• Your writing career

    Why You Should Pay Attention to Your Intuition

    Not all opportunities that come your way are good for you. When you’re just starting out as an entrepreneur, you’ll find some things that are just too good to be true. At the worst place in the spectrum are obvious scams, and when your bank account is low, you’ll find yourself more susceptible to them. But even if the opportunity isn’t a downright scam, sometimes things just don’t seem right. Learn to listen to that little voice inside you that says things like: I really don’t feel comfortable agreeing to this This doesn’t feel right. This is not what I really want. This feels like the last time. I am…

  • Keep your sanity intact

    Are you ready for self employment?

    Are you ready to…. Fully express your passion? Set a leadership example? Take control of your work life? Make more worthwhile contributions to your field? Establish a new work attitude? Overcome your work fears? Maintain a clear sense of your self while working with others? Better align with customer’s needs? Approach work with grace? Take complete responsibility for your work product? If you answered yes to most of these questions, you’re well on your way.  And if you’d like more of the same, you can subscribe to Boat Jumpers here. 

  • Your writing career

    Why small businesses rule

    To close out the week, here are five reasons why small businesses rock. 1. You learn exactly how your business operates. No matter if your have one employee (you) or less than a dozen, if you’re a small operation, you’ll have your hand in every aspect of your business.  From marketing, developing a business plan, accounting, payroll, taxes and public relations, if you don’t know it coming in, then by the time you’ve launched you’ll know about it. And if your business happens to fail?  You’re still ahead, because you’ll have a personal touch that will ensure that you know when and how things went wrong.  And what you’ll do…

  • Keep your sanity intact

    Fear of success #3- fear of responsibility

      One of the most terrifying aspects of working for myself was knowing that I alone would be responsible for my success. After working for the government for almost a decade, I was used to seeing people (and by people I mean most of my supervisors) creating an atmosphere of weaseling out of any kind of responsibility, either for success or failure. Success almost came as a shock to them. And survival meant successfully dodging the finger pointing. So I had a lot of conditioning to overcome just by accepting responsibility instead of using a survival technique that had more or less kept me alive for most of my working…

  • Your writing career

    5 Surprising Things I learned from being self- employed

    5 Surprising Things I learned from being self- employed It’s become a cliché that being self employed is a growing experience, and I knew that working for myself would be rewarding. What I didn’t realize, however, was just how much self development would go on during the front end of my career. Or how much it would change and affirm me, depending on the situation. 1. I really wasn’t kidding about not being a 9-5er. If I had a dime for every time I staggered into my office at 8am wishing to God I could sleep till noon so I could be of some use, I’d never have to work…

  • Keep your sanity intact

    10 questions to pin down your purpose

    Trying to find your purpose can be a long, drawn out and confusing process. There are so many variables to consider. And if you’re like most people, you’re incredibly scared that you won’t get what you want or need in the first place. That can cause you to get stalled on the process, or discount the answers once you start to get them. But even if you’re mired down in doubt and fear, you can ask yourself 10 questions in order to get your thoughts flowing. If you could change one thing about the world, what would that be? When do you feel most alive? If money were not an…

  • Your writing career

    Fear of Success- Fear of Loneliness

    This series is based on one of the most helpful books in my journey to becoming an entrepreneur. As soon as I made the commitment to being a freelancer, I realized that I was doing more than anyone to put the brakes on my own success. Half of me, it seemed wanted it more than anything. And another, darker half, wanted nothing more than avoid even trying to make things happen. So I set about trying to figure out why and how I was sabotaging my own success. I stumbled across Dr. Srinivasan S. Pillay’s Life, Unlocked, which convinced me that I was pretty normal in fearing success, and that…

  • Your writing career

    The worst kind of success

      Jay-z said once in an article that it was important for him to do things on his own terms, and be truthful to himself and his own vision of who he was an artist. And that he fought tooth and nail to keep from trying to do things the way that other people did. And to keep from being a copycat. “Because the worst kind of success is being successful at trying to be someone else.” Jay-Z I knew that I’d “made it” as a creative person the second I started to suffer from Imposter Syndrome. Trying to study and learn from more successful freelance writers gave me an…