Smoke & Mirrors

You have to admit, those photos with inspirational quotes can just be the best.  Growing up I had a giant poster of a ballerina in leg warmers filled with holes, her toe shoes were taped up and I don’t even remember the quote – something about working hard to make your dreams come true.

And when people say “oh, you’ll have to work hard if you have your own business’ you imagine working night and day filling orders non-stop.  You have to hire busloads of staff and you buy city blocks of factory space.  Yes you’re working hard, but the money is falling from heaven.

Well, that last story is definitely about us, in case you were wondering.  While I type this, I can hear the hum of the factory next door – thousands of bars of soap are being poured and the post truck comes by 3 times a day for pick ups.  It’s a glorious life and maybe I’ll post an inspirational photo for you all to attain to. (KIDDING).

Are you still with me?  Here’s the thing.  So much of what we see out there is ‘smoke and mirrors’.  Yes, we were interviewed 3 times in 2 weeks by a national tv station and a local one, yes when you look at our page you can see our media coverage and as someone said to us the other day “you’re just killing it”.  And yes, after THIRTEEN YEARS we are indeed thriving.  But there are still days when you lose accounts or don’t get chosen for the ‘it’ store.  Suddenly you feel like the kid who didn’t get chosen for the baseball team.  Everyone got scooped up quickly and you were left, the very last person.

Being self employed is like that some days.  It seems like EVERYONE ELSE is killing it and you’re in your studio pouring over new recipes and ideas.  Their Facebook feeds are filled with the 87,000 new accounts they just picked up, how everyone loves their stuff and how amazing they are – and you’re plugging away.

The dream will take time.  There will be fabulous days.  And there will be many more days when you feel like you’re not doing it right and its soul crushing.

 It doesn’t matter.  You stay in the game.  And when you’re called, you get up and you play the best you can.  Maybe you don’t hit a home run, but you show up.  And every day you show up and put one foot in front of the other and you keep going.  And along the way dreams may happen and sometimes you spend your days helping other people find their dreams.  Just keep going because its true, the dream really does take a lot of time, relax, we’re in this together.