I love it. I love the transparency–it’s the kind of inspiration I look for in others. It’s why I decided to take this blog public, and shift it’s tone to some very personal topics. I’m looking for REAL. Velveteen Rabbit and all, I want the depth in friendships that comes from being able to be totally honest, completely exposed, and unconditionally loved anyway. The whole “things I’m afraid to tell you” is a bit of an exercise in my entire life overall right now. So why not bullet-point it? Here goes:
Every time I type the word exercise, I have to spell check it and tell myself there is no “Z” in exercise.
I was afraid to admit to my colleagues, peers and customers that I was pregnant with our third child. I know it should be joyous thing, but with two small children already, I was fearful of the judgement that would come from being a business woman who was “having too many kids”, or that they would think I was crazy, or that they wouldn’t support me in business because they would be concerned that I wouldn’t be able to “handle everything”. (I do have family and friends that have a LOT more than just three kids, and I’m so grateful to these women for support, but I feel like it’s different when you’re in the leadership position at a medium-sized small business.)
I find it hard to let people into my “inner circle”. While it’s at the very core of who I am to help others and share what I’ve learned, I’ve also had to learn to deal with the fact that it’s gonna hurt. Am I afraid of that hurt? Yes. But I’ve decided that I’m not going to let it get in the way of helping others. (Note to self: re-read previous blog post on tackling fear.)
I made the decision last year that I was done hiding behind a logo. This blog has been an effort to put myself out there more–and I’m happy to say, it has gotten easier as it has gone along. It’s still hard, and there is still so much evolution I want to see in the brand, but me hiding behind that brand is no longer part of the strategy.
I have cried on the phone when a customer was yelling at me once. When she told me I was Whitney English, and that I couldn’t cry, I cried harder. When she told me that she could tell me how to run my company (and yes, that’s exactly what she said), I all out broke into a total sob and hung the phone up.
I really want to start an interior design business at some point in time in the future. It’s one of my passions. It just costs so much darn money to get into.
I’m fearful of admitting that I have SO MANY IDEAS. Because I have so little time.
I’m awful at follow-up. It’s why I’m not allowed to answer the phone and try to help customers. I have been known to tell customers flat-out: “Don’t ask me to do that, if you want it done. I’ll help you get you to the person you need, but I need to apologize right now for not being that person.” Maybe that’s not the right thing to say, but it is the most honest thing to say–if I was responsible for follow-up on things, NOTHING would happen. There is way too much on my plate, and my brain is too “big picture” to micro-manage the necessary details.
I still haven’t mailed out our 2011 Christmas cards. The cobbler’s children have no shoes. I WILL mail them out. Maybe in July. Just to say I’ve done it. So if you get a Christmas card from me in July, just know that I adore you completely.
So there you have it. Things I’m afraid to tell you. Thanks for reading. Thanks for allowing me to be real. If you follow suit, leave a link to your blog in the comments.
Face your fears. It’s a command I feel like I’ve heard hundreds of thousands, if not millions of times. I’m not sure who said it first. I’m not sure who told me to do it first. I don’t know when I became conscious of the fact that “facing my fears” did something to them–like sending the little cowardly bastards running back into the dark corners of my mind. Maybe “facing my fears” was something my mom told me to do before I acted in my first school play in junior high. Maybe I heard it before rush in college. Maybe later. But at some point in time, I became consciously aware of the fact that facing my fears made them manageable, and I started to implement the practice in living life.
I’m not going to pretend that I’m an expert on how to overcome fear–I’m just sharing the practices that help me create progress. These steps to finding purpose are a cycle, and something I continually plow forward on every single day. Facing fears is a discipline, a practice, which is why it is so important to start with discipline in Step 1, and understand that consistent habits help generate purpose and progress. I’m not about to pretend that I’ve conquered all my fears and that I’ll never have to pummel them ever again–I will. Every day.
2: Fear: Face It
There is something to be said for someone with the self-awareness and the willingness to admit that they even have fears. I admire the people who have found the will to admit their fears. We all have them. It’s just that some are more willing than others to taking the first step to exposing them. Fears are a problem. They cause us to be frozen, immobile, incapable of moving forward or accomplishing anything. And admitting the problem is the first step towards recovery, right? Facing fears is one of the first steps towards forward movement.
