behind the scenes: taking the leap

Sometimes, the first step is really hard!

Sometimes, you manage to talk yourself out of taking it.
“I can’t do this. I’m not qualified enough, and everyone knows it. People will think I’m a fraud. People will think that I’m a fool. I don’t want to fail. I don’t know if I’m brave enough to try. What if I screw this up? No one will believe in me again. No one thinks I can do this – so how can I? I can’t do it.”

 

Respectfully: That’s bullshit, and you know it. Deep in your heart of hearts, you know it is. You’re just scared to fail, and that’s okay. Own it, there’s nothing wrong with being scared. I promise.

BUT.

But.

You HAVE to take that leap of faith. I don’t mean an unmeasured jump, an uninformed fling into the ether – no, take your time to measure the effort needed to get where you’re trying to go, at least. Make the pro/con lists, the outlines, the planning.

But don’t let that stage derail you from the real work, the work that only taking that leap can kick into gear. It’s easy to let the background work be a way to distract you from the big stuff, the part where you actually MAKE it happen.

Here’s the reality of it…

 

If you don’t try, you can’t succeed.

 

If you never put your hand on the spindle or wheel and fiber, you’ll never become a spinner.

If you never say hi to that cute guy or girl, you’ll never get to go on a date with them.

If you never get out of the car and go investigate that park, you’ll never find that hidden waterfall.

If you never say yes to the opportunity, you’ll never grow into the next steps. That’s good advice for any part of your life, folks.

 

Every thing that’s happened for me with Threeravens has required a leap of faith. Selling my yarn for the first time. Teaching my first class. Vending at a craft show. Moving back to Baltimore, then opening a studio that became a retail space, too. ALL huge leaps of faith. And all of them have paid off for me and for the people who needed what I offered from taking that leap.

Does that mean that every leap will get you to the other side? Naw, you definitely will fall from time to time. But you know what? If you do it right, carefully, thoughtfully… it doesn’t have to hurt much. I have been careful to cover my butt financially as best as I could, and only take on leaps that I thought I could handle within reason. I try to grow organically, thoughtfully, reasonably. I won’t be opening a giant warehouse with 12 employees and 15 wholesale accounts anytime soon! I won’t be flying across the country to teach at a bunch of workshops… yet. But that’s not out of the realm of possibility down the line! 😉

 

If you follow along with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr, you know that we’ve been doing REALLY well with our Indiegogo campaign. So well, in fact, that we already exceeded our goal, with 40+ days to go! Trust me, we’re just as surprised as anyone, and totally honored and awed. Doing one of these is TOTALLY scary and overwhelming, you guys. It’s hard to ask for help, even when you know that you’re offering really great perks in return. The last thing that Rob and I want is to get charity – we’re really into giving for what we get and not ever feeling obligated to people we care about, because obligation gets weird and can strain a relationship. We’ll totally work hard to get ahead, but sometimes you need something to generate excitement and a mass of sales, so that you can get the lump sum of money needed to start something big. That’s what a crowdfunding campaign is all about. You provide cool stuff with the added incentive for backers that they helped someone get something BIG off the ground, too. I love it. And evidently, it’s worked for us.

This is exactly what I mean about taking the leap, though. Doing this, like I said, was scary. Would people think we were just asking for handouts? Would they “get” why we need to replace Rob’s poor shed? Would there be enough interest to make it work, and not make us look foolish?

Obviously, we just needed to jump and trust that our community gets us and how we work, and that we have the things that they might want. And you can see… it worked.

And if it hadn’t? That would have been okay, too. We would have punted, like we usually do when things don’t quite work out. And we still would have felt loved and supported.

That being said… our community? THE BEST. Seriously.

 

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Now that I’ve given you your PEP TALK for the week… heh! What about the other things happening Behind The Scenes?

 

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