Transforming…

Transforming…


I see now this space, this blog, was originally created by me as a place where I could feel free to express myself, perhaps for the first time since I was a young child. A space that is sacred to me, it has brought me much joy as my life has unfolded and transformed over the past eight years since I created it. What began for me as a vision of working for myself and of having the space to write, has grown and transformed into where I find myself today. I’m similar, yet completely different. Renewed with clarity and more in touch with the innerpreneur within.

Now feels like the right time to share with you all I’ve been creating, molding, and birthing in the background and in the foreground as I’ve continued to transform…

I’m Seven Month Pregnant…!!

With a little girl… She’s my first child and she’s already teaching me so much about motherhood, about nurturing, about self-care, and about healthy, loving, and firm boundaries. I look forward to meeting her on the outside but in the meantime, I’m enjoying baking her and nurturing her from within. She is absolutely my wildest, most exciting, and most terrifying adventure yet.

I’m Publishing My First Book, Pay What It’s Worth: You Don’t Need to Set a Price on Value, with Integral Publishers…

Available this Winter 2017.

A brief description: What kind of growth could be possible if you didn’t set a limit to your business’ value? In “Pay What It’s Worth”, Tara Joyce provides you with an elegant framework for understanding how not setting prices can be a viable strategy for your small business, and guides you in consciously exploring your relationship to money, to other people, and to exchanging value. Imagine… integrity as your most valuable wealth creation tool.

My ebook, Pay What It’s Worth: Building Your Sustainable System for Not Setting Prices, has been expanding since it’s birth a few years ago into a full-fledged book manuscript, Pay What It’s Worth: You Don’t Need to Set a Price on Value, that I’ll be imminently publishing with Integral Publishers this coming Winter. The manuscript has undergone a looooong, s-l-o-w publishing process with many starts and stalls, but I’m confidently feeling the shared momentum behind the book and it’s publishing now. You can stay updated on its availability here and I’ll certainly be sharing more on it as things continue to progress.

I’m Releasing Cross My Heart, My Digital Fiction Series on August 4…

A brief description: Join the (strange) adventure of two world travelers bringing to light the beauty of the dark—making the invisible, the unknown, visible.

With 4 of the story installments available to read now, and the rest premiering August 4, Cross My Heart: Strange Adventures in Vancouver, is my first foray into fiction. I’ve decided to share the story the way we used to with radio serials, releasing a new installment of the story each week, beginning August 4 and continuing into November. I plan to expand the story into an ongoing series of stories, but for now, you can join the adventure and subscribe to read the first story here.

I’m Crafting Precious Metal and Stone Jewellery…

For the past year and half, I’ve been learning about the value and properties of gemstones and the art of crafting precious metal bracelets and other jewellery items. I began custom making bracelets for my friends and family before setting up an Elastic Mind Crafted shop last year. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of crafting bracelets for women throughout the world that uniquely support their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs. I plan to soon begin crafting necklaces too and I’d love to make you the piece of jewellery you need. Though Etsy doesn’t allow Pay What It’s Worth pricing, I’ve done my best to price my bracelets accessibility and fairly.
Elastic Mind Crafted | Aquamarine & RubyElastic Mind Crafted | Moonstone

I’m Advising More, Co-Creating Less…

I love working with my clients and supporting them in creating their marketing communications, yet for me part of having and holding this space is investing in these people and their work. When I was designing and developing with them, along with advising them, it was very consuming to the point where I lost my own focus for a while. I couldn’t make space for the projects that mattered to me personally, and ultimately, with time I realized I needed to make some adjustments in my business if I was going to. I needed to step back and reassess. I needed to find a better balance with my client work and my own creative work. Which led me to return to my very original business offering, communication guidance and advisory support—helping you to get clear on what you need to say and how you need to say it to best connect with your ideal client. Which leads me to my newest offering…

I’m Offering Editing Services…

I realize I love supporting you in a different way in saying what you mean, in the form of editing your communications so they more clearly connect with your reader. I’m still formulating my editing service offering but you can learn more here in the meantime. And please do not hesitate to connect with me should you feel I can be of support to you. I’d love to help.

