Tag: sarah

The Best Pregnancy Things (Clothes, Tools, Tips) I’ve Found So Far

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

I knew I had to dig in and actually buy some maternity pants when I could no longer hike my yoga pants up any higher. With my old pants, I either gave myself significant camel toe (not attractive), or I ended up with a thick elastic imprint around my waist (not comfortable), or both.

More often, it was both.

Since my belly was going to continue to expand, and this wasn’t a case of “if I sleep 12 hours tonight, drink a lot of water and take a good morning poop, I’ll fit back into my jeans,” I realized it was probably time to buy some maternity clothes.

In retrospect, I don’t know why I was so reluctant — maternity jeans are THE BEST! Having clothes that fit, and are comfy, stretchy, and yet supportive is a wonderful feeling. When your body changes, find, borrow, or buy new clothes that make you feel great. It’s really challenging to feel good about yourself when you feel like crap in what you’re wearing.

(My friends who are not pregnant yet keep asking me to write everything down and record it for them, so these posts are for you!)

Here’s what I’ve found so far that I adore.

Maternity Pants

Maternity pants are actually not that fussy! They’re actually wonderful. Lots of pants nowadays look like regular jeans, but they have more stretch in them and come with an elastic waistband. I’m not a regular J.Crew shopper, but was surprised to find that they carry maternity clothes that come in tall sizes (win!). These jeans in dark denim in tall are perfect for people 5’10” and fit like skinny leggings. But look like jeans.

The Belly Fit Jacket Extender

My mother sourced this brilliant creation. Instead of buying new jackets to cover up your bump in the freezing winter, buy a jacket extender! It takes some finagling to find all the right zipper information (what’s a coil?), but your existing jacket should have zipper identity numbers on it and you can buy a jacket extender that’ll take your favorite winter coat and make it fit your belly — and your baby, once it arrives!

Belly Band

There are a number of options for $10-$15, but I found the reviews for the Bellaband to be the best and spent $28 on this Belly Band. It’s long enough to go over the top of your belly and tuck in below pants for a little extra comfort and smoothing out, and you can fold it down over your jeans if you’re just shifting sizes. I have some hip and pelvis separation happening, and having an extra band wrapped around my hips has been a relief throughout the day.

Maternity Shirts and Tanks Tops

These extra-long tanks and these short-sleeve shirred tops by Liz Lange for Target Maternity have been the perfect $10 top. Super soft, comfortable, easy to wear. (Hat tip to Kate Northrup, who shared these with me!)

Giant Underwear

Stay with me here. I got a great recommendation to buy underwear two sizes too big, and it has been one of the best things ever. Buy those low-rise hipster panties (I love Hanes cotton underwear for about a dollar each on Amazon), and buy them two (or three!) sizes too big. They will look absolutely gigantic on your bed when you take them out of the package and you will giggle and wonder how they will fit without falling off. Somehow they will fit like a dream, and your booty, belly, and expanding thighs will sigh with glorious thanks.

Storq!

While the clothing is a little expensive for me (socks and underwear at $34 a pop each? I’ll spring for the dollar kind), I splurged on the dress and leggings and they are divine. I appreciate their philosophy that simpler is better, and you only need one dress and one pair of pants to make it through your pregnancy stylish and comfortable. They are biased towards tall, athletic or more slender body types, however, and I find the pants to be a little thin (in between leggings and tights) — if you’re looking for structural support or you have a sturdier, shorter body, these could be annoying. (As a tall lady, I’m grateful for long pants!)

A Body Pillow

It takes up a lot of space in the bed, but it is also a divine luxury. As sleep becomes harder to come by, and your body harder to lug around (or lie down at all), having support all around you is wonderful. I’m using a borrowed pillow from a friend (somewhat like this), because you only need it for the later months of pregnancy, and I believe we’re passing the pillow around from friend to friend as one lady after another gets pregnant. In New York, space is very hard to come by, and storing a giant pillow is not something many people want to do.

Earplugs and a Great Eye Mask

They say that snoring is a side effect of pregnancy, and by month 4, I was not only snoring, but I actually snore myself awake now. Hence the earplugs — I get up enough to pee as it is, no need to keep waking up just to hear myself snore.

An Empty Plastic Bucket That Is Super Easy To Clean

I had some bad bouts of morning (and night) sickness, and would often be sick by the end of the day. Many of my dinners didn’t stay very long in my body. Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night and continue the sickness. (It sucks.) One thing that helped us was keeping a small plastic bucket by the bed.

We learned quickly that not making it to the bathroom or the kitchen sink was messy to clean up, and short bucket made it easy to clean.* (I’ll probably write a lot more on morning sickness and how I dealt with it in another post.) For now, an easy-to-clean bucket. And a husband or partner that will help you clean it out. I am so grateful to Alex, who said that if I could handle the vomiting part and growing a human, he’d do the duty of cleaning up after me. When I told him how much I appreciated it, he shrugged and said, “it’s gonna be this and then poopy diapers, right?”

*Alex, upon reading this post, said it might be worth mentioning that he got these aforementioned skills while in college, learning the value of an easy-to-clean bucket after a little too much of the boozy beverages. College, preparing you for parenting in more ways than you know…

A White Noise Maker That’s Also A Humifier

We use The Wirecutter and The Sweet Home for recommendations and they’ve consistently recommended this humidifier. We got it and it’s easy to use and clean, just need to replace the filter ($12) every now and again. Because of all the dryness of winter air and the fact that pregnancy hormones can clog up your nose and dry out your sinuses, humidity is very useful.

With regards to birthing and parenting advice:

The best advice I’ve received so far about planning ahead for birthing, parenting and setting up a nursery is this:

First, don’t buy that much stuff for the baby in advance

You don’t need a ton of things, and every baby will be different. In some cultures, it’s considered bad luck to buy things before the baby is born. (In American culture, we custom-design fancy nursery rooms for each new baby.) We’re of a more minimalist sensibility, and want to buy just enough, but not a million things. Almost everyone I’ve spoken with says it’s easy to drown in stuff, buy too much, and go crazy. The baby doesn’t need as much as we buy for it.

You won’t know how big your baby is going to be either, so if you can, don’t go crazy on clothes. My mom told me that none of us fit in the infant-sized clothes, so if we did get things, start with 3-6 months sizing and go up.

That said, a few shopping trips here and there really woke us up to the reality of what we’re doing, and opened up conversations about who we want to be and what we want in our family.

Try not to turn the pregnancy into (too big of) a research project

My friend Lindsay offered one piece of advice that I loved: “The birth will last you ten, twenty hours or so. Parenting will last forever. Right now you have time to read and explore. Read more about parenting than birthing!” I LOVE this advice and reminder.

Lastly: have people around for moral support

I still think our hyper-connected world still misses out on deeper connections, and my energy in New York is focused on developing closer, more meaningful relationships with people I love.

There is no substitute for having good conversations with pregnant ladies a few months ahead of you for timeline logistics of when to do stuff. Ditto for having conversations with ladies several years ahead of you for moral support and cute pictures and reminders of why we’re doing this and that it’s worth it.