Last week, I picked up a book by Debbie Ford entitled Courage: Overcoming Fear and Igniting Self-Confidence. The introduction starts out with:
How many times have you felt yourself shrink? How many times have you made yourself small enough to fit into some role that you wanted no part of? How many times have you kept your mouth shut when you wanted to scream loudly, or handed over your power to someone who didn’t have your best interests at heart? How many times have you succumbed to an impulsive or addictive behavior rather than making a clear-minded choice? How many times have you told yourself, “I can’t. I’m not strong enough. I’m not courageous or confident enough to be all that I desire to be?”
I don’t know how reading that makes you feel, but as I read it, I wanted to scream, TOO MANY TIMES! And I’m tired of it! I’m tired of shrinking, tired of playing a role that’s not me, tired of handing over my power to people who don’t care about me, tired of not being courageous enough to be all that I want to be!
In Debbie Ford’s book, she warns that facing our fears is going to make them go away, and I think I agree. I don’t think fears can really be destroyed. I just think–no, I know–that acknowledging them renders them powerless over us. In a way, the best way to handle the fear is actually to embrace it, to call it what it is: a lie, an emotion, a worry that will never happen, an excuse, a doubt, a blame game.
Acknowledging the fear allows us to then take then next step, which is to say to that puny little fear: I will not allow you, fear, to be an excuse. I will not allow you to define me. I will not allow you to determine this outcome. I will not allow you to guilt me into immobility. I will refuse to believe the lies you are telling me.
And on the other side of the practice of putting fear where it belongs, we find courage–like the quote from e. e. cummings, the courage to become who we really are.
So do this one with me: here is the link to a PDF download of a Fear: Face It worksheet. As you all are probably figuring out by now, I’m a big list maker. I believe that the practice of putting things on paper helps us get the confusion out of our heads, and releases us from the burden of carrying it around in our minds.
Later this week, in a step towards facing fear, I’m going to post my own “Things I’m Afraid To Tell You” post. If you do the same, leave a link to your post in the comments.
Editor’s note: this is the second step, and the third post in a series on finding your purpose. To start from the beginning, read the first post here, and the second post here.
Friends, please allow me to be completely transparent. This may be a long post, but hopefully it will be educational–at the very least, read it to learn from my mistakes.
Almost a decade ago, I set out to build a dream, a stationery company–a stationery brand. Having worked at a stationery store since I was fifteen, I looked up to and admired the likes of Julia D. Azar, Anna Griffin, the ladies at Inviting Company, Kit McDonald from Odd Balls, and many other talented designers that set out to influence the imprintable stationery world.
At first, we were just a blank stock invitation company–I didn’t even want to do note cards. I preached that our focus was on the K.I.S.S. method (Keep It Simple, Silly). But requests from the retailers came flooding in, so note cards we did. Pretty soon the note cards were more than half of our sales–and sales were good. We acquired Hicks Paper Goods, which strengthened our invitation imprintable selection, and so I thought, why not go even bigger? Let’s do personalized as well! In 2006, we rolled out our personalized albums at the National Stationery Show, and sales sky-rocketed.
The next year was almost as profitable. On a personal note, I got engaged the summer of 2007 and we were married in February 2008. By the end of 2008, I was pregnant with our first child, and that fact combined with the early rumblings of recession, we decided to move to Oklahoma City in early 2009, and position my income as the bread-winning income for the family. Little did we know how long this darn recession was going to last. But how long the recession lasted wasn’t supposed to matter–after all, the invitation business was recession proof–people would always have parties, right?
Well, if the imprintable invitation business was supposed to be recession-proof, it wasn’t technology-proof. From 2008 to present, I wish I had a dollar for every retailer that told me they were tired of TinyPrints and Shutterfly taking all their business. To those that I had a chance to discuss the subject with in-person, I explained that it wasn’t just TinyPrints and Shutterfly–it was small, boutique, Etsy shop owners, and local photographers who required clients to order their holiday photo cards directly from them (nothing against Etsy shop owners and photographers!). It was a shift in desktop printing improvements, and the power of “on-demand” printing, which eliminated the need for costly investments in long-run prints and demanded high inventory volumes. And on-demand printing changed the design landscape, forcing a shorter design lifecycle on each design, and diminishing the value of each work, forcing artists to have to create more and more designs in order to keep up.
