Rescue Desk

When inspiration strikes, you might want to duck.

I’m not talking about running across something that sparks the need to dig a little deeper. I’m almost always intrigued enough by something new to ask questions, to learn more, and allow it to open my mind.  It’s not a surprise that my early training was as a reporter – I had an editor who used to say “a journalist’s knowledge is a mile wide and an inch deep.”

I’m talking about when a light bulb blazes on overhead, and I’m blinded by something that shines a light straight into my core. Something that becomes part of who I am and who I want to become.  When I’m truly inspired, I latch on to every tip, book, class, article, expert, how-to guide, and guru I can find. I’m driven by an excited intensity to learn everything there is to know as quickly as possible. I want to be an expert right now!

For years I was on the hunt for a creative outlet. I’ve dabbled in painting, sketching and various multimedia.  In fact, I still enjoy busting out my pencils and tools once in awhile. But nothing ignited the artist I knew I had buried within.  Then I picked up a camera.

All it took was one trip to the southwest and coming back with images of the New Mexico landscape. I was hooked. I joined photo groups, took classes, read every book I could find, lost sleep over Nikon versus Canon, flipped through countless books of the masters, annoyed everyone by taking pictures everywhere, and even started seeing things differently.
 
The same thing happened when I was planning for Rescue Desk. I knew from the bottom of my being I was going to have a small business that would allow others to benefit from my skills and experience. I buried myself research, read books and articles on entrepreneurship, picked the brain of every contact I had, worked into the wee hours developing strategies, and had a blast digging to find answers to my never-ending list of questions.

But, I’d dig and dig and dig until, inevitably, my brain would overheat and I’d find myself overwhelmed. I was so eager to learn everything from everywhere, and be able to recall every word, tip and trick at a moment’s notice. But, there was no way to burn every tidbit into my brain, and the need to predict and plan for possibility 1, 2, 2a, 3, 3a, 3b (and beyond) was, needless to say, impossible. 

I whined to my mom – a bastion of support and wisdom – on more than one occasion. “I’ve never been so excited and sure about anything, but the more I learn, the more I know how much I don’t know!”

True to form, the words of wisdom came. “If every expectant mother read every bless’ed thing on child-rearing before deciding to become a mom, she’d never have a baby,” she said. “You just have to do it.”

I was so busy trying to emulate others’ “success stories” and compare my own plan with what “they” did that I forgot one little thing – me. I wasn’t considering my way. After all, I’m the expert on what works for me and how to make what I bring to the table work. I had all these resources at my fingertips, but I wasn’t using them the way they were intended to be used – as guides, not gospel.
 
Not long after that, the excited enthusiasm returned and I’ve started writing my own success story. I’ve allowed my photography to grow and mature naturally, and my business has been successfully launched. I think getting this far is a success story in itself.

So, next time you’re sucked into the vortex of inspiration, turn to the “experts” for guidance, but remember the inspiration struck you for a reason. It’s up to you to cultivate and nurture it to fit you.

I was in a card shop recently and picked up a little bookmark that I still have hanging above my desk: “Sometimes you just have to take the leap, and build your wings on the way down.”

One of my favorite people in the world is a woman I know who runs an entertainment magazine in the Milwaukee area. We’ve been friends for years, and she easily ranks in the Top 5 on my “People I Admire Most” list. She not only started and grew a successful publication, but she’s done so with intelligence, humor, compassion, creativity and good old-fashioned grit.

She always seems be running on all eight cylinders, and she is a consummate multitasker. On the rare occasion our schedules mesh and allow for an afternoon visit, I’m usually tagging along while she’s running errands and, between stops, she’ll fill me in on the adventures of business ownership, motherhood and the escapades of her wonderfully quirky extended family.

Last time we spoke, I told her I was joining the ranks of small-business ownership, and that I could use a few words of wisdom from the front lines.

After she made a wisecrack about being happy to oblige simply so she’d have something to add to the “What? Are you NUTS?” chapter on running a business in her memoirs, she pulled through.

“Here’s some advice, and I’ll even give it to you for free,” she quipped. “No matter how much money you think you need, you need three times that much.” She explained that you can run the numbers six ways from Sunday, but it’s simply the way it is. “I can’t explain it, but there you have it.”

But, she wasn’t quite done. “And one more thing, don’t let not having enough money stop you.”

Spoken like a true entrepreneur.

So, to all you dreamers out there with a vision of turning your skills and your passions into your day job, I say this: Count your pennies, go forth, and Godspeed.  See how far true grit will take you.

I like to think I have quite a few good qualities. I’m pretty smart, I work hard, I’m honest, I’ve got a sense of humor, I’m easy to get along with, I’m a good listener, I’m conscientious and I’m an above-average speller.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m certainly not sugar and spice and everything nice, either. I’m impatient, I’m a perfectionist, I cry when I don’t get enough sleep, overly dramatic people get on my nerves, I have no will power when it comes to cake, I sometimes drive too fast and I can’t cook.

But, the one quality that has rarely served me very well is that I’m shy.

