?? "Bless Your Heart" and Other Lessons in Resilience ???

You know I like to keep things light around here, but I absolutely have to share what happened in my world 8 days ago. You may already know because it made national news, but the town I live in was hit by a devastating tornado. While I’m eternally grateful that my home, family, and dogs (especially the dogs, IYKYK) are all unharmed, there are many who did not fare as well as I did. The devastation across the city was alarming, with many businesses, homes, trees, and powerlines completely taken down.

I have to say the community stepped up huge - with offers of help and support in every way imaginable. Here’s just a sampling of what people did to help:

• Cleaned up trees
• Cleared buildings that were knocked down
• Offered people a place to stay
• Provided warm homes for pet reptiles (ahhh… no thank you!)
• Loaned out space in fridges for those who lost power and didn’t have a generator (thankfully, we had a generator because I had literally just spent $400 at Costco on fresh meat and perishables, and even though $400 doesn't go as far as it should go, it's still too much food to waste if you can avoid it… )
• People used hotel points to reserve rooms for complete strangers
• Several folks gave deep discounts (some even free) on their Airbnb properties for those who were without power or were homeless due to the storm
• Donated water
• Food trucks showed up in the hardest hit areas to give food to those without homes, businesses, and the people working to quickly get things back to normal
• On and on the list went. And it was wonderful to see so many volunteering.

Naturally, in the spirit of wanting to help, I decided to donate my services to affected businesses. I made a heartfelt post for our local community page, with just a dash of humor (you know how I do it), and just before I hit “post”, I gave myself a pep-talk, “There are going to be some total a-holes who comment on this offer, make the offer anyway.” And with that, I hit POST and closed the browser tab (which for me means serious business because as I write this, I have 57 browser tabs open).

The initial response to the post was far better than I had hoped, and as my wonderful friend Vanessa pointed out to me later, “Wouldn’t it have been fun to have a pep-talk with yourself that said ‘people are going to love this post and the responses are going to all be positive’?”

Well yes, it would have been Vanessa - but I didn’t think about that (why didn’t I think about that?). For eight hours, the responses were positive. And then, just as I was crawling into bed, I decided to check the post one last time, and THERE IT WAS… the response that I knew would come eventually: “You couldn’t cut it in real life or college. Bless your heart.”

Huh? I’ll admit, self-doubt hit me hard, I’m talking tsunami level hard. Who was this person that knew me better than I knew myself? How did this person realize so quickly that I couldn’t cut it in real life? How did they know I shuffled through eight colleges before I finally landed on one that worked for me? And weren’t they just so sweet to say ‘bless your heart’... like they wanted me to be successful, but they knew deep down that it was never going to happen for me.

Pump the fckin’ brakes.

First off, we all know 'Bless your heart' is code for “you’re an idiot” - everyone knows that.

Second off, why was I letting an internet troll dictate how I felt about myself?

And most importantly, can someone point me to the on-ramp for ‘real life’ because all this time I thought paying my bills, running a company, raising my son, working out, going to (eight different) colleges, doing laundry, grocery shopping, watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and picking up Rocket’s dog shit was real life. But if it’s not - I am ready for my entry into this thing called real life.

And that one little response got me thinking a whole lot about how much time we spend in FOPO… the Fear of Other People’s Opinions.

Why do we care so much what anyone else thinks about our lives, especially as entrepreneurs? We’re the ones doing the work. We’re the ones hustling. The ones risking it all. The ones dealing with slow sales, unhappy customers, ungrateful employees, and an abundance of risk.

But we also get to deal with unexpected sales, loyal customers who tell everyone about us, employees who are so good you never have to worry about them, and the upside of risk… tremendous rewards.

Back to the troll who said I couldn’t cut it in the real world… Truth be told, some days I’m not great in the real world. I’m human, and I suspect we all have days where we’d rather stay in bed than get up and tackle our long list of tasks. I will also be the first to tell prospective clients, “Don’t hire me if you’re looking for perfection, because that ain’t me. I always give my clients my very best, but that does not mean I am ever going to assert perfection.”

And for those of you wondering how I responded to the mean-spirited comment… I didn’t. Instead, I spent my time being grateful for all the positive responses and setting up appointments for those entrepreneurs who see the value in what I have to offer.

Have an amazing week!