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| Daily dose of motivation |
SimplyCare.
I began this journey skeptically. Excited and enthusiastic, but extremely skeptical. I felt as if I was entirely too late to bring myself into the natural hair community. So I sat on the idea, for about two years. Every now and again I would think about starting, but never did. Then a year ago I began this blog as a means of saying " Ok self, I am going to do this.
It's time" I threw myself into blogging and to introducing myself to the natural hair community. It was great. I had things that I wanted to achieve and ideas for this company.
The thing is my foundation was shaky, so as I would climb and progress things began to get a little wobbly. A foundation built on skepticism and "I think I can do this" is like eating soup with a fork. You're not really going to get anywhere. I felt that this market was so oversaturated I didn't know if there would be room for one more.
I began to drift away from blogging and I would touch base on twitter every now again. There were a lot of things going on in the natural hair community that I just was not a fan of. I began to think, do I really want to be apart of this. I am such a creative person and hair was beginning to take over my life. So much so that I began to do less of other things because I was so wrapped up. So I stopped.
I thought when I stopped that maybe I would start picking up other things, which I did. Honestly, not like I should have though. That was a big issue with me feeling like in order to succeed at one thing, I could only concentrate on just that. I saw my artistic side falling behind and I did not approve. What I didn't understand was why, because I had great ways to merge art and hair with SimplyCare, but it never left my notebook or my sketchbooks.
I became too much of a thinker, too much planning and not enough action. My boyfriend told me that I have too many great ideas and that I just need to do them. Sometimes I spend so much time
thinking about the whys, hows, and whats that I never really get anywhere.
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| Work. Beast Mode. Grind Time. Just Do It. |
I was beginning to just go in circles.. new idea, plan, didn't execute, new idea, plan, didn't execute...
I began to think about SimplyCare and it's future. I didn't really see it going anywhere. I felt like as a brand it was stuck in the mud. It didn't stand out like it should, it didn't really show my creative capacity.
I wasn't happy with two of the things in my life that are supposed to make me the happiest.
So even though I blogged a couple of times here, I decided to concentrate of picking up the pieces on the art side of things. I went over to my personal art portfolio website and I was
just completely disgusted. I said "Self, why did I think that this ever
looked good ?" I completely trashed the old design and started from scratch.
I came up with an awesome new way to brand myself,
bought the domain name and stayed up all night redesigning my website. I kept on working on it throughout that week as well.
The finished product ?
www.thisartistworks.com
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| This artist works ? Check! |
I
am completely in love. I was so proud of myself. I had an idea and I
executed it from start to finish. No breaks, no "I'll come to this
later's".. Just plain beast mode work. This really helped to
re-center my equilibrium. I now had a new home for my artwork. Plus a
brand new space for something else that I am cooking up! Let's just
say it is the perfect marriage of hair and art.
I feel myself less
stressed now. Once I did this, I definitely knew that rebranding
SimplyCare was the
right thing to do. I decided that I needed to do a complete overhaul. From the rooter to the tooter. I began to look at my brand and what needed to be done to revitalize it. I began doing research, reading, and brainstorming ways to bring my brand back to life.
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| How it all began. |
I can't really explain how except the feeling you get when you do something so important to you that it validates the reasoning for other changes. Does that make
sense? I hope it does. While reading Tory Johnson's book
Spark and Hustle, this one sentence
put it all into perspective for me.
"Like yours, my businesses aren't
exempt from competition. There's no shortage of books on small business,
but you're reading this one." So simpl and so powerful. This statement really gave me the extra boost that I needed.
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| On my book list and also my mantra. |
There's definitely no shortage of personal and hair care
companies, natural hair based or not. Yet, you're reading this blog,
you're interested in what I have to say. So the same goes for my
products. There are too many heads in this world(7 billion I believe)
and probably 3x that amount of cosmetics companies. Maybe I'm exaggerating but new companies are sprouting up every day!
Rebranding SimplyCare and reworking my personal art site was really weighing on me and I had no idea. I feel such a huge relief.
Rebuilding my foundation starting with a rebranding. I feel stronger already.
So on April 20, 2013 I will introduce you to Native Love. A place where I
intend to pamper your hair and body while enriching your mind. Artistic
and educational. It's more than just hair.
Thanks for sticking me with this long.
