So I completely flaked out yesterday.
As Holly pointed out in yesterday’s blog post, Monday was the start of LaVonne Ellis’ #customerlove challenge and Holly and I are both a part of it. And while Cottage Copy is planning to get an unconventional ebook put together out of the challenge, I also took up a smaller (depends how you look at it) personal challenge of teaching LinkedIn to people who don’t like (or get) LinkedIn this September.
I’ve been asked about it a lot, both online (at Kaffeeklatsch) and offline in my networking groups the last two months. And I’ve touched upon it once here on the blog, about how LinkedIn is not the scary boogey it appears to be.
In the last nine months that I’ve been in business, I’ve answered enough baffled questions about social media and just understanding the basics of integrity driven marketing on the internet that I know I love teaching this to people and answering all of their questions. And seeing someone’s eyes light up when they realize that building relationships through social media is not that different from the relationships they build in real life is completely worth it to me. (It’s one of the reasons I’m so heavily involved in offline networking). More good, honest business owners need to find their way onto the internet.
So what does this have to do with running your own business and me flaking out?
It happens.
When you start something new, especially something daring, and bold, and completely out of your comfort zone, you have that initial high moment where you see all of the pieces falling into place and nothing can touch you. Absolutely nothing. You are on Cloud 9 and you are invincible.
That was my weekend. And then Monday hit, I wasn’t ready with all that I wanted to do, and I froze up. My brain completely blanked and absolutely nothing would come out of it. Try as I might, when it came to my own special thing that I wanted to do, I couldn’t find the words for it. I had so many plans laid out in my notebook, but none of it made sense to me when I looked at it yesterday. I didn’t know what I had to do first and the reaction to feeling overwhelmed was a complete brain shut down.
I felt, because I didn’t start off the challenge on the right foot, that I completely failed as an entrepreneur and a participant. That I didn’t feel good enough to associate with all the awesome people that started popping up on the #customerlove hashtag and that I shouldn’t reach for them to pull me out of this drowning sea in fear that I’d infect them too.
It happens.
As a business owner, particularly a social one, you have to have your A-game on all the time. You see blog posts about unplugging from social media because that’s sometimes the only way to take off that persona you crafted around yourself. What’s nice about our community at Cottage Copy, and all the lovely people we have that are commenters, followers, or fans, is that we’re allowed to be real. To bleed a little publicly online. To share how difficult it is to be a start up business, or a one year old business, or even a 5 year old business. Because our plight is not just ours. I guarantee that every person out there reading this has felt low at some point. Has felt tired. Has felt frozen on what to do next with their business.
And there are no accurate words to express that feeling. When that hits you, it’s hard to reach out to someone who you know can pull you up.
But it happens. Most of my day yesterday was not the flash and bang running start that I thought I’d take off with in facing this month long challenge. But I stayed on Twitter. I tried my best, and I looked around for people I could sort of hang onto for a little while until I got back on my feet. And I think this tweet from @Fabeku when I told him I felt like I’d been sucked on by an energy stealing vampire really broke the paralysis for me.
fabeku @thecopycorner An energy stealing vampire? Oy. Dude. If that ever happens again, tell me. I’ll break out the extra large gong mallet.
It made my evening. It made my whole day.
There are people out there who do not care that you are down, or imperfect, and will not think less of you because of it. You’re human. That’s fine. Hang out with good people when you’re having a bad day. Eventually, they’ll break through the blank sludge you have. Because that’s what good friends do. 
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