The driveway is a composite of crushed snow and rusty nails waiting for my tires.

It's been a long week. A week of grumpy roofers, who I did not ask to replace my roof in the snow in January, but who are replacing my roof, in the snow, in January.

She is an old house. She is loving and warm, though her joints ache more than they used to when the weather turns cold. I did not give her this old roof. For the decade I've lived under her she has kept me more dry than worried. But age finds cracks in time.

October's is-that-a-weird-shadow, turns into a that-definitely-wasn't-there-before spot, to hand wringing quick patches, to an cacophony of leaf blower wielding roofers hammering their lamentations into the downy fluff of January.

I did not ask my roof to leak. I did not ask the roofer's to come in the cold and the snow. Yet here we are.

But even in this there is magic. As I stand in the mocking snow my eyes fall on a new, dry roof. The labor for this roof paid for with labor of my own.

My job is a form of magic. I have dreams and ideas, electrons bouncing around in my head, which I take out and put form to. My half remembered childhood creek beds, transmute into the pungent ammonia/grass froth of a living indigo vat staining leather an inky blue. Which then gets molded into an object of art a weary traveler might rest their tired keys in, and for a moment think of the beach, or rain, or who they were when they bought it, filled with a little spark of half remembered childhoods of their own.

From one form to another, those electrons hop, passing from my mind, to the hands of another, to eventually the roof over my head, born from a dream I had once while I slept under it.

While I could stand here seeing the frustration, the cost, the worry of this roof, I instead make a choice. I choose to see magic. When I walk from the garage to the house I look up at my dreams made manifest, covered in a light dusting of snow.

In this too there is magic.

It starts out grey and wet. A fall morning in what should be winter. As the day sloughs off its hours the air becomes visible. It is forty five degrees out, but it's that wet cold that gets into your bones which is somehow colder than the dry air of winter.

The day is a Wednesday, but it doesn't really matter. We are in that border time between Christmas and New Year's when the kids are home, the morning is slept past, and things get done in their own time.

The fog has become a presence outside the window. The kind that makes you want to go outside and stand in it just to feel what it's like when it touches your skin. I decide it's time for a walk so we bundle into several layers of not too warm clothes. Enough to keep the wet out but let the air in.

The woods we walk in are old but manmade. A nod to the nature that stood here once. Yet the trees are tall and wet, making their own rain in big fat drops that plunk down on duff below.

The three of us together are all in our own worlds. I'm ambling along listening to the air, the closeness of a train going by, my eyes scanning the tree branches for a hawk or an eagle to impress the kids with. Drinking in the empty space that is so often occupied by the motion and noise of parenting. My daughter, the youngest, is running ahead. Loud and animated, she wants to show us all the spots she explored during her summer camp here. For once to be the one with experience and secret knowledge. My son walks between the two of us. Shifting back and forth between the child he still is and the adult he will become. Sometimes he runs ahead with his sister, joining in the commotion. Sometimes he lags behind, thoughtful and observing. Serious for someone just days past his ninth birthday. As I look at him I can see hints of the man he will become. Fascinated by the world around him. I hope he remembers days like this. To buoy him when the world gets heavy. If I can give him anything it is these moments.

It's hard to keep them in this world. My daughter's legs begin to tire with her emotions. Soon we aren't going fast enough, or too slow, or not looking at the right things, or her brother is too far ahead and not waiting for her. I stop and ask her what she can smell right now. Then what she can feel touching her skin. With that I've brought her back in among the trees.

As we walk my attention is split. I'm watching for wet rocks and issuing warnings about leaning too far over to look at the running water. I'm also thinking about this border time between holidays when not much gets done. I'm well acquainted with the space between times. The expanse of responsibilities required in parenting is populated by long stretches of time where you can't do whatever you want but you have to do something. Time spent between being who you want to be and who you need to be.

Like the undefining fog we walk in, this place in time is unfocused. We walk until we feel done. When our hands become wet and cold we head back into the dry warmth of home.

In its lack of definition the fog has given rise to a quiet magic. A place where the trees foreboding loom, headlights glow in fuzzy yellow orbs, and the calls of excited children get mixed in with the cries of birds. In this undefined time we get a chance to shed our outlines and be just a little bit of nothing at all. It is here in this place that I leave memories for my children to find when they are lost on their way to defining who they will become. A quiet magic, made on an indistinct Wednesday that could have not mattered that much at all.

