I graduated college feeling excited. I was fired up, passionate and ready to go. I wanted nothing more than to work at an awesome digital advertising firm. I idolized these businesses because they looked so amazing on the inside (damn those sleek websites) and I was seduced by all the conferences and books they wrote. I soon realized that just being my type of awesome wasn’t enough to get me into one of these places. I LITERALLY couldn’t get in without selling my soul or doing some hardcore hustling. I poured my heart into every application and follow up letter. I designed mini-sites. I did everything. I wasn’t even applying for super creative jobs. They all had jr or assistant in the title. I was so depressed because there didn’t seem to be a way “in.” It reminded me of the Gates of Mordor ( NERD ALERT).  How the hell was I going to get in?

It was after hustling SO HARD for  a job at a really cool company (and not getting it) that I decided to make sure I didn’t have to depend on anyone to make my life something worthwhile. I would create my own awesome. I would have a sleek website and kick ass on my own.

I quit the job search and decided to start my own business doing what I was best at. You know, free and all that? Little did I know, the red tape didn’t stop at the advertising and design world. There were plenty of people out here to tell you what to do, how to act and what methods to use to make your business better. I was tired of the language they used to make sure I felt small and pressed the buy button.

And here’s the worst part, sometimes I did!

They call themselves gurus (literally), declare their ideas as gospel and make sure you know that they deserve to be idolized. I got tired of watching people promote each other in a closed system. I got tired of the tweets, the endless instructions and blog posts. It seemed like everyone wanted to tell me what to do but NO ONE wanted to empower me to do it in a way that felt good to me.

If I wanted to be told what to do, I would have gotten a job.

And that is why I am here

My big why: I do what I do because I don’t want ANYONE to feel like they can’t live a life of their own design. I want people who desire to be free to actually do it.

I don’t want anyone to feel small. I want people to be their OWN biggest fan. I want  people to not think twice about writing that email, applying for that conference or even creating their own. I truly believe that in order to build a business that you love, you have to love the process of creating it.

No more feeling weak, helpless or like you “have” to buy things out of obligation or  pressure.

I help people create a digital presence that makes them feel like they are TRULY showing up. One that demands to be seen and can’t be ignored.

I have decided to make it my goal in life to make sure you feel good enough to do anything.

Well hello, there. HAPPY NOVEMBER!  I’m back with lots of news. But first, lets talk about why I left for a bit.

October has been a crazy month for me. I was in a different city every weekend.  During my traveling, I was launching my sparkly new service and continuing to build my brand.  As a result, I ended up doing a lot more listening than talking this month. I even went to RHHlive where I listened and had epiphany after epiphany.

I listened to Kris Carr when she told us all about caring for our bodies as much as we care for our businesses.

I listened to Danielle when she told me to push — push to the edges where true innovation happens.

I listened to Marie when she talked about creating an even better experience with your business with excellent customer service.

I’ve embraced all of these lessons over the last few days. No more meat for me! My big push to the edge will be revealed very soon and you’ll see the rewards of listening to Marie even sooner!

I’ve also been listening to you. I’ve been reading your emails, visiting your sites and reading your tweets. I’ve been taking it all in and I’ve come to a realization.

You aren’t here to play it small. You want to create something great. Something big. You want to get paid (a lot). You want to rub elbows with Oprah and have tea with Danielle LaPorte. You want to have people throw money at you and sell out every course you create. You want that book deal, that event gig. You want it all.

But why isn’t it happening? You’ve spent the money. Invested in the training, read the books and blog posts.

I realized that so many of you are buying all these products and wasting all this money because you aren’t buying the solution, you are trying to buy permission. You want confidence. You are hoping that someone out there will give you the keys to unlock this bigness. If you stick around guruhere enough, you will get some of the fairy dust on you. You’ll get the stuff you need. The good stuff.

No. As Marie would say, “You have everything you need.”

Here is a little secret: You aren’t gonna get the confidence to embrace your awesomeness from a digital product or e-course. At least, not in the way you need it. You are wasting money by doing that.

