My single biggest fear in my most recent jump back into freelancing is that Novatorius is not finding work. It has nothing to do with the recent WordPress drama. Heck, it’s not even about the loss of security, or the six-figure hole I blew in my finance. They all concern me, but none of them come close to my biggest fear.

I’m terrified I’m going to burn myself out again.

But, I have to be honest. It’s kinda scary for me. You see, I worked in much the same capacity for nine years, and while I’ve had many successes in that phase, I knew it was not something I wanted to do for very long then, as well. DesignFrame, and the kind of work I was doing was very much a means to an end at that time but I got stuck in the “means” part, and never worked toward the “end”.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like the clients I’ve taken on, and they’re all giving me very fulfilling work and I’m so thankful that I’m able to have the opportunity to work with them now, and in the future, but ultimately, I know I’ve been on this ride before, and I know that I need more than my clients to keep me fulfilled and happy long-term.

So it’s probably not surprising that one of my key goals for the end of the year is to establish work outside of what I call “home” on the internet. That is, WordPress, Web Development, and programming in-general.

I want to sell the software I’ve created, but I also realize that I’m creating a whole ecosystem, around Siren, and in order to nurture that ecosystem and allow it to flourish, it’s going to require a lot more than some great code, decent documentation, and a podcast.

It has become clear to me that my path to running my business, and accomplishing my goal of building a business that grows without relying solely on my personal brand probably exists somewhere in nurturing Siren’s ecosystem. Be it customization’s for Siren, or some kind of service (let’s be real, it’s probably a set of services), or of course the software itself.

But how. What does that look like? I have so many ideas, and I feel like I have the pieces of the puzzle all in my head, it’s just…there’s almost too many ideas. What’s the good ideas? Which ones help me accomplish this goal? How do these items work together?

So I’m noodling around all of this, and have been since I left GoDaddy. I went to WordCamp searching for many things, and one of them was something to help me get out of my head and understand the order in-which these things could be done. I needed help, but I didn’t know how to ask for it. I didn’t know the question, or even understand fully what I was trying to figure out. But I’ll tell ya what, that sure didn’t stop me from trying 😂. I soaked in as much information as I could while I was there, and spent some time letting it all percolate because I was wiped when I got back.

In-spite of all of that, when I got back I realized that I still didn’t have the clarity I wanted. I needed a game plan. I knew I probably had all of the information in my head, but I wasn’t connecting the dots. What I needed was for someone to guide me through my own thoughts, and help highlight the pathway that I can use to accomplish that goal.

While at WordCamp, however, I made a point to in-the-moment schedule a call with Tessa Kriesel. She and I really hit it off in our initial conversation, and it became really clear that she might have some answers, and as we talked it became clear that we should have a 1:1 call just to see if there’s an opportunity to work together.

The call went well, and I took her up on an offer to do an intense 8-hour 1:1 call where we go deep into my business, my motivations, all for the purpose of figuring out some kind of game plan to help me transition from my personal-brand driven business to a Siren-driven business.

In the days leading up to the meeting, Tessa shared some prompting questions, asked for a video demo of Siren, and invited me to think through the goals and what I want to get out of the call ahead of time. By the time the day arrived, she had prepared a complete agenda, scheduled, and had conversations with hand-picked professionals in her network that she felt would have good perspective on my problems, and had plenty of notes to help ensure the day was going to be as effective as possible. (Seriously, she’s awesome!)

I’m not kidding when I say that I literally had to stop myself from crying when I had the a-ha moment. It was like a giant wave of relief that just rushed over me, because I knew I just got what I came into the call for. The clarity on the question, and the path to building out this business that is decidedly not just a means to an end.

What’s crazy is most of the ideas and things are so, so close to what I was already doing, there was just a few key things that were fundamentally flawed in my thinking that I had to change, and once I did that the path became so much more clear. But realizing that fundamental flaw in my thinking literally didn’t come to us until hour 6.

SIX hours of talking about my business, strategies, goals, and everything before we were able to get to the root of the problem, and resolve it. I have no idea if I would have ever gotten to that realization had I not done some kind of intensive session like this. I’m so excited to move forward with the strategies Tessa helped highlight, and I sincerely believe that I will accomplish my goal this year.

Now for the easy part. Implementing it. That’s easy, right? right?