There are two groups of people: Poets & killers. The poets are running around with their heart placed firmly on their sleeve, hoping that if they do authentic work, it’ll sell itself. The killers, on the other hand, are running around selling everything, none of which is actually authentic, nor genuine, nor useful. (We call these people “scam artists.”) Yet, neither one of these groups is going to make it. Truth is, you might be as authentic as they come, but
Do Something Brilliant With Your One Little Speck
You ever have a hate relationship with an acronym? Take YOLO, for example. Are you as ambivalent about it as I am? Like, ay, in theory “you only live once” is true (two points), it’s an effective argument for engaging in questionable behavior of any kind (five points), it’s a built-in retort when your husband wants to know who ate all the sweet potato fries (seven gazillion points), AND it labels you as someone who may actually know how
We Desperately Need to Learn How to Be Mothers to Ourselves
New life rule: If your mother is dead, DO NOT GET ON FACEBOOK ON MOTHER’S DAY. Not that it’s not pleasant to see the resemblance between every friend I’ve ever made and the woman that birthed her (THOSE EYES! THEY LOOK LIKE SISTERS!), but when you don’t have anyone to celebrate, and you’re not a mother yourself, you can end up feeling like everyone is having Christmas without you. In other words: Where the f*ck are my banana pancakes? Which is
The CEO might be her own boss, but she does not have to be her own bitch.
Being in business for yourself requires three things. A sense of discip. A sense of self. And a motherfucking tube of lipstick. When you run a business, NOTHING about your workday los like anybody else’s, and soon it follows that nothing about your life los very much like anybody else’s, either. Late nights. Unusual schedules. Working than everybody you know. Feast and famine. Elation and despair. Freedom on a Monday. Shackles on a Sunday. And your hilarious diet, which probably consists of
How to Pitch Yourself On Paper the HUMAN Way (Or, Your Resume: A Horror Story)
“Why won’t you kiss me?” he had asked. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Didn’t he understand what I was going through? Didn’t he have the same worries?! He inched closer. I inched backward. I couldn’t kiss him. Not there. Not with the faint smell of burnt popcorn swirling in my nostrils; the scent of sweaty leather fighting for an equal opportunity to infiltrate my senses. There was suppose to be candlelight. And a bowl of spaghetti. And Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love
The Key to Fooling Everyone Into Thinking You’re a Natural at Public Speaking (Bye Bye, Stiff & Stuttery!)
“How many pisco sours have you had?!?!?!” The words galloped out of my mouth when my best friend, M, asked me—the girl who spells god with a lowercase g and who has openly questioned the institution of marriage—to officiate her wedding. The first image that came to mind was me standing on an altar wearing a maroon-colored robe, flicking water onto their foreheads and cueing Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act. The fact that my fingers wanted to type “alter” instead
There’s So Much Drama Around EVERYTHING.
There is so much drama. Around. Everything. I hear it everywhere. In es. In tweets. In friend’s secrets. In whispers across the internet. Should I launch this? But what about that? What if I fail? What if nobody buys? What if I wasted my time? What if my heart breaks in the process? Should I name my business something traditional or creative? But what if I hate it later? What if I decide to go in a different direction? Should
Create & Offer What YOU’D Want to Buy.
“THAT’S GENIUS!” said a lot of really sweet people really big brown nosers after the launch of Unf*ckwithable Girlfriends last week. Except they weren’t giving me the compliment because of what it contained, but rather, because of what it didn’t. “You mean you aren’t inundating everyone with another group? No forums? No Google Hangouts? NO HEART-CENTERED NETWORKING?” (By the way, heart-centered has just made it onto the Word Shitlist, which, FYI, refreshes on page load at the bottom
[New!] UNF*CKWITHABLE GIRLFRIENDS
If you are a woman, I want you to raise your fucking hand. If you’re going through some shit, I want you to raise it even higher. If you’re out here going HARD to make it—if you’re finally starting that business, finally ending that other one, finally going in a new direction, finally stealing the hours, finally demanding that cash, finally going all-in, finally swallowing the lump in your throat, finally loing yourself squarely in the mirror, finally strapping stilettos onto your
Networking Event? Try This Creative Approach to Introducing Yourself.
