Can-Do-Ology: Business meets Personal, falls in love, has several Stuff That Needs Doing offspring, and goes seeking suitable live-in help.

Thoughts on Youth

by Marissa on 13 November 2011

When someone says (some variation of), “She’s so young, what does she know about life? It’s easy to think you’re wise when you’re so young and naive.”

I like to think, “How fortunate for me that I met her & was reminded of all the wisdom I forgot when the world taught me that growing up meant growing cynical.”

::

I don’t think youth is wasted on the young. I think the power and opportunities of adulthood are too often wasted on those who believe the energy and magic of youth is wasted on the young.

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How Goddess Leonie Overcame the Do-It-All-Myself Fight

by Marissa on 31 October 2011

One morning I awoke to find in my inbox an email from the effervescent Goddess Leonie, which said, “I would like to submit a guest post to your blog.” And so I read what she’d sent, and I glowed (because it says a whole lotta nice stuff about me) and I laughed (because Leonie writes just like she talks and talks just like she writes, and she has a way of phrasing things that cracks me up… you’ll see when you read it).

And I said YES to publishing it because Leonie describes in her very Leonie way the struggle I see so many people going through when it comes to “doing it all,” and the worries they have about hiring someone. (And the whole lotta nice stuff about me is a total bonus.)

Please to enjoy.

Hi.

My name’s Leonie.

Marissa works for me.

And I’m here to tell you why you need to hire her.

(In the interest of full disclosure, she didn’t pay me in liquorice or any other confectionary to write this. She actually doesn’t know I’m writing this. I’m staying up way too late beyond my bedtime because I really, really want to surprise her with this and tell her I want to do a guest post on her blog. And I’m hoping it’s really helpful to you, dear reader, because you’ve probably been where I was.)

Enter, Story:

1. Once upon a time, I used to be very afraid of hiring a VA.

I didn’t know how much it would cost.

I didn’t know how many hours I would need her.

I didn’t know if she could or would want to do the tasks I needed her to do.

And I was kind of in awe of Marissa.

So I never really asked the questions.

I just kept on fighting the Do It All Myself fight.

I answered a zillion emails, and tinkered with my plugins, and had customer service freak outs, and wrote a trillion blog posts, and launched a buttload of products, and wrote newsletter after newsletter, and kept crying over my inbox.

And then I got burned out.

And I recovered.

And then I got burned out.

2. After the second burn out, I sent Marissa an email.

“I don’t know if you could even possibly help me, and these are probably very very stupid questions, and I’m really sorry for not knowing the answer… but do you? Could you? OH GOD I NEED HELP.”

[Marissa's note: This is a really common worry. Your questions that you're afraid to ask your potential VA or team member aren't stupid questions, by virtue of the fact that they're your questions. Good rule of thumb: If the person you want to work with thinks your questions are stupid, they're not your right person.]

3. She explained everything.

Simply and kindly. And surprisingly? It was all totally doable. Beyond doable. SO easy to hire her.

4. So she took over my inbox.

And she started helping me take care of myself. And she started taking care of all the business paraphernalia that had roped me in for hours – freeing me up physically and emotionally to start creating. To grow my business with intention. To sail the boat of my business in the direction of where I wanted to head.

5. In short, it was the best thing I have ever done.

6. She has been my Inbox Fairy, my Community Manager, my Right Hand Girl, my Go-To Goddess ever since.

7. Except an ill fated (and frankly insane) episode just after my first born daughter was born when I decided I really needed to do everything myself again and nothing says new motherishness than tending to my own inbox and that A New Challenge Should Be Fun!

8. It wasn’t. But thankfully, I remembered in that haze before Something Fell Out My Vagina that there was this goddess named Marissa. Who was very, very good at helping. And she accepted me back. THANK GAWD.

9. People Who Have Things Fall Out Of Their Vagina often do kinda nutty things. Just giving you all this heads up. Just incases.