Throw me into a room with a bunch of strangers, and I spend more time quietly surveying the room from the sidelines than actively injecting myself into the scene. My face contorts into visible pain when someone says, “Let’s do an ice breaker!” My brain goes into overdrive, trying to figure out how to stealthily slink along the wall and slip out the exit. I’m like the James Bond of networking functions – always thinking contingency plans and counter-attacks in order to evade the ice-breaking enemy.

As you can imagine, being shy doesn’t mesh well with running a small business  – especially when the business is young and, by its very nature, relies heavily on referrals and connections.

But, there is one thing that gives me comfort – I know I’m not alone.

So, for all my fellow introverts out there, here are a few lessons I’m learning from the networking front lines.

1. Start small. Don’t head to a networking-only function of a few hundred people and expect to leave the heart palpitations at the door. Instead, go to a conference or a speaker, where you can sit next to just a few people. It’s good practice, and it’s easier and more natural to strike up a conversation about the presentation than to randomly blurt out statements over cocktail wieners and trying to segue into handing over a business card.
2. Chill out. Move at your own pace, just as long as you are moving.  I once had a supervisor who, before I left for a conference, said “Come back with business cards of at least 20 potential new writers.” I almost fainted on the spot. I did come back with cards – five, total. But, knowing me the way I did, I was proud of myself for getting that many. It made it a little easier next time. (And I just changed the subject when my supervisor brought up the conference.)
3. Trust yourself. You’re there for a reason, and you know more than you think you do. Your boss chose you to attend because he or she is confident in you. If you’re advocating for your own product or service, you’re probably pretty hyped about it … and that enthusiasm shows naturally. I can say it’s easier for me to chat with people about what I do because I’m fiercely excited about it, and that usually overshadows any self-consciousness. 
4. Use it to your advantage. As natural introverts, we tend to listen more than we speak when sitting around a dinner table of colleagues. That means you’re primed to ask intelligent questions because you really heard what someone was saying.
5. You won’t be wrong. It’s a common fear among the shy that we’ll say the “wrong” thing and wind up embarrassed. Well, in all my years, I can count on one hand the number of times I heard someone say something that could maybe be construed as “wrong” (and half of those times, it was only because whoever it was didn’t shut his trap, and it ended up being a simple misunderstanding). How many times can you think of when someone said something wrong? Your chances are pretty good that you’ll be fine when you speak up.

So, for all you shy bunnies out there, take heart. Be yourself and have a little faith. You’ll be great!

And for those who think ice-breaking activities are a good idea? Make sure there aren’t too many folks lined up along the walls, ready at a moment’s notice to jump into action and deploy a diversional tactic in order to slink out the back door.

A few years ago, I was part of a small team that ran an association dedicated to the newspaper industry. Our executive director was very hip to the nuances of human resources, and he scheduled an all-day teambuilding retreat that centered around Meyers-Briggs Personality Types. It was great fun, and we had a ball getting to know each other by our designated letter combinations.

Surprisingly enough, there were four of us who had the exact same letter combo – ISTJ – which is pretty remarkable given that there are 16 different letter types, 16 possible combinations, and only eight of us at the workshop.

For those of you not familiar, ISTJ means the four of us were “Introvert/Sensing/Thinking/Judging.” In other words, we read magazines from front to back, took the exact same route home at the end of the day, would tunnel through 10 feet of snow to get to work so someone would turn on the lights, took an unnatural pleasure in organizing a closet, tired easily when in a crowd, always needed time to think before reacting, and cocked our heads like confused dogs when someone started a sentence with “I feel…” instead of “I think…”

Tacticians we were; visionaries we were not.

But, that was OK. We were happy and successful scuttling around behind the scenes, taking pride in the challenge of pulling together the details of anything the visionaries could throw at us.

But, as a twisted experiment, the day’s leader split us into two groups and assigned us the task of hammering out an imaginary promotional plan to get the word out to our members about all the fabulous things we were planning for them. But, instead of mixing-and-matching letters into alphabet soup, she put us ISTJs in one group, and everyone else in another.

The exercise started with an uncomfortable silence.  We simply weren’t used to coming up with “the plan” … we were used to implementing “the plan.” But, true to form, our overdeveloped sense of dependability kicked in and we started brainstorming.  Our idea was to get a big-shot celebrity to ride around in an oversized tour bus to wow our members and hand out expensive giveaways, free memberships and VIP treatment at our annual convention.

But, none of us knew any celebrities, we weren’t sure where to find a big tour bus, we figured we didn’t have the budget for expensive giveaways, and nobody really knew what would constitute VIP treatment at our small convention anyway.

By the time we had to reconvene and present our plan, it was reduced to our executive director motoring around in the 10-year-old company car handing out one copy of last year’s style guide to each newspaper.

Nevermind that it was an imaginary promotional plan, our minds couldn’t stray from what we knew – leaning toward the “how” instead of the “what.” But, I’m OK with that. It’s been proven time and time again that the business world needs both. We are the yin to the visionary yang.

Remember the other team? They decided to get Brett Favre to ride around in a logo-laden tour bus, handing out gold-plated membership plaques to not only every newspaper in Wisconsin, but also a few out-of-state newspapers just for kicks.

*Sigh.*

Anyone know anyone who knows Brett Favre?