My website is finally up! My BFC has been revealed, it’s the national froyo brand CherryBerry Frozen Yogurt, and my social media profiles are up and active. How does it feel? There’s a great illustration from a book called The E Myth. It starts off talking about how in our minds, we glorify the “entrepreneur” as one who scales a mountain and stands alone on the top in a mighty blowing wind, looking out over what they’ve created. Then it shifts to the reality of the situation once the entrepreneur starts his business and says that she suddenly gets a fear of heights, and instead of the scaling the mountain top, clings to its face at the bottom.

While I’m not clinging to the face of the mountain just yet, the fear of heights is real. Now everyone knows! They know what my business is, they can watch what I’m doing, who my clients are, how I do things. They can see me succeed, but way more terrifying, now everyone will know if I fail. When I actually started posting things online about Lever, things immediately became real. As a designer, I got used to putting my work out there and dealing with positive and negative reactions. Well, this feeling is like that x100. It’s not just me, it’s not just freelance work, it’s bigger than that. Much, much bigger. I made it bigger. I mean ‘weliftbrands’ sounds kinda big, doesn’t it?! It’s like I shot myself in the foot a bit. No more hiding in my little office waiting for the fun to start. And while this is terrifying, it’s exhilarating too. No turning back now! Better bust some hiney and make some amazing work! Better hunt for some resources to help me, and find some more clients to help fund said hunt. Better suck it up, get over the fear, and start climbing the mountain, and fast.

As you can see I am seriously afraid of failure. But most people are, right? My hope is that in creating something big, it will be much harder for me to fail. It may also make it harder for me to succeed, take longer to reach success, or make the whole climb harder overall, but that’s a trade I’m willing to make.

To quote my pal Zig, See you at the top!
…hopefully