Slowing down to connect across the world: two sisters, reconnecting. {Guest reflections by Easkey and Beckey-Finn Britton}

Posted on by Sarah K Peck
Easkey Tree Hugging
 

You immediately inspired me to have a ‘slow morning’ – get my body moving with some gentle, nourishing stretches and movements (from Dad’s routine!), make French press coffee and sit on the deck in the morning sun thinking nothing at all. Spying some wild blueberries on a nearby bush and foraging for my breakfast… Hope you get in the sea. I walked barefoot today, too.

– Easkey, October 2014

I was grateful my big sister, Easkey, decided she wanted to do this with me out of all the people in her world. For the first time in a long while I saw things for what they were, an amazing chance to connect with a sister whose path in life zigzags all over the world, exploring every nook and cranny, while mine follows the river, always flowing forward, always at home within itself. It was a chance that could not be missed. – Beckey-Finn, October 2014

Quiet whispers of intuition: seedlings, writings, and an idea.

It was hushed and quiet during the late Fall of 2013 in brownstone Brooklyn; the outside world was damp and leaf-strewn. I curled up at my writing desk inside my new apartment, warm yellow lights casting into the early darkness each afternoon as I carved out a new routine in a brand-new city. That night, I scribbled down a few ideas for a series I wanted to create.

Grace… and openness, I sketched. Movement and being. Presence. Gratitude. I jotted down some notes, catching ideas into my moleskine. Practices that move your body, open your mind, encourage you to reflect, connect, nourish. A series of letters, or emails. Something to connect us. Something deeper than just writing. And I love writing.

But could I do that by email?

And would anyone want it?

Quiet whispers of intuition don’t come stomping and shouting into my life.

They come briefly, a light wind, a stretch here and there, an idea that pops into mind while I’m journaling. It’s as though my adult self turns around in my chair to see a five-year old’s whimsy and curious eyes, asking me to come and play. If I shut it out, it runs away.

Our intuition doesn’t shout at us until we’ve really misbehaved.

Luckily, I listened.

I scratched and scrawled, wrote and edited, and made a new adventure — a two-week guided journey, a series of stories delivered from me to you, virtually, in this magical process that the internet lets us have.

Into my journals went the story of what I was making. Out onto the screen came an email. I pressed publish, that tantalizing blue button that still scares me, and went to sleep.

That week, people responded to my whisper. In fact, it was the highest course enrollment I’d ever had, and for a program I still didn’t quite understand.

We all took a breath and jumped in.

This was the Fall of 2013.

ISW_HEADER_Gratitude and Grace

Grace and Gratitude: A Journey Inwards

It’s been a year since I launched the first series, and in the space in between, thousands of emails have been quietly delivered to inboxes around the world with prompts to pause, stretch, listen, and weed out space in your life and mind. I follow the journeys and the progress through email letters, instagram photos, and I even get to form new friendships with lovely souls who join in and understand what I’m trying to do.

Over the course of the last twelve months, I’ve heard beautiful stories from hundreds of people around the world. “Thank you,” they share with me. “This is exactly what I needed.” One woman wrote in to tell me that on the last day of the course, she conceived — after several years of infertility.

In the journey, I ask people to soften to their inner heart, to listen to their spirit whispers, and to find happiness in the life they have all around them. Sometimes, we just need a new frame with which to see.

And today, two sisters (and friends of mine) shared with me the journey they took together, last Fall, on their own Grace and Gratitude journey. I’ve opened up my blog to them as a guest series and a window into the power of gratitude. They’ve inspired me so much, and I hope their stories inspire you as well.

Meet Beckey-Finn and Easkey Britton: Two sisters who decided to share a journey together to experience gratitude, open to grace, and reconnect to each other. They’ve both written their stories — here’s what can happen when you open your heart.

Easkey and Beckey

Two sisters. One journey, one moment at a time.
Part 1: By Easkey Britton

Dear Beckey-Finn: I don’t want or need anyone to tell me it will be alright (because I know it will) but I feel shit and want to be ok with that for a little while… until it passes. I realise it is so much easier to have gratitude when we feel happy and so much easier to have self-pity/loathing when we feel down. I look forward to looking inward with a fresh start tomorrow (I thought today would be my fresh start but it didn’t happen) with gratitude for all that I am. For now I’m Easkey – tired, sore and a little sad. Already feel better having shared this with you!
— Easkey, March 2014-11-04

It’s been a year of grace and gratitude, a journey shared with my little sister, Beckey-Finn.

I live a nomadic lifestyle that takes me far from home throughout the year, and it sometimes makes sustaining and nurturing a meaningful connection with those I love most challenging, especially family.

We know they aren’t going to abandon us, we will remain sisters for life and yet it is too easy to take that bond for granted. I didn’t want us to drift apart, I wanted to find a way to share with her those parts of my life that only a sister could understand, even if we couldn’t be together all the time and instead of feeling there would never be enough time to catch up on all the important things we were facing and going through in life.

Sarah’s Grace and Gratitude course offered the perfect opportunity for us to reconnect and by sharing the journey, make it stronger for both of us. Ideally we ‘d do this in person, create a lovely space, wrap up together on a sofa, candles lit, other times it is by Skype or email writing our thoughts – giving and receiving. It is a practice that has strengthened our bond beyond imagining. With my restless, nomadic existence and her home-grown life, instead of drifting further apart we are closer than ever. It hasn’t always been a smooth ride but we hold each other accountable, finding the yin to our yang.

My Grace and Gratitude practice has been an expansive heart opening process. A kind of release brought about through powerful, and sometimes painful, letting go.

“Weeding out the weeds” – the practice of letting go of what no longer serves me – has left space to cultivate a practice of simple, creative habits and a safe space for those monthly check-ins with my sister.

It has allowed me to slowly begin to live with greater honesty that comes from truly listening to ourselves, each other and the world around us.

There have been many times I’ve felt on the edge of being broken but instead of pushing harder or becoming consumed by the need to control the outcome, our Grace and Gratitude practice has reminded me the power of process: the process of being kind to myself and giving myself permission to feel however I feel and be ok with that, to just sit with it and breathe a while. 

Sometimes my Grace and Gratitude practice is more subtle and less explicit.

Grace is more subtle, but equally powerful — if not more so. I understand it as a dynamic dance.

It’s about getting grounded, presence, conscious mindfulness, an exercise in Be Here Now… my mantra became ‘make space for grace’ by weeding, de-cluttering, clearing, literally and figuratively.

Space to let go, grow and for creativity to flourish.

One of the practices asks you, “what will you do to listen to your heart?” It became okay to stop doing what I’ve always done if it no longer served me, no longer lit me up deep inside. I discovered I didn’t have to stop to be still but could find my stillness in movement, or as Nithya Shanti so beautifully described it, “be steady in movement and discern flow in stillness.”

My Grace & Gratitude practice has taught me how to be kinder to myself and to give thanks for my gifts – where I’ve come from and all that I’ve already don’t. Before I rush to the next big thing, my Grace & Gratitude sessions with my sister remind me to reflect, to look at where I want to go. And to know that I am already enough.

Easkey Power Pose

Some of my favourite G&G practices:

My ‘G&G power pose’: being grounded is very important to me because I’m so often full of ideas, facing forward, restless and constantly moving, living an unpredictable lifestyle.

Being in nature or connected to my environment is hugely important for me and makes me come alive. Gratitude has taught me the importance of making time for play and wonder.

