“No matter how wondrous our works, we have to remember that our very existence depends upon 6 inches of soil and the fact that it rains now and then.” ~ Dan Lufkin
I found this quote on a park bench, literally. Phin and I were taking a walk in Central Park and there are four metal plaques on a string of benches that have this quote. I don’t know who Dan Lufkin is, but when I read his words, I tossed up a stream of gratitude. They were the words I needed.
Starting a business, pitching partners and investors, can be a scary endeavor. I feel stark naked all the time! In pitching them, I’m really pitching me – my talents, my experiences, and my abilities. Self-promotion is just about my least favorite task. I’d rather do the dishes and clean my bathroom than pitch myself, but neither of those tasks are going to help me live the life I imagine. (But they do help me to keep a neat and tidy home, where I do most of my planning work for Compass Yoga!)
In pitching, it’s important to remember that the person across the table is just a person, just like you and me. They have to eat food, have shelter, and breathe air, just like us. They, too, had to start somewhere. We weren’t born with our current set of circumstances. For the most part, we made them, one way or another.
With that in mind, I feel a little less naked, a little more confident, and a lot more hopeful, in life and in pitching.
“Intelligence and capability are not enough.There must be the joy of doing something beautiful.” ~ Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy (Dr. V) – via Daily Good
As the year is winding down, I’m winding my way through Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur by Pam Slim. It’s addressing a lot of the concerns (some valid, some not) that I’ve had about Compass Yoga and my desire to work for myself full-time. It’s also been able to help me put together a plan of how to make this transition with unflappable grace and the best possible chance of success.
Work needs to equal joy
If you’re on the journey of entrepreneurship, too, and you don’t know where to start. Take Dr. V’s advice in the quote above (and then buy Pam’s book for everything else that follows!) There has got to be a great element of joy in the actual work you want to do. And while that’s true whether you work for yourself or someone else, it’s absolutely vital if you’re on your own.
When someone else is paying you a steady salary and benefits, you begin to weigh that against whether or not you really love the work. It’s easy for a lot of people to justify not loving the work when they have a lot of other benefits. On your own, the income may be unsteady (especially in the start-up phase) and the fringe benefits could be a step down from what you’re used to. In those moments, the joy of the work has to be a large part of the comfort you receive. Without it, the whole plan fall to pieces. The joy is the linchpin.
Why I’m glad I didn’t try to be a full-time freelance writer
For the past few years, I had been thinking about transitioning into being a freelance writer full-time. This would have been a very bad idea for a lot of reasons, and the main reason is that I actually don’t find joy in just the act of writing. My joy is found in writing exactly what I want to write, when, where, and how I want to write it. That is not always the choice of a freelance writer, and certainly not of one who is just starting out.
I took a fairly lucrative freelance writing job about legal topics for a newsletter that is sent to lawyers. I wrote a total of 3 articles and hated every single minute of it. If I had been a full-time freelance writer, I might have needed to continue in the contract to support myself. As a side job, I dropped it and learned a valuable lesson in the process.
Get going with joy
There are a lot of business ideas out there and a lot of unmet consumer needs that are ripe for entrepreneurs to take up. Find the ones that generate so much joy that you can’t wait to dig into the work. And be clear about exactly the work you love to do – there’s no such thing as too much detail in their definition. Then work like heck to put a structure around that joy so that you can afford to live a lifestyle in line with your values.
As an efficiency fanatic, I am constantly looking for ways to do more with less. In this season of gift giving, this proverb reminded me that we can do more with what we’ve already got. Keep this in mind as you consider what goes into your cart this holiday season. We have more resources that we think we have.
A group of women in Bangladesh helped by microfinance loans from GrameenFor a number of years, I’ve written about and donated to Grameen America and Kiva. Both organization provide microloans to entrepreneurs. Kiva works in the developing world and Grameen America works right here in New York City. Given my support of both organization, I was thrilled to get the information below in a recent email from the organization that explains the beginning of their new partnership.
