Losing faith, or Do I have the Cheese Touch?

Last week I lost faith.

Not in my ability to do the work. That’s happened to me before. I’ve certainly had (and will get again) the feeling that this time, I won’t make the deadline, or this time my client won’t be happy. Despite 15+ years of proof that my process works, I can manage my time wisely, and pull up my creative socks to deliver strong copy on demand… I still doubt, and wonder if this time something will be missing. Anyway, that wasn’t the problem. 

This time, I lost faith in my business. In my ability to Be an Entrepreneur.

I had space, and no client work to fill it with. 

I had cleaned out my inbox and answered every request. I had caught up on my invoicing until there was nothing left to invoice. I had reached out to people to catch up, which, while heart-warming and rewarding in itself, didn’t result in jobs-to-be-done.

In describing this, it sounds delightful. I took my kiddo to the beach. I left my desk and walked in the sunshine. Planted some things. This is why we freelance, right? To enjoy flexibility and freedom.

But this didn’t feel right.

This wasn’t a vacation, a holiday, or a day off. I kept thinking, I should just go with it, take the break, curl up with a good book. But I also kept thinking, I should get out there, start engaging more on LinkedIn, find my next client, find my next offer.

I had a pervasive, uneasy feeling. Like I was in The Upside Down of my own business.

Adding to my un-ease was that standard social greeting, “How’s work going?”

I didn’t know how to answer that.

Years ago I banished the terms ‘busy’ and ‘slow’. Because when I’m doing my best work, I don’t feel ‘busy’. I feel content, creative, and a little bit on edge from the challenge. I am never overwhelmed by the amount of work to be done because I control it. After so many years, I estimate and manage my time like a pro. Beautiful, steady, enjoyable work -- which I imagine to many of my freelancing friends would feel ‘slow’, which is bad. A bit too much, plates spinning, working an extra night and the weekend signals ‘busy’ -- which I hate, but again I figure, to most, signals money, which is ‘good’.

I still feel judgment and guilt about the amount I work and the money I make.

I resigned myself years ago to an awareness that I don’t have the cajones or drive to do what it takes to achieve ‘exponential growth’. I’m shy, easily satisfied, and let’s face it, a little bit coddled. I’m not facing eviction, I love spontaneous travel and episodic tv, and the way I’ve built my business reflects that.

I’ve never had revenues worth celebrating. I also know that what I want most in life, money can’t buy. Let me paraphrase:

I still feel judgment and guilt about how little I work and how little I make.

This recent work famine amped up the judgment. After 15 years as an entrepreneur, I shouldn’t be having a dry spell. It shows I haven’t been building a business. I do not have What It Takes. 

After 15 years, real businesses are “enjoying record revenues and our best year ever!” (I don’t write that hype, but I still read it and absorb it. You know, to stay current.)

Here’s the ugly truth underneath all this. In a business that I designed and chose and grew organically around my talents and my training, of which I had total control and throughout which I had no dissenting partners… I still managed to fail.

Can you imagine?! Getting to pick any colour from the crayon box, getting to choose what to draw, taking as long as you want to draw it and not having to ask for anyone’s assessment of your final drawing…

And still feeling like you failed. (What cute emoji can I stick in here?)

I don’t love writing about this. It feels like the business equivalent of admitting the cheese touch*.

But my entire MO as a copywriter is encouraging caring, compassionate, connected businesses to write more often, write more honestly, and prove there’s a place in communications for humanity, vulnerability and truth.

So I kinda hafta start with me.

I have all kinds of stories in my head about what you might be thinking right now. I typed out a few in an earlier draft but they’re truly too painful to list.

Please trust me when I say, this is not a cry for help, pity, referrals, hug emojis or financial assistance.

This is an exercise. A writing practice. A vulnerability stretch. A hope that someone, somewhere, has something twisting them up inside and that, in reading this, they will see they can release it and it won’t ruin their business. I mean, I guess the jury’s still out on that. Twisty-person: stay tuned and I’ll let you know.

If my entire career does get cheese-touched by this confession… you know what? It’ll be worth it to know that. If the business world has no room for dark moments of the entrepreneurial soul, then it’s for sure time I found something else to do. I mean, it’s been kinda slow lately anyway.

* “Then one day, this kid named Darren Walsh touched the Cheese with his finger, and that's what started this thing called the Cheese Touch. It's basically like the Cooties. If you get the Cheese Touch, you're stuck with it until you pass it on to someone else. The only way to protect yourself from the Cheese Touch is to cross your fingers.”

― Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid