Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Livin' On Toast & Wine

I wanted to share my "livin' on toast and wine" experience, because I feel it REALLY applies to running a small business of any kind. I know your curious so I...Wrote a story bout' it, wanna hear it?... here it go....

My mom was a music connoisseur while I was growing up, and my father worked in the music industry most of his adult life, so I had a strong music appreciation influence from both sides. This appreciation started early with the love of the classic rock artists/songs of the 1970's, of which I often sang along to rather off tune.

At about age 4 or 5, I walked around the house belting out the lyrics “Livin' on Toast and Wine”, with my mom always smirking rather funny, while I sang this particular tune. One day she finally informed me that the song really went... “Living on Tulsa Time”.

“Tulsa Time” had no REAL context to me, since I didn't know WHERE Tulsa was or even that is was a place. If she had explained what or where is was, I would have had a reference point, but without one, I just kept singing “Livin' On Toast & Wine”. I STILL sing it to this day for fun.

As I have moved along my business path, I have had things come up that I have NO understanding of or reference point for. When I seek CLARITY by researching and asking the right questions, ONLY then do they begin to make sense, have context, and sometimes hold value...AND only then can I evaluate whether or not they work for me and my business and if it makes sense for me to integrate them into my life and implement and apply them to my business or SING them to others as valuable, worthwhile endeavors.

Without doing research on our own, by reading, digging and asking questions to those who have gone before us, and who have deeper knowledge & understanding, we continue singing the same lyrics, even when it's wrong and out of tune AND we don't grow into other more profitable higher leveraging techniques and strategies for building our business and taking it to the next level.

When presented with something that you have NO point of reference for or minimal understanding of, learn MORE. There are a million creative ways to go about “learning more”. Find the way that works best for you. You may hate reading books, but love chatting with other artists for example.

Whatever approach you take for learning MORE and making INFORMED decisions about your business, make sure it is a fun process for you. Only then can you begin to build a sustainable business and quit your day job.

XO

~Freea