So we listened to the retailers, and we tried to offer an alternative. Taking our focus off our core blank stock business, which I believed was dying, we set out to create a revolutionary new concept, that would marry the needs of both brick-and-mortar retailers with the desires of traditional, imprintable designers: a website that would allow designers to upload their designs, allow us as a printer and fulfillment company to produce them, and allow brick and mortar retailers the convenience of not having to constantly update thousands of products and various brands on their site. If this project took off, it would more than replace the income from our blank stock business, and it would solve a huge industry problem.
But, the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry, right?
I’m not going to get into what we did wrong. To be frank, I’m not ready to blog about it. (If you want to want to know more, I’m happy to share one-on-one, but publishing my faults to the internets takes more courage than I can summon up right now). At some point in time, I will share these insights, but the wounds are still pretty fresh at the moment.
The bottom line is…
Sometimes, in business, efforts become unsustainable. The cost becomes more than the gain. The risk is no longer worth the reward. And if you get to that point, you have to be smart enough to know when to call it quits, rather than keep careening off a cliff and dying a horrific death on the rocks below.
Last fall, we reached that point. As Verne Harnish would say, I had some sad choices to make. Not difficult choices. Sad choices. One by one, I was forced let a talented group of people go. I watched our payables rise, and our receivables stretch out. As we headed into the holiday season, I hoped things would get better with an upturn in holiday sales. But the reality was, in the middle of the holiday season, tempers flare easily, patience-spans are short, and workdays are unbearably long (18 hours of people screaming at you makes for an incredibly long workday).
And then, I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant with our third child.
I’ve never had mommy guilt. My first “child” was a business, born almost a decade ago. My second child, really our first-born son, has had incredibly loving childcare since the day he was born, and our second son has fit into the family groove more easily than we could ever have dreamed. But with the news of our third on the way, a new dose of reality hit me: that was too many kids. Too many babies. Too many precious, wonderful little children. And this gawking, pubescent pre-teen called a company was going to have to do some fast growing up, because I was no longer going to have the time and attention to give him.
Decision time. Sad, hard, difficult, awful decision time.
The end result? Some good things. Some still not-so-good things. The imprintable industry is no longer sustainable (let’s face it–technology isn’t going to slow down, and the internet is not going to go away), and frankly, I feel like I messed up big time on the personalized operations process. The challenges have been, and sometimes still feel, daunting. There are times when I find myself exhausted from apologizing.
But I had, and continue to have. two choices: let the battle beat me down, or try to find the will to navigate it.
This week has been a crazy week. Progress was made with the launch of a new strategic effort to support personalized dealers. The decision to make this move has required relinquishment of control (can you hear my inner entrepreneur cringe?), but the final result is going to be much better for personalized dealers. I’m sad to say that English Paper Company has nothing to do with personalized orders any more, but, in all honesty, I’ve always loved seeing a delighted retailer. And if removing EPC from that equation produces more sustainable results for retailers, that’s going to delight them. I can handle that.
If you have more questions, I’ll be in booth 1532 at the National Stationery Show with the new GetPapered.com team.
Lastly, you might be wondering what this means for me. I’ll try to continue to keep you udpated via this blog. I’m still not completely sure where this journey is taking me, but one thing I believe absolutely: when there are doors closing, it almost always means there are other doors opening. For now:
Continued Support for Personalized Dealers: I’ll be working with the new personalized fulfillment company to help them integrate personalized dealers into the new process, and also be helping them partner with designers who want to take their products wholesale. I’m working on a blog post that talks more about this, and will debut in the coming weeks.
Helping Stationers Grow: I’ll be working with stationery and personalization designers to help them build their stationery, gift product, and invitation brands into nationally-recognized brands that can be found in brick and mortar stationery stores in almost every state. In addition to the wholesale side of things, I’ll be working with retail stationers to help them build their own internal, direct-to-consumer brands, offering print production techniques and wisdom, and pairing traditional retailers with designers that successfully can represent their brand.
Workshops: I’ll continue to host Stationery Academy, where you are WELCOME to pick my brain about all things stationery, good and bad. If you want to see totally transparent Whitney, it’s at Stationery Academy. I’m happy to pass the hard lessons along, and offer encouragement and insight that I’ve gained along my journey. Believe me, I want someone to get something from all these mistakes I’ve made!
Most Important: I’ll be being a mom. Unapologetically and profitably. (Even though the profit on that isn’t financial.)