I’m not going to pretend to give you a miracle solution but here is what I KNOW:

It’s a lot easier to email Forbes when your site is tight and people like what you do. Those networking events are super useful when you have a bangin’ cocktail line. That call to the book agent will go better if you have a brand they can instantly remember. Oprah is way more likely to return your phone calls if you carry yourself like you are a big deal (because you are). It’s a breeze to sell when you create something people need.

Don’t be paralyzed by the desire to get permission or to “be ready.” Start making moves now.

Tweet this

Invest your time and effort into building a brand that helps give yourself the permission so you don’t need it from anyone else. Create a digital presence that people can’t ignore. Don’t sit around and wait for the world to open up.

But this is easier said than done, isn’t it?

This means stepping away and letting it just be you and your business for a while. Take focused action. Action that isn’t about building fast but building smart and sustainable.

Confidence doesn’t come fast. Why would everything else?

That is EXACTLY what I do here. This is what I am creating with this site. I am here to provide you a unique business building experience that is all about YOU. Your story. Your brand. Your business. I’m all about building smart. You are the boss. Bosses have to be confident. Once you start acting like one, the rest will come.

Another thing I learned from Marie at RHHlive. Behavior first, then the mindsets. We do the work. We run the mile, even if we don’t think we can. We start writing that book every day, even if we don’t think we’ll finish.

Now that I am even MORE clear about what you want, I know how to give you more. With that in mind, I took some hardcore action of my own and made some big changes to my site and business to better accommodate this new relationship between you and your brand.

Big Announcements:

Remember the Hot Brand Action Challenge? Well now, it’s a lean and mean digital course that delivers straight to your inbox — for free! OH SNAP. You get 1 high-impact, question/action along with a lesson to go with each. There are 5 days in this challenge and I can guarantee that your brand will look very different when you come out on the other side.  If you are already on my list and want to get the challenge now, fill out the form and update your profile by checking the box. You’ll get the course too.

Your  business will get more action than you’ve had in MONTHS. MONTHS, I tell you.

Sign up here!

This is also an introduction to the Weekly Hot Brand Action. Just like the Hot Brand Action Challenge, I will send you an email every week designed to help you take action in your brand and start doing more with your business. Action is the name of the game.

SHAZAM has been going really well but I got a lot of emails from people who weren’t quite ready for the week long event but wanted some high-impact, super focused jamming on their brand. I hear you, my friends. I listened. Boy, did I listen.

Ready for the REALLY BIG announcement? Drumroll please!

Let me introduce you to:

The Lightning Bolt is SHAZAM’s high-impact sidekick for people who just need a focused creative co-direction on a very specific aspect of their brand. This is where that personal work can happen. As you know, I’m your creative co-director. It’s my job to help make sure your brillance is being fully represented and sometimes you just can’t do it alone. With me, you’ll get the work done.

Sucky website? Copy woes?  Need a brand cheerleader? Need to get unstuck? Creative social media strategy?

I’m your girl. The options are endless. These sessions are only offered to a few people a month ( SHAZAM is the star, after all) so get in touch if you’d like to be on the list to get one. Want to know more about it?

Click here to get some lightning in your life.

Want to talk about how we can BEST work together? Schedule your own Lightning SHAZAM session. See how I put those together? Ha! It’s 20 minutes of chatting about you, your business and what you need. I make sure you get 1 Hot Brand Action on every call. Want one of those?

My people will call your people!

( My people isn’t a person, it’s a digital program. Tungle.)

What do you think? Do you think you’ve been buying permission?

As you know, I have been working a lot behind-the-scenes on the new amazing thing I am working on. I know you are TIRED of hearing about it. I am too. Still in the refinement stage but I’ll be ready to debut the new swag very soon.   But first, a gift. I call it the Tweetable Manifesto. A collection of truths ( more specificly, my truth) that I have collected during my entrepeneaural journey and a sneak peak into my big vision. I’ve been giving my twitter followers some previews of these over the last few weeks and my brand will be FULLY embracing this point of view very soon.  And yes, all these will fit in a tweet!