Are these people on crack? It was the first thought that came to mind as I read this Inc. article that advises you to take your glass of warm Yellowtail, roll up to a stranger at a networking event and all but murmur in their ear: How can I help you? The theory is that you’ll get a better response by trying to be helpful than trying to be salesy—but in execution, this thinly veiled, “I’m here to help!” Pee-wee Herman
Help! My Elevator Pitch is Falling (Seriously) Flat Chested.
There’s this collective group groan that happens when the words, “elevator pitch” are spen. (For the record, it sounds like: gggggeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrduuuurrrrrruhhhhhhSPLAT.) In my experience, this is usually for one of three reasons: Someone once insisted that if you’re ever riding in an elevator, you MUST! BE! ABLE! TO! SELL! YOURSELF! BEFORE! THE! NEXT! STOP! (So now you have PTSD every time someone asks you if you’re—ding, ding ding—going up.) You couldn’t explain what you do in thirty minutes, let alone
How to Stop Writing With a Stick Up Your Ass
One of the things I get asked about forty hundred times a day (besides whether or not I know there’s a hair sprouting from my chin) is this: Because apparently I’m known for walking the between mental inspiration and mental institution—as every writer worth their weight should. But here’s what I hear every time someone asks me that question: “I’m not as boring a boob as I seem, but from all those years in corporate America / Catholic school /
My Pet Peeve About the Internet: No One Teaches Any Goddamn Substance
I’ve been running a successful on writing & publishing business for almost ten years now. TEN. Which is like seventy in dog years, and like a hundred and seventy in internet years, which might explain why my wrists ache so much. Does this mean I get to retire? Kidding. I wouldn’t retire from this gig if they paid me; who else is going to run your favorite blog named after a crude redneck gesture? That said, as someone who is
An Ode to the Internet’s Worst Business Advice
A person, going into business for themselves for the first time: How can I get found? The Internet: Start a newsletter! Person: What, like a weekly bulletin? The Internet: No, like a newsletter. Person: So, like, write a bunch of updates about me, me, and me? The Internet: Yeah! A newsletter! Person: Every week? The Internet: Yeah! Content is king! Person: And then ask customers to actually request to receive something I wrote all about me, me and me? The
Nice Brands Finish Last
Out of 100,000 adjectives in the English language, if the best you can come up with is nice, then I’m doing something wrong. It’s like spending Thanksgiving Day ripping out gizzards and mashing actual potatoes, only to be told that the food is “very good, thanks.” VERY GOOD, THANKS? What is this, a $5 blowjob? Now that I’ve taken the blog to all new inappropriate heights, I might as well tell you what I really think. (P.S. To all my
Headspace Is Like a Goddamn Unicorn
Headspace. Even though it feels about as mythical as a goddamn unicorn, it’s a thing. I know most of us would feel comfortable using a keyboard full of hypodermic needles than, you know, actually rela, but in my experience over the last decade running my own business, there are few things I find essential. You are not a machine. You are not a slave. And you certainly didn’t start a business so you could sit inside a dimly lit room
Read This if You’re an Impatient, Demanding, Self-Critical Tart Who Gets Mad at Herself When Things, You Know, Actually Take TIME
What gets measured, gets managed has got to be the most annoying piece of business advice ever. (Right next to “create epic content,” “follow your passion,” and “don’t fart too loud when the mic is on,” of course.) Coming from a background in PR, I’ve always hurled silent insults at the whole “what gets measured, gets managed” thing, because many important outcomes—like positive sentiment, for example—are harder than Donald Trump’s head to measure. And yet, all these years later, I think
I Hate Monday: Edition #13
Welcome to I Hate Monday, a list of my favorite must-know recommendations, finds and other ightfully unproductive things. Because it is Monday after all. What else would you rather be doing? I’ve always said that we were all a bunch of fools for not taking advantage of the library. Do we realize there’s this place we can go to learn about anything we ever wanted to know? You could be a bazillionaire by now, had you read a few
On Getting Old, Having No Idea How to Make a Soufflé & Consciously Choosing to Do What You WANT.
