Written by a lovely human - Julieanne Steedman (no AI over here!) from The School for Modern Makers. Field Guide for the Modern Maker is a weekly dose of inspiration, joy, and business tips for creative entrepreneurs.
VOL.10
Well…hello First name / Lovely!
A few summers back, my kids decided to build a boat. Yes, an actual boat. They spent the winter looking at books and drawing up plans. They saved their allowance and made a list of the exact supplies they would need. I'd also like to mention: they were 9 and 10 years old.
As school let out for the summer, they embarked on their boat building endeavour. Occasionally my husband or I would step in to help or offer advice, but mostly we made a point to hold back and let them work together on their project.
As the big ‘launch’ date approached, I grew nervous for them. What would they do if the boat didn't float well or worse, just sank? I broached this with them one day at lunch and was surprised at their quick response, “we thought of that, we might need your help to pull it out of the water and make changes”. I loved that they were totally READY for it to fail, and that they had already decided that if something wasn't quite right, they would just FIX IT.
It makes me wonder if at some point, do we loose this idea that things are meant to not be perfect, or that they are meant to fail, and then we simply make adjustments to get it right? I feel often as adults, we hold ourselves to a really high standard and think that things need to be perfect- and that if it isn't on the first go, we've failed. And not only that we've failed, but that that is the END. When instead, maybe the first round (or five!) of trying something, it is meant to fail in order for us to learn how to actually get it right.
Launch day (photo on the left) went pretty well. The boat floated but had a slow leak, so they took it out of the water, and used a couple of cans of spray foam to fix up the leaks. A few days later they added a small table and were out anchored in the bay playing Catan. Boom! They build a boat!
Failing is part of succeeding.
Effectively, failing + learning helps you get further along on the path to success. That's a pretty great way to think about it isn't it?!
THINGS I FAILED AT THIS WEEK 😂
Last week I ran a challenge to help creatives get things rolling and set up for holiday success which mostly went really great! I did however run into some challenges with tech which I got really down about. I ended up having to re-record two the five sessions after they didn't save properly which I got really down about.
However, I've decided I'm learning from this and have since figured out what went wrong. It was caused by a poor internet issue and after discussing this with my husband - we connected my computer with a hard line to the internet to get the best possible connection. My internet speed is much better now (like, why didn't I do this sooner?!) so overall I might be closer to succeeding (in the future anyhow!).
If you missed the challenge, I've decided to keep the homepage live for an extra week (under October 11th) and you can dive in at anytime.
Whether you are writing ✍🏼 captions for social media or product descriptions for your online shop - using prompts or a formula of some sort can be super helpful.
Take this email for instance, I have nine sections and for each email, I choose five to six and they help me figure out what I want to include for you each week. This takes away some of the ‘getting started’ anxiety that can hold us back from completing things. 🙌🏼
EVELYN: I'm gearing up for my first holiday season doing craft markets and I'm feeling nervous about packing all of my products and display into my vehicle, and then setting it all up myself at the event. Any tips about how to make this work smoothly?
JULES: Firstly, I always suggest setting your whole display up at home so you can see exactly what you need for display items and signage.
On market day, be prepared to walk and lug your stuff a good distance - you often won't know how far it is from the parking area to your table spot.
My first option is to pack your items into large wheely-suitcases🧳. After that, investing in a collapsable wagon is a great idea.😉 This will help you move your products and display quickly and not hurt your back. Also, top-tip - bring deodorant with you! Moving and setting up all of your stuff is basically like doing a work-out session. Bring deodorant and even a fresh shirt so you can quickly freshen up after setting everything up.
Have a question about running your creative business that you need answered? Submit it below to be answered in an incoming issue of our newsletter.
Looking for a creative boost? My friend Amarylis just started a fun challenge called BOLDTOBER. If you need some inspiration to crack your sketchbook open, this might be it! Amarylis is all about painting with watercolour in a super bright, colourful, and bold way (which is really fun!). Check out everything HERE.
Wishing you a joy-filled, creative week!
As always, hit reply and say hello I'd love to hear from you.
🗓 (SHOP) Make your creative business life easier by using our much-loved Modern Maker Planner.
🎟 (WAITLIST) Join the waitlist and work with me in a small group of students inside the Modern Maker Method, my 1x year LIVE signature program!
P.S. If you have ‘grow my email newsletter list’ on your to-do list for 2024, I highly recommend giving Flodesk a go. It's intuitive, beautiful, and easy-to-use (I love things that are simple!).
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