Can I tell you something? It’s going to be hard to push “publish” on this post. I know that not everyone is going to agree with my decisions, that not everyone will like the outcomes, and that I’m risking the wrath of, well, everyone. But I feel the need to be transparent. This is so hard. I can’t see around the next bend in the road right now. Each daily step is requiring a massive amount of faith.
I’m encouraged by the quote above. Joyce Meyer is right: a #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere. Note to self: just remember to hang on for the ride.
Earlier last week, I posted about finding purpose. Many of you have since emailed, called, or sent messages saying how much it helped you. Thank you for that! It got me to thinking about the steps I’ve taken in finding my purpose, and that in turn left me thinking if there was a way I could boil down a whole lot of life experience and some really introspective thoughts into a simple how-to format.
So here you have it! These are the steps–rather, this is the cycle–that I believe we each have to continuously walk through, in order hone in on that purpose, continually refine ourselves, and work towards being the best version of each of us that we can possibly be. Over the next ten weeks, I’ll post the next step in the cycle every Monday morning, beginning today.
1: Self-Discipline By Design
Finding your purpose takes discipline and determination.
I’m a business book junkie, and any person who is a business book junkie has heard (and probably read) Jim Collins. He wrote Good To Great, Built To Last, and How The Mighty Fall. Several years ago, I picked up Good To Great and fell in love with the concepts in the book. Backed by great research, Collins talks you through several practices that great companies have implemented. One that really stood out to me is that great companies have learned how to cultivate a culture of discipline.
The reason I like business books is because they produce profitable results, even if I apply the principles at a personal level. Collins left me asking the question, how do I create a culture of discipline in my own life? The question is simple, but the solution is hard.
Turns out, it takes self-discipline to learn self-discipline. (Do you hear me sighing the heavy UGH?)
When I look at people around me who are extremely effective in what they do, they all have a rigid practice of personal self-discipline implemented in their lives. My brother-in-law, the triathlete, maintains a self-disciplined diet, workout schedule, and healthy lifestyle. The result? He’s effective at completing Iron Man races. My sister, the stay-at-home-mom, maintains a structured schedule for her crew, consisting of lessons, healthy eating habits, and play. The result? Well-balanced, productive family life and intelligent kids. At the core of those disciplines is their WHY: my brother-in-law’s WHY is to lead a healthy lifestyle, my sister’s WHY is to raise great kids. Their disciplines reflect their passions, their passions reflect their WHYs.
But here’s a secret: you don’t have to know your WHY to practice self-discipline. You can practice self-discipline to uncover your WHYs. The habits you form more quickly will start to point you to your passions, your purpose, and your WHY.
So, where to begin? For me, the key to starting to live a more disciplined life was just that: STARTING. There is no magic “self-discpline” wand that will make me instantly want to go to the gym every day, instantly make me want to jump on that treadmill, and instantly bring the gratification that comes from a good run, or the longer-term gratification of a good body.
Tiny, daily “starts”, practiced continuously over a long period of time, produce habits, motivation, gratification, personal reward, and discipline. Starting anywhere but small is setting yourself up for failure. Ongoing consistency turns that tiny start into a second-nature habit.
Here are six steps, that, when practiced continuously over time, will put you on the road to developing a disciplined life.
Easy and small. Pick a small habit that you can frame as a goal. The habit has to meet two criteria: it has to be easy and it has to be small. If you are picking a goal and you don’t even know where start working on achieving it, you’ve got the wrong goal. Think smaller. Don’t start with “lose 30 pounds”, maybe don’t even start with “lose 1 pound”. Start with “go to the gym 1 day a week”, or “go for a walk for 30 minutes 1 day a week”. Also, this isn’t lent. Don’t give up candy for forty days: pick a habit that requires action, not just sacrifice.
Set a time frame. Studies show that it can take anywhere from 21 to 66 days to create a habit, depending on the person and the habit. Maybe start with a 21 day time frame, if this is the first time you’ve done something like this–remember, you want it to be easy. On the other hand, if you have a foundation of self-discipline in your life, maybe you want to select a longer time table.
Commit. Determine to hold yourself to that timeframe and action. Consistency is key. If you don’t feel like you can commit and succeed, pick a smaller goal! Half the challenge of the first cycle is just making sure you get to success point!
Forgive yourself. If you mess up, don’t give up. This is why the goal has to be easy and small–you have to be able to jump back on track quickly.
Finish it. Finishing things creates momentum. Celebrate the success! Again, if you haven’t picked a goal that’s very, very small, very easy, and very achievable, you won’t be able to find the momentum that comes from finishing something.
