{"id":3102,"date":"2010-03-15T14:12:29","date_gmt":"2010-03-15T18:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/?p=3102"},"modified":"2025-03-28T10:51:53","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T14:51:53","slug":"why-i-started-elastic-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/2010\/03\/15\/why-i-started-elastic-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Started Elastic Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ttr_start\"><\/div><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/monkeyc\/94743526\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3505\" title=\"some people call me the joker\" src=\"http:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/gamble.jpg\" alt=\"some people call me the joker\" width=\"664\" height=\"248\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/gamble.jpg 664w, https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/gamble-300x112.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 664px) 100vw, 664px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n\\&#8217;\\&#8217;<\/p>\n<h3>For me.<\/h3>\n<p>Before I began writing this blog one year and nine months ago, I&#8217;d never published a damn thing under my name. My past writing experiences consisted of:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>scratching angrily in my journal<\/li>\n<li>dreaming up poorly-constructed and never finished <em>Lois &amp; Clark<\/em> and <em>X-Files <\/em>fanfiction<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>AND once I had left the tortured years of teen-dom<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>penning mildly clever marketing copy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When I decided to leave corporate marketing, and shape a business around my vision for my life, what I knew definitively was that<strong> I wanted to write more<\/strong>. At the time, I really didn&#8217;t care <em>how<\/em>, I just knew I needed to <em>do it<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>So, I thought, to practice and to aid in my ability to get client work for Elastic Mind, I would start publicly journaling all that I was learning about building my own business.<\/p>\n<h3>The idea, Innerpreneuring, came later.<\/h3>\n<p>I&#8217;d been brainstorming about my business direction for a month or so when I noticed <em>Geek Gods, Karma Queens, and Innerpreneurs<\/em> in the Marketing section of the bookstore. I had been hanging out in the Business section of the bookstore a lot, hoping that by osmosis I would be able to calm my fears and shape my business into one that didn&#8217;t totally suck.<\/p>\n<p>The word, Innerpreneur, kept calling to me, but the book seemed a bit silly, so I ignored it. I judged the book by it&#8217;s cover&#8230; and title. Shame on me. Obviously, on one of my trips I finally opened it, read the description of Innerpreneurs, and was completely compelled. Not only did it describe <strong>my vision of how my business could bring meaning to my life<\/strong>, it also described <strong>the exact group of people I wanted to work with<\/strong>. Eureka!<\/p>\n<h3>I&#8217;m no fool.<\/h3>\n<p>Having worked in Marketing, specifically online Marketing for years, I knew how the game works. When I learned about us, I knew I had found <strong>my niche<\/strong>, the group of people that I could create the most value for.<\/p>\n<p>I was still getting clear on what I could do best (at the time I was offering web content consulting) and discovering our group helped me to see that I wasn&#8217;t alone in my values or in my views on entrepreneurship, life and everything in-between.<\/p>\n<p>So I theorized that I could create <em>Rise of the Innerpreneur<\/em> and:<\/p>\n<p>1. Document my business growth and learning<br \/>\n2. Express my Self and provide myself with a place to practice and publish my writing<br \/>\n3. Help other like-minded business owners (and soon-to-bes)<br \/>\n4. Attract my ideal client to my <span style=\"text-decoration: line-through;\">web content writing<\/span> <span style=\"text-decoration: line-through;\">web consulting<\/span> <strong>strategic coaching and web development<\/strong> business&#8230; it&#8217;s taken me a little under two years to get clear on what I do best&#8230; and I still feel like I&#8217;m discovering it.<br \/>\n5. Be a portfolio of my web wizardness<\/p>\n<h3>But it was still a gamble.<\/h3>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t know if you would care &#8211; about my business, about my writing, or about Innerpreneuring &#8211; but I needed to take the chance, for me. It was what I felt I needed to do, for my happiness, and I trusted that.<\/p>\n<p>But it did seem like a decent bet that there would be at least one other whackjob Innerpreneur out there, like me, and that I could, perhaps, create some value in their life.<\/p>\n<p>Almost two years later, I and my business continue to grow, and it is exciting and frightening to see how my little gamble pays out.<\/p>\n<p><em>photo by: <a title=\"Visit monkeyc.net's Flickr page\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/monkeyc\/94743526\/\">monkeyc.net<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"ttr_end\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/monkeyc\/94743526\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3505\" title=\"some people call me the joker\" src=\"http:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/gamble.jpg\" alt=\"some people call me the joker\" width=\"664\" height=\"248\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/gamble.jpg 664w, https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/gamble-300x112.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 664px) 100vw, 664px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n[tweetmeme]<\/p>\n<h3>For me.<\/h3>\n<p>Before I began writing this blog one year and nine months ago, I&#8217;d never published a damn thing under my name. My past writing experiences consisted of:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>scratching angrily in my journal<\/li>\n<li>dreaming up poorly-constructed and never finished <em>Lois &amp; Clark<\/em> and <em>X-Files <\/em>fanfiction<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>AND once I had left the tortured years of teen-dom<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>penning mildly clever marketing copy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When I decided to leave corporate marketing, and shape a business around my vision for my life, what I knew definitively was that<strong> I wanted to write more<\/strong>. At the time, I really didn&#8217;t care <em>how<\/em>, I just knew I needed to <em>do it<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-being-an-innerpreneur"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3102"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11030,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3102\/revisions\/11030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}