deep thoughts in writing
Oh my god, the bread
I love bread. All bread. But good bread? Good bread I kinda worship a teensy (a massive amount) bit. Good bread is something entirely different. It’s alchemy. Magic. Love. All kneaded into something filling, nourishing, life-giving. And it’s something I don’t...
You SHOULD be afraid to speak your mind. We all should.
I read a blog post last week that a human-I-semi-know (friend is a massive overstatement for most of the people I'm connected to) wrote. She was nonplussed about how the ethics police are basically just making everything harder than it needs to be with all their...
Here’s why your leadership style is broken and what to do instead. [Hint: Put down the pom poms]
You’re a leader! Yay! Good for you. But are you an effective one? Do you even know? Any clue how to tell? It’s cool. I’ll wait until the existential angst passes. Being a leader requires a profound amount of objective perspective. Perspective that most people do not...
Resources + Inventory
A few days ago, on one of our Incubator calls, I taught the group the value and methodology of doing a SWOT analysis for your work on a regular basis. For those of you not fluent in traditional marketing jargon, SWOT = Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and...
What to do when your entrepreneurial tank is just completely goddamn empty
As small business owners, we understand the ups and downs. We get that there will be high highs and loooooow lows. There will be days when everything feels like ohmygodTHISiswhyIchosethislife! and there will be more than a few days when it's more like...
The soul of sacrifice
Your business needs your soul. Like a partner. Like a child. Like the very breath from your chest needs the air it breathes. Honest soul is not simple though. It’s not inspirational memes or platitudes. Or one-line idioms. It’s sacrifice. It’s the simple question[s]...
If I waited until I felt like it, I wouldn’t have a business
I am TERRIBLE at accounting. Seriously, like awful at it. I learned this in my first semester of business school. I was taking basic accounting and the homework sent me spiraling into crocodile tears and teeth-clenched monosyllabic man-grunts. It was awful. I had...
Smoke and mirrors: The Yellow Brick Road to six figures and fame
You created a course. It was bigger than anything you had ever done. You charged A LOT. People signed up. You made a lot of money. You then discovered that you bit off more than you could chew. A lot more. You panicked. You couldn't deliver. People got maaaad. You...
The ballad of the unhappy customer -or- Why the customer is not always right
I grew up with the notion that the customer is always right. No matter what. My grandfather worked at a long-gone department store in Minnesota and told me endless stories of opening early for little old ladies who needed a new girdle and staying late to find the...