Be Yourself (Ralph Waldo Emerson) by Art by Erin Leigh

The ABC’s of Self-Love is a Blog Crawl hosted by Molly Mahar of Stratejoy. She believes in the transformational power of truly adoring ourselves and so do I. Find out more about The ABC’s of Self Love Blog Crawl + Treasure Hunt here (you can win a free spot in the Fierce Love course!)

A few weeks ago, I breathed deep, freaked out, made my husband and great friend read and re-read what I spent hours writing, breathed again, and hit the button to schedule Yup. 3 Sign-Ups. (aka How I Screwed Up Majorly, and What I’m Doing To Fix It). While I felt it was important to do, and I hoped it would start a much-needed discussion on how everyone doesn’t make a million dollars when they launch a product/service (as well as revealing The (Wo)Man Behind The Curtain as opposed to The Great Oz herself ), I was scared to death of outing myself and my “failed” launch. I heard my Dad in the back of my head, who chastised me as a very very early blog writer for writing how many clients I was working with, as it disclosed how much money I was making. I heard my Vampire (that’s what I call the voices in our heads that suck the good stuff outta us) saying that it would make lots of people run away from my Clubhouse, never allowing it to grow and not allowing that community to blossom. But the more I heard those voices and the more I wrote and re-wrote that post (it literally took hours), the more I felt excited and scared.

Excited and Scared is what I live for. When my clients describe feeling it in almost-equal doses, I start doing the happy dance. It always means that you’re on the right track, which is not synonomous for Things Working Out or Being Wildly Successful. But it does mean that you care about whatever it is that’s giving you that feeling, and that’s something’s at stake.  More excited than scared probably means you’re about to have fun, and that’s great but there’s nothing to care about there. More scared than exciting is what I call The Uh-Oh Feeling, and you should probably get outta that situation and how. But equally scared and excited? It means you’re guaranteed to learn, to grow, to take away – and that is always The Right Track. Read the rest of this entry »

A few months ago, I got interviewed for Yes and Yes’ True Story series. While the title’s a wee melodramatic, it’s absolutely the truth. And while you might’ve heard My Story before, Sarah asked me some Barbara Walters-like questions, like how I dealt with other (less talented!) people being cast in parts I auditioned for, if there was something specific that made me throw in the towel, and if I was ever close to “making it.” You can read it all here.

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Earlier this week, I got some bad/surprising news about my boob cancer (we’ve been spoiled so far!). I had what I liked to call Lumpectomy: The Sequel last Wednesday, and the report came back that there was early cancer cells outside of the range of the original tumor that I got removed back in December. The surgeon thinks it’s been there all along, and we wouldn’t have seen it if we hadn’t gone back in and gone deeper/further away (that’s what she said) from the original tumor. This definitely would’ve lead to “a failed lumpectomy” within months, so thank baby Jesus/Moses that we went through Lumpectomy: The Sequel (such a twist ending!) and found all this. While this’ll allow me to bypass radiation, I’ll still start chemo next Tue (Valentine’s Day! so romantic!) and have a double mastectomy in May (isn’t “double mastectomy” the scariest phrase ever?!).

I gotta admit, I’m scared as hell to go through this procedure and it’s the last thing I wanted/was expecting, but…there’s gotta be upside to this cancer ridiculousness, right? Cue the ukulele!

When there’s yin, there’s yang. When there’s black, there’s white. When there’s low Clubhouse numbers, there’s…a book deal!

Back in the fall, Jessica Swift was approached by Tonia, an Acquisitions Manager at North Light Craft Books (they published Kelly Rae Roberts!), asking if she’d be interested in writing a book for them. She responded, “Why yes, yes I would. Also, I have already kinda wrote one with my friend Michelle. Here it is, in case it interests you.” (Ain’t she sweet?!)

To back it up, a few months prior, we got an email sent to us straight from our Contact page, asking if we’d wanna make The Declaration of You into “a book-book”. After a round of “Duh please!”, that publisher (different from this one) pitched us to her boss. We’re not sure exactly what he said, but it prompted her to give us this feedback:

“My publisher felt you might want to consider approaching young adult houses. I’m not sure if that fits with your goals, but for what it’s worth, that’s an idea.” Read the rest of this entry »

Ever Tried Ever Failed Print by limeyts

If you watched my I Quit My Day Job: 22 Month Update on Monday, then you know I wasn’t my usual chipper self. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe – but above and beyond the boob cancer, I was disappointed in the recent launch of my Clubhouse. It was something I was working on in the back on my brain for months, and real actively for 8-ish weeks. Everyone I told about it reacted super favorably, and would offer tons of encouragement and kudos. I told my Mom and my husband, “I think I’m going to make a lot of money this month – my Clubhouse is opening up and I think the members will be pouring in!” I even asked my Virtual Wizard if she’d want more hours, as I’d love to hire her more often since I’m gonna get a nice foundation with The Clubhouse Money. Let’s say I was Law of Attraction-ing it up, but in a I-really-believed-it way. I was sure. I was confident. I was On To Something.

