Four and three and two and one (What up!)

When Mike D, MCA and Ad-Rock first organized as the Beastie Boys, they were among the hardest of the hardcore in 1979. Rather than abandon their sound for their love of rap music, they made music history by changing the scene instead of themselves.  As it turned out, they could do both. At the same time.

If only it were that easy for the rest of us…

The saving grace is that we’re not alone in this.  A month ago…

• I hadn’t read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.
• I hadn’t heard any of the Question The Rules modules from Johnny B. Truant & Lee Stranahan.
• I hadn’t received optimystical clarity from Mynde Mayfield.
• I hadn’t asked a few particular people for guidance, or heard the rather confounding feedback I eventually received.
• I hadn’t gone to the NC CEO Forum or heard the amazing speakers discuss how they achieved a triple bottom line in their businesses.
• I hadn’t seen that (I can not believe I’m about to say this) Glee episode with Neil Patrick Harris about dreams.
• I hadn’t gotten my new tattoo, a cover-up for another tattoo that represented a period in my life I finally became ready to leave behind.

And really, it was the last one that came with a bullet because it was an intentional change made to represent this moment…this time in my life where I’m standing at the crossroads, looking forward at what my life could be, knowing the only thing these paths share is a change from what my life currently includes. I now have a permanent reminder of who I am today and I couldn’t be happier.

The tattoo sealed the deal, but it was a combination of all these things together that created a rather perfect existential storm.

Kickin’ the clarity…

I’ve seen how other people before me have worked through trying times when it feels like nothing is certain and everything is up for grabs. And I’ve seen how they rocked it into six-figure businesses that fulfill them.

I understand Resistance and refuse to accept it as my driver.

Most importantly, I’ve questioned everything I thought was solid (spoiler alert: there really is no spoon) and have come to realize I don’t have to change who I am in order to change what I do.

True, there are tons of people writing about sustainability. Are any of them business-focused pervs who are incapable of providing a value proposition without giggling at the word proposition?

There are a lot of people who discuss grieving and the importance of reconciling your past in order to be fully present for the now.  Are any of them twisted enough to tell you it’s okay to feel anger while cracking on the reaper with jokes that would make your mama blush?

Even if the answer is yes, I’ve realized I actually do have things to offer that won’t compromise my current line of work or my integrity.  I don’t need to take on an assumed name (yet) and I don’t need to write to you in a fashion that reads like comment bait.  While I certainly hope you comment, that’s not my goal here.

Short time frame, big difference…

If I learned anything from the last 30 days, it’s that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be right now. More, I’m exactly who I’m supposed to be.

I’ve been so focused on change that I forgot it’s okay to be the constant. I don’t have to be the one who changes all the time. And neither do you.

As I bless this site with a new header (created by the ever-awesome Marty Whitmore) that more accurately captures what I’m trying to do here, I also bless myself with a little kindness for all the crappy things I’ve been doing to my mind.  It is true that I’m a total freak, but people have built revolutions on this kind of thing… so why not me?

If this resonates with you at all, I’d love to hear your experience and insight.  It’s been so liberating to find I’m not as alone as I thought I was…

I hope you know the same is true for you…

Art by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

Since starting this blog last year, I’ve written about my job twice. There’s a reason for that, and it’s probably not what you think.

I’m not holding back here because I feel like I should save my material for paid work. Well, that’s not the biggest reason…

Earth Day was last week and I didn’t do a damn thing on here for it.  I owe you an explanation.  The chief reason I haven’t posted on energy topics is because my profession consumes me everywhere but here.

I had hoped this blogging experiment could remind me of who I am beyond this belle who manages big budget energy projects.  I don’t want to be one-dimensional, so I write about everything but my job.  Probably not the most predictable direction for my Renewabelle handle, but I had no idea things would turn out this way when I started my company three years ago…

This is the real face of green.

I work from home.  Many people think that means I lead a relaxing and flexible life of sustainable luxury.  Many people would be wrong.

The truth is that I work more than most people I know.  Even on the playground with my kid, I’m thinking about work.  I don’t concern myself with a work-life balance because everything requires such fluidity that I hardly have a moment to plan rigid time blocking.

Over the last six years, I’ve watched the Illinois market for energy efficient technologies and sustainable building practices transform before my eyes.  The program we run is better than a typical rebate program because we help business owners and public entities make educated investment decisions.  In a rebate scenario, they do one thing.  In a design assistance program, our experience has shown clients implement a lot more than one simple measure.

When our program began, we were begging businesses to let us audit their facilities for free.  The general opinion was that energy-related investments were reserved for treehuggers or spendthrifts.  Today, we can hardly keep up with the incoming flow of applications for assistance.

