Feb 12 2012
Job #37
WRITTEN by,
For the past three Monday mornings, I’ve woke up at 6:00am. The clothes, few and thoroughly stretched and stressed to their seams at this point of 38 weeks pregnant, wait for me on top of a small Ikea shelf, laid out with care the night before to avoid waking my partner up. I waddle from one foot to the other into the shower, and thus the morning routine ensues.
Then, it’s onward to the train, a blessed hour spent in dedication to Adele and excellence and practicing my craft to develop a more truthful voice. The sun just begins to peek over the lucid Portland skyline as the train exits the tunnel in a burst of engineered glory and carries each of us to our next anticipated place in the world.
Where am I going? The Congress Center. Like many of the others, I’m on my way to work.
WTF?!
Wait. Pause. Hold up. Wasn’t I just growing a successful, thriving solo-plus venture here at Undefinable You?
Well, yeah.
And wasn’t I convinced anyone bitching about not having a job should make their own?
Yep. (Which I still think.)
And wasn’t I never going to work for anyone else again?
I suppose that depends on how you quantify your work. (You’re always working for somebody, even if it’s just making your editor or audience happy.)
After several stressful months of developing my message for those I wanted to have a conversation with, developing and exploring my values set, and bootstrapping my way in the world, this past December found me in a bind.
Hitting Max Capacity
With more clients than I could handle, outstanding projects with too-close deadlines, no systems in place with how to handle this sudden series of fortunate events, a precocious three-year-old who refusing to let me brush her hair unless I pretended she was Rapunzel, and the impending beachball-sized offspring under my shirt…
Can you say recipe for impending doom?
Balls were dropping and more were threatening to. It was time to make a serious business shift. I was loving what I was doing, sitting pretty in my money shoes, and expanding my horizons faster than . And… I was riding the emotional roller coaster that is pregnancy, but with a not so great twist. I could feel my depression starting to come back. There would be days I couldn’t do anything but stay in bed and cry and feel like a completely inadequate human being. I couldn’t handle it for much longer like this.
So I started looking for a business coach. (Hey, smart ass, I’m working on the therapist thing, too. But I knew a big chunk of stress would be alleviated with the right systems in place.) It didn’t take me long to find who I wanted either. Charlie Gilkey.
Hey, Ms. Pro-Female-Empowerment, Why Didn’t You Hire a Woman?
HEY, you Negative Nancy you. How about because it’s my blog and business, so gtfo. (Besides, Charlie’s business is half-woman-owned, veteran-owned, minority-owned, and (em)powered by women.)
I met Charlie back in late May last year at a playdate with the Bakers’ before the World Domination Summit. (Go ahead, be jealous. Portland is a vortex of awesome people. By the way, you should join us. 
)
After hauling ass for two miles uphill with my daughter in an umbrella stroller to avoid being late, losing my jacket, getting rained out of the park we all met at, and finally retreating back to Moonstruck Chocolates, we all got to chat for an hour. Despite all of the, ahem, setbacks, it was a great meetup, and after following Pam Slim for so long, I was thrilled to get to know the much-discussed Charlie a little better.
After seeing him give a keynote at Sinclair’s event, Profit Catalyst, I was sold. In his keynote on the Business Lifecycle, Charlie gave me the strategic pieces I needed to ramp up my business and take it to the next level. Besides doing just that, I made it very clear in so many words…
“DUDE. I would do freaking ANYTHING to be able to work with you, up to running and getting the coffee and/or grocery shopping.”
Yeah, very eloquent, I know. But I didn’t do a good enough job of scaring them away with my stunning vocabulary and willingness to work as an intern. In September, Charlie and Angela had actually interviewed me to help fill their needs for a content producer. The timing ended up not quite working out for either of us, and the consensus was to put things on hold.
And so we had. And then in December, I put myself on Charlie’s coaching waitlist.