So I like to be in the elements and feel the world around me through all my senses. I drink in the horizon, close my eyes and feel how the wind brushes my cheeks or the sun gently kisses the back of my neck. To feel the solidness of the earth beneath my feet, or better yet to go barefoot and dip my feet in the sea or wriggle my toes in the grass and stretch my fingertips skywards like a universal embrace. It teaches you how to live wholeheartedly in each moment.

My gratitude prayer: Before I go to sleep I name the one thing I’m most grateful for that day, the one thing that surprised me, and the one thing that touched my heart.

When we started last year we both reflected on what grace and gratitude meant for us:

It’s important to share gratitude. Grace is that feeling you get when you’re in sync with something. My grace is being able to take life, not necessarily in my stride, but with a clear mind and desire to be in that moment. It’s opening up to the universe and allowing it to shower you in whatever it has to offer and give.What surprised me is how many things I’m grateful for that I didn’t even acknowledge or think about or realise!

— Beckey-Finn, December 2013

I think vulnerability and humility are the sister and brother of grace and gratitude. Grace is not turning a blind eye to what we have the power to change. Grace is acceptance, surrender and letting go… it’s knowing when to say no thank you so you can say yes tomorrow…grace is being open to change, to the unknown, embracing uncertainty, honouring our humility and vulnerability. Openness. Space. Standing tall. Moving from the core but with fluidity. Smiling.

— Easkey, December 2013

Going forward, I want to keep working on practicing ‘creative habits’, to explore and learn more about mindfulness (or blue-mind-fulness, how to incorporate my experiences and insights from the sea and surf to better understand myself and others) and to listen better to myself and others. 

I’m a water dancer and a wave maker.

A seeker and explorer.

Freedom and passion are the code I live by.

Grace and gratitude are my compass.

I’m so happy for your transformation, guidance and opportunity to share with you Beckey-Finn.

Love and gratitude,
Your big sister
Easkey

A sister-sister journey of grace and gratitude
Part 2: Beckey-Finn

It all started with a bit of a random email from my big sis asking if I wanted to take part in the Grace and Gratitude course. My initial thoughts were a lot of ‘ehhhhhh… huh?! Sounds a bit weird!’

But it was right at this moment that my Grace and Gratitude journey really started. I was graceful in opening myself up to the experience instead of shying away. I was grateful my big sister, Easkey, decided she wanted to do this with me out of all the people in her world.

For the first time in a long while I saw things for what they were, an amazing chance to connect with a sister whose path in life zigzags all over the world exploring every nook and cranny while mine follows the river, always flowing forward, always at home within itself.

It was a chance that could not be missed. 

My Grace & Gratitude practice has been a journey to the expanse of the ocean. It has opened me to moving with the rapids, twists and turns of my path while still maintaining the laid back flow of who I am (the trick is to dive in deep where it’s calmest).

For me, it is a journey that happens beneath the surface of who I am, beneath the day to day of my life, something that has become a part of me.

Being a journey it has been easy, tough and everything in between for both of us but meeting each other in whatever way we can on the first Sunday of every month gives us the space to really reflect on the month gone and the month to come. This is important to me, as I am a very reflective person but now have less time in my life for it. So, I always know that I will have that space at least once a month with someone I can trust absolutely and completely with my heart and soul. 

What is most incredible about our monthly Grace & Gratitude practice is that we are forever finding what we need in these moments within each other. I have learnt to live more dynamically, dancing with grace, accepting the opportunities that present themselves even if they take up my time, which is second nature to Easkey. And she has learnt to stop, breathe in gratitude during the pauses that present themselves in her busy life instead of filling them which is very me. I realise more and more we bring out the best in each other and have become a great support for each other where there never seemed to be enough time and space to do so before.

You immediately inspired me to have a ‘slow morning’ – get my body moving with some gentle, nourishing stretches and movements (from Dad’s routine!), make French press coffee and sit on the deck in the morning sun thinking nothing at all. Spying some wild blueberries on a nearby bush and foraging for my breakfast… Hope you get in the sea. I walked barefoot today too. — Easkey, October 2014

By continuing to practice Grace & Gratitude we have realise that there are these themes in our lives that we struggle with. For me it is time and for my big sister it is space. By having grace and gratitude practices, and creating this time and space for each other, we have learnt to harmonise better with these themes. Working with them instead of fighting them.

Life Pie

Some of my favourite G&G practices:

Creative/body moments: I take little moments out of my workday to doodle on my doodle wall or to do some stretches on my yoga mat (usually with my cat, Fin, joining in). Taking that moment to be graceful in a little bit of play and give some gratitude to my body.

100 happy days: This was a challenge I decided to do when I first started my business in January this year, taking a picture of something that made me happy or grateful that day. It has made me far more aware of all the small things I am grateful for in my day to day that got overlooked before Grace & Gratitude. I spot these things all the time now.

It is so important for me to continue to have this in my life. Every month it grows and I want to incorporate more active practices which Easkey is very good at such as the life pie and soul collaging.

Big sis, every practice and every chance we get to reflect makes me more and more grateful to have you as my sister! 

Big hugs,
Lil sis
Beckey-Finn

Beckey-Finn Britton is a filmmaker and longboarder from the North West coast of Ireland. She hails from the Britton surfing family in Donegal where life evolves around the sea. She works as a Creative digital Media Consultant at her own business, Bexter Productions, and has recently started working with coastal environmental organisation, Clean Coasts, as their digital media and community engagement officer.

Easkey Britton is an internationally renowned professional surfer, artist, scientist and explorer from Ireland, with a PhD in Environment and Society. Her parents taught her to surf when she was four years old and her life has revolved around surfing ever since. She is co-founder of the non-profit Waves of Freedom which uses the power of surfing as a creative medium for social change.

When you’re tired, worn out, beleaguered, scared, underfed, miserable, alone: a reminder. #dosomething

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

IMG_0118

I don’t care who you pretend you are.

I don’t care so much who you
pretend you are
when you’re well fed,
well dressed,
well slept,
put together, prepared,
And so called ready…

When the polish is fresh and the face
newly painted, airbrushed layers
covering freckles, pock-marked skin
with storied layers hidden;
the script locked on papers in hand,
it’s less interesting, this version.

No, see, I care who you are when you’re
tired, worn out, beleaguered, scared,
underfed, miserable,
alone.

I want to know
who you are when you’re not
caught up in the throngs or masses
styling yourself around other idols or dreams,
chasing a relentless reality of productivity in some Western idea of
what is Good.

No, I care you you are
when your soul flutters a bit and smiles,
when it sparks at the strange language of tender raindrops on dewy skin,
shivery hairs erect in the water’s spotlight, goosebumps
whispering hello to the wind.
When your feet fight to do the darndest, weirdest things, those
“silly dreams” and things no one else thought of; and
you almost don’t let yourself think them either,
because they’re strange, different, or seem
too obvious to you.

I care who you are when the world isn’t watching,
when the lights are down and
your hair is a scattered mess and
sweat stains pool in your armpit creases and
the sour smell of unwashed skin is the forgotten leftover of
your ambition’s messy chase towards your project, the thing at hand.

I want you (you want you)
crazy, tender, raw,
different, unique, silly, strange,
whatever you-ness is you, under
all that posture, pose and pretend;

My eyes flicker with green fragments of light against the roaring
C train’s metallic brakes squeal to a grunted stop
when I see the tendrils of humanity stream
uncannily in and out of subways, trains of thought
departing from each mind into the stuffy underground air,
mixed with kiosks filled with sugar and chips and
magazines of big-bottomed ladies tantalizing the sexual fantasies of thousands,
a cesspool of potential ideas, waiting,
for ignition, for permission,
a start that begins within.