Beat your best. Focusing on being your own personal best helps eliminate comparison and gives you the opportunity to push yourself towards improvement. Measure how you performed, pick a goal that’s a step up, and repeat the process.
Again, make sure the goal/habit you are working on is easy. Turns out, self-discipline is a little bit addictive. Once you’ve conquered the small, easy goal, you’ll find motivation you didn’t know you had to move on to the next one. Once you have successfully implemented and maintained two small habits, you’ll find yourself moving on to the next, bigger habit, and before you know it, you’ll probably be one of the most self-disciplined individuals you know!
What you’re really doing is forming the habit of forming positive habits.
If you’re looking for your purpose, your WHY, starting with a disciplined approach to uncovering that purpose is the first step to finding it. Finding your WHY isn’t easy: it takes time and commitment. The practice of discipline will carry you through the entire process.
Challenge: Start today. Pick three easy things you want to get better about, and commit to improvement. I’ll be posting these tips, how-tos, and insights over the next ten weeks, which is actually 70 days (2.25 months). Consider making those 70 days your time frame, and pick a habit that you can commit to creating.
Here is a worksheet for you to download and use to help keep you on track and focused on progress! Click the button below to download–the download is free!
Editor’s note: I’m working on the download feature. Bear with me–I’ll have it up later today or this week!
Thanks for all the wonderful feedback on my Finding Your Purpose post this week! Here is a little sneak peek about what I’ll be sharing with you on Monday. Check back then for more!
I wanted to throw out a big thank you to the ladies who are spearheading EngageOKC! EngageOKC is a new group of collaborative bloggers in the OKC area. I went to the roundtable sessions last Saturday, and I was thoroughly impressed. There, sharing all their insights on all things blogging were Erin Cooper from Pippin & Pearl, Kelly Beale from Design Crush, Rachel Shingleton from Pencil Shavings Studio, and Kathleen Shannon from Braid Creative.
Ya’ll, I’m not kidding you, so I’ll say it again: I was SO. COMPLETELY. IMPRESSED.
It was creative–these people get good graphics. It was professional–these people are using their blogs to generate, supplement, or completely provide total revenue. It was introspective–each speaker offered insights on how to express yourself from a personal, but professional perspective in the design space. On top of that, it was so fun to meet other bloggers, business owners, and creatives who are all on a personal mission to express themselves in the digital world.
And of course, a HUGE thanks to Danielle and Susan for getting the whole thing off the ground.
If you’re in the Oklahoma City area and are serious or curious about blogging, I’d encourage you to get involved. Check out their website, follow EngageOKC on Twitter, go like their Facebook page.
If you’re competing, you’re comparing. Or rather, if you’re competing with others, looking at what they are doing, trying to emulate, improve upon, or one-up, you’re comparing.
Have you seen the graphics on Pinterest declaring that comparison is the thief of joy? I completely believe this. From personal experience and drawing on words from Chuck Swindoll, I can attest to the fact that when you compare what you lack to what others possess, fear replaces faith.
After ten years of business, I can tell you that there have been times in business when we have tried to compete, and times that we haven’t. We’ve also had years when people have actually asked us to do what the competition was doing, and we’ve done it, because 1) we’re answering to their WHY, not ours, and 2) because we were comparing ourselves to what we defined and considered to be a standard. In all cases, it was a short-term solution, and never a long-term gain. Even if it produced a postive outcome in the short term, we paid for it in some way in the long run.
Here’s the fact of the matter, though:
When we compare/compete with others that appear to have more, we set ourselves up to feel like a failure, and we’re going to think that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. (And it’s NOT.)
When we compare/compete with others that appear to have less, we’re allowing ourselves to feel blessed at their expense, and we’re probably judging and criticizing in the process.
If we take either of those two options, we’re setting ourselves up for failure, and hurting those around us. As human beings, we compare. For whatever reason, we want to know where we fit in. We want to know if our performance is above or below others. But operating under scenario one, we risk complacency and laziness. Under scenario 2, we risk getting sucked into a downward-spiral vortex.
However, if we turn within ourselves and constantly strive to operate on being the best version of OURSELVES, we end up comparing and only competing with ourselves, resulting in being the BEST VERSION of us we can possibly be.
Let me say that again: If you only compare yourself to your past performance, you end up competing with you, and building your extraordinary brand, and becoming the best version of you you can possibly be.