I wanted to launch it on my birthday, but that fell on a Saturday and I thought I “shouldn’t” do it then. I thought of opening the clubhouse doors the day before, but Friday was the “wrong” day, too. And Monday was a national holiday, so nobody would be paying attention then…(right?) So Tuesday the 17th it would be! I wrote the newsletter and scheduled it for 7a Eastern that day, and scheduled the blog post to go up a few hours prior. I let in The Sneak Peek People the week before, using them to make sure the welcoming process was smooth (which I could not have come close to doing without the help of my Virtual Wizard, Arwyn!), to see if anything was broken and/or confusing, and to give some life to the private Facebook group before the first “official” person came in on Tuesday at 7:01a Eastern (I presumed). 18 people were already there, and I felt confident that at least another 20 would join them that day.

The first “official” Clubhouse member came in at 1:16p Eastern. I told myself, “Everyone had a busy morning back at work…the sign-ups will be pouring in now!” Read the rest of this entry »

It’s about that time…I’m just 2 months shy from my 2 year entrepreneuriversary, and I’m not in a great mood about it. Here’s why I’m feeling like I have a bad case of the poopy pants (hint: it begins with an “l” and ends with an “-aunch”).

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It’s really, really odd to have boob cancer as your muse…but here’s another tune with Lucille and a very special guest – my husband, Luke! He’s a champ and a half times infinity:

Y’all have been so sweet with your continued good thoughts and juju and gifts and cards and donations and “how are ya?”s. As a quick update, I’m not sure yet exactly when my treatment will start, but it’ll definitely consist of 4 rounds of chemo (one every 3 weeks) and 6 weeks of radiation. Yes, it’s not gonna be fun, but it really is honestly The Best of the Worst, and I might even get to keep my hair! Promise to let ya know more as soon as my plan’s in place and I have a definitive timeline. ‘Til then, I’ll keep writin’ and strummin’!

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Last year, I gave you this. This year, I give you this:

I hesitated putting this out there (hence the January 12th post), but something pulled me towards it. There was so much of it that was eye-opening for me, and when something’s eye-opening for me, then I automatically think of you kids. While I was uncomfortable posting it with the numbers exposed, it feels good to have ‘em blurred but still show you (a) how my revenue streams play out and (b) how much of my money comes from personalized coaching! When I saw that about $10K of my entire “salary” was from non-coaching streams….I might’ve hyperventilated a bit. I already knew I was cutting my client sessions from a 30-40/mo to 10-ish a month (as it stands, I’ll be doing 10-20/mo ’til May at the earliest), and my brain started reeling. How can I cut my coaching by more than half and still meet my financial goals for 2012 (yes, I have a number in mind that’s about 35% higher than what I made in 2011)?! Thankfully, the newfound hippy-dippy in me starting breathing regularly again when I placed trust in raising my rates and prepping for my Clubhouse (opening on Tue the 17th!). I started thinking about the time I’d have to write – blog posts, workbooks, book proposals, books – and do virtual workshops and, well, anything I fancy with the extra “whitespace” I have by not coaching 30-ish hours a week. The opportunity I have to bump up the money I make from my “extras” (as I sometimes see ‘em) is pretty infinite, and I’m actually really excited to take on that challenge and see what happens (while still taking Care).

Last April I signed up for Freckle. Even though I don’t bill my clients hourly, I took them up on a free 30-day trial to see where my time was going. Of course, it totally hooked me, and I’ve been using Freckle incessantly ever since. When the end of the year hit, I ran a report for the entire year, around both my projects and my tags. As you can see, the projects (above) are broader (although I have ‘em by private client, I placed ‘em all together for these purposes) while the tags themselves are more specific. At least I can see that I’m spending more time consistently servicing my biggest moneymaker: my coaching clients! I spent about 611 hours on their work – the sessions themselves, set-up and follow-up – but then it was interesting to see that social media is my #2 time-taker. Blogging, tweeting, newslettering and Facebooking took 144-ish hours, and I get paid nada con nada for that! Yes, I know it’s where/how I find a lot of clients, but….it seems excessive/unsmart in some way. It’s something I don’t wanna ramp down this year, but something I wanna do smarter. Read the rest of this entry »

Einstein Wisdom by Honeysuckle Art

This is the third year I wrote a Dear Future Me letter. You can read the others here and here, and the idea behind the Dear Future Me letter from the amazeballs woman I stole it from (hi Jess LC!) right here. Like past years, I decided to keep some things private, like financial goals and yada yada yada – but this is about 95% of the letter. Honestly, while I love this new Jan 1st tradition, it was tough tough tough for me to write this and tough tough tough for me to even reread it. I know that 2012 will be the hardest year for me yet, but it feels good to think about the good that’ll come out of it, and of embracing Care in every way. Without further adieu…

January 1, 2013

Dear Present Michelle, Read the rest of this entry »

When April of Blacksburg Belle asked me to be part of her amazeballs new series, A Day in the Life Of…, I obviously jumped at the chance. Not only do I love me some April Bowles-Olin (she’s the sweetest, and that’s the truth), but I think it’s such a great idea to shine the light on how us Women of the World (as I like to call us full-time female entrepreneurs) get it all done. Come on over and take a peak at a “typical” (if there is such a thing!) workday for me, along with some stinky truths and extra-Jewey blocks of time. Fun!

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