In this, this messy
pursuit and nonlinear pattern-chase of never-ending arrival,
things fall down and apart,
logic feels lost and you feel so messy that you wonder,
is this it, am I doing it right,
am I doing it right?

Because who you are then —
when the worst conspires against you —
or the doldrums of daily commuting monotony threatens to close your creativity
when you’re lost, confused, meandering, processing, contemplating, cultivating,
this, this, is the essence of your humanity.

Show me who you are
when the ladder slips, when
you miss the subway by a moment, when
your face cracks, painted black smears blurring clarity tears
on makeup-caked cheeks, showing the beneath, when
your friends leave, departed for otherworlds
or better promises, when
your project busts, your pants rip down the center seam,
your mind breaks against the weariness of repetition,
and you breathe it in anyways, and
find a smile to give the departing train, and
hug your friend a tearful departure, and
laugh at the failed pants debacle and somehow,
you pour out gratitude and kindness and
showcase the kind of humanity that
is built from resilience,
grace,
pressure.

If you can do it then,
if you do it when
it’s not easy, –hah! easy—
when it’s difficult,
my eyes shine and spark with fierce
love for you, my sisters,
my brothers,
my partners,
my fellow humans,
working in the thick of it all
to find compassion, to showcase fierce grace,
to find the love deep
in the center of it all, to be
full of life.

If you can do it when
it’s a struggle, a hustle,
you can do it any time.

there is power, grace, and love buried inside
of the fiercest form of grace;
swimming taught me this—
when you’re tired, scared, unsure, insecure, and think you can’t:

do it anyways,
do it because you have no right,
because the odds are stacked against you;
because your mind plays tricks
and tenacity builds your soul

because adversity shouts You Can’t, You Can’t,
yet you still fucking can,
so
why not,
do it anyways.

And then
go on,
do it better than the rest of them,
knowing that if you do it now,
through this,
in spite of this,

then you can do anything.

do something.

How do you combat loneliness? A brand new talk at ALIVE in Berlin + an epic scholarship opportunity worth $400.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Loneliness by Deviant Art

How do you deal with loneliness?

The problem with my first job wasn’t the job itself—it was how few people I knew at the company. In most structures throughout my life—family, school, college, sports—we bonded as teammates and community members because of shared goals, ideas, and dreams. Yet at work, I barely had friends. Perhaps it was the age disparity; the fact that people started quietly only a few days per year, or because we didn’t have a common lunch area. Being busy chasing financial goals didn’t help, either. At the end of my first year, I found myself tired, alone, and unsure of what I was contributing as an entry-level employee.

I made a vow to change a few things. I joined two sports groups—a morning swim team and a triathlon training group. I signed up for my first yoga community practice. And I started going to events. I found meet-up groups, lectures and workshops, and conferences to attend. In one year, I met more than 500 new people—many of whom are now, ten years later, some of my closest friends.

What is loneliness? Where does it come from?

What is loneliness? Where does it come from, and why do we experience it? How can we combat it—and better yet: why is it useful?

For the past year, I’ve been researching loneliness, community and the power of connectivity, and I’ll be debuting a new keynote at ALIVE in Berlin this May looking at the structures that create loneliness, why community and connectivity are so important, and what we can do to help reconnect both to ourselves and to other people. As a bonus, I’ll also be teaching a workshop on the power of connection—and tips on how to connect with other people through understanding the physical body (your posture and stance); through your story (and what you say); and by being open and asking questions.

One of the most important ways I’ve met new people and found my tribes is through attending and joining conferences that gather like-minded people together. From WDS (Portland) to Big Omaha (Nebraska) to The Feast (New York + Global) and TED (Global), each time I’ve taken the jitters of traveling alone, taken a deep breath, and tried to meet kind faces and reach out and extend my ties to the world by meeting more of the humans we share space with.

[tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck @aliveinberlin”]The strength of your life comes from the people you surround yourself with.[/tweetable]

 

Alive in Berlin Banners-Jana+Sarah

What does a woman who lives with hens and roosters on a farm out in the middle of England decide to do after building a thriving virtual and in-person coaching practice? Start a conference, of course.

Jana Circle
I met Jana Schuberth at the first World Domination Summit (one of my favorite conferences—you can check out the yearly recaps as a testament to the experience). We both wandered through Portland, Jana with bare feet, me in my yoga clothes—and chatted about nutrition, exercise, paleo diets, motivation, and personal development. She’d made the trek over to the States from Loughborough, England, and our late night chats meant it was an instant kinship—we still chat by Skype as often as we can schedule it across projects and time zones.

I had a chance to sit down with Jana and interview her about her story, how she writes, and the challenges of blogging. As she says, “I’m probably a bit crazy to be doing this all, but I looked around and I really wanted the WDS experience here in Europe.” She describes chatting with a mentor about wanting someone to build similar conferences in Europe and her home country, Germany; to which her mentor replied:

“If you really want something like this, you’re going to have to be the one to build it.”

[tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck @aliveinberlin”]“It’s your job to build what you want to see in the world.”[/tweetable]

With a bit of excitement and nerves, she realized—Yes, that’s it. Somehow, we’re going to throw a conference next year. Alive in Berlin was born.

Alive in Berlin Banners—1

Alive in Berlin: A global conference for change-makers

I have a soft spot in my heart for do-ers and makers; and this conference aims to collect them in one space. If you’re curious about the conference, check out Alive in Berlin (and read the end of this post for an incredible scholarship opportunity to the conference).

Some things to know: The conference is in Berlin. Registration fees are £349.00. Dates are May 30-31. It will be gorgeous Springtime in the epic city of Berlin (I’m staying a few extra days to explore the city—I’ve heard the street art is phenomenal and the late night dance parties epic, in addition to exploring the cities’ rich and vibrant history).

From the ALIVE team:

“Alive in Berlin is not just about getting a temporary hit of inspiration, it’s about making deep connections and coming away with a solid plan of action. Rather than leaving with your head in the clouds, overwhelmed with information and ideas and ultimately coming back down to earth with a bump, we want you to feel confident, re-energised and ready to wholeheartedly step all areas of your life up to the next level over the long-term.”

“The two-day event will include 8 brilliant expert speakers from a wide range of disciplines, space throughout the weekend for relaxed conversation and interaction, daily Q&A sessions where you can interact directly with many of our speakers and coaches, and opportunities to get active and involved for those who want to. There will also be a chill room and coffee corner to relax, reflect and take time out if you need to!”

Together we’ll explore the common threads that connect us and make us come alive.

And the EPIC April Giveaway: One scholarship space to ALIVE in Berlin—all the details (and a short application)!

Want in?

The thing about conferences is, they often cost a couple of bucks. I know—one year I went to 24 different events—from Big Omaha to The Feast to WDS to Startup Weekend Los Angeles. I was averaging a conference or event every other weekend—and I was exhausted. And it was the bulk of my eating and entertainment budget for the year (let’s just say I ate a lot of granola bars and hardboiled eggs).

But I wouldn’t change that year for the world.

