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Lesson Info

Move Your Business Forward

This is not an overnight think now going on here now was definitely something to revisit definitely definitely something to revisit do you find? I mean, do you have people that report back to you and say and in six months have have done that and looked back and said, look at what I've done no there's a void and I never hear back from it, but I would love to hear that I don't actually I'm actually really curious I'm going I'm returning to a conference no cool at the end of the month called craft occasion that I presented at last year and I know that a lot of people go year after year on one of the things I'm looking forward to hopefully maybe it's following up with people that I saw there last year because I don't often have that opportunity even to kind of see and then people feel timid about that there's like that timidity and I feel it too, right? Like I only ever started writing two authors of books, which I've done a couple of times, but I would never do that because I was like the...

re so many things to dio and getting email from me is not probably really one of them until a couple of people e mailed me about my book and it was made my day and I was like, holy smokes I bet people just don't actually do it so often and it's amazing, and I just started doing it like, I'm gonna send your little fan mail, a person who has done something that has really resonated with me and it's cool if you don't write me back and just wanted to let you know that it has any way following up is good, and I also something that I was curious about today that was an unknown for me, given the in studio aspect of today on the at home aspect of today is whether connections have been made, whether people have really, you know, it's possible that somebody said something that really resonated with somebody else hope with each other, that's what this day was about, this is not the kim joe, however much you know, I'm the one up here, but like, this was a day where everybody shared as much or more than I did, and I think we all have things to learn from each other, because what we've also learned through all of that sharing is that we don't all have the same like issues, we don't all have the same insecurities or fears or things that were ashamed of, but we all have things right, and we that's, I think, a tremendous invitation to stay in touch and teo, where we don't have tio reintroduce these things, and it and you know, we could go home and we can call up a trusted person be like I have to tell you about these things that I worked through hears from the beginning and here's what that you know, but here today in our virtual world we can start from so tomorrow andi think that's a special thing and I encourage you to experiment with that try to take the risk of reaching out and that would be really special, so I have a question for you. This is from dana doodle nets who says in six months I'm going to call myself a designer rather than someone who is trying to be a designer. So my question to you is, does dina doodle nets need toe wait until six months to call herself a designer like this? Yeah, what is that gap between someone who's trying tio and somebody is what is an emerging artist and what is an artist? Yeah, yeah, I think that that is entirely a question for dana, but I also do wonder if we're concerned too much with titles. I spent a lot of my twenties feeling wholly unqualified to do anything right, so I'm a big proponent of the liberal arts education, but when you graduate university with the linguistics degree and you do not become a linguist, what was qualified to dio the answer was, in my opinion nothing. So then you go to grad school it's the thing that you think is the only thing you're qualified to do with an honor student with the linguistics degrees you go into research psychology where you're unhappy and you're in your early twenties and you've quit your phd program you're like, well, what am I qualified to d'oh? And it wasn't until I reached my late twenties and early thirties that I was like, who cares if I'm qualified to do anything if I do it on dh? They think there's something to be said for that we were talking about just doing it right? We can think about doing it, we can come up with the idea of doing that, but unless we do what we can worry is what we're talking about, right? If I'm gonna worry if I don't do it and worry if I do do it, then I might as well worry while doing it right instead of not doing it and it took me a long time to realize that I did not need a diploma on my wall that proved in some way that I could call myself a writer all I needed to do was right and then that was it and if I if I wrote it wrong and I was doing it publicly, well then oh yes, I would hear from people about how wrong I wass and then I could decide if I was then going to not be a writer anymore or get back up and figure it out and do it again and do it better next time and that was something that was very, very powerful to me. I worked with one of the crash a books that I wrote was with a lot of crush a designers who had never worked as paid crash a designer's before we all started kind of doing this thing together we all just decided to do it on day. One of the questions I asked them was when did you start to call yourself a designer and it's been many years since I've read their answers but there was a wide range of them from well, from the day I applied my pencil to a sketchbook teo when I