WORK HAS THE OVERALL LARGEST EFFECT ON OUR MOOD.
FEWER THAN ONE IN THREE AMERICANS ARE “VERY HAPPY.”*
Emily here. I spent my childhood watching my parents and grandparents do back-breaking work that they didn’t love doing so that they could put food on the table. If you were to ask them if they liked their jobs, they’d probably say “yes” out of duty, but I could tell the difference. I watched them hurt physically, emotionally, and spiritually as I grew up, and it taught me some important lessons. My parents and grandparents modeled a killer work ethic; they worked hard to provide for their family. However, I learned a subtle message about how doing work you don’t love can put a damper on your whole life. Doing work you believe in and enjoy is the difference between being happy and being ever-disgruntled.
As I grew up, this “Do the work” ethic modeled by my parents and grandparents manifested itself in my own life. In high school I worked hard to make really great grades, took advanced classes, and even took college courses. I entered college with my freshman year almost complete, like the rebellious little overachiever that I was. In college I routinely worked two jobs even as a full-time student, not necessarily because I needed to but because I liked to do new things and wanted to stay busy in the working world. I had no problem bouncing from job to job, as long as it held my interest and my boss was a good person; I loved learning about how retail chains operated, how small businesses made it work, and how they all got their customers to buy what they were selling. I was in college because I “had” to be; I was working because I liked being in business.
MY FIRST BUSINESS
In my first year of college I was presented with the opportunity to buy a tanning salon. You heard me: a tanning salon. Long story short, at the age of eighteen I became the owner-operator of that tanning salon (I can still smell it sometimes), making me feel like a total boss, even though I had very little idea as to what I was getting myself into.
I was in college full-time and running my tanning salon in Mobile, Alabama, in 2005. Less than a year after buying the salon, cleaning it up, and putting forth my first-ever marketing campaigns to make it awesome, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and my entire world (along with the world of everyone around me) shifted. My salon sustained minimal physical damage: we lost our sign and had some water damage. The hit came in the way that matters most to a small business—economically. Our clientele had bigger fish to fry than themselves, needing to fix roofs or assist family, and some even cut their losses entirely and moved away. For months, disposable income for the entire community was cut. I was just a kid and the pressure to sustain a commodity business in that place and time was a lot to handle, so I made the decision to sell the salon almost two years after I became the owner. But I knew I’d dove into something that would thrill me forever. Being my own boss and running my own business was in me now, and it would never go away.
That tanning salon taught me a lot. It taught me that being a business owner comes with lots of paperwork. It taught me how to be responsible for things like commercial property, contracts, and customer education. I learned about managing employees and a brand. Had I found my passion in running a tanning business? No. But I experienced something at an unusually young age that has fueled me ever since: what it felt like to be my own boss and to build something bigger than myself. I had found a passion in business. But somehow, these ideas didn’t shape the rest of my formal education at all.
EDUCATION FOR A JOB
I ended college with a degree in geography, a certificate in geographic information systems (GIS), and a minor in art history. I loved geography because I have a deep connection to the Earth and the things that inhabit it. I envisioned myself becoming a professor who taught kids about the world we live in, or working for the National Park Service to conserve and protect land and wildlife. What grand dreams! But they were the kinds of dreams that weren’t being fulfilled much anymore; the job market was changing. I mean, aside from a higher education, a job is one of the main reasons why you go to school, right? And for me, that’s why the GIS certificate was there: that’s where I was going to get a job, except I had no desire to be what a well-meaning professor called a “GIS weenie,” which basically meant that I would spend years in a cubicle turning paper maps into digital maps, either for a private company or maybe the government! Ew. Educating children or frolicking in wild forests wasn’t in my cards. I graduated more than a little heartbroken. Looking back on it, it’s strange that getting a business degree never really crossed my mind.
MY SECOND AND THIRD BUSINESSES
Even though I finished school with a clear path in front of me, I had no desire to continue down it. I didn’t want to be a GIS weenie. I wanted to be my own boss, and I wanted to spend my life doing something creative. I wanted to do something that I would really enjoy.
