If you ever feel a tinge of guilt (or a maybe a whole lot of it and often) to work on your goals of being a business owner by:
- carving out the time before your family gets up,
- you skip lunch dates with your coworkers,
- your kiddos know the voice of your online course instructor because you catch up to coaching calls in your car (aka your mobile university) and
- you work here and there in your small but mighty pockets of time at night, weekends and even holidays, you my amazing friend are NOT alone.
I often get asked, “That’s great you built your business to where it is today but how did you get started? How did you do it?”
We often hear about the perfectly polished “after” stories but I totally agree that we don’t hear enough about the Chapter 1, Day 1, the first 6 months… and all the times they contemplated giving up on their dream of building their own business because heck yeah there are days that it’s freaking HARD!
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That’s exactly why I chose my topic for this week’s Live Video to show you, right down to my actual business timeline that I created starting from Day 1 to give you all those nitty gritty details.
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It certainly didn’t happen overnight and it almost didn’t happen at all! You see, I never even thought of myself as the someone who would be the face of their own brand. Nooooo! That was for my high profile business and celebrity clients who were on major network TV shows, in films, in commercials as their own spokesperson and at the time, this new emerging online marketing space.
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That was for everyone else… not me! And then in 2012 in the years that Myspace was fading, Facebook was the new cool kid on the block, I stumbled upon blogging.
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Blogging simply started off a way to create one convenient spot for all the same few questions I got asked about over and over on repeat. At the time, those questions were about my work as a professional makeup artist, wardrobe stylist and set design.
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At first those same repeat questions about makeup for camera, lashes, what to wear/what to avoid on camera, how I created the beauty lighting designs for my clients, how I created sets in cramped spaces… they were honestly becoming slightly annoying because it was the same dozen or so questions all the time.
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Then I realized… DUH! Give the people what they want and they wanted to learn it from ME!
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Despite the massive imposter syndrome that was working OVER TIME in my brain asking myself, who the heck am I to do this when there are so many others who are already so great at it??
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When I finally chose to quiet the negative voices that were taking up valuable real estate in my own head, I started to believe WHY NOT ME?? Why couldn’t I be the one to be the face of my own personal brand business and help others accomplish what I’ve been helping my 1-on-1 clients do for years and years?
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That was the first monumentally brave and courageous step that birthed more and more tiny more baby steps forward along with more confidence.
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That’s how it works my friend. Confidence is the BYPRODUCT of doing it messy, ugly and scared! Not the other way around!
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As you can see, I was NOT an overnight success and I didn’t go “full time” in my online business until well, EVER because that’s how I chose to CUSTOM DESIGN my business! It took me over THREE years after I started to monetize my blog and got into affiliate marketing that I really took this online thing seriously and set the intentions to really build this. But, I was still juggling my physically tough, long days on set three+ years into my journey trying to find some sense of harmony to keep up with the online work that paid the bills, mortgage, provided the healthcare at the time AND funded my new online business!
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Looking back, there were many times where I could barely make out the vision for what was possible for me. I couldn’t tell if anything was working, if anyone was reading/watching/listening.
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I now realize that was when I was developing my speaking skills, improving my messaging, getting clearer on how I could help others, created my online group coaching program, Lights Camera Branding. My ONE program that I’ve launched 12 times as of the time I created this post and about to get ready for our next one soon! My ONE program that I’ve continuously refined, developed, improved, tweaked, experimented with, shifted from a DIY course to a full blown group coaching hybrid custom program that evolved with me, my audience and the ever-changing social media space!
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I’ve been on this road to mastery now for 7 years (with intention) and 5 as a course creator. I’ve learned that:
- I can figure out anything that I set my mind to.
- I can help others do the same.
- Despite the super squirrelly creative brain, I have been able to learn how to laser focus on what my top priorities are.
- I do believe in myself more with lots more room for improvement.
- I can curate amazing communities that foster safe spaces to share our biggest dreams and most vulnerable shadow sides of ourselves which entrepreneurship is sure to reveal for everyone.
- I need to dream way bigger and hold myself up to a much higher standard of possibility.
- It’s a part of my big mission to share all of this all along the way especially while I’m in real-time development, wading through the messy middle and not when the perfect storybook ending has already happened.
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I hope this inspires you to keep going, not give up on those really hard days and know that I’m right there alongside you!
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With Grit & Grace, xo!
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Tiffany aka Coach Glitter
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