10. Everything is pretty damn awesome now.

I have a ridunkulously cute daughter and a hot husband and a sweet little life in tropical paradise. I have the goddess business of my dreams. I get to create and make miracles and help women remember they are goddesses.

11. People always ask me how I manage to get stuff done.

12. Recently, this has meant writing a book & putting on the World’s Biggest Summit as extra fun “side projects” on top of a ridunkulously busy business. And looking after that sweet daughter of mine. And perving on my hot husband (which really is a valid occupation all in itself.)

13. I can tell you, without a sizzle of a doubt, that the #1 reason I can do all I do and grow my business and create miracles… is Marissa.

She’s the bomb.

If people wrote love songs to their Virtual Assistants, they would all be about Marissa.

She stops me from going batty. She helps me set up the systems I need. (Scratch that – she doesn’t help me. She just DOES them. I’m not a systems girl. And that’s totally cool, because she IS.)

[Marissa's note: YES. You do not have to be masterful at everything you ask someone else to do. That's why you're hiring someone. Let them be masterful at All That Other Stuff while you go write books, teach courses, harvest honeycomb, or whatever it is you do that is your great work. Amen.]

And most of all, she takes care of my flooding inbox that used to make me cry on a weekly basis.

And instead,
I’m off galavanting around the country,
recording podcasts atop trees,
asking “But what if I dreamed even BIGGER?”
and making all the stuff happen
that I wanted to do.

She’s a pivotal reason for my business growth and my success in project completion.

And she’s a HUGE component in my mental health plan and my “Make Everyday Freaking Deliriously Happy” plan.

In short: Best Thing Ever.

Dear Fellow Entrepreneur,
If the Do It All Myself fight in your business is making you cry, please please please do something about it.

There’s a better way to live, and do business, and laugh, and grow giddy with joy at it all.

Love,
Reformed Ex-Do-It-All-Addict

P.S. Marissa’s the answer.

P.P.S. Maybe she’s not. Maybe you’ve got your own answer. That’s great.

P.P.P.S. But really. Marissa.

P.P.P.P.S. If you go hire another VA and they suck and you tell me so, I will say “WHO IS THE ONE THEY WRITE ROMANTIC VA LOVE SONGS TO?”

P.P.P.P.P.S. High five!!!!

{ 4 comments }

Entirely possible

by Marissa on 25 July 2011

“You should always end your blog posts with a question,” he reminded me. “Otherwise people won’t know you want them to leave a comment.”

“Isn’t it possible,” I replied, “that people would know it’s okay to respond or share or speak up, regardless of the punctuation mark at the end of my sentence?”

“Blog readers are different.” he said.

“So blog readers go around all day not responding in conversations unless they’re asked a direct question?” I pressed. “Some of them must know that conversation happens even without direct questions.”

“I think you’re being stubborn. And naive.”

“Entirely possible,” I sighed. “Entirely possible.”

::

“But look at [Person1], [Person2] and [Person3]‘s sites,” I protested. “They write all about stuff beyond their ‘core topics.’ They write about their life and what they wonder about, not just about their ‘business topics.’”

“They also have much larger audiences than you,” he responded (accurately). “When you get to [big number] of readers per month, you can broaden your topics too. Until then, you need to focus on traffic, and to do that, you need have all of your articles very focused and on-topic.”

“What if I declared my topic to be whatever is present and real for me as a solo-preneur who works with other solo- and micro-preneurs? Then nothing would be ‘off-topic.’”

I could hear his eyes roll in his why-won’t-you-just-see-that-I’m-right exhale. “People don’t read websites like that anymore. Now people want business lessons and bullet points. They want Seth Godin. They want Problogger.”

“So how about if I plan on the people who want Seth Godin reading Seth Godin, and the people who want Problogger reading Problogger, and the people who want something different reading me? And people could very well want all three, right?”

“I think you believe you can have a successful website and business without following the formulas all of us know are effective,” he said, frustrated. “Do you really believe that’s possible?”

I paused.

“Entirely possible,” I admitted. “Entirely possible.”

Image by Niklas Morberg | CC License

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