I’m Obtaining My Real Estate License…

I love property. Homes. Land. It’s in my blood. My parents run a residential real estate brokerage here in my hometown of Toronto, and its within this business and industry that I first learned to design and develop marketing communications. My husband and I are interested in growing into investing in property and developing a vacation rental and property management business. To aid in this vision, I’ve been in real estate school for the last year and I’m now in the process of obtaining my real estate salesperson license.

What I’m coming to understand about the innerprneuer within is she’s diverse with interests and I no longer feel the need to tone this down, nor deny it. What I’ve needed is the space to expand into each of these varying interests and to allow myself and them to grow from there.

As ever, I continue to transform…

xo,

photo credit: Jian Xhin

Sharing the Responsibility of Not Setting Prices

Sharing the Responsibility of Not Setting Prices

InvestInSharing

Recently, there was an interesting experiment conducted in not setting prices and charitable giving, by UC San Diego Rady School of Management and Disney Research. Conducting their experiment at a popular roller coaster, using post-roller coaster action photos as the item to be valued, they found not setting prices to be a viable pricing strategy and social responsibility strategy for companies–when the customer’s willingness to give is stimulated.

While the study focuses on stimulating generosity in a charitable setting, the study’s findings can be applied to any relationship and experience-based business. The researchers found when a customer feels more connected to what they are giving to—and in choice about what/how much they are giving—the more willing they are to give. When buyers know their money and generosity will benefit something specific, such as a charity, or someone specific, such as the business owner, they feel a more tangible and human connection to the value their giving is creating, and in turn, the more open they are to giving—and giving generously.

The study concluded not setting prices could be a tool for creating opportunities for “shared social responsibility” and this shared responsibility may provide the critical sustainability component that is often lacking in current social responsibility strategies. Fascinating.

photographed in my hometown of Toronto by Toban B.

An Economy of Scarcity?

An Economy of Scarcity?

photocredit: Paul Nicholson

Economic theory is based on the assumption of scarcity – why is that? Aren’t we, collectively, always creating and printing more money? It’s not a limited resource, so why do we use it like it is?

We can’t run out of it. It’s not clean water. Or pandas. We make it, and we can always make more of it. So why should we believe and act like it’s going to run out?

I make a conscious choice to live in a world of abundance, not scarcity. And that includes money.

In Paying What It’s Worth for the value you receive, you shift the traditional supply curve (based on scarcity) to one based on abundance. In not setting prices, you remove the false ceiling that’s been placed on your value, maximizing your return potential, and removing any self-imposed limits to it.

So why not forget that economy of scarcity story? Its plot is full of holes.

photo credit: Paul Nicholson

A Middle Way

A Middle Way

It appears that there are only two paths.

To think of YOU or to think of ME.

One, I give with my heart too wide; the other, with my heart too closed.

There is a middle way. A place in between.

A place where my heart is open, and it is protected.

A place where I can be free to give, and to receive, the value I add to this world.

There is a middle way.

3 Approaches to Exchanging

Asking For Support

Asking For Support

Fund Pay What it's Worth

I’ve heard it before. Maybe you have too.

I’ve heard that in order to truly thrive, as a business owner, and as as human, I need to learn to ask for what I need.

I need to ask for support.

I’ve heard it before, and I’ll hear it again.

And I’ll keep on hearing it because it’s true.

And because it’s a lesson I need to learn.

I need others in order to thrive. I can’t do it alone.

We can’t do it alone.

I need your help.

And you need mine.

However we choose to offer it to each other, our support connects us.

As a reader, my words support you; as a writer, you support me by experiencing my words.

I need your support to grow, just as you need mine.

I need to ask you for what I need, just as you need to ask me.

And whether it is provided it a whole other story, and entirely not the point.

The point is the recognition and the asking.

So here I go… deep breathe…

Would you like to support my crowdfunding campaign for “Pay What It’s Worth”? I self-published the book and I need your support in funding the creation of printed softcover and ebook formats.

You’ll be rewarded for your contribution with a copy of the book (and other lovely rewards), and help enable an evolution in the way we do business and make purchases. The campaign ends on August 8 at midnight.

For the next four days, to support of the final days of my campaign, I will be publishing an article each day in support of you, in hopes that you may support me too.

I love you. Thank you for supporting my writing by reading.

TJSignature