It’s 2:42 in the morning and the reason I’m awake is called CHARDONNAY. People talk about getting old—buying crock pots, nonchalantly cutting your spouse’s armpit hairs, relating to The Golden Girls than The Gil Girls—but they do not prepare you for the one thing that will change your life even than tiny packets of GrillMates: Insommeliernia. Which is obviously an evil-adult-spelling-bee hybrid of “insomnia” and “sommelier,” which if I’m being honest I still really don’t know how to pronounce. (Note to
Sometimes in Business, You Need to Do YOU.
The dead horse of the decade is the target customer. You’re asked to create personas. Put yourself in their shoes bras. Get inside their head. Imagine what’s keeping them up at 3 o’clock in the morning. (For the record, it’s that their ass is getting fat and they totally forgot to make coies for their kid’s bake sale.) So there you went, thinking about everything from the target customer’s perspective. What will they want? What will they think? What will
I Hate Monday: Edition #12
Welcome to I Hate Monday, obvoiusly the most productive way to procrastinate until it’s not Monday any. Know why Danielle Laporte’s been so wildly successful? Because she doesn’t just give you advice. She gives you advice wrapped in story. It’s the story—the language, the imagery, the way it makes you relate to her and her—that is the real reason everyone on the web is going ga-ga. Check out the only 2015 review post I didn’t want to
Better to Be a Mouse With a Backbone, Than a Lion With No Spine: On Writing Voice
You know when you sit down to write and your brain sort of feels kind of…constipated? (A ightful image, if I do say so myself.) Then you finally manage to put a sentence on the screen, but then you backspace over the “fuck”—because if you say “fuck,” no one will take you seriously—but then you retype the same word, wondering if you were to use such a word, whether it would come across as self-assured and bold, or lowball and crass?
I Hate Monday: Edition #11
Welcome to I Hate Monday, obvoiusly the most productive way to procrastinate until it’s not Monday any. This is going to be the best thing you watch today. It’s going to make you tear up. It’s going to make you smile. It’s going to make you feel like everything’s going to be ay. It’s going to make you want to run away to Italy with nothing than a Moleskine, or let go of that thing you keep doing that
On Becoming Unfuckwithable
Unfuckwithable. If you’re contemplating themes for the New Year, I highly recommend borrowing this one. Unfuckwithable. Rolls right off the tongue and deep dives directly into your ovaries. But importantly? We need this. We need this because there are always going to be days—weeks, months, years—where everything feels hard. There are always going to be people who do wrong by you, es you don’t want to answer, decisions you don’t know how to make, money you don’t know where
I Hate Monday: Edition #10
Welcome to I Hate Monday, the most productive way for small business owner, freelancers & creatives to procrastinate until it’s not Monday any. Let’s face it: Lounging around your living room in a perfectly ironed pants suit is fucking weird—which is obviously why yoga pants have become the dress code of work-from-home business owners & independents worldwide. (And also because you can easily trick people into thinking you actually do things like aforementioned “yoga.”) But, you know, there are major
I Hate Monday: Edition #9
Welcome to I Hate Monday, the most productive way for small business owners & s to procrastinate until it’s not Monday any. Here, Erika illustrates one of the real secrets to blogging that no one talks about much because it’s much easier said than done: Don’t just talk. Don’t just teach. Make meaning from the mess. Here, she tells a story of paying it forward…and what it means for all of us. “The experience IS the product,” says me 100 times
Constantly Guilt Yourself Over Doing “The Responsible Thing?” Maybe You Shouldn’t.
There’s a lot of bullshit around the word “responsible.” We let this tiny word guilt us to the grave. Do the responsible thing. Act responsibly. Be a responsible adult. Don’t be so irresponsible. I don’t know if we should blame this asshole voice in our heads on our parents or not, but you might want to consider it. (Hi, mom!) There are a lot of things that are, by default, “responsible”—taking the kids to soccer, suffering through another Jillian Michaels