Things are very different now than they were a few years ago.  For example, people now understand that increases in energy efficiency have many benefits, both economic and intrinsic.  Sweetening the deal, incentives and grants are available to offset the increased costs associated with efficient technologies.

The only problem is that the bottom fell out from under the country right around the same time legislation was passed to require significant results from related programs.  Everyone wants to do it, but either they don’t have the money, the time or they’re too scared to spend anything right now.

It’s an uphill battle, but the team I work with is amazing and we work our backsides off to keep our program successful.  With this work comes a lot of stress, which affects pretty much everything I do since, like I said before, my work consumes me.

This is the real face of Jess.

Sometimes all I can muster is a tweet.  After reviewing a report or having a long, detailed call that requires 110% of my attention, I don’t have much left in me for commentary.

I have to fight the urge to isolate. After leaving Florida, I was socially sequestered on and off for nearly four years.  I don’t want to go back.  Tweets are progress.  Or maybe regress… Either way, I digress…

I’m well aware that hundreds of bloggers write about swapping a light bulb or inspecting a building envelope (walls, windows, roof, etc) and I don’t feel I need to add to that.  I want to bring something different to the table, but everything I want to tell you either involves something I’m contractually not allowed to discuss or something I’ve made myself believe is banal.

People ask me from time to time what I sell, and the only simple answer I can provide is “sound solutions.”  I’ve thought a lot about it and think that’s why I keep writing all these bizarre life lessons.  I want to help you (whoever “you” are), so I’m throwing everything at you in my arsenal while reserving my area of professional expertise for my day job.  The problem is that you’re probably here for something I’m not giving you.

A normal businesswoman would look at this and say, “Jessica, I believe you may be onto something.” Unfortunately, this particular businesswoman has become a commitment-phobe and likes to come up with awesome ideas that she convinces herself aren’t worth the sacrifice of time necessary for success.

That said, I’m not going to promise you I’m going to write a report or book or some other saleable item that I hope will justify my efforts on here anymore. The next time you hear me talk about that type of thing, it’ll be because it’s done and I’m ready to take your money.

I built this blog because I thought it was the next right step in my journey.  I don’t know what I’m going to be doing next year, but I do know that today I have this thing that I’m supposed to write for and find myself failing.  I will do my best to change that.

All I have to do now is figure out how to use my own voice again and all will be well.  Right?

Once upon a time, I had a dream to build a particular type of business and it totally blew up in my face.  I have a mentor to thank for that.  And yes, I really mean it.  I thank him all the time…

While countless individuals have inspired me, guided me and/or screwed me over (still learning experiences), my list of professional mentors is quite short.  In fact, only two come to mind.

The first is someone who has asked that he not be named on my blog. Ever. I suppose working with me for seven years has taught him enough to know a safe distance is probably best when I’m given free reign to write whatever I want. I will say, though, that this man has yet to let me down, and that he has been more generous and patient than should ever be expected from anyone who isn’t my husband. If it weren’t for him, I have no idea where I would be today.

The second person is someone I’ve only been working with for five months.  Unlike the first mentor, I pay this one.  I don’t remember how I first found Johnny B. Truant, but I remember thinking that a Mitch Hedberg fan who uses that much profanity on his professional site couldn’t be all that bad.  I quietly subscribed and read his banter for a few months before I ever communicated with him.

It was around the time that Brian Clark’s Teaching Sells program was about to reopen and I was fishing through the free content when I finally dropped JT a note.  I had gotten over the mental hurdle of PAYING for someone to help me with my regular freak-out sessions (I’d never paid for anything like that before) and decided to ask Johnny how he chose his coach.

His response was something along the lines of, “I tried Tim and liked him, but it was a trial and error sort of thing.” Then he wrote (and this is a direct quote), “Come to think of it, I really need to retool my coaching page. It looks like I only do tech help, but that’s not what people are asking me about. Hmm…”

Any normal person would have been put off by his total lack of professionalism, his inability to properly market himself as a coach (I honestly wasn’t even thinking about using him to begin with), his self-deprecating comments regarding his limitations… Of course, I’m not normal.

After acquiring his Zero To Business course and talking a lot more via email, I asked him to find an hour I could buy so he could help me figure out what in the hell I was trying to do.

The first few minutes of that October call were awkward, but it quickly became clear to me that Johnny was exactly what I needed.  I had no idea my business plans needed a therapist, but in that hour he was able to help me inventory what I was trying to accomplish and find some ways to get closer to achieving it.

