Entrepreneur Diaries: Creative Chics, Coffee and Collaborations
Are you one of those creatives that’s hunkered down over your desk just hustling away? You keep your head down, focused on your work, maybe you chat a little in online business groups, but you’re mostly on your own. We used to be those creatives. We finally lifted our heads at the beginning of this year and took a look around. We made it our 2016 mission to work with other creatives, speak in front of audiences, lead intimate discussions with local business owners and overall grow our personal tribe of close cheerleaders.
At the beginning of December I got the opportunity to a become a host for a small group women, the Tulsa Creative Chics. I spoke with the founder, Melissa Jones, and we decided I would have my first event in January (more on that in a bit). Once it was set that I would be facilitating the exact thing that I needed for other business owners the universe seemed to nod and give (don’t you love when that happens?). Within the first few weeks of January Abagail and I had locked down some amazing speaking events, secured two phenomenal collaborations and started seeing the engagement within our own community spike. We were seeing the efforts of giving to our community come back to us enormously.
So how do you know if you’re ready to engage within your community? Are you ready to chat with other business owners (what if they do something similar) and open up about your business? Abagail and I are strong supporters and will only craft a community if it’s built on giving, sharing and supporting. The standards of Creative Chics fits right in with that mold. Something magical happens when you let your guard down a bit, share openly and simply ask for help or suggestions. When you surround yourself with the type of amazing women who share these beliefs your questions will be met with support and constructive ideas instead of jealously or spite.
In our first Creative Chics event last night I sat down with 7 other creative small business owners and we chatted, laughed, and almost cried for two hours. One of our members said at one point that “it felt like therapy” and I couldn’t agree more. We opened up about the struggles of every day business tasks, finding priorities, marketing, launches and more. Most importantly we talked about giving ourselves grace.
It’s so easy to beat yourself up about what you’re not doing for your business, the time you don’t have or the things you haven’t checked off the list. Let’s all take a minute today to give ourselves credit for the things that we have done. For the road that we have traveled and the progress we’ve seen. We are amazing ladies doing amazing things!
We urge you to find a community in your area (Creative Chics might be in your city!) and get involved. If you are in a place to host and lead the discussion reach out to Melissa to see if you can work to bring Creative Chics to your city. If an in-person option doesn’t fit your schedule, although it is so worth it to carve out the time, you can try our private Facebook group to get your feet wet. We host monthly Q & A’s around a topic that we see pop up frequently that can help you and your small business. Either way find your people. Open up. Be vulnerable. Only in doing that will you see progress.
