What’s in the Water?
Guidance for Swimming Against the Stream
In waking up to whiteness, there are questions to answer and ideas to confront. Molly’s insights bring perspective and clarity.
Celebrate Trust (or How Selling Services Creates Relationships)
When you work for yourself, trustworthiness is your most important asset. In good times and bad, clients and customers patronize those they trust and avoid those they don't. I'm betting that makes sense to you. But are you as understanding and patient with the process...
Could self-doubt be the grace note in your business song?
Self-doubt is especially frustrating—and embarrassing—when you have a high degree of self-awareness. It seems to fly in the face of all the work you've done on yourself. But self-doubt can actually be a grace note, an ornament to your business identity. Self-doubt...
The deep practicality of radical self-knowledge
"Wisdom begins with a radical self-knowledge before it becomes wise enough to be helpful and useful to others." Michael Meade in Fate and Destiny, The Two Agreements of the Soul The most practical thing you can do when you work for yourself is to know your soul...
Getting Organized: The Incredible Lightness of an Empty Basket
There's a basket in my office where I put things I'm not quite ready to deal with or that I plan to use in the near future. I toss in notes from a teleclass, like the one Susan Harrow did for us last fall, intending to enter them into Evernote. I store bank statements...
Healing the Heart Ache of Screwing Up
It happens. You forget to show up for a class you're supposed to teach. (Yes, I have done this.) You lose track of a bill and get socked with a late fee. (Guilty.) You send an email that you think is merely succinct, and it comes across as hurtful. (Yup. Done that,...
Artists: Creativity and Business Take Courage
Seth Godin writes that artists do their work, not in safe places, but out on a limb. I agree. And artists need to bring that same courage--and creativity--to promoting and selling their work. Because business is not alien to art, it's essential.
Deep connection: How to get your clients to tell you what they really want
A while back I wrote that it's essential to know what your clients want from their point of view. I said that it's not "Do what you love, and the money will follow," but "Do what you love and what serves others, and the money will follow." (You'll find the earlier...
Success, soul, and the daring adventure
Risk is woven into the fabric of self-employment. Every choice you face entails a measure of risk. How will you look? How will you feel? Will others approve? Will you gain or lose money? Will you have more or less quality time? For the self-employed, risk is a...
Mindful Business: Putting the Year to Bed
Updated December 12, 2012 I think it is healthy for us as stewards of our businesses or careers to take stock at year’s end, placing the events of the year in perspective, putting our work to bed and tucking it in with prayers for the year to come. Does this seem too...