It's pumpkin spice season. It's apple cider donut season. It's even getting to be jacket season. And, soon... ...it will be small business planning season. You know, the time of year when everyone (including me) encourages you to take a step back, think...
There's a mason jar of flaky salt that has a permanent place on my kitchen counter. If you're not familiar with flaky salt, I'm very excited for you--and I'm excited to be the person to tell you about it. Flaky salt is just what it sounds like: big, crystalline,...
Planning, productivity, and getting through the never-ending to-do list are some of the biggest concerns of the small business owners we work with. They certainly were some of my biggest concerns for years. I'd come up with a "great" plan at the beginning of every...
Would all the people-pleasers please stand up? All of you? Oh, wow. Okay, whether you really identify as a people-pleaser or not, I'm sure you recognize that entrepreneurship & the internet has a tendency to bring out the people-pleasing tendencies in even...
The future is hazy.
It’s unknowable. And that makes taking decisive action to build a stronger business much more challenging.
But we have a choice. We can either fight it–and metaphorically try to shake that damn ball until we have a complete picture of what the future is going to be.
Or we can make decisions based on the information we have, a solid understanding of our goals, and an acceptance of the uncertainty of it all.
Waiting until you have all the answers you need or want is a great way to keep spinning your wheels. While embracing uncertainty might be risky and it’s can definitely be scary, but it’s the only way we move forward.
This month, we looked at 3 different stories of embracing uncertainty. Lou Blaser told us how a big life change allowed her to look at her business in a new way and see how she could finally build the business she’d been dreaming about for years. Sarah Avenir shared how she leads herself and her team through uncertainty. And Cher Hale told us about getting clearer and clearer on her vision for life and business–and the big moves it required of her.
We’re rounding out this conversation about embracing uncertainty today by hearing from 4 more small business owners: Podge Thomas, Melissa Dinwiddie, Kat Lu, and Amy Feierman.
Each entrepreneur embraced uncertainty in a way that allowed them to move forward despite not having all the answers or a guarantee of what the future would hold.
My guess is that you’ll hear a version of situation or question you’re wrestling with right now in at least one of these stories.
You can either fight to maintain what you've got or you can ask big questions about what's next. While some business owners continue to be business-as-usual, most are wrestling with these options right now (even if they don't quite know it). Even if you didn't take a...
My guest is Cher Hale, the founder of Ginkgo Public Relations.
Cher is full of incredible stories of figuring out what she wants and taking action to make it happen—from making a big personal moving, to going full-time with her business, to embracing a bold new “why” for her business.
We talk about why she made the move from working on the Vegas Strip to getting weird in Portland, how she used retainer clients to take her business full-time, and how she rewrote some of the harmful mindsets she held. We also talk about her mother’s erotic romance novels and how Cher was inspired to make a big shift in who she serves with her business and why.
Don’t worry—this interview is completely PG.
Now, let’s find out What Works for Cher Hale!
Last year, I took a part-time job as the head setter at my climbing gym. (That’s the person in charge of bolting the plastic rocks to the wall and overseeing the creative process of coming up with new things to climb.) I had a bunch of misgivings about taking the...
I wanted to dig into what leading a team or community through a crisis can look like, and I could think of no one better to talk to about this than my friend Sarah Avenir.
Sarah Avenir—who you might know better as Sarah J. Bray—recently took the helm as the CEO of &yet, a digital development and strategy agency.
Sarah is an incredibly thoughtful leader and I knew her approach on leading both herself and her team through this time would be an insightful look at embracing uncertainty.
Sarah and I chat about how she became CEO of &yet, how she considers herself a naturally fearful person, and why a key part of her leadership is knowing others have her back. We also talk about how she structures her time, team, and approach to her work so she can focus on her own role and let other people do their job.
Every small business owner goes through a phase (or many) where they're just trying to keep up. In the beginning, you might be trying to keep up with the vague idea of all of the things you're supposed to be doing to get your business off the ground and functional....
Host of What Works
Tara is a podcaster, small business community leader, strategist, and speaker. She’s been helping small business owners build stronger businesses for over a decade.
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