It snowed last night. I woke up to a wet pack of snow two inches deep. When it came down it brought most of the fall leaves with it.

It was a little sad. Bittersweet. I sat there looking out the window thinking about how soon I won't be able to hear the wind in the leaves anymore. Just the dry whistle of winter wind in the bare branches.

With the leaves buried under snow and the grey skies of Cleveland winter it will be time soon to put away to cyanotype materials. Any ambitions will have to rest until spring brings reliable sunshine back.

This could be a source of frustration, but I enjoy it. The second half of fall is like watching a friend pack their moving boxes. Every moment is savored, recorded, stored away.

For an anxious person like myself it's a chance to enjoy what is around me. I spend so much time living in the future in my head getting to stop and take a moment to smell the wet leaves is a respite to my running thoughts.

I think this is part of the reason why I make the work that I do. Good art is about saying the things we don't have words for yet. My cyanotypes are recordings of that fleeting moment when chance, and weather, and time, and personality come together and make something beautiful that will soon pass. Quiet magic gleaned from the edges of suburban lawns.

I was at a large family gathering over the weekend. While sitting around and talking about life in general one of my in-laws asked what was the hardest part about running my business. I thought about it. My response was "deciding to keep doing it every day." I could see the look of confusion cross their face. Why not production, time management, budgeting, advertising, or something more mundane? What do you mean deciding to keep doing it every day? Does your job suck that bad? Your business must not being doing so well.

My father has a saying. "Working for yourself is easy. One day you get out of bed and decide to not go work for any one else. The hard part is that every day after that you have to get out of bed and decide to not go work for any one else."

Production times get better as I do. Time management is something that will sort itself out. Budgeting and advertising are all problems that can be solved. The plague of questioning yourself is something that will never go away. Am I doing the right thing? Is this worth it? Wouldn't it be easier to just get a normal job? Should I feel guilty for not just going with the flow? Could I be doing better?

I love my job. I love what I have done so far. I love all the possibilities it presents for the future. I also have days where I wake up and think, "am I really going to do this again today?"

When you are your own boss you have to learn to be your own cheerleader. You have to learn when to give yourself a break or cut yourself some slack. You have to learn how to keep going. You have to learn to remind yourself that today you took a step forward from yesterday. Tomorrow you will take the next step forward again. Every morning when I wake up my business is failing until I get up and get it working. I have to ask myself, "am I really going to do this again?" Then I get up and do my best to make sure that when I have to ask myself that question again tomorrow I can think "Look at what you did yesterday. What can you do today?" Because if you are your business then without you there is no business. Take pride in your work and keep one eye on tomorrow. The future is filled with uncertainty and questions with out clear solutions.  The only real answer is, "Yes, I'll try again today."

I get to hear a lot of justifications about why people should "Buy Local".  Some of them are actually quite good. Tax revenue, keeping money in your neighborhood, supporting a growing community. Sometimes it's just a bullshit reason to drive up the price of something. Let's be real here, I love to support local businesses, but I don't think that the $7 I just spent on some fancy cheese is going to repave the potholes out front. I am notoriously practical and I have a slightly different view on why someone should make their purchases from a local business. Let's start with the total opposite. You know those late night ads you see on TV? The ones for the kitchen gadget that can deep fry a turkey and then turn it into a low calorie smoothie that the whole family will enjoy? Do you know what their business plan is? To successfully sell a product. Think about that sentence. They don't have to sell a successful product. It doesn't have to be well made. This is because they know a few things about you. A) If you buy their patented Turkey Smoother you will only ever need to buy one. B) If you buy the Turkey Smoother and hate it, statistically, you will not go through the hassle of returning it. C) You will realize the pointlessness of a Turkey Smoother after the return period has expired. They don't need to sell you five Turkey Smoothers. Just one. They don't care if you ever buy from them again.

Let's look at my business plan. My reach is not global. My reach is local. My reach is about as far as I can stick my hand out to shake yours. That is how I met most of you. I handed you my card. You have a friend that knows me. I was recommended to you by someone else. If my plan was to just sell one thing to each person I met  I'd be out of business in a year. By staying a local business I am holding myself accountable to those in my locality. This is because I can't afford to loose customers. I have to make a product that you are happy with. I have to make something so good that the kid bagging your groceries asks where you got it. I have to make something so good that you will tell him. That you will remember my name. That you will come back and buy again. That you will bring your friends with you when you do.

