Is My Skin on Inside Out?

The woman that gently and kindly wipes a tear from the eyes of her child or listens attentively at every feeling from a hurt friend cannot approach her business with the same thin and sensitive skin.


Making cold calls, selling your business, or product, that you have loved and grown like a baby, is just one of many business decisions for someone else.

I remember when I joined the yearbook staff in high school, the advisor told us that making the yearbook is like having a baby: we will work hard for nine months and when its done nobody will think its as cute as we do.
I have had several businesses and one area that I know I need to continue to strengthen is when I get negative feedback. I could get four glowing reviews and one person could hate the patterns, for instance, and I will think about it for days, doubting I should have ever tried.

My husband calls it “emotional intelligence” when I can take someone’s negative comment, no matter how nasty it might seem, and find valid feedback. I have to set aside the side of me that is wife, mom, friend and put on the hat that takes what anyone says about “my baby” and sift through it and find the nugget that I can use to make my business stronger. The rest I leave aside: I only use what is helpful and I am trying to welcome the negative to strengthen the positive.

If we were defined by every failure or setback or closed door or declined offer we would never appreciate success when we saw it.
I love looking at famous successful business leaders to see how they failed. What they were called and how people thought of them before success, to remind me to press on as they did.

Most people in the world would agree that one of the greatest imaginations belonged to Walt Disney, a man who bought the unimaginable to life. Early in his career, though, he worked at the Kansas City Star newspaper where he was fired for “lack of creativity.” If Mr. Disney believed his editor or any other critics we would be robbed of the magic of Disney today.

Oprah Winfrey was once fired for being “unfit for TV”; Abraham Lincoln had numerous failed businesses and in his youth went to war as a captain and was demoted to private; and 27 different publishers rejected Theodor Giesel’s Dr. Seuss’s first book. The fabric of our culture would not be where it is today if these leaders didn’t thicken their skin and take rejected for what it is, an opinion, and keep pressing on.


Never stop trying. Never be afraid of failure. Don’t rob of us of what you have to offer. Be BOLD. It's worth it!! 

~Amy