The thing about conferences is, they’re also one of the best places to meet new people. People in your tribe, people who speak your language, people who have what you want, people who want what you have to offer. Sometimes it’s a late-night chat and a fitness conversation; sometimes it’s a life-long friend, sometimes it’s the right designer for your project or a place to crash the next time you travel to that new city.

[tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck @aliveinberlin”]Finding your tribe—people who understand you—is life-changing.[/tweetable] As adults, there aren’t as many opportunities to mix up the sandbox and say hello to knew folks. To meet new friends. When you have the same job, the same commute, and the same screen every day, our opportunities for adult summer camp and friendship quickly dwindle. Conferences are places to let you come out of your current storyline and try a new route for your own adventure.

As a bonus—because I’m a speaker at the event—I have one scholarship ticket to ALIVE in Berlin to gift to a lucky reader in this community.

If you’re itching to go to Berlin, to shake up your life, or find a new community, one lucky winner will get to win ONE ticket to the conference.

How do you win? Here’s what you’ve gotta do:

  1. First, leave a comment down below! Tell us a conference story: what have conferences done for you? Where do you find and meet new people? What’s been the best event for you so far?
  2. Second, share this post. Heart it, tweet it, post it, write about it. Simple. Click to tweet: [tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck @aliveinberlin]Epic April Giveaway: One scholarship space to ALIVE in Berlin![/tweetable]
  3. Third, apply for the scholarship with this application form.

Winner will be picked on Friday, April 11, 2014. Turn in your application by Thursday, April 10, 2014. You have one week to enter—good luck!

The scholarship is for £249 off the ticket price. The scholarship ticket will be £70 (to cover basic event fees + registration fees) towards the ticket price. If selected, you will have one week to purchase the ticket.

[tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck @aliveinberlin”]Bravery is encouraged. Authenticity rewarded.[/tweetable] Tell us, what makes you come ALIVE?

To listen to the full interview with Jana Schuberth and Sarah Peck, listen here:

Words to Fill Your Mind: The Power of a Mantra

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

The words that fill our minds…

We all have words that we cycle on repeat in our minds—from worries about being late to songs we sing or words we repeat. Don’t be late, don’t be late, don’t be late, we repeat to ourselves as we rush from subway to office to meeting to appointment. Gotta finish, gotta finish, gotta finish—it builds across our mind like a chant, a pull to keep us focused long enough to finish the day or the project.  

[tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck”]”What we think, we become.” —Buddha[/tweetable]

What is a mantra?

A mantra is a basic sound used in meditation and chanting, and more simply, in our daily lives. At its root, a mantra means “mind tool.” The root man– means mind; tra- means protection or instrument. Anodea Judith, in The Wheels of Life, describes a mantra as “a tool for protecting our minds from the traps of nonproductive cycles of thought and action.” She writes:

[tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck”]“Mantras serve as focusing devices for making the mind one-pointed and calm.”—Judith[/tweetable]

Have you ever heard a young kid gleefully say the same thing over and over again? “This is so COOL!” They exclaim, only to repeat the same thing again a few minutes later, and again a few minutes later. Our minds hold words and ideas captive, guiding our thoughts with simple patterns that we often repeat on cycle. Sometimes it’s negative:

Dumb, dumb, dumb. That was dumb. Why did you do that?

And sometimes it’s positive:

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Nailed that! Whooo! Yes. Awesome. Awesome, awesome. 

And sometimes we get a peaceful song noted in our minds—a song that sticks, webbed words woven into our invisible frameworks.

Oh what a beautiful morning… Oh what a beautiful day…

Try it yourself:

A beautiful way to start your day is with a small mantra. Try a notecard taped to the side of your bed, a post-it on the inside of your wallet, or a scribbling on your daily diary. One of the reasons I write so many notes and doodle all over instagram is to remind myself and repeat words as I imprint them into my being.

What phrases would you love to embed in your mind? What new mind patterns and habits would be soothing or helpful? Perhaps during times of stress, “This too shall pass;” or “This is just but a moment.” These short phrases are powerful tools to build into your inner mind strength. Sometimes I like to hum to myself, “zoom in, zoom out,”—the vibration of the z buzzing against my lips, the mmmm a buzz deeper in my ribs and belly. (Try it: humming is delightful).

[tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck”]”Zoom in, zoom out. It’s nothing in the macroscrope, it’s nothing in the microscope.”[/tweetable]

The vibrations of actual sound — joyful noises, as I like to call them — do more than just warm up our vocal chords. They are a means of expression, and they help to settle our mid-bodies.

How do you use language to protect your mind? Do you chant, sing, or hum each day? Do you have a phrase you love to hold on to?

What words are you telling yourself? Listen in.

The Write Life’s bundle: massive sale for writers!

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

The Writer's Bundle: Epic Resources

Writing is powerful stuff.

I teach several writing courses as a tool to gain insight into your inner wisdom, access your inner soul, and pen your own stories. If you’ve been itching to write, yesterday I shared several of my favorite resources in the March edition of my behind-the-scenes newsletter.

Today, I’m excited to share a few more awesome resources on writing, publishing, and marketing that you might love. If you want to know learn more about publishing, writing, building your own business, and marketing from some of my favorites—Seth Godin, Jenny Blake, Chris Guillebeau, Ali Luke, Alexis Grant and more—keep reading.

The Write Life Bundle—an epic steal at $79:

Want to know more about publishing, creating kindle books, marketing your book, developing your business, promoting your work, and engaging your audience? The Write Life packs a powerful punch in this bundle of nine different e-resources—a collection of books and courses that normally runs for more than $700 individually.

The bundle features:

  • Chris Guillebeau’s Unconventional Guide to Publishing (ebook and audio, retails for $129)
  • Jeff Goins’ How to Start Publishing for Kindle (ebook and audio, retails for $47)
  • Kristi Hines’ The Ultimate Blog Post Promotion Course (course, retails for $197)
  • Jenny Blake’s Build Your Business (course, retails for $75)
  • Tom Ewer’s Paid to Blog (course, retails for $29)
  • Sophie Lizard’s The Freelance Blogger’s Client Hunting Masterclass (course, retails for $98)
  • Alexis Grant’s Social Media for Writers (course, retails for $99)
  • Danny Iny’s Interview on Building an Engaged Community (audio + transcript, exclusive)
  • Ali Luke’s The Blogger’s Guide to Irresistible Ebooks, plus Publishing an Ebook Audio Seminar (ebook and audio, retails for $29 + $19.99)

The catch? It’s available for three days ONLY; the offer expires Wednesday, March 19 at midnight EST. That means if you’re interested, you’ve gotta act now!

Click here for more details and to get your hands on this bundle.

What is it about writing that’s so important?

People ask me why I teach a writing course.

To me, it’s so much more than writing. Writing is just the surface.

My deeper belief is that we’re all in need of connection to ourselves, as well as connection to each other. Writing, marketing, copy—it’s all just a way to tell stories and share them with our tribes. With the people that matter. When I look around, I see too much loneliness and disconnection. In plain English this means we’re kind of miserable, kind of bored, and kind of lonely—and we don’t know why.

Writing is one of the many tools we have to connect more deeply into our own inherent wisdom—and to tell stories that connect us to other people. Sometimes we forget how extraordinary writing is. It takes us out of our heads and lets us share a part of ourselves beyond our physical presence—we can share our ideas and our words in a space where other people can connect and learn about who we are.