Fast forward a few more sessions and we’ll find I actually didn’t want what I was trying to achieve.  Does that mean I wasted my money on guidance that didn’t apply to me anymore?  My answer is a resounding HELL NAW.  He saved me.

Working with Johnny actually got me in better touch with who I am and what I want.  I was about to travel down a typical entrepreneur’s path – I found a need and was going to fill it – only that path wasn’t right for me.  It took me six sessions and a lot of crap to truly understand what he’d been telling me all along… I was doing it wrong.

The truth is that none of us came with a manual.  We don’t know what’s going to happen next week, let alone six months from now.  Johnny built an awesome business in under a year that works for him.  I’m still picking up the pieces of my shattered plans, but that doesn’t mean he’s a poor mentor.  I’d argue it’s just the opposite.

Johnny recently wrote about scars and his adoration for Fight Club, but in typical Truant fashion, he was actually writing about something else.  It was one of the best posts I’ve ever read, and not only because it proves my point.

Anything worth having is worth fighting for, and every business I’ve ever admired has had failures in its history.  We fall, we get up, we get our asses back into the game better and wiser players for it.

Yes, I had a plan that fell apart and now I’m just doing whatever I think is the next right thing with minimal concern for developing a new plan.  I’m more confident, self-aware and content than I’ve been in years.  Best of all, I have a faith in business that works for me, which is something I’ve been missing for a while.

I recognize that choosing a mentor is a strange process, but hiring Johnny was really one of the best things I did in 2009.  I needed help, I asked for it and I got it.  Hopefully I’ve done cool things for him, too.  All I know for certain is that I would have never found the confidence to launch this blog if it weren’t for him, so if this post has gone too long, you can thank him for it.  I know I will.

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This post has been inspired by Holly Hoffman (@HollyHoffman on Twitter) of Neovia Solutions.  Holly put out a call to all bloggers about their mentor experiences and we invite you to share your own.  Thank you for reading.

I write this post with a heavy heart.  There is so much sadness in the world right now with tragedies multiplying by the day.  Of course, my topic has nothing to do with those catastrophes.  Mine has to do with sex.

For months now, I’ve been working on a covert project that consumed countless hours of my “spare” time.  Although I’m quite successful in my current career, I had hoped to augment my income through a new product that would help people enrich their sex lives.

After an exhaustive amount of research and market testing, I knew this was poised to be a huge success.  However, instead of approaching this with excitement, I found myself merely going through the motions of building this product, continually plagued with internal resistance.

Like many entrepreneurs would, I passed it off as fear. I continued pressing on, only to find myself dreading new discoveries and mentally shutting down when the content got too deep for my tastes.  It took weeks before I allowed myself an opportunity to take a real inventory as to what was going on.

After finally running through all the reasons I wanted to do this versus the reasons I didn’t, I realized I was building toward a dead-end.  But why? How?

I ignored something so simple, so necessary, so critical to the success of any entrepreneur’s journey…

I forgot to ask myself if I would do it for free.

What I realized is that I was so focused on building what I thought would be a successful source of income that I neglected to ask whether this was a niche I would want to produce, promote or protect. Instead of building a freedom business, I was designing an emotional death sentence.  And no, I’m not insane. In fact, I bet this could happen to anyone…

This business I was building was solely for profit.  I actually convinced myself that I was passionate about something I had no real connection to because I was blinded by my goals of getting out of debt. My drive to succeed in this venture had little to do with the mission and everything to do with the dollar.  For many, the dollar is enough.  For me, I need a reason or I will be miserable.

My niche and I officially called it quits this week and my heart is broken.  It feels like I just ended a relationship that wasn’t bad, but it just wasn’t right.  You know… the kind where kisses are just lips touching and when you look at the other person, all you feel is a sense of longing to feel something other than what you do.  Only now that it’s over, I’m left to figure out how to move on…

Having survived a fair amount of disagreeable events in my life, you might think it’d be easy to pick myself up again after failing a business venture I never even launched.  It sounds so stupid to even say.  But it was real to me, and knowing all the time and effort I put into dotting every “i” and crossing every “t” makes it hurt that much more.  I want to tell myself I made a huge mistake, but the smarter me (yes, on occasion there is more than one “me” in my head) knows that’s not the truth.

I believe this couldn’t have been a mistake.  My coach has been enlightening me with his views on faith in business and according to the Gospel of Truant, things happen for a reason.

So now, as it seems, I need to put away the cosmic chocolate ice cream, turn off the damn Meg Ryan movie and learn the lesson I obviously needed to learn…

Then, with a little bravery or something like it, you may soon see what I’ve found I would do for free… And hopefully you’ll buy some for everyone you know…