Since the last time I posted we've done hundreds of business sales events, I have more employees to direct, and I'm in a different phase of life as a business owner. We've quadrupled our sales from the previous year, making us a six-figure earning business!
I've shared the whole journey to get here, with those honest ups-and-downs, on the blog; like when I confessed for sincerity's sake that I allowed myself to "go broke" (spent the last of what was once a large amount of savings from my corporate job) to get here.
A lot of people in my life didn't "get" what I was doing. It's *really* strange to leave one successful career because you created a successful brand, and then abandon that brand to start another just because you have an inkling that it's not quite the right fit. Yet I did it, and all the other unconventional things I do, because I know deep to my core that I can make anything work, I just needed to narrow in on my life's honest passion. I'm grateful that I found it and that it's going to put us in a place where we can build our dream life.
Our recent success may seem sudden, but it's been the result of years of nonstop work and experimentation.
People who refuse to play it safe are considered "crazy" in life. I reconciled with that very early on. Don't let ANYONE'S opinion of your "weird" methods keep you from making your dream life. I'm writing this during some down-time in my cozy store office. This was what I always wanted, to create my own business from the bottom-up that I LOVE working in, and have it be a business I'm passionate about AND that really helps people.
It took some early years of sacrifice and we still make sacrifices, but it's all been worth it.
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That leads me to the second reason why I've stopped blogging for now. Having the break from blogging gave me an outside perspective. This blog was an integral part of the experimentation and work that got me where I'm at as a business owner, and I will always be appreciative and fond of it. But blogging isn't the medium I can or want to use. I now have more free time, yet still don't have enough of it to produce content at the quality I want to put out. I may return to that when I do have the time, but blogging has another issue. The episodic nature of posting doesn't allow for "deeper" case studies. Sticking to a post schedule can make the posts can be shallow, they can turn into quantity over quality. This is fine if you're sharing a personal life journal, but I don't want to do this because stopping to document your life frequently interferes with living in the moment. It's better to take some more time, reflect, gather info, live some more so you can report back with more wisdom on the lessons you've gained with time.
Reading a book on a topic is like "diving" into an ocean, whereas one blog post on any post is like skimming the surface. As Nicholas Carr says in The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains:
"Research continues to show that people who read linear text comprehend more, remember more, and learn more than those who read text peppered with links."
If I do write posts again, I want to take as much time as possible with them, but right now it feels more like I'll be writing studies in book form. These will probably be e-books I make available online. I've already started a few, they will be loaded with detailed information on organizing and my other-favorite subjects, running a successful creative business / how the creative mind works. (With incidental stuff about being healthy because that maximizes productivity!)
In the meantime, if you want to check out my "new" brand it's online here and on Etsy. I post our adventures on our business instagram frequently. Feel free to send questions via e-mail at hi - @ - bodysoulsoap.com.
Thank you for reading this, or anything I've ever posted here. I'm appreciative of every connection I've ever made here. Now it's time to send my messages and products via different mediums & methods! I'll post here and on our Instagram when books/guides are available, I've been documenting this journey and will share steps I took so others can find financial success with their creative dreams, too.
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