Because of this, I’m sharing the writer’s bundle—for you to keep writing, of course!

Seth Godin’s Marketing Master Class—Another crazy steal at $10 for the class:

Want to learn more about mastering marketing with one of the all-time best marketers to date? Seth is offering another great skillshare class, available for $20 (or only $10 per student if you use my link). The course covers the following aspects of marketing:

  • 11 questions about your role and your leverage;
  • An action theory of marketing;
  • The 14 “P” words that you need to know;
  • Specific marketing concepts and exercises;
  • Case studies in action.

$10 for a marketing class with Seth Godin?

Crazy. CRAZY SAUCE. Am I right?

Previewing next summer:

But what about your courses, Sarah? When are you teaching again?

Awww, thanks for asking!

Many of you know that today’s the day I wrap up teaching three different courses—our Writer’s Workshop, the Content Strategy course, and the Grace & Gratitude courses that I’ve taught this Winter quarter. It’s been a pleasure and a joy to journey together with more than 160 different faces through each of these workshops. After 3 months of back-to-back teaching, I’m editing and refining the program and will be brining out the next round of courses sometime later this Spring or early Summer (mark your calendars!).

Until then, go get your hands on one of these amazing programs, and — keep writing.  

Are you letting the numbers deflate you?

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

The thing about numbers is, we give them far too much power to make us feel bad. “Only” have 100 people reading your blog? That’s like speaking to a jam-packed coffee shop or on stage at a live speaking event.

Alexandra Franzen reframes the expectations we have around blogging (and online writing) and I think it’s so spot-on that I have to chime in. You are enough. Ten people is enough. Your audience of 45 people is fan-freaking-tastic. FORTY FIVE PEOPLE! That’s a lot of people listening. [tweetable hashtag=”#story #numbers #data @sarahkpeck”]Stop letting the numbers tell you a story of inadequacy.[/tweetable]

As Theodore Roosevelt said: [tweetable hashtag=”#quotes #inspiration #joy @sarahkpeck”]Comparison is the thief of joy.[/tweetable]

People often ask me how much traffic you need before you start a business or a project. We get discouraged with low traffic, thinking that somehow we’re not “good enough” if we don’t have thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of people listening in. The secret is that you don’t need 10,000 people reading you to make a sale to 30 people. (In fact, that’s a pretty low conversion rate). If you’re doing something that helps someone else, then one sale, one client, or a small classroom might be all you need.

We’re so eager to hyper-glorify the entrepreneurs who are billionaires and the writers who reach hundreds of thousands of readers that we gloss over the beautiful middle, the delicious space where you get to express yourself, connect with others, and share your work. There is nothing more beautiful than this. Delight in the expression and the sharing. Show your work. Love your audience, in all its shapes and sizes.

It’s about connection, creation, and expression—not traffic.

I made a business out of teaching 30 people at a time in workshops. I coach people one on one. I feel honored when one hundred people read an essay I wrote. I feel the same when one person reads what I’ve written. Start small. Walk into the room. Be proud.

And also, traffic isn’t all that it seems: there is an ironic downside to too much traffic. [tweetable hashtag=”#truth #business @sarahkpeck”]Too much traffic can be a downer for your growing business.[/tweetable] It costs money, and then you end up paying for people to listen to you. Some examples: when you hit 2,000 subscribers, you need to pay your mail client (if it’s MailChimp) $30 a month to keep sending your emails. When your traffic gets high enough, your web hosting might turn into $50-$100 a month. Those U-Stream videos cost $99-$999 for viewer hours, so 4,000 people watching can cost you thousands of bucks. SoundCloud lets you do 2 hours free—then you pay.

You get the picture. If you want a big audience, you might have to pay $200-$500 a month (or more) for it.

There’s something beautiful about medium-sized.

Just like Alexandra Franzen so beautifully re-frames: there’s something gorgeous about your own personal coffee shop. Cherish it.

 

Hustle is a dial, not a way of being.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

There are appropriate times to hustle in your business. Sometimes you’re hustling for a year or two on the side, creating your escape route and freedom business to jump ship from your corporate job.

Sometimes you stay up late and hustle the night before a course launches, or when you’re putting the final tweaks on a project before a deadline. Sometimes you hustle in between gigs, moving across the country, lining the highways in a bus, or getting from bookstore to bookstore to sell copies of your book.

Hustling, however, is not a way of being.

Many professions and careers (and managers, unfortunately) make hustling an expectation. Too many companies create expectations that people will work non-stop, jump at an email, and stay up late with very little advance notice; this is hustling as a result of poor planning, not as a result of the ebb and flow of project schedules.

With few exceptions, hustling as an expectation and a way of life—when you’re staying up too late and waking up early again the next day, time and time again, without an end date—is not sustainable. You’ll get sick, fall into depression or adrenal fatigue, contract bronchitis, or want to quit. The advent and appeal of lifestyle design comes not from people who are lazy but from people who are fed up. People who want to regain a bit of control over their time and want their efforts to matter.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, an employee, a self-directed freelancer, or a consultant, constant hustling isn’t always indicative of a great environment. There is such a thing as too much hustling.

Hustle is a dial. Dial it up, ratchet it back. A mode that you can press to apply a bit more pressure, and ease up when it’s time to rest.

Hustle is a dial—play it up, pull it back.

Play it like an instrument. Step on it gently or firmly like a gas pedal. Know when to apply the hustle. Know when to apply the brakes. (Brakes are there for a reason, and it’s not just to slow down).

And as a counter-point: if you’re not hustling, I suppose it’s time to find something worth hustling for. Once in a while. It’s alright to love something and want to work on it a lot. Ratcheting up the dial can make downtime so much sweeter.

But if you’re hustling non-stop, it’s probably time to step back.

Your life is a set of made-up habits.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Your life is a set of made-up habits.

You learned how to behave by doing something, and then repeating it hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands of times until it became normal for you. When talking to one of my yoga instructors the other day, he said: “Want to change your personality? Just do something 1,000 times and it will feel like it’s you after a while.”

You learned how to tie your shoes one way, and then you did it thousands of times. You learned how to ride a bicycle, swim, dance, hold a pen, write in cursive, and use a computer — or if you haven’t yet, you might still want to.

You can change, make up things you want, do new things. It’s totally up to you. Once you realize how weird you are currently — from the way you organize your bathroom to the times and frequency of eating to dropping clothes on the floor randomly — you can decide, hey, I want to be weird in a NEW way.

You can set your radio to wake you up to chants, decide to go running at 4AM and then go back to bed, begin a writing habit even if you’ve never done it before, or decide to start Tae Kwon Do at age 48. It takes us a bit of new energy to start a new habit, but it’s not impossible.

The biggest thing holding us back from doing new things is a frail set of patterns that tell us we are what we already have done.

Screw that. It’s a big open empty canvas in front of you, and you might have to scratch a little to climb out of your past, but you really can shift and change.

You are your habits. And your habits can be changed.

Making Money as a Creative Entrepreneur: How I Make Money, Where I Spend My Time, and What I’ve Learned From Launching My Own Ventures

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

When I was four weeks old, my mother and father took our then-family-of-four from Germany to Idaho Falls, little baby and tiny toddler in tow. We were standing around in the living room, as my mother recalls (to be be fair, I can’t recall and I certainly wasn’t standing—more likely drooling), talking about the insane temperatures sweeping in. My grandfather looked out the window at the temperature: it was minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Indoors, the heater warmed the house to 70 degrees.

