning that things were easier & better & less terrifying than I’d imagined.

But working with the wrong people? That can be the death of you.

Shopping for founders on the intertweets

Which is why it’s so tragicomic to see people shopping around for cofounders like they’re shopping for toilet paper.

This guy isn’t looking for a cofounder in the strictest sense, but this type of thing goes on all the time.

Founders’ nights. Web apps where you list yourself as being interested in finding a cofounder, or being picked as one by somebody with an idea. Mixers. “Will you be my cofounder?”

Does anyone actually believe that this approach will result in lasting happiness?

Creating a business is a big deal

Creating a business — a real one — is possibly one of the biggest things you’ll do in your life. I don’t want to talk it up so it sounds like some sort of unassailable mountain of a goal, because it’s not; it’s very achievable. But if you really knuckle down and intend to create a business, not just hack on cool stuff — then it’s going to change your life. No two ways around it. Learning & growing and all that jazz.

In fact, in terms of life-change-ability, creating a business is right on par with getting married. And choosing the right co-creator is just as critical as choosing the right spouse.

Tell me: Is this really how you’d go about finding the right man or woman for you?

Starting a business really is like starting a marriage. Trust me, I know — my husband and I did both at the same time.

It’s true that we didn’t get started alone, and people have looked at that and accused me of being disingenuous about how “not that hard” it is to do it on your own.

But what they don’t know is that many of the people we’ve worked with have disappointed us. And every time, it’s been an immense blow not only to the continued momentum of the project, but to our desire to work on it.

Our co-founder sob story

In a way, we were both lucky and unlucky. We parted on good terms with our original partners after they lost interest and slacked off, leaving me & Thomas alone to work on Freckle — but I know from many watercooler & bar stool conversations that this is an unusually rosy outcome. More often, a falling out with a partner kills the project dead.

Why didn’t this ruptured business association kill our app? Three reasons: partly because we had all agreed, up front, that our friendship was more important than the business; partly because they owned only a profit-share and not part of the product itself; and partly because I was willing to (in the interest of friendship) buy them out with more than they had earned so far.

Even then, the discussion we had to set this agreement was heartwrenching to everyone. We were all upset for a long time. I even cried (and I’m not much of a crier). Everyone was hurt and disappointed and wary and sad and angry.

Not gonna make that mistake again in a hurry

Since then, we haven’t given any ownership — or even profit-sharing — to anyone else. Not for lack of being asked. A couple of people we’ve hired to freelance have asked, and I said that we’d be up for considering it… later. When we’d all worked together longer. (This was only a couple of months in.)

Then, predictably, the people who asked for a stake in our company lost interest. We were still paying them an hourly rate, of course, but other things in their life took precedence. They became unavailable, or unpredictable, or unreliable. Work suffered, things slowed down.

I don’t hold that against them at all. I know what it’s like to be a freelancer, and they have their own lives and passions — and I don’t expect anyone else to be as passionate about our products as Thomas and I are. However…

I sure am glad that we didn’t bring them on as partners and experience Heartstomping 2: The Second Heart (You Don’t Actually Have).

You might say, “Well, maybe they wouldn’t have lost interest if you’d given them a stake in the product.”

Maybe not, but my gut says that a stake wouldn’t have changed a thing. Our original partners had a 50% stake in any profit generated from Freckle, and they still slowly abandoned it. Originally, I thought this was a “company culture” thing that I could fix, but I did everything in my power and couldn’t stop it. It was like watching a trainwreck in slomo.

Now, after talking with lots of other indie biz people, I’ve learned that cofounder experiences like mine are just par for the course. Big cofounder drama is everywhere (just ask Noah Glass, the guy who led the creation of Twitter).

In short: Don’t obsess, don’t fantasize, and don’t rush in

You don’t need a partner. Don’t believe the myth that if only you had one, everything would be great. Even if you find the right partner, there’s no such thing Happily Ever After.

A true partnership is a fantastic thing, but it’s also really rare. (And still fraught with issues.) And you can’t fake it.

In the end, it’s far better to be single than to marry somebody who’s wrong for you just because you’re lonely. The wrong person not only won’t contribute to the success of your venture, he or she will almost surely destroy what little good you can achieve. Not to mention sap your will to live.

Finally, get realistic about finding your business life partner. It’s almost vanishingly unlikely that you’re going to find the right person by asking every person you see, “Will you marry me?” or “Wanna be my cofounder?” Or even just limiting it to attractive people, it’s not a winning strategy.

Better to keep your eyes peeled, all the time, for somebody you’ve worked with for a long time, somebody you can predict, somebody whom (gender aside) you’d trust enough to marry and raise children with.

Cuz when you create a business, that’s what you’re doing.

This is not a sexy fantasy, but it’s the truth.

Wanna learn how I came up with a plan, a product, and marketing that got us $1,500 in the first month of selling our subscription web app? (Now, 2 years and 4 months later, earning 12 times that?) You might want to take my upcoming 30×500 Product Launch Class.

Hard Work / Productivity / Slaying Unicorns — 16 Comments
19
Jul 10

Happy Burnout

It’s Happy! It’s Burnout! It’s… Happy Burnout! (cc sizumaru)

I love the controlled chaos of entrepreneurship. I love writing, marketing, scheming, reaching out to people. I’m a pop-outta-bed kinda girl, always looking forward to the big adventure.

Except lately.