Because, let’s face it: no one else can be YOU, not even if they try. If you’re trying to change that you into becoming someone else, something you’re not, you’re doing yourself (and the world around you) a disservice. You need to be the best version of you you can possibly be. You need to compete with yourself.
The next time you find yourself comparing yourself to those around you, stop and take a moment to assess your own past performance: What was your past outcome on the task at hand? How can you do better right now? What can you do to improve upon your previous results? DO THAT.
Quit playing the comparison game and push the competition out of your mind. Focus on being the best version of you you can possibly be.
Thanks to my friend Evan, I recently picked up a book called Start With Why by Simon Sinek. The title intrigued me from the get-go, since one of the tenets I tout in how to build a personal brand is to start with genuine purpose.
Call it what you will. Strategic planners call it MISSION, life coaches call it PURPOSE, spiritualists call it BELIEF, but the WHY that’s at the root of what we do, that is the very the core of who we are, is one of the most important things we can take the time to discover in ourselves.
And so few of us actually take the time to discover it.
How many times have you heard someone say, “You need a personal mission statement.” At least once, right?
Next question: have you actually taken the time to write your personal mission statement? Most people will probably answer no, for the sheer reason that it’s really, really, really hard. It takes time, and introspection, and reflection, all of which are luxuries in our fast-paced, high-pressure society.
Red flag, folks.
Without a purpose statement, a mission clause, and the knowledge of WHY we are making each next move, we can often cause ourselves to misstep. Instead of traveling down the road of our own WHY, we find ourselves ambiguously and aimlessly traveling down the path of other people’s whys, doing what they want us to do, and ultimately leaving us empty and unsatisfied. Without a solid WHY, we get caught in performance traps, we get focused on what others think about us, rather than focusing on who we truly are, and what we can uniquely contribute.
Yuck.
Chances are, if you’re feeling empty and unsatisfied in life, your WHY is out of whack. You’re lacking a mission statement. You need a cause to rally around when you get down. You need purpose.
Allow me to relate personally.
Confession: it’s been several months now, but there was a point a while back when I woke up and realized I lacked a WHY, and because I lacked a WHY, everything around me was suffering. My work was suffering, and uncreative. My kids weren’t seeing me. My husband saw me even less. There wasn’t much of me to go around. I was operating at 10% capacity. Everyone was getting less of me than they deserved, as all I had to offer was a tiny sliver. When I look back at the circumstances now, the word miserable comes to mind. It’s embarrassing to admit.
Realizing that I lacked a WHY was not easy. At first, when I asked myself, “Why do I do what I do?“, the answer I replied with was, “to make money“. But making money is not a WHY. Money is not a cause, or a mission. If making money is at the root of your WHY, your why is still out of whack. Management 101 taught me that money is not a motivator (thank you, Dr. Mott).
Moving on to the second line of reasoning, I’d answer “to provide for my family“, but that was an excuse, not a WHY, because obviously what I was doing wasn’t providing for them–emotionally, mentally, spiritually, I was on another planet and almost completely disconnected from them. So the search for a WHY continued.
From a spiritual perspective, I believe that I’ve been placed on this earth to bring God glory. That’s a good WHY, but it obviously wasn’t helping much, since I was still operating at 10%, so I had to keep digging. There had to be other WHYs that I had not yet discovered. I’ve got to give credit where credit is due here: it was an exercise from Natalie Norton that pointed me in the right direction. The exercise forced me to narrow my priorities way, way, way down, taking into context spiritual, personal, family and financial/business goals. For the first time ever, I hammered out a rough mission statement.
Almost everything you read about writing a mission statement will tell you that you’ll have to refine it over time. I now see why we’re warned on that account. The goals I outlined in Natalie’s exercise definitely took me to the root and core of where I needed to focus, but they were rough. That first mission statement draft I wrote was about concepts that needed to be further verbalized, better communicated, and tested over time and with fire to prove that they really stood. Searching for the WHY took (and takes) commitment. But, I told myself, if I was going to do this mission statement thing, I was going to get it right (by golly!).
In hindsight, I realize exactly what I was leaving out of my WHY equation. A mission statement is a sum of several important things: it’s rarely just one thing, and it’s probably not more than five. In formulating my statement, I had a couple of basic principles in place: God and family. Check and check. But for a very, very, very long time, I was leaving out an important piece of the puzzle: myself. At risk of ruffling feathers and sounding hokey, allow me to explain.