Keep checking back. All of these manifestos will become live links to posts. A wikepedia of my point of view.

And the name of this manifesto will change when big thing is released!

You have everything you need, in your own story. Don’t ask someone else to give you what you already have.

Act like you know you are remarkable and everyone will treat you like you are.

Don’t put other people on a pedestal. Put yourself up there. Elevate yourself and your work in your mind. If you don’t, no one else will

Business problems are actually design problems.

Sustainable > Fast.

Don’t hold on to your ideas too long. Release them. Give them the chance to grow, change and make a mark on the world. You can ALWAYS edit. Doesn’t matter how many people are watching.

Businesses evolve, just like you do. Let go of what doesn’t feel right to make room for what will work.

Make time to listen to what your business is saying. Take time to understand what is going on.

You are the boss of your business, act like it. Get brave. Can’t do it? Act brave. We can smell your uncertainty.

Make sure people can identify themselves in your story. A story without people in it is a story people can’t relate to.

You should understand how to message your gifts. That is where the money in your business is hiding. No one knows your business better than you.

Refine, refine and refine.

Invest more time and energy to discovering your story then growing your business. Trust me on this one.

Don’t spend more time building your business than you do running it.

Your path is unlike anyone else’s. Don’t expect to get the same results that someone is promising you. Learn the lessons and forge your own path.

See the beauty in life and make that your business.

You need to feel amazing about what you offer before the right people will too.

The way you work is the key to uncovering the TRUE value of what you do.

You could be saying something life-shifting but if you are speaking Spanish and everyone else speaks Danish, they won’t hear it.

Decide, right now, to start building a business that resonates with your true vision. Because if you aren’t, why don’t you just get a job?

Why, indeed?

If you liked this, please share! I mean, that is what’s awesome about a tweetable manifesto! What would you add to this manifesto? What amazing things have you learned along the way?

This part 2 in a series that explores finding the Sweet Spot in your business. Go back and check out Part 1 here. Want to make sure you get the next part when it comes out? Click here to get on the list over on the left there.

Complex recipes freak me out. I am a student of 4-5 ingredient recipes. When a recipe has too many moving parts, it’s way more likely that things will go wrong in my mind and I don’t move forward.

In fact, I usually get disoriented and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead.

Some of my most unsucessful cooking experiences have been wih indian food. The food is delicious but the components are complicated to bring together and hard to get hold of. I usually just get frustrated with the process and go buy the Indian food instead.

I have much more success with Italian food ( which is all about making simple and easily accessible ingredients shine) and Mexican food ( which is all about similar flavor profiles). I love when I am able to take a simple dish and remix it with additional spices or ingredients but still be able to revert back to the basic if I need to.

I like things to be simple but unique so I have room to create.

It’s the same reason why you will see me wearing a simple dress with a bright print, earrings and great shoes but not much else. Once we start talking about bangles, stocking color or shoe options, I become less sure that I will leave the house looking good.

This directly feeds into why I do the work I do and the brands I am most likely to connect with. I am obsessed with simple but high-impact business models with room to grow and create in. Complex brands and messages give me head spins because seeing possibilities becomes harder with too many moving parts.

I love to take action right away and if I can’t, I check out. I love things to be simple and clear / but bold, unique and fun.

Our businesses are separate entities, yes. But they are also extensions of who we are as people and we feel the tension when we try to fight our nature with business solutions that don’t match the story/design of our lives.

For example, it wouldn’t make sense for me to write a 200 page e-book or develop complex charts. It’s also really unnatural for me to read a complex business book.

How does this realization manifest itself in the running of my own business?

I am constantly simplifying my bigger ideas and concepts by creating simple visuals, easy to follow charts or interactive pdfs to help the ideas feel easier. I use pop culture to make connections.  I use storytelling to help get my point across. Usually, my posts are on the shorter side and my products (while high impact and unique) won’t clock in above 30-40 pages.

