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The Big New Idea: creative hibernation

This time last week, it finally hit home after weeks of anguish and confusion: I need to actively put myself in creative hibernation.

I’d kind of told myself that I wouldn’t be taking on new clients or actively promoting my mentoring services while I set up my content studio here in Cambridge. Well, somehow I still managed to have new clients to call, pieces of work to do, and plenty of non-studio stuff to do. I had told myself this, but I hadn’t really put anything in place to enable me to carry it out.

Then, I was in a spin, because a couple of mentoring clients, for their own different reasons, have paused or reduced their mentoring time with me. A coincidence, and something I know is all about them (because I know them and their businesses well), and yet, because I was relying on income from my current mentoring clients to sustain me during these building months, it hit me hard.

Here’s my thought process: Do I change course and start advertising my mentoring services? I’m pretty sure I need the cash, and I can probably handle the additional hours. [Insert breakdown here.]

Even the thought of taking on more work, investing in new clients, and thinking about quick-win money making threw me into some dark, deep layers. Because it would break me, and I’d feel badly about launching something new that didn’t have my careful thought behind it.

Just adding more workload is something I’ve inherited from other people – it’s not my natural way of working, and I know it doesn’t cultivate my best work. But the messages are so pervasive in the work culture. We compete with busy-ness. We hold our worth by how tired we are. Well, it really doesn’t work for me.

Adding more work would also be self-sabotage, which my fear of success is really invested in! The truth is that I’d delay setting up something new because I needed to make money now, and I’d keep doing that for 70 years, probably.

Here’s what has really helped me to stay committed to the content studio: accountability to other people (our trial photoshoot is booked for this weekend) and investing in the branding. I don’t want to lose the money or time or goodwill I’ve already invested in those two things, and I know that if I pulled out of either now, I would lose momentum, which would be twice as hard to get back later.

After some serious(ly helpful) conversations with my coach and others, it became obvious that I had to re-commit myself. Let me be clear: NOT EASY! I am still reining in the negative voices and the fears. I’m giving them a little space to be heard, but mostly trying to turn the volume down. That allows my true values to show through. The ones that believe in quality, thoughtfulness, creativity and courage.

Thinking about who I really am, how I like to work, and how this is a temporary situation helped me to decide to put myself in creative hibernation.

So what does creative hibernation look like?

An out-of-office on my emails, telling people I’m not available for new clients or projects until August
Proactive emails to people telling them I can’t work on certain things
Making a list of the things / people I am available for
Actively pursuing all things content studio as my main activity
Allowing myself to dive into the work, for extended periods of time
Giving myself a stricter bedtime (10pm) so that I don’t get exhausted

Giving this period of setting something up a name has really helped. I find it easier to tell people, “I’m in creative hibernation right now.” And let that do the talking. There’s no decision about whether to do a piece of work or not – I’ve already decided what I’m doing and not doing.

And I continue to develop my ability to trust. Trusting that this period of creative hibernation (aka struggle, blind faith, deep commitment and investment) will pay off. That clients won’t forget that I offer mentoring, and that I’m really good at it. That this is temporary.

It feels so much better to be able to turn my attention to writing the stuff that needs writing, organise the stuff that needs to happen, and developing relationships with the people who are going to help.

Oh, and photoshoot this weekend! I mean, that’s going to be fun to share…

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The Big New Idea: design starts this week!

Ah, this Big New Idea continues to take up a lot of my brain space! I switch quickly between thinking big and long term to thinking small and detailed. Such is my way of working.

Here’s what I’ve been working on over the past week-and-a-bit:

Branding. After getting in touch with various designers and running into timing conflicts and fear of the unknown, I’ve come back to working with Evan at Sixteen July (who designed this site and who is awesome). She starts design work TODAY! I have, of course, created a Pinterest board of visual references. If you love that kind of thing and want to see how it will transform into a logo and brand style, check out the board here.
Schedule. I’m aiming to launch the website and the business at the beginning of July. Originally, I was thinking June, but I have other commitments (read: I’m going away for a week) that just made it unrealistic. Before the launch, I’ll be running a trial photoshoot with my team here in Cambridge so that we can practice working together, and hopefully get some awesome content to share on the website.
Pricing. I’ve been playing with the numbers to figure out what I’ll need to charge to make this work for me and my team, as well as keeping it affordable for the customer. I want tiny one-person businesses to be able to get high quality photography and copy, as well as making it accessible to bigger businesses who want to send us their entire range. I’m a big believer in getting feedback when you offer your product, so I’m only asking for feedback from a select number of clients before launch. (Rather than asking, “How much would you pay for this?”, it’s much more effective to actually put the product out there with a price tag and see how many people buy it. When people theorise about how much they’d spend on something, it isn’t always true to their behaviour.)
Team. Oh, the team. So much of the success of Big New Idea will rely on the team. I have a little mini team for our trial, which I’m really excited about, but I’m also continuing to build local connections in Cambridge, especially for photographers. (If that’s you, email me.) I’ve been thinking loads about how I can scale up the team quickly, and about the leap of faith I’ll need to make to do this. Flexibility is awesome, but I’m also going to need to offer and ask for commitment if demand is high.
Process. I’m fairly obsessed with process, and this is very much a work in progress. A real foundation for this business will be efficiency and professionalism, so I’m working on ways to get product lists, contact details, notes and shooting schedules set up to provide my team and clients with clarity. Picture big scribbly diagrams, post its, and spreadsheets as I work on this!
Trial shoot. I have a lovely bunch of clients who have offered up their products for the trial shoot, and they’ll be getting emails from me this week. I’ll be planning each shot with my team so that we’re building in quality from the start.

