I had lunch with an internet-friend-turned-real-life-friend a few weeks back.
I'd recently sent out a Weekly Letter sharing why I'm not focusing on increasing my income right now in my business, and she asked why I didn't include actual figures in the email.
The truth was, that email was all about not comparing our own financial goals to anyone else's and I didn't see the point in sharing another number for anyone to measure themselves against.
Though, as anyone in my real life will tell you, I'm a complete open book so I told her my number and she was a little shocked.
Why, I asked?
She shared that she just guessed it would be around half that amount, considering how honest I am about how much time I take off each year and how I don't work a typical 40 hour workweek.
And it got me thinking about how much we've really internalised the lie that we have to work every hour under the sun to be able to make a sustainable income in our business.
Because here's the thing:
Last year I wrote a book.
A mini book, less than 50 pages long, called Nobody Is Going To Do Your Business (Or Your Life) For You: & Other Stories, which is a collection of essays on the lessons I've learned about bridging the gap between where we are now and where we truly want to be in our creative work and life.
If you're subscribed to my Weekly Letters, you might remember me sharing it with you last November and you might have already read it too. I also recorded an audiobook to accompany it, and for this new season of Make It Happen I'm sharing that audiobook with you in the hopes it can be of some support and encouragement for you in your creative work and life right now.
You can dive into each episode of this new season of the show below, and you can subscribe to the show and listen along through iTunes this way too.
Read MoreA couple of weeks ago I booked my very last six month coaching spot for the year, which means I'm now fully booked for the next seven months ahead in my business.
It feels a little crazy to write this down - it's taken a little while for it to sink in, and the gratitude I feel for the fact that I continue to be able to make a sustainable living from doing awesome work with such incredible creative humans is more than I know how to put into words.
As service based creative business owners, being "booked out" can be talked about like this elusive status that defines your success as a business owner. There are so many articles, courses, and classes out there teaching you formulas and strategies for filling up your client schedule that it can be a little overwhelming, because in reality being "booked out" isn't actually the goal - doing awesome work with the people you're here to serve and running a business that is financially thriving and sustainable is. Being booked out can just help facilitate that.
Here's why I like to book up my client schedule in advance:
No more feast and famine
Booking clients in advance means that you can break out of the feast and famine cycle in your business - you're no longer living month to month because you're booking out client projects in your schedule, taking payments in advance, and you're able to project and manage your income with more clarity and ease along the way.
More control over your time and schedule
Booking and planning your client work in advance means that you can take a more birds-eye view of your schedule - you can book out work in advance in your calendar, build in time to rest and take a break, and just feel more in control of your workload moving forward.
Peace of mind
More than anything, booking clients in advance can just give you a whole lot of peace of mind and ease that anxiety that we can navigate as business owners - you know that you have work booked in for the foreseeable future, you know that you have enough interest in your services, and you can focus more on doing the work than worrying about where the next client is coming from too.
This is now my fourth year of running my coaching business and my fourth year of being booked out in advance, so I want to share with you today the biggest lessons I've learned along the way in the hopes of them being of some encouragement and insight for you in your own journey too.
Read MoreMy clients are awesome.
I know, I know, I'm super biased, but I really do mean it from the bottom of my heart.
They're brave, and bold, and dream big, and are doing work in the world that is meaningful, fun, and oh so inspiring too.
And they're all so wonderfully different too - after over three years now of working with almost 200 incredible creatives I see time and time again that no creative path looks the same as anyone else's. We all have different dreams, different goals, different skills, and different life experiences too. But there is something we all have in common - we all want to do work we love, live our life on our own terms, and have a whole lot of fun along the way too.
Today I want to share with you ten of my awesome clients with you and the work they're doing right now, and you can catch up with some past posts like this sharing the awesome work my clients do here, here, here, here, and here.
Read MoreFor the last episode of this season of Make It Happen I'm joined by the awesome and incomparable Laura Jane Williams...
I've been reading Laura's blog for years, and I loved her memoirs Becoming and Ice Cream For Breakfast too, so I was ridiculously excited to have the opportunity to connect with her for this episode.
We explore what it means to be a storyteller not a writer, her own writing process, taking control of your creative career by thinking of yourself as an entrepreneur and so much more. Laura is one of my favourite people to follow on the internet - she has this wonderful way of just telling the truth about her life and holding space for other women to find their own too.
If you'd like to listen along to our conversation you can below, and you can also find the show notes for this episode this way too.
Read MoreI'm so excited to share this episode of Make It Happen with you today...
Cat Byrne is a designer who runs her own branding and web design studio over at Gatto Web, a podcast host, and a past client and wonderful friend of mine too.
In this episode together we explore Cat's journey of choosing more for herself in her creative business and life, how she pivoted her business to work better for her so she could work less, earn more, and find more freedom and fulfilment along the way too.
I had the pleasure of walking with Cat in this journey as her coach, and I was so excited to bring her onto the show this season to share her story with you and have a really honest conversation together about what it looks like to really choose more for yourself in your creative work and life and the work and courage it takes to make that happen too.
If you'd like to listen along to our conversation you can below, and you can also find the show notes for this episode this way too.
Read MoreToday's podcast episode is one of my favourites of the season...
Yasamin Al-Tiay is a musician based in New Zealand, and an awesome client of mine too. A few months ago in one of our coaching calls together she shared a recent a-ha moment that her creative happiness can only ever truly come within. I knew that I had to bring her onto the show this season to explore this together more as it's something I think it's such an important message for creative humans as we pursue big goals in our work and our life.
In this episode we dive into her journey as a musician, how she's recently discovered that her creative happiness comes from within, and how she makes opportunities for herself in an industry full of gatekeepers too.
If you'd like to listen along to our conversation you can below, and you can also find the show notes for this episode this way too.
Read MoreIf you've been reading these letters for a while now you'll know that I don't believe in growth just for the sake of it.
I don't believe that bigger always means betters.
That we should always be striving for more, more, more.
I truly believe that a whole lot of magic can happen when we discover and embrace what 'enough' looks and feels like for us.
So this letter isn't here to tell you that you're playing small, or that our lives are meaningless if we're not always pushing for bigger and better things.
But this letter is here to talk about how easy it is to get stuck in a cycle of just being responsive in our business. About the trap we can fall into of just existing within the echo chamber of our own creative industries.
We all know how oversaturated things can feel online right now. And it's so easy to feel like we have to run our business in response to everything that's happening around us, that there's a certain box we have to fit ourselves into to make it in our industry.
Read MoreI have an awesome episode of Make It Happen to share with you today...
Fiona Barrows is a brand storyteller, podcaster, awesome human, and a friend and client of mine too.
We first connected over 18 months ago now when she hired me as her creative coach, and I have had the pleasure ever since of walking with Fiona in her creative and business journey and see her really move forward with so much courage and integrity in the direction of the creative work and life that feels most meaningful to her.
In this episode we talk about her journey so far, from leaving a her life in London as a literary agent three years ago to travel around Asia and become a freelance copywriter, to where she is now as a big-hearted business owner living in Frome, UK. We dive into her mindset shift from being a freelancer to being a business owner, the message behind her podcast all about living life a little differently, and the philosophy that shapes her work as a brand storyteller too.
If you'd like to listen along to our conversation you can below, and you can also find the show notes for this episode this way too.
Read More