Because I know what my story/design is all about, I am always refining and editing my own business model. I am also always creating new services, testing them and bringing them into focus.

I mess up when I get overindulgent and try to tend to too many moving parts or try to do too much at once.

Our lives should inform our business strategies. And story/design is easy to find in real life.

It’s all about the decisions we are most confident to make.

Don’t start with the stuff you don’t feel confident about.

Say you are a style revolutionary who likes to restyle, reshape and rethink the way you dress? Clearly, that is gonna inform the way you run your business. It’s also going to change the way you approach the way you work. I mean it sure does for Tessa. She embraces it.

Or maybe you have a gift for organizing your life and getting the most from your inspirations? I am sure that comes to play in your business too. Take a look at Michelle, her site is all about that too.

I picked cooking and clothes because that is where I feel most confident in my choices but you can do it for anything.

Lets try to curate your story/design in life.

Pick something about your life that you are very confident about. For example, your style, your service, the way you raise your kids or one of your skills or hobbies and explore your own decision making.

What do you love about it? Why not something else?

Describe the experience and you should be able to start making those connections. List them here are email them to me and I will help you refine it. No, seriously. You can email me. : )

If you like this post, please share!

Imagine this ( or maybe you don’t have to):

You want your business to start making a big impact. You have worked hard to get here. You write the blog posts, put your services out there and burned the midnight oil developing products you believe in. You have followed the book on this digital entrepreneurship stuff  but something is still missing. People aren’t buying. You aren’t feeling heard.

You go see a movie. It all has the right actors in it. The action is great. But you still leave disappointed. You discuss the movie with your friends, hoping to piece together the experience. Why didn’t this work?

Something was just off.

I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. Some insider’s baseball, if you will. If you find that a product isn’t selling or a service isn’t converting, I am about to tell you why.

Disappointment happens when the story (the content, the message) doesn’t match the design ( the way it’s experienced ).

Think about that e-book that you bought but never managed to get all the way through.

Real money-making magic happens when story ( true storytelling that connects to what you really want) and thoughtful design ( the experience of you) intersect at the sweet spot of experience.

When  story and design are in perfect alignment.

This is best shown with examples on how it doesn’t work. I’m sure we can all find ourselves in these at some point:

• A product you really believe in but can’t manage to sell
• A beautiful e-book with content you can’t follow or don’t care to read because the storytelling is weak.
• A great story you heard but don’t remember
• A business that looks great, has everything going for it but you still aren’t buying
• Services that sound great in theory but don’t get carried out in a way that ends up being useful to people.
• Copy that is clearly representing in a product for what it is but not for the new story it will allow you to have after you buy.
• A sandwich  that has too much lettuce and mayo. Something is just off.

We see it ALL the time in movies. Ever watched a blockbuster movie that was all flash but no story? Or maybe a drama that was endless dialog but nothing seemed to happen so you can’t stay engaged?

Are you seeing the story and design connection in your world now? It’s practically everywhere, I bet. A sandwich, an outfit that looks unfinished. It’s probably in your business too. And it might be getting in the way of the lovely profit and magical meaning you always wanted.

Your work is best when the story and design are in perfect harmony. It’s all about making sure your stories have the right vehicle to make an impact and that your experiences are supported with true meaning.

Noticing something is “off” is half the battle of making sure your great work actually gets experienced.

And that’s what I do for my clients. I create experiences that balance story and design and I want to teach you how to do it too.

This is Part 1 in a series of posts that will teach you how to start figuring out where your story/design is off and what to do about it. We’ll start by figuring out the story/design balance of your life and how that will make your business better.

Some questions:

Now that you know about story + design, what are some experiences you have found to be rewarding and in turn, balanced?

When have you felt like something wasn’t right but couldn’t quite pin-point how to make it better?

How do you make sure the experience of your content matches what you create? Do yo think about it?

Let me know what you think and please share this post if it resonated!