I’ve also been thinking about the balance of my Big New Idea with my existing business. Because mentoring clients one-on-one, running retreats, creating courses, and leading workshops is really what I want to be doing. I love it. That’s why I started my business. It’s so important to me!

But right now, I can’t do more than keep with my existing clients while I set up this business. It wouldn’t be fair (or possible) to take on new mentoring clients because I wouldn’t be able to give them my full attention. That’s a hard decision, for me. But I have some exciting plans for when the Big New Idea is off the ground to create Jenny Hyde Mentoring 2.0! So patience is the key…

This decision – to pause mentoring while I set up something new and complementary – is also tricky from a financial point of view. This month and next month won’t bring in the cash flow I usually expect and aim for, PLUS I’m spending money on a website and props and other investment stuff. “Hold your nerve” is my mantra right now. It ain’t easy.

So, that’s the update from me! If you have any questions or thoughts, I’d love to hear from you.

Jenny x

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The Big New Idea: the pendulum swing

Sooooo… It’s taken me a good two weeks to get to writing this update on my Big New Idea. Partly, there was a bank holiday and sunshine that distracted me for a bit. And partly I got totally overwhelmed by the response to my last post!

I wrote the post on a Friday afternoon, after meeting with a photographer who’s on board and excited to work on the project. It suddenly felt like there was momentum! So I woke up on Monday, read through the post and sent it out, merrily getting on with the next thing on my to do list.

I kind of forgot that I was revealing a massive piece of news, directly to the audience I hope will be my customers.

So there I am, trying to focus on getting some more stuff, you know, done, and I start getting emails, comments and direct messages from people who are excited to have a service that offers the full package of product content. Someone even asked if I could do all the “boring” bits of her business, so that she could just spend her time drawing and creating!

Let me be clear: this is totally awesome. Thank you to everyone who got in touch and felt excited! It means a lot to me and I really appreciate the support. It gave me a whole new level of momentum.

For about a day. Because this is what happened next: I did a 180 on the pendulum swing of “Is this going to work?” One day, I was worrying that starting the new content studio would take up too much of my time for not much reward. That I’d really have to drive business hard and spend a lot of time trying to fill a day a month of actual paying work. The next day, I had the opposite fear: the “oh $£!&” feeling that I might not even be able to keep up with demand – that this could take over. And do I want it to take over? What if it’s too successful?

Well. First of all, it’s kind of confusing and tiring to feel so many emotions in the space of 24 hours.

It’s also that thing that I often forget: being afraid of success. I’m going to step onto my soap box briefly here, because I want to share this with you.

In our culture, we’re primed to believe that success is always just around the corner, but never quite achievable. We’re programmed to stay small, because keeping us small means that millions of million-pound businesses can market to us based on fear. (“Buy this and it’ll make you lovable.” “If you were really successful, you’d buy this big TV.” “Don’t forget, you need to lose weight in order to be truly acceptable and successful.”)

Especially as women, we have generations of predecessors whose primary role was to support others, regardless of talent, ability and potential to lead fulfilling lives and careers. We’re still carrying those stories around, untangling them bit by bit.

And here’s what I’m trying to untangle: We’re allowed success on our own terms. Truly. But sometimes those old stories – the fear of success, of letting ourselves be seen and loved and really good at what we do – hold us back more than we realise.

Marianne Williamson puts it best:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are more powerful beyond measure. It is light, not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”

Oh boy. Let’s sit with that one for a bit, shall we?

So, yes. I’ve been trying to go with the pendulum swing, trying to accept the positive response and really take in that this big new idea, this content studio is a good idea. This is something worth pursuing, and has the potential to change my life and my business. I don’t know how or in what direction. But part of starting something new is surrendering to the journey.

As ever, I hope that sharing my thoughts and experiences as I set up something new is helpful, whether you’re starting something from scratch or looking at a new project or phase of your business.

If you have thoughts, feedback or questions, I’d love to hear from you. If the past two weeks have taught me anything, it’s that hearing from people is helpful!

So what does creative hibernation look like?

I kind of forgot that I was revealing a massive piece of news, directly to the audience I hope will be my customers.

Enter The Forge