“That’s a temperature differential of 100 degrees on either side of that glass pane,” my grandfather remarked, tall and lanky, white hair puffing out of each side of his head.

“That’s pretty impressive,” he chuckled.

Across the states, temperatures have been dropping and reeling – with 40-degree changes in mere hours as cold fronts sweep down invisible air channels and smother cities with their frozen molecules.

As a small-business entrepreneur, these temperature swings are analogous to the feast-and-famine cycle that can be all too familiar when you’re getting your business off the ground and becoming friendly with the ideas of cash flow, budgets, expenses, projections, and launches.

Dealing with the volatile ups-and-downs of entrepreneurship: it’s a bit windy out there.

Some days and months are big days full of courses sold, booked with clients, resulting in high-cash-flow months. “I’ve made it!” You think, gleefully, unwilling to look at how much you’ve spent to generate that cash flow (and just how far it really goes—because if you knew that it would only last a couple of months, you’d be back on the streets selling again the next day).

Other months are buckle-down, negative-zero income periods where you spend what money you have on resources and materials that you need (labor, equipment, time, skills)—in order to invest in and make what you want. It doesn’t matter if you’re a brick-and-mortar shop owner, an online retailer, a consultant, or a freelancer—creating a life you love involves seeking and finding customers and clients, understanding the highs and lows of business, deciding what you need to spend money on now and what can wait, and—for better or worse—’making it work.’

“Make it work!” — Tim Gunn.

So how DO you make your money as a creative entrepreneur?

What does it take to branch out and start your own side hustle, business, or creative endeavor? As a long-time “side-hustler” who started both a consulting practice and more recently an online teaching business, I’ve been invited to participate in a “blog tour” of people writing about their reflections on life as an entrepreneur.

While I still stumble over the words “entrepreneur” and “founder,” I’ve started a number of projects that have turned into profits. This month, as part of the Laser Launch Blog Party, Halley at Evolve-Succeed asked me to contribute to a collection of stories from small-business owners with all my tips for making your first and second year as a business owner fun and profitable. This post is part of a collection of essays with reflections, wisdom, and lessons from the journey it takes to become an entrepreneur.  (If you’re curious about the rest of the collection, check out the footnotes at the end of the post to see more.)

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at what I’ve learned so far about “making it” as a creative entrepreneur. Some of the questions people ask me all the time include:

  • How are you making your money right now as a creative entrepreneur?

(Right to the point: they want to know where the money is — and I don’t blame them! Things in life cost money.)

  • What were some of the biggest surprises about starting your own business?

(Oh yes, there were plenty).

And often longingly:

  • I wish I could do whatever I wanted—do you get to just sit around in your pajamas? 

(Hah! I wish. Nope, that’s not my life right now). 

I wish I could say the last one were true — except I love learning and creating far too much to sit around all the time. In addition, the job of finding, getting, and retaining customers is a full-time job, so while I might write early in the morning in my pajamas and preferentially wear yoga pants during the day, I don’t just sit in my pajamas at home all day (and we don’t have a TV at home, either).

A quick disclaimer: I don’t have the magic recipe for everyone, but I do have a few nuggets of wisdom from learning and making mistakes along the way. Take what you will and enjoy.

Getting started (money-wise) as a creative entrepreneur:

As I shared with Brazen last month, these are the big 3 things you need to make it as a creative entrepreneur:

  • First: reduce your costs.
  • Second, save a bit of runway (emergency savings), and
  • Third, start with a side hustle to test your ideas.

People often think you need a big plan, a giant 30-point strategic framework, or have it all figured out to get going. The reality (in my opinion), is that you start small, test and iterate, and get smart about not spending too much money where you don’t need to.

First, reduce your costs — live on the cheap:

Live minimally. Gain freedom from your job by not needing the paycheck. The more expensive your lifestyle, the riskier it is to jump to something new and uncertain that could have a potentially low income at start. The more you can reduce your overhead, the less risky it is to make that jump.

“The more expensive your lifestyle, the riskier it is to jump to something new and uncertain that could have a potentially low income at the start.”

If you want to start something new or break out of a dead-end job, follow the path of the Ramen-eating hackers who live cheaply. If you live an elaborate lifestyle, you may burn through your paychecks. See how much you can cut.

Make it a game. Buy a $75 sewing machine and give up buying clothes for a year (which is something I did—and now I don’t buy new clothes very often, if ever). Learn from the family in San Francisco that lives with no trash. Eat on the cheap. Give up restaurants and alcohol for a year, or even a few months. Track all your purchases and decide whether that night out with friends or new pair of shoes is more valuable to you than your freedom.

The nomadic entrepreneurs who live around the world and work from anywhere are often working in places where the cost of living is low. They’re not somehow richer than everyone else; instead, they’ve often worked the airline systems to get thousands of frequent flyer miles and travel on the cheap. The life they’ve built is incredibly inexpensive, making the need for a giant business (and lots of possessions) unnecessary. My fiancé and I talk about and analyze ways to live with less—figuring out what we truly “need” and what makes us happiest, often discovering that things are not synonymous with happiness. The more I interview and meet people as well, the more I realize that the happiest people don’t “have it all”—they have what they want, and skip the rest.

Sound like too much to give up? Consider how much you want to leave your job or chase your business idea. What’s it worth to you? How much do you want to start this business? When you want it, you’ll make it happen.

Second, shore up your emergency savings for when you *will* have low-cash-flow months.

This is part two: save up a nest egg or a “freedom fund” while you’re on the job, if you can. Cobble together several different income streams (bartending, teaching, coaching, waitressing, and many other side hustles kept me in positive cash streams).

When I started my first job after school, I actually made less than the cost of my rent and loans. In order to make it work, I picked up two side jobs: teaching swim lessons on the weekends and tutoring high school students in the evenings after work by posting an advertisement on Craigslist as a geometry and algebra tutor. That extra $200 a week was my savings and food budget, and I was able to save a little bit each month—and eat. [tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck #money #freedom http://dev.sarahkpeck.com/money”]To get started on your next project, create a freedom fund.[/tweetable]

After a year, I had saved $4,000 on the side from little side jobs. It was just the cushion I needed for the next step: several months where I used that same night and weekend time to concentrate on tweaking my side business endeavors. Soon I started making thousands of dollars on the side.

More recently, I left San Francisco to head to New York to start my next business adventures. To make it happen, I sold my car for $12,000 and had about the same amount in liquid cash savings that I was willing to use towards building my next set of projects. I also tested the projects I wanted to build in advance, demonstrating that people were willing to buy what I wanted to make—and then, not leaving until cash flow was positive and knowing that the buffer funding was there for the variant months of lower-than-expected income (or higher-than-expected costs).

In an ideal world, you’ll have about a 6-month buffer so you don’t work month-to-month, but in the real world, you do the best you can. Nearly every one I’ve talked to has said it takes longer than they expect to generate consistent income—so that cash savings helps during the buffer months when you’re making money—but not as much as you need. [tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck #money #truth http://dev.sarahkpeck.com/money”]The less your life costs, the longer the money lasts.[/tweetable]

The lower your expenses, the longer you can stretch your savings. If every paycheck goes straight to paying your expenses, consider taking on a small side job to boost your income, even while building your project.