There is an old saying floating around Sunday School classrooms that reads: JOY = Jesus first, Others second, You third. Well, I was leaving off the “Y”. I was trying to operate on “JO”, doing what I was supposed to do in my faith, and always putting others before myself. I was completely ignoring my personal needs, and on an even sadder note, in doing so, I was ignoring my family’s needs. My family needed ME, at 100%, or at least more than 10%. And because I wasn’t taking any time to just work on Whitney, I wasn’t getting the exercise, the eduction, the encouragement or empowerment to offer my family, or frankly, anyone else around me, 100%.
The missing puzzle piece fell into place as I finished reading Start With Why. Most companies, and individuals, can tell you WHAT they do. Some can tell you HOW they do it. But very few can tell you WHY. When a company or individual can reverse the order of that equation, telling you first WHY they do it, then following up with the HOW they do it, and then lastly telling you WHAT they do, trust and value is created. Starting with WHY is acting from the inside out, not the outside in.
So what’s my WHY, the missing mission-statement-puzzle-piece?
I love to empower others to be creative. I feel like I actually want to shout: I LIVE to empower others to be creative!! I love to be creative, personally, but little to nothing gets me more excited than helping people put the framework in place to express themselves. It’s why I love imprintable invitations–a blank canvas for allowing others to make their mark. I love seeing how people personalize each piece, put their own twist on it, and make it uniquely theirs. My WHY explains why I love working with other designers, helping them building their brands. My WHY explains why I love Stationery Academy so much, and consulting. In the words of Simon Sinek, I love to inspire others to do the things that inspire them. I love to pass along these learning curves, in the hopes that it will encourage and empower others to go be extraordinary.
If you’re looking for your purpose, your WHY, or if you’re trying to formulate your mission statement, I’d encourage you to take a couple of these steps:
Look at every area of your life: business, financial, spiritual, relationships, and personal (your mental and physical self). Force yourself to hone in on top priorities in each area. (There are people who can coach you with this–call Natalie Norton for some consulting, if you need to–I’ll guarantee that she’ll help you figure it out!)
Read The Search for Significance by Robert S. McGee if you want some spiritual help on WHY. (You have to get your personal WHY figured out before you can figure out your business WHY. The two WHYs end up being interdependent.)
If you’re looking for how to express WHY in your business, read Start With Why.
Determine to start every morning with a recap of your WHY, your mission, your purpose. I put a pen and paper beside my bed, and before I even get out of bed in the morning, I scribble my purpose statement down. Not only does this help refine it, based on continuous life experiences, it keeps my WHY at the forefront of my mind as I head into the decision making that each day requires.
If you want to sample a taste of the Start With Why book, watch this video:
In the coming days and weeks, I’ll be posting some more WHY-focused thoughts. If you have any of your own you’d like to contribute, email me.
Last but not least, be happy. Make the choice. Just do it. Even in happiness, “go ugly early” works. And if it’s been a rough week, and you need a smile, take 12 minutes and watch Sean Achor:
Confession: sometimes it feels like everything I do is wrong. Or ineffective. Or unproductive. Or worse yet, of no value to anyone around me.
I’m not telling you that because I’m having a pity party; I’m telling you that because I know it’s not true. I know that feelings are just things conjured up in our heads, that have no actual effect on those around us, unless we let them come out in our attitudes. We can’t rely on feelings. They’ll try to deceive us and scare us into a submissive, ineffective corner.
Yuck.
The next time you’re wondering if you’re helping, or adding value, or contributing, or motivating, or inspiring, just KNOW that you are. You, in your own uniqueness, will always add a little bit of something extra, something helpful, something different in the circumstances and events around you. Don’t let self-doubt hold you back.
Hi, I'm Whitney. I am first and foremost a child of God, a mum to two rambunctious little boys, and lucky enough to call the most amazing man I know my husband. By day, I run a stationery company, and consult at the intersection of tech and graphic design. At night, I dream of charming cottages by the sea, silk ballgowns, and a perfectly organized office. Photo credit: Amanda Watson
Whitney English Kolb and team have been known to successfully and exceptionally handle multiple digital and graphics communications projects, from branding and corporate graphics, to textile and surface design. We are experts in stationery, invitations and supporting printing methods, social media and we've dabbled in photography and web development. We specialize in design and consulting services.