While wrapping up my last year or so of school, I started my second business. I had discovered Etsy and adopted it as the platform where I would launch and grow my first online business. In addition to loving business, I have also always been a maker. All of my friends had friendship bracelets I made. I crochet and cook and sew. Etsy gave me the opportunity to turn a jewelry-making passion into a money-making endeavor.
Etsy also provided a community that showed me how to be a business of one, selling what I make online. Making for a living, no matter where I was located. What a cool way to work! This job I had created for myself gave me flexibility beyond my wildest dreams, and I had a very fruitful couple of years growing my jewelry business online and in my local community. But as college graduation neared and the reality of life began to set in, I needed more than just some extra income, and I wasn’t positive that my jewelry business was one that I wanted to scale large enough to fit our needs. My partner, David, was heading into his master’s program, which offered a very small stipend, and it was up to me to pay the bills. Over the last months of my jewelry business, I had moved my online shop off Etsy and onto its own website. In high school I had picked up some website-making skills, so I did all the work myself: designing, coding, creating, and loading up content. I had a blast doing it. Before I knew it, I was spending more time tinkering with my website than I was making jewelry, and I had Etsy friends asking me to make websites for them, too. Two weeks after graduating I posted some website design services on Etsy and sold my first project. Thus, my third business was born.
It’s important to note that by this time we also had a family, having brought a baby into our lives as well. Our daughter was almost two when I started my web design business; I wanted to stay home with her. I had already proven that running a business was something I could do and that doing it online would afford me the flexibility and freedom that I desired. But I was also responsible for financially supporting our family while David finished his education, so I had no choice other than to make this work.
In this third business of mine, I found a calling in helping creative folks start businesses online. I spoke their language and I knew what they wanted. I was one of them, and I spent the next six years creating websites for stationers, yogis, photographers, and other creatives who wanted to make their mark in the online world. But I wasn’t only launching websites, I was helping them start and grow businesses that let them do what they loved, work from wherever they wanted, and live by their own rules. I built a sustainable, profitable business that did some good for the people I worked with, made good money that supported my family, and filled me with purpose that left me energized at the end of the day. It was also a business model I could scale and grow, satisfying my need to stretch and strengthen my business muscles. I increased my revenue, expanded my team, and never had to go be a GIS weenie (even though that unused education has proven to be essential in ways that I never expected). The sacrifices I made were different from the ones that my parents and grandparents made. I gave up organized benefits for flexibility. I gave up a dependable paycheck and low-risk employment for doing work that compensated me in ways other than cash. None of it was easy, but I can promise it’s been worth it.
BECOMING BUSINESS BESTIES
Everyone always asks how our paths crossed.
Kathleen here. Emily and I became online friends in a time when you still had to clarify whether you knew someone from the Internet or “in real life.” We read each other’s blogs and left encouraging comments or inquisitive questions. Emily suggested that we video chat over Skype, and one time turned into monthly sessions. We exchanged information on systems and processes that were working and how to handle difficult clients, and we even got honest about our income and how we price our offerings. Our paths crossed in real life at a blogging conference and we began hiring each other as we grew our businesses—Emily hired my company to help her with personal branding and I hired Emily to help me scale my one-on-one services into an online course. We were also sharing clients and, in general, appreciated each other’s work ethic and drive.
In 2011, we had an idea. We wanted to launch a weekend workshop in which we would teach creative entrepreneurs everything we knew about our combined expertise in branding, building an online business, and marketing it to attract the dreamiest of customers. And it totally failed. We got one signup and decided to call it quits before we sank any more effort into something that wasn’t working.
Failed project aside, we still got together over video chat regularly to talk shop. We found ourselves talking about things nobody else seemed to be discussing out loud—from how much money we were making to how we juggle work and family. We openly shared business secrets and insights with each other. We became really good friends whose favorite topic of conversation was nerding out about business.
BEING BOSS: THE PODCAST
In December 2014, Emily proposed the idea of starting a podcast together. We were already creating content on our blogs, sharing what we’d learned with our following, and having candid conversations with each other and our peers about the work and life of being a creative entrepreneur. Why not hit record and release these conversations for everyone to hear? Emily has always had her finger on the pulse of business trends, and as grandiose as it seemed when she said, “Podcasts are the future and ours is going to change the world,” I believed her.
