We’re so excited to introduce our very first interview here on Create Hype and we couldn’t have asked for a better entrepreneur than Michelle Ward, the amazing When I Grow Up Coach!
According to her ‘fun biography’: Michelle Ward, aka The When I Grow Up Coach, uses a dose of empathy, a shot of butt-kickin’, a wagon full of enthusiasm, and a crapload of inspiration to help creative types devise the career they think they can’t have – or discover it to begin with! Michelle lives in Brooklyn, New Yawk with her hubby Luke & their Roomba, Jeeves. She starts every morning with a dose of Judge Judy justice, still considers Punky Brewster her fashion idol, and appeared as half of Team Awesome on Renovation Realities.
There’s no denying that Michelle embraces her personality in her business and it’s helped her encourage over 100 creative people devise the career they think they can’t have. She’s happily agreed to answer a few questions we posed her concerning how you can embrace your own creative career. Take it away, Michelle!
How can enhancing one’s life enhance their business?
I think it’s really about not seeing your business as separate from your life. Yes, I work and I have a business – but it’s such an inherent part of my life, that if I enhance my business, I’m enhancing my life and vice versa. If, for example, I decide that I need to take weekends off from my business for the summer, releasing the commitment to “work” (which I never really feel I’m doing, usually) so I can spend quality time with friends and family, I can trust that it’ll enhance my business, allowing me to charge my batteries and to be fully present for my clients, too. It all works together, thankfully!
If you could share 1 tip with product sellers who are struggling to make a name for themselves, what would that be?
Claim your uniquity (yes, it’s a made-up word, but it’s part of what makes me unique, so I go with it!) and shout it from the rooftops! If that’s tough, dig deep to recognize who your ideal people are – what type of person you’d want as a client (interests, attributes, passions, age range, etc) – and then don’t be afraid to talk to them and only them. For myself, I use the term “creative career coach” as a gatekeeping term, since I want everyone who doesn’t associate themselves with the word “creative” – not limited to being artists, but anyone who feels that they’re creative, even if it’s “just” in ideas – to go away. I don’t work well with those non-creative people because, well, we don’t get each other, and that leads to less-than-enthusiastic clients and a lot of dragging-my-feet to sessions on my part. So not fun. When you’re working with the people you want to work with, or selling to the people who get the most joy from what you’re making, you’re creating a hotbed of enthusiasm – leading to testimonials and referrals and joy up the wazoo!
Your own journey to your business took many years and several turns. What made you not lose sight of your goal through all of that? Oh Geez Louise Louise – it’s hard to credit Just One Thing. This might be too general an answer, but it really was about making My Passionate Career happen, and knowing that reaching “the finish line” (like I’m ever finished!) would mean I got to work for myself doing something I loved. I mean….if that’s not motivation, I don’t know what is!
Why do you think so many people are afraid to be what they really want to be? And how can we change our thinking to make our ‘silly professions’ acceptable to ourselves? Y’know, our grandparents brought up our parents to “just” get married, raise a family, work at one place their whole lives, retire to Florida, and die (at least that’s what families did when you’re a Jewish girl growing up on Long Island). Therefore, while our parents don’t necessarily expect us to work at just one company our whole lives, well…they want to keep us safe and secure, and for them, it’s about climbing the corporate ladder and getting all the grown-up things that come with it (insurance, 401K, blah blah blah). And not to say it’s the wrong path – many people are happy doing just that! – but it’s not the only path, and that’s where the “silly professions” come in. Often, we choose to listen to the “can’ts” and “don’ts” and “shouldn’ts” instead of allowing ourselves to wonder what it would be like to be a professional, full-time, profitable jewelry designer or artist or hula-hooper or Lego artist. Thankfully, in this day and age (I feel so old when I say that!), there’s someone out there making a good living as a pizza firetruckowner (they’re “opening” up a second firetruck!), and you can make whatever you want work for not much capital (usually). I’m going to be so excited/curious to see what The Class of 2011 will be doing a few years from now – I think they have that permission that the older generation doesn’t have, and will be embarking on tons of “silly professions” that won’t look so silly when they’re happy millionaires!
I love the uniqueness of your website. What inspired you to use the child-like people and colors instead of a traditional ‘professional’ website and how does it tie in with your own voice?
Oh, I credit all that to my logo designer, and then my web designer for riffing off of Nancy the Ballerina Nurse and Bruce the Strumming Businessman (as I’ve named my logo people). Thankfully the logo designer asked lots of insightful questions to get some insight into my style, but I started by telling her, essentially, that I want something like a stick figure that a child would draw, but professional. Poor thing! Thankfully she didn’t drop me right then and there, but came up with amazeballs ideas straight away. The short answer, though, is that I’ve disconnected being “professional” from being “boring.” I use the word “amazeballs” way too much, have never worn a business suit, took my headshot alongside Nancy-and-Bruce-on-a-stick, and yet I don’t think any of my clients would say I’m unprofessional. Yes, my 60 year old businessman father told me he felt my website was too unprofessional and he would never hire me, but that was a win – I want the 60 year old businessman to go away! Besides, he took it back months later when Newsweek asked to include me in a video piece they were running on life coaching. “I guess I’m just an old guy. Keep on doing what you’re doing and I’ll shut up,” he said.
I told you she was good! Be sure to check out Michelle’s When I Grow Up Coaching site!
You can also check out her latest interview with Etsy where she discusses the ins and outs of being a solopreneur.
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