Forsaken Elves & Failure: Part 2

When we spoke yesterday, I was facing the harsh realities of printing a bunch of elf-laden holiday cards, posting them to Etsy, and watching as not a single card was sold.

This old failure was casting a shadow over my desire to create my Spirit Cats Deck. (If you missed Part 1, catch it here)

Plus, I was dealing with a very dark view of business as being greedy, soul-sucking and extremely dull.

Imagine a faceless business suit stealing all the color from the world just to make a pile of money to hoard.

Enter my blue-haired, crafty mentor, Jennifer Lee, who translated business into friendships, relationships, heart-felt communication, creativity, and cooperation with a good dose of left-brained strategy to keep things grounded and well-functioning. Wow!

She was the rainbow unicorn dispersing glittering insights – a far cry from that icy, grey-suited, business man of my imagination.

Why did that matter to me so, so much?

I have always been seeking deep connection with my fellows. I want to build a bridge between my inner world and yours.

That is why I make the art I make.

Jenn helped me see how business can be a vehicle for this larger-scale connection. Revelation!

Eventually, I tossed those boxes of elves into the recycling bin and traded them in for real learning about what it takes to successfully reach people with your creations. 

Let me just say that my elf -card scheme seemed pretty silly now that I was armed with eye-opening knowledge. I mean no one, save my family, knew that I was selling those cards.

I thought I had a megaphone when actually I was a mouse whispering in the wall. No wonder no one heard me.

When the Spirit Cats started appearing in my paintings with their healing messages, I knew I had to do better by them than those forsaken elves.

They deserved more than box mountain.

They wanted to speak to people – to move out of my little world and into your lives where they could create some real magic.

So I did 3 things:

1: I choose Kickstarter as a platform for taking pre-orders so I could make sure you really wanted these Spirit Cats before ordering thousands of them. (Ha ha, Box Mountain, you won’t get me this time.)

2: I integrated Jenn's teachings about building community and getting the word out – without becoming an annoying, walking commercial – with a massive amount of research into how crowdfunding works and how to craft a mind-blowingly effective campaign. (Yeah, hope and just posting something online didn’t really work out for my elves)

3: I kept returning to a view of the whole endeavor as a playful experiment so my fear of failure wouldn’t overpower me. (Even if I fail, I was just experimenting and collecting wisdom and data for my next exciting experiment :)

And because I want to make it easier for you than it was for me and save you from your own Box Mountain of Forsaken Elves…

I gathered everything I learned into my new e-course, Crowdfunding Essentials, that I will be releasing on Nov. 2 through a collaboration with the magical maven of business transformation, Jennifer Lee.

So, perhaps, there is something you are secretly wanting to bring into our world… to share with your fellows… to create connection… and make the world a little less lonely…

Crowdfunding Essentials will make your process infinitely easier and catapult your chances for success through the roof.

And if you are a rebel-hearted creative like me, keep an eye out for my next email about turning the rules on their heads and bypassing barriers like a cat burglar.

With love,
Nicole