Staying Paid

Growing Pains and Resetting Expectations

Posted on May 6th, 2008 in Breaking Fear, Business, Creation Station, Empowerment, General, Marketing

It’s been a while since we’ve had a conversation here; my apologies. Between crunching numbers for Intro to Office and Political Science, interviewing plus size fashion store owners, site flipping, and networking with other writers and marketers, I often forget that hey, you ought to blog and at least bring everyone up to speed on what you’re learning.

My goal for 2008 is to break fear - one of the reasons why I decided to end my 7 month waffling and go for the gold of becoming an entrepreneur. So far I’ve met some pretty awesome individuals, and reconnected with folks I haven’t spoken to in a while. It’s been a real blast being home, even though it does come with its ups and downs. It’s easy to sit in an office around people who are clocking in to do a task that’s clearly outlined, but it’s another thing altogether to erase all of that and go for what you want.

There’s a few things I’ve got bubbling on the fire: site flipping, SEO content solutions, and product/service creation. I’ve got a strong “army” of people that have become near-instrumental in shoveling coal into the furnace of my brain to keep me going.

Social media has been my friend, in more ways than one. I’ve built the bulk of my network between Twitter (I am @nichelady there - follow me around!), and I’m going to tackle LinkedIn next (heard too many good things about the site, as well as the community).

I was talking offline with a lady in a walgreens about the web, writing, marketing in general. The look of shock on her face when I told her that I was squat in the middle of it blew me away — I’m still in the “gosh, I thought everybody knew that” state. So my brain began bubbling, thinking about everything I’ve done in a short bit of time (combating my inner “but I have no experiences!” scramble): government computing security for a top aerospace/defense company, customer service for a wireless service provider, data entry for an health insurance liaison, front desk/hospitality for a regionally-known university…but I never thought that anything from those worlds would be staring me in the face, yet again.

I still get people who ask me about phones, even though it’s been a while since I’ve dug into the nuts and bolts of ordering a phone that won’t blow up in three months. I still get questions about securing computers and tackling the great big world of alternative operating systems (I’ve secured machines running various versions of Linux, Windows, Unix …), and now I’m onto my next big journey: marketing.

It isn’t that I haven’t been here before, but it’s just that I’m now devoted to taking action rather than hiding on the sidelines, helping everyone else without taking my talents and putting them to good use. I started reading through blogs that were consistently Dugg, Sphinn’ed and stumbled, and I realized: Whoa, this is common sense spun with a catchy title! I can do that! I have stories to share too!

It’s about resetting expectations. It’s tuning out the negative chatter and noise and focusing on a positive signal. You can do this. And like the blog title implies, my focus isn’t just on generating income, but maintaining it through multiple revenue streams. I want this blog to serve as a start to finish chronicle of everything I’ve been doing — maybe someday someone will read these first few steps and realize the same thing I did: everything is possible.