From Freelancing to Fucking Awesome
By the time I decided I needed a business coach, I was already suffering from major overwhelm and the amount of energy privy to one in their third trimester. There was a ton on the table to handle, more coming in, ideas in their delightful infancy not getting the lovin’ they deserved, and oh, you know, that whole maternity leave thing that was looking more and more like an awkward joke at a cocktail party you don’t really think is funny. Minus the cocktail. *bangs head on keyboard*
Anyway. So we had our first session. And… It did not go at all as anticipated. Granted, now that I think about it, I don’t what I was expecting. Basically, we covered 100 miles when I thought we’d cover 15 or 20.
My problem was this. I thought I had one problem – you know, too much business and no idea how to expand. But that wasn’t quite it. I had started taking on more than just copywriting and some light business coaching, you see. People were asking me for websites and full-on marketing campaigns. Albeit they were small, but that’s what they were. Strange as it was to me, I had started attracting a substantial brick-and-mortar based clientele desperate to get online and figure out how the hell to use it. And I was delivering.
So, when Charlie asked if I had intended to start an agency, I had to take a moment to pause.
Holy shit. Had I seriously just started a small marketing agency? What the fuck? Who does that?
Well, apparently I do. At least my inability to keep up made much more sense now.
I had a choice to make.
Keep it a solo venture? Or expand into a team and embrace the agency model?
Now, I’ve long since grown out of wanting a lifestyle business – too little money for the effort. The thing is an agency is lot more time, effort, money, etc. Plus there’s my daughter. And an infant. And start my next book. And lose the baby weight. And start my speaking career. And volunteer. And grow the agency. And attempt to juggle anything else that happens to come my way.
I am not a masochist. Mostly.
I do some crazy shit, but I’ve done this having a baby thing before. It’s fucking hard.
My daughter arrived at the tail end of finals week after a 36-hour labor, rounding out my first quarter in college. December 13th – a Friday, no less, topped off with a freak fourteen inches of snow that forced us to stay an extra night in the hospital. Three weeks later, I was in classes again.
The next several weeks were a blur. Undiagnosed post-partum depression, an impending divorce, working to pass 21 credits worth of classes, keeping the rent paid with various acting and modeling gigs all came down to one thing.
I completely missed most of daughter’s infancy. And I’m not letting that happen again.
How the story ends/begins…
After realizing how not ready I was to devote my time to starting a fledgling agency, I had to change my trajectory. I needed to set some realistic expectations for myself – mind you, that still meant releasing two ebooks and preparing to get one traditionally published, keeping my team, and much more you’ll likely still hear about this year.
But, instead of working with a million different clients, I decided to limit my work to two or three key projects. And that meant, one more time, letting Charlie know how much I wanted Productive Flourishing to be one of those clients.
But Charlie had a better idea.
Long story short? I am now Productive Flourishing’s marketing specialist, doing almost exactly what I was doing solo in a much better context – a community. I am officially employed again – not a spot I expected to be, but I could not be happier. Doing what I love, not worrying about paying rent, AND being part of incredible team?
You bet your ass I’m thrilled.
I’ll tell you more about it soon – and how you can still work with me – but for now, I’m setting up the good ol’ autoresponder and taking some much encouraged maternity leave. I love you all dearly and appreciate your support here at Undefinable You.
3 Comments
Dusti – wow!
You’ve been on some ride. Thank you for sharing this with us. It’s so important to find what works for you in each moment of your life. Everyone’s circumstances are different and yet all the lifestyle business gurus ever preach about is making your lifestyle the same as theirs.
Life is about forging your own path, and that’s what you do. That’s why you are such an inspiration (to me)!
Good luck with it all.
Steve
i’ve been out of the undefinable loop for a little while, and Yikes!… do you ever know how to Pecos Bill a tornado!
couldn’t agree more with steve, you are a path-forger, (… ha… the intrepid kind… not the kind that make weak little path forgeries ) and looking out at my own tornado-laden, path-less wilderness, i’m emboldened by your courage and keen, decisive action.
best of the best to you, and a special measure of grace on your family.
Awesome Kudos to you! So happy for you. I think it just shows that you can find exactly what you are looking for and sometimes its not always what you expect. Enjoy your lovely family and your new baby – Really I am incredibly excited for you ♥