If you have an interest in supporting entrepreneurship as a way to give lower-income individuals and families a greater chance for economic independence and freedom, please read on and consider supporting this partnership.
“We’re excited to tell you about two huge developments with Kiva and Grameen America.
First, there’s a new film featuring Grameen America showing for just one night on Thursday, March 31. To Catch A Dollar: Muhammad Yunus Banks on America tells the story of how the Nobel Prize winning Dr. Muhammad Yunus and Grameen America are helping bring the microfinance revolution to bear on addressing poverty in the United States.
Second, we’re proud to announce that we are partnering with Dr. Yunus’s Grameen America to provide financing to low-income entrepreneurs in the United States.
Elizabeth’s Story
Thirty years ago, Dr. Muhammad Yunus began a quiet revolution. He found that poverty could best be alleviated in his native Bangladesh not through charity, but through unleashing entrepreneurship. By grouping rural women together, he was able to provide financing for businesses that banks weren’t interested in serving.
Fast forward thirty years, and Dr. Yunus is working to bring group lending to low income entrepreneurs in the United States.
And Kiva is going to be there to help. Through our new partnership, entrepreneurs like Elizabeth, pictured to the left, are able to grow their businesses and communities.
Browse Grameen America’s loans, and learn more about Elizabeth and other Grameen America entrepreneurs.
To Catch A Dollar
Speaking of Elizabeth, she is featured in To Catch A Dollar, along with several other Grameen America entrepreneurs.
The documentary introduces viewers to Grameen staff and borrowers, as they work together to prove that the group lending model can work in the United States. Following the documentary, there’s a special panel, recorded earlier this month in New York, featuring Robert De Niro, Kiva President Premal Shah, financial guru Suze Orman, Dr. Yunus, and CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo.
The film will be showing at over 200 theaters across the country. Remember, this is a one-night-only event, so please get your tickets now!
A strong showing on Thursday will help guarantee international distribution for the film and get the word out about microfinance, so buy a ticket and take a friend. For those in the San Francisco Bay area, the Kiva team will be attending the screening at Embarcadero Cinemas. Drop by and say hi!
Dr. Yunus
Grameen and Kiva are in many ways a natural fit. The inspiration for Kiva came during a lecture by Muhammad Yunus at Stanford in 2005. His experience in Bangladesh inspired Kiva’s founders to travel to Uganda and begin the long journey of building what would one day become Kiva.
We’re thrilled to announce that earlier this month we passed $200 million in loans made on Kiva. This would have never been possible without Dr. Yunus’s inspiration, and for that we’re eternally grateful.
Speaking of microfinance in the United States, Kiva will be co-presenting the Microfinance USA Conference in New York on May 23-34. For more information, click here.
One final note: don’t forget we have borrowers from over 40 countries who are looking for loans every day.”
“We must use time creatively.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” ~ also from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
My friend, Erica (of Yogoer fame), sent out a tweet over the weekend that highlighted an article in the Times that described a yoga class created expressly for New York City taxi drivers. Can you imagine a more stressed out group of people? They never know who’s getting into their cars, what those people are bringing into their cars, and they have to contend with the lunacy of New York City Streets. If anyone needs yoga for stress reduction and relaxation, it’s our city’s cab drivers.
That’s exactly the opportunity for goodness that entrepreneurial yoga instructor Andrew Vollo saw and brought to life. “Taxi Yoga” is his creation. He’s been running this class for 7 years and it has grown through his distribution of 3,000 fliers (mostly through a wide variety of houses of religion that the cab drivers attend) and several interviews in channels that cab drivers are likely to patronize. He refused to be discouraged by any naysayers or critics of his cause. He knew what the cab drivers needed because he used to be one himself.