Lately, there are days when I just can’t muster up the energy to choose what to tackle. Lately, when I sit down to write, it feels like a funeral dirge, not a jig. Lately, there are days when I can’t stomach the idea of adventure at all.

The confounding thing is, everything’s going so well. I could barely ask for more. I’m electrified, joyful, and glad… and very clearly burnt out.

Yes, folks, that’s right — I’ve got a bad case of Happy Burnout. Burnout caused by, as it were, an excess of awesome.

Happy Burnout Happens

As a stoic workaholic, believe me, I know burnout. Burnout knocks me on my ass, makes me wanna scream “screw you!” to the world, drop all obligations and go into hiding.

But not Happy Burnout. Happy Burnout looks different, and feels different.

Any questions? (cc mike9alive, curt deatherage)

Burn yourself out on things you love, on intrinsic motivation rather than external obligation, and the core symptoms will be similar — listlessness, disinterestedness, lack of creativity. But the psychological icing is a different flavor altogether.

With Happy Burnout, there’s no rotten, spiraling self-talk. You don’t hear that venal little whisper to damn it all to hell. For me, at least, that voice only appears when I’m doing work I shouldn’t be doing in the first place.

Happy Burnout hard to spot, for that reason, and these:

  • Happy Burnout lacks vicious and destructive thoughts
  • Happy Burnout can arrive one hour, and leave the next
  • Happy Burnout leaves you very functional, most of the time
  • Happy Burnout sneaks in, rather than announcing itself with a crash
  • Happy Burnout leaves you puzzled why you don’t want to do the things you love

Happy Burnout is different.

Happy Burnout is a sneaky little bastard

Regular old familiar burnout is like a game of One More Thing KABOOM!.

Suddenly, a client asks for one more thing… one more thing goes wrong… one more thing piled on… and it all comes tumbling down. Kaboooom!

Happy Burnout is One More Thing — hold the Kaboom.

You can imagine how this change in pattern disrupts your coping strategies. Or, at least, disrupts mine, because typically, I skirt burnout, waiting for that big kaboom, feeling it build up. So I’ve been chugging along happily, taking on big, lofty goals — and when things went well, with no blow-up pre-shocks, I took on more.

No kaboom. Never a kaboom.

I was waiting for an advanced notice, but it never came. Even my stress level didn’t seem noteworthy. I was enjoying it.

Entré the sneaky little bastard.

Happy Burn-Out looks (and feels!) like great success, like everything’s going just right… up until the point where it isn’t. But then it can get better again. Until it isn’t (again).

I’m in it now, and I can tell you that it sucks. I’m overjoyed one hour, and totally whatever the next.

That’s nothing like Angry Burnout, where I was furious at all the external obligations, and the people associated with them. It’s nothing like Rebellious Burnout, where I want to tell the whole world, “Fuck you — I want off!”

And it wasn’t even Constant Burnout, where I was totally incapable of getting into anything, ever.

Happy Burnout can come in waves, alternating even minute by minute.

I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late.

A Recipe for Happy Burnout

Here’s a foolproof way to create Happy Burnout, a recipe I can guarantee since it’s worked so well for me:

  • work late into the night
  • work on weekends
  • crash every few weeks and veg — instead of taking true breaks
  • withdraw from friends because you are busy and/or apathetic
  • travel a lot
  • take on a lot of different types of projects at once, e.g. building a new product and also remaking your apartment
  • take the “I’m sick!” messages from your body literally — you have an infection, not a stress problem

And, finally, the last, most critical step:

  • really love what you’re doing

Because it’s this last one that changes Rebellious Burnout, Angry Burnout, Constant Burnout into Happy Burnout.

Happy Burnout can only come about when you really enjoy your work. When your work fires you up — and burns you to a crisp.

I’m not special, and neither are you

I thought burnout was a thing of the past for me, because external obligations that made me sick were a thing of the past for me. (Well, except tax prep.)

Heck, we’d even just hired an intern — and a crackin’ good one at that. We had help. I was different. I wasn’t making the mistake that other entrepreneurs make. And I was only doing what I loved.

Yep… my work has been passionate, autonomous, intrinsically motivated, emotionally rewarding, and aligned with my Core Values.

And therefore, I thought I was immune to burnout. I thought I was different.

Bet you’ve never heard that one before.

What to do about it

Well, I’m not totally out of the woods yet, but I can tell you what’s helped me so far:

Not working all the damn time… Or working all the time, and spending all of the rest of the time with friends, or on other projects, or consuming media.

… Even if you love it.

I started taking weekends off, almost by accident, and wow, what a difference. I can feel the Happy Burnout symptoms fading away, and I’m excited to write again, and scheme again, instead of throwing up my hands.

Tearing yourself away from work you love is hard. Trust me, I know. I’m great at avoiding work I don’t love, and very, very bad at avoiding work I do love.

But you know that phrase, “Find the work you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”? Clearly that’s not the case: Work is work. It uses up our ability to think critically and manage ourselves… even if we enjoy it.

I’ve certainly learned that even if it feels like I’m “never working a day in my life,” I still need to take the weekend off.

Are you in Happy Burnout?

Or have you been? Please chime in. I want to hear about it. If we share our experiences, we’re all that much richer and better prepared for it.

I’d love to hear…

  • what got you into Happy Burnout
  • what it felt like, how you realized it for what it was
  • what you did to counteract it
  • how that worked
  • what you’re doing differently now