Third: build it as a side hustle, if you can.

Does it make more sense to start your business from scratch or build it as a side hustle?

I recommend that everyone have a side hustle. It’s called moonlighting, and it’s a great way to test whether something you want to do is feasible. For some it’s a paper route or a nail salon job; for others, it’s taking care of elderly on the weekends, for me, it was teaching swim lessons and tutoring high school kids. It’s a great space to make a little side money, keep your options open, and develop your skills in a particular area when you’re thinking of changing careers.

[tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck http://dev.sarahkpeck.com/money”] The best time to try out your new project is now.[/tweetable]

Test the market viability by seeing if there’s any traction for your ideas, and tweak each iteration a bit to improve the offering. Perhaps you want to start a side culinary and health business. Set up evening showcases on the weekends for friends and family and let people know you’re doing a cooking class at a discount to raise awareness. Pitch your services to local vendors. Offer to teach at a high school. Spread the word about private lessons.

After a couple of months, reevaluate and see if you’ve made a profit. Tweak your project to build something people want that you also enjoy doing. If you need to, stay home and do things no one else is doing to make it work.

How do you know it’s time to finally take the leap?

There are times when you need to make the leap without a nest egg, without changing your costs, and without a plan. This happens, and people make it work. Sometimes the intensity of the jump forces laser-like clarity and an immediate reduction in expenses. But [tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck http://dev.sarahkpeck.com/money”]if your goal is to set out on your own by next summer, start building your business and reducing your overhead right now.[/tweetable]

Most folks running their own businesses and building the life of their dreams are always in the process of doing that — running and building. These are active verbs, which take time, energy and innovation. It’s not about pulling all-nighters or creating an endless stream of energy; it’s about being smart about building something a little bit at a time.

People who are working on new projects or problems aren’t immune to risk. But they’ve mitigated potential risks by using strategic tools, building up their savings, creating clever cost-saving lifestyles and forming plans to tweak their systems to get what they want.

Leave your job when you need more space in your business or venture and when you have a few leads. I knew it was time to head out on my own after I made almost half of my full-time income on the side—I decided to trust that if I put my day-time energy into my side-hustle, that I’d be able to make up the difference. I also kept trying to get my expenses down to make it easier to make the transition.

If you can save a little, cut your costs, and test your ideas on the side, you’ll be excited about what’s ahead because you’ll have already planned for the risks and confirmed that project has the potential for success.

How I started teaching online and in-person:

I’ve always loved teaching and coaching—from one-on-one tutoring in high school to assistant teaching in graduate school. After I left school, I kept teaching by signing up for workshops and events and volunteering my time to run events.

I started teaching on the side—in the evenings and on weekends—by putting up an advertising on Craigslist as a tutor, by pitching conferences and workshops as a workshop leader, by running lunchtime events at my company, and by reaching out to places like General Assembly, Skillshare, and Udemy to work with them. As I built both my teaching experience and reputation over several years, I was able to test my curriculum, build ideas, practice presenting, and later teach more through my own website.

What if you have savings and a side hustle, but you like your job? When did you know it was the right time to quit your job?

I liked what I did in my day job—I got to manage the communications and work on our marketing efforts at a 200-person architecture firm. It had it’s own challenges and entrepreneurial endeavors—we created a new blog, redesigned a website, and launched a journal from scratch, and I got to work with some of the most respected names in landscape architectural design. It was intense, demanding, and rigorous. 

Yet I knew I needed to leave when I got too tired I couldn’t see straight, and when enough people were asking me for what I had—and I couldn’t answer their responses quickly enough during my night hours.

(It was also convenient that my then-boyfriend and I decided that living in the same city might be nicer that cross-country dating, so the universe conspired to get me to head out to New York. Life tells you to move and change, if you’ll listen to the call). 

Financially, I knew it was the right time to work for myself when I was able to draw clients, fill up my classes on a regular basis, and when I wanted to chase the next challenge in front of me.

What do you do now as your business—how do you make money?

Ahh yes, the money question. (I suppose I thought I could get away with not answering this!)

I do three things: I run a teaching and media company (SKP Media), I consult, and I coach. From time to time I take on additional creative and collaborative projects as well—depending on what needs to be made in the world, how much time I have, and how exciting (read: “Hell Yes!”) the project is and the people are.

SKP Media is the bulk of my current time and energy. It’s where I teach writing workshops, content strategy workshops, and my newest course—Grace and Gratitude, a two-week course on cultivating kindness and gratitude in your life. We have sold-out (and over-sold) each of the courses, and during teaching months I spend a fair amount of time interacting with participants, reading and grading, running the program, and researching new examples to share with the crew.

This is where I spend about half my time, and it brings in about half of my yearly business income. With this business income, I invest in teaching equipment, the fees and hosting charges for each of the platforms I use (in addition to processing fees), pay taxes, hire a teaching assistant, and collaborate with a number of other freelancers (like proofreaders, web designers, and graphic designers)—who help get everything up and running. It’s important to note—business revenue is not the same as income, by any means. If my business is making $60,000, I might only be paying myself $30,000 depending on the variables of expenses. So reducing your expenses and living costs is a great way to help in the early stages of building.

In addition, I consult from time to time with clients who are interested in publishing, writing, content development, and social media movements—my typical clients are people interested in developing their own thought leadership platforms, need help running a multiple-month PR campaign, or want help understanding and developing their social media and content strategy.

I also take on a select number of coaching clients if there’s space in the schedule, but I’ve been keeping this part of my business quite small as I ramp up the teaching and media company, which is taking up the majority of my time at the moment.

It should also be noted that not all time is spent on activities that make money directly—writing, for example (such as this post) isn’t something that necessarily generates a lead or a sale directly, but takes a fair amount of time. Learning how to balance business-generating activities with other activities that don’t directly generate income (writing, social media posting, meeting people at conferences)—is a balancing act, and one that’s been subject to a lot of finessing.

What else do you spend your time on?

The above strategies for how I earn my income and spend my time add up to about 60-70% of my time—but I spend a fair amount of time writing, as well (as much as 30-40% of my time, if I’m lucky).

I write about 100,000 words on this blog and my essays annually, and I write an additional 30-40,000 words for each of the various program platforms I create as well, which doesn’t include the amount of writing that’s left on the cutting room floor when I go back to edit and revise.

Each morning I get up early and write, for as much time as I have time in my schedule. (Some days are booked solid with client and teaching work, so my writing window is from 7-8:30AM before my day gets off to a roaring start). Other days are luxurious when I spent 7AM—11AM writing, before getting in to begin my work. I still have a habit of writing on Friday evenings and Saturdays, as those times are “me” times that are often undisturbed by regular work calls.

There are other parts of my life that take up significant portions of time — sleeping, eating, meeting with people face to face, yoga teacher training, traveling — but this list is focused on what I do in my business life.

What about you? Do you have any other questions about making money as a creative entrepreneur?

What have you done that’s worked? Do you have any advice for small-and medium sized business owners that would be helpful?

Leave a note in the comments! 

For more from this series on entrepreneurship, small-business success, and business wisdom, check out the posts going live this month over at Evolve and Succeed.