Whether your life has yoga in it or not, Vollo’s story is nothing short of inspiring. Take a look around your world. What does the world need and how does that match what you have to give? There’s so much opportunity for us to be part of one another’s lives in helpful and magical ways. What’s your story? How are you giving to the world around you?
The image above depicts a scene from Vollo’s Monday night class for taxi drivers at LaGuardia Community College. It was taken by Michelle V. Agins.
This blog is also available as a podcast on Cinch and iTunes.
“You are connected to everything. Love accordingly.” ~ All Day Buffet during The Feast Conference
The Feast Conference happened last week in New York. I didn’t attend this year but plan to attend next year. The Feast Conference is curated by All Day Buffet, a company based in New York City that connects, develops, and launches purpose-driven ventures. I featured my interview Jerri Chou, one of the co-founders of All Day Buffet, in my book Hope in Progress. She is among the most inspirational, dream-pumping innovators out there, as is Co-founder Michael Karnjanaprakorn. I regularly visit the site to keep up with their work. There’s always something good cookin’ over there.
The quote above showed up on All Day Buffet’s Twitter feed last week during The Feast Conference, and it is now the title image on their site. There’s so much emphasis put on connection and collaboration, and it’s an easy thing to do. There is so much knowledge that lies just a few clicks away. It’s found just outside every door and during every interaction we have. We have the opportunity to connect every moment.
Love is a main ingredient to connections. Love for people, ideas, learning, causes. Every time we put negative energy out there, and particularly when we direct it at someone, we are actually hurting ourselves more than we realize. This is a big, big world, despite how small it feels given technology. There is more than enough room for more dreams and ideas and voices. And they don’t threaten our own ideas and voices. When we build others up, we do ourselves a favor by growing our networking and engendering support and faith in return for the support and faith we give to others.
Call it a retro idea to love our neighbors. Think of it as crunch-y and granola-y to believe that we reap what we sow. I love granola and I love love.
There’s a lot of lip service paid to the saying “our people are our greatest asset”, particularly in big companies. Companies have two choices – really live that statement and get behind it with everything you’ve got or stop using it altogether. Companies, start-ups or otherwise, need to give their people resources and support to shine, or be honest about the fact that the company actually isn’t about the people, but about profit or PR or the CEO’s ego or whatever other asset they really believe is the most important one they have. My suggestion is that leaders should do nothing else except serve their people. That’s their job.
Steve articulately and honestly wrote out his manifesto on teams in this essay. It’s a long one and every word is worth reading. My favorite pieces of his advice include: “Suspend Disbelief, then Think Backwards” (Bill Keating) and “Make Sure Every Single [Job] Candidate is Treated Like Gold” (Steve Newcomb). There are numerous other nuggets of gold for entrepreneurs in his essay – it’s well-worth the time to take them all to heart.
“I used to say when I was starting my first company, I was much more of a recruiter than a CEO or founder.” ~ Vinod Khosla
Venture Hacks recently published an interview with Vinod Khosla. Khosla co-founded Sun Microsystems, and then went on to serve as the company’s CEO and Chairman. After leaving Sun, he became a general partner of the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers in 1986 and remained there through the early 2000s. In 2004, Khosla founded Khosla Ventures to invest in start-up tech firms, particularly in the cleantech sector. When he talks, entrepreneurs listen, and with good reason: his entrepreneurial success is the stuff of Hollywood dreams.
In the interview, Khosla gives several pieces of advice for anyone starting a business, two of which I found incredibly interesting: stay true to your vision and get a good team. Entrepreneurs are by nature self-starters, non-conformists, people who enjoy going their own way. Taking the advice “find a good team” can be a challenge for independent entrepreneurs. I’ve been chewing on this conundrum all weekend, thinking about ways that entrepreneurs can and should go about finding a good team. There are countless ways to go about this tough, critical task. Here are the 5 that have worked best for me:
1.) Shout your clear, concise vision from the hilltops. If you’re clear on what you want and can articulate it succinctly and with passion, it will make it easier for your pack to find you.
