Going With My Gut

Recently I was reflecting on how smart I am.  Okay, not really, but I am pretty proud of myself.  I left my job to start a new venture in June without really being sure where it would take me.  I knew where I wanted to go but I wasn’t quite sure how to get there…and I’m still really not always sure where to go next.  But I know the decisions I’ve made were right…for my company.  And I’m proud of the fact that I stuck with my gut even when other, very smart people thought I should do otherwise.

I also know I’m not a good self-promoter.  I never have been.  While I always make sure I give credit to others, I’ve also let others take credit for my good ideas.   But secretly I keep score of the things I’ve done that I’m really proud of.  I may even confess one or two to a good friend.  But I still don’t really put it all together and tell anyone.  But I should.  I actually think I’m pretty good at what I’m doing but that’s really hard for me to say publicly, I don’t take compliments well – even from myself.   So I’ll justify this post (to myself) by saying that maybe someone out there can benefit from my experiences.

Self-funding.  I’m not rich, but I’ve always lived below my means and have saved.  So when I started on this adventure I decided I wanted it to be mine.  I would be the boss and make the decisions and not have to live with the decisions of others.  Last fall at a conference as I was still hashing out my exact business plan, several people suggested I should seek funding.  When I said I wasn’t going to, they were aghast.  They knew people, they could put me in touch, and venture money could take my business far and quickly.  I stuck to my guns and said, “No, thank you.”  All the while wondering if I was being foolish.  Then the bottom fell out of the financial world and I am so glad I went with my gut.

What’s In a Name? At the same conference where many thought I should go after funding, some thought a name change would do my company a world of good.  The URL was too long and the name wasn’t descriptive enough.  I left the conference thinking that I’d made a terrible mistake with the name, and the logo, which had already been designed.  After a few days of inner turmoil I again went with my initial decision.  After all I had worked on the name and URL for months.  I had thought it through and I liked it…I felt it fit.  After a few rounds of beta testing…I’m happy to learn it also resonates with my target audience.

Understanding my subject.  When I started this blog I was pretty much operating in a vacuum.  I had my opinions and thoughts on flexibility in the workplace and I felt very strongly about them, but I didn’t do much market research or take polls of how others felt.  One of my first blog posts was about why I use the word flexibility not balance when I talk about work life.    In a session at another conference I attended the debate was all about the wording of balance vs. flexibility.  It was quite validating to have a room of about 200 people debating a subject I had written about months before.  I sat silently in the audience happy that I had felt this subject to be important, even if I didn’t have any solid research to back me up.

Even more recently I wrote about how this economy is good for workplace flexibility and older workers.  Again, I had no hard research at the time. Yesterday I came across this article about why job flexibility is on the rise and this article on why more workers over age 55 are holding on to their jobs that validate my thoughts.  To be fair I do read a lot both on the Internet and in magazines.  But I’m surprised to see that what I get out of that reading is what others see too.

And lastly indulge me for a silly one.  I’m not really sure exactly what the word kerfuffle means.  What I picture is a bird all puffed up with his feathers all ruffled over much ado about nothing.  That’s what I picture as a kerfuffle.  Which is exactly what I felt the whole Michelle Obama media circus was around her deciding to be a mom in the White House.  So I used the word in my blog title.  When I showed my husband the blog post – he was skeptical – “kerfuffle” should I really use that in my title?  I said emphatically that yes, I liked the word and it conveyed exactly the feeling I wanted.  Two weeks later I saw the word in Time Magazine and another few weeks after that it was used in the New York Times.    I know it’s silly, but I felt that again I did the right thing.

And hey after all many of the decisions I finally made, came after an internal kerfuffle started by others’ comments.  I am grateful to everyone for commenting, though.  It makes me think and question myself and these are smart people that I respect and they were interested enough in what I am doing to have an opinion.  Which makes me believe my gut reaction to quit my job and take this path is also the right decision.