sold my first design tio when I was asked when the first design was commissioned from me to like and there was the range and many of this at the time were from people who were regularly working in likes or paid encompassing compensated ways as croce designers and I was really, really informative to me to see their different responses and so too dana that's why they it is up to dana but if she's designing then she's a designer and if not calling herself a designer is holding her back if that's getting in the way from her making good decisions for her business than it's time to move past that and to apply the title. But it's not getting in the way, then it's ok to take the time. It's ok, that because that's sort of what we are all about here create alive that it's not just calling yourself a title because you've taken a class, but really it's going out there and doing the thing, and then you're doing the thing and and that's why we're all about this skills based learning here, it's? Because you don't need a degree on the wall to tell you that you're something it's going out and doing it, and showing your work and seeing what happens that's, right? You know, and having the humility to know that especially in the beginning, that might not be a ce all the time. There is no such thing as an overnight success, there's just someone you hear about that today that you had heard about yesterday, right? But like totally doing it so that anybody was that something was there anyone who was like I am in the stage right now of I am not doing it at all and dying blocked in that way where what you're going to do tomorrow is start doing it was that the experience of anyone today? That was my experience when I started you're making I mean I've you know I've got my business stuff going on but they were like ideas that I had that I discounted off the bat that I just started doing have just felt so much better doing them even better that I didn't have a plan for them they were not integral to my business but it's it's something that you know we mentioned fun early fund is important fun is something that we often feel is a guilty pleasure I think guilt is something that should not be associated with pleasure under any circumstance if you like to read trashy novels great that is something that brings you great joy do not apologize for it just show people you're smut collection that's great do it but like there's this guilt that we feel for having fun and enjoying things and I encourage you to do that outside of your business we've spent today thinking about what holds us back what we want to do what we want to achieve who do we need to impress to do that customers piers you know editors whoever it is but also like what are you doing? Give yourself a break from all of this and do it don't think about doing it if I had a holiday oh if I fifteen minutes like fifteen minutes make a fifteen minutes early and do it you could totally do it please don't follow up with me. This is how you can get in touch with me. I love hearing back from people today. We spent the day getting to know each other, talking about the kinds of things we don't talk a lot about. Andi, I care. And I want to know how you're doing. And I want to know if you continue to have questions, you can shoot me a note anywhere that you would like on. Please let me know how it's going. Let me know if when you started to act on the decisions you made today if you realized that you were going in the wrong direction and had a scrap things that's okay, let me know if you took your first step. If that fc listing lead to more etc listings in your first sale wanna know? I want to know and I want to know if there's questions that you have and I want to know if you want to talk to other people and I will keep a list of your names what you do. You know, like we can totally do that I'm a knitwear designer. I want to talk to other knitwear designers who know what's going on, I will keep a list. And if you email I will say, let me introduce you to so and so, who is willing to chat? I would love to do that. That is a way that I would love nothing more than to spend my time making this kind of when we do this all in one room, people can walk up to each other afterwards and share business cards and say let's, have a coffee or we live in the same city. We don't have that today, but we can make that happen by brute force on dh I think we should do so. So shoot me an email and say, like, we can make a name for it, I don't know if somebody could suggest the name for it, like a collective hive mind of, I don't even know of wonderful magical unicorns, and then and I will make I will do that, and we can do that because I think that having talked about the ugly creatures, having talked about the living under the overpasses and talking about the concerns that we have in the fear and the shame, that is something that, uh, that we have shared with each other in a very generous way, and I think we can all help each other well forward from it, and I want to thank you for it. I have learned so much from you today. I have learned. I have a lot to think about myself. There will be a pouring out of notes that I did not take during class today, that I will wake up thinking about tomorrow morning. Thank you, really, really, thank you, thank you for sharing, and I hope that you're feeling a little bit better. I know that you're feeling tired. You should totally be feeling tired, but I hope you're feeling a bit better in a bit more hopeful and a bit more solid because you earned it.