2.) Don’t settle. It’s tempting to take someone who kind of fits what you’re looking for when a pile of work is looming on your desk. One of my favorite quotes from Brian is “you get what you settle for.” Good enough does not equal good, and you’ll regret the choice in the not-so-distant future.
3.) It’s okay to contract. Finding a good team takes time, though that pile of work next to you isn’t slowing down its growth any time soon. These days, contracting is a perfect way to get daily work done while searching for that perfect team. Contracting also gives you a way to test out new team members before bringing them on full-time, and it gives them a chance to check you out, too.
4.) Add only as needed. There’s a great temptation to build a team before you build a business. Get the work first, and then add staff as needed. There’s no law against taking it slow and managing your company’s growth.
5.) Multi-talented multi-taskers wanted. Usually, I’m a fan of focus over multi-tasking, however if you can find someone who has skill sets in multiple areas where you need to recruit, you can roll several positions into one superstar team member and offer extra compensation to that superstar.
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” ~ Nelson Mandela
Compass Yoga feels like this to me right now, but my history of finding a way through keeps discouragement at bay most of the time. I struggled a bit to find a yoga studio that provided comprehensive, affordable teacher training with a flexible schedule. A very logical service to provide seemed unattainable as I flipped through the glossy pages of Yoga Journal. Sonic Yoga made that type of training possible for me – it just took me a while (and lots of internet searching) to find my way there.
Then I started to think about how I could us yoga to help the world and attract students, either private or in small groups, that wouldn’t require me to open up my own studio. I took a page from companies like Print for Change and Design 21 who donate a part of their proceeds to nonprofits. I do the same, giving the tax deduction to students and giving them the option to choose what charity to fund.
I put up a website – which I thought would also take a while to craft and was actually done in a weekend. WordPress, and my experience with this blog, made that task easy, or at least relatively easy. Now I’m working on a plan to market myself as a teacher by applying to do some speaking engagements, writing for well-known yoga sites, and offering some free classes to nonprofits in public spaces. The progress is slow – actually at this moment it’s crawling along though moving forward. Sloooowly and steady. After all, that is what yoga teaches us: the beauty of slowing down.
I get frustrated when I think about just how slow it’s going, despite the many hours of work cultivating and following leads. I think about how I’ve transitioned quickly into new parts of my career, to new cities where I’ve lived, to new hobbies and projects I’ve taken on. My life, for as far back as I can remember, has been about speed. Starting and running a business is more about what’s right than it is about what gets me the quickest win.
It seems impossible to me – this idea that slowing down will actually serve me better in the long run. I constantly battle the idea of “if I don’t do these 10 things right now someone else will.” I have SBP – small business paranoia. Though when I force myself to stop racing, when I stop trying to be one (or 100) more step(s) ahead, I can think more clearly and the task at-hand doesn’t seem poised to crush me under its hefty weight. It’s just sitting there, a mountain of work, waiting for me to carry away one stone at a time.
There are a lot of stones. Some of them are really heavy and I’m going to need to ask for help to lift them – yet another thing I am not so good at. I do see the benefits of taking my time with this new venture. The question is did I really learn to master my mind to exist, at least for a little while, in stillness.
It’s with much excitement that I have self-published my first book – Hope in Progress: 27 Entrepreneurs Who Inspired Me During the Great Recession. It’s a collection of interviews with entrepreneurs that I conducted while writing for Examiner.com. There are two ways to get the book:
I’d love to know what you think! The Kindle store and Slideshare accept written reviews and ratings if you’re so inclined.
Thanks to so many who supported my writing over the years as I got these stories down. It’s been a long time coming. These interviews mean a great deal to me and I hope they inspire you to get going on your own dreams. Cheers!
“No matter how wondrous our works, we have to remember that our very existence depends upon 6 inches of soil and the fact that it rains now and then.” ~ Dan Lufkin
Christa Avampato 