So that is why I buy local. It's not just to add to the revenue stream of a local community. It's because I know that the person I'm buying from really cares about what they are making. They care because they have to. They care because they want to still be selling them next year.

As an owner of a small business I've had to learn to tackle the world of social media over the past year. While it is a powerful an effective tool for any fledgeling entrepreneur, I also worry that it is doing as much harm as good. In the interest a clarity I'm going to break this one up into three posts. Here is part One and part Two.

Part Three: Fair Weather Followers; Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Aplomb

Establishing the real impact and value of your business is important. Especially if it is a business that you have built yourself. If you have poured your heart and soul into a company, and that company is a reflection of your self, you want to know that people value what you have built. If you do any kind of business online this value is almost always measured by a series of customer interactions. This day and age your quality is measured by the number of "likes" (or follows/retweets/shares/upvotes/repins/or favorites) you can bank in a given day. When people try to establish the importance of their venture they might start by saying "I've got 120K followers on my Facebook page." Which sounds impressive. When they speak, over one-hundred thousand people will listen. That's power, right?

This actually reminds me of a phenomena that has started to die out recently. Up until the late nineties when two business persons met at a conference (kind of like the internet but with worse coffee) they might introduce themselves by saying something like:

"Bob Dallas, I own a sprocket factory in Boise that employs over 5000 people."

"Hi Bob, I'm Frank Newhart. I own a cog  franchise with 130 locations in the Tri-State area."

Theses numbers sound impressive when you hear them, but when you really think about what they are saying it's pretty meaningless. Are those 130 locations profitable? Are the 5000 people working for you doing good work? Do they care about their jobs? Take this example:

"Hi, I'm Bob Dallas. I have a company where 5000 people are doing work that could have been done by 1000. We are very inefficient and 4500 of them are just working there while they try to find something better."

A little less impressive, right?  Recently, internet industry gurus have caught on to this problem and have introduced a new set of metrics. It's called "conversions". A conversion basically means, I ask/you do. If I post a message, you share it. If I offer a coupon, you buy something. If I tweet something humorous you favorite it. The iGurus assume this to mean that your customers are engaging you and that all those Follows are adding up to dollars. This is the fundamental idea behind social marketing. It almost makes sense. Until you start to look at comparative analytics.

Analytics are a set of tools that let me see how the conversion process (gee, that sounds kind of menacing) is going. When I say "check out this page" how many people actually do? When I send out an email I can see the percentage of people that opened it (kind-of-but-not-really but that's another story). You can also set some comparative analytics whereby you identify as an industry and you can see how your rates compare to others in your field. That is when the truth really starts to set in. In my industry, an average mailing list blast has an open rate of 24% and a conversion rate of 4%.  That is the rate set by industry leaders that have office buildings full of people who's sole purpose is to figure out ways to get you to click a link. That's pretty weak.

So 120K followers might sound impressive, but when you break it down it's not so great. Of those 120K followers 91K will ignore what you have to say completely. 115K of them will not be willing to use your coupon, click share, or comment on something you've posted.

So enough of the hypotheticals. Let's take a look at my Instagram account. At the time of this post I have 533 followers. Through my extensively insecure, self-doubting research I have concluded that this number is less than companies of equal mass in my field. If I further break that down, using common sense analytics, I can safely assume that  I can subtract a given percentage of those people right off the bat because they will never buy anything from me. These are people who will scroll past my pictures without reading what I wrote. People who are my kinda-friends but don't want to buying anything right now. People who followed me because I followed them.  (I see the follow-for-a-follow technique as the equivalent of bailing water into each others sinking ships.) People who are looking to copy my designs, ideas, or dumb jokes. People who need a little inspiration and are just looking at pretty pictures. People who don't speak my language. People who set up an Instagram account, followed my feed, and then never logged on again. And finally perverts (because any given population on the internet is at least partly kinky weirdos). I feel it's safe to assume that about 10-15% of the people that follow me will actually commit to buying something. Which, according to my analytics account, sets me well above the industry standard. So all that work for about 50 people. Why even bother?

Here is why I bother. Of those 50ish people that are willing to be "converted"  two of them saw a post on Instagram, showed up at one of my events, bought what I had posted, and then hung around (literally) to act as human ballast for my tent while a wicked storm blew in. (You know who you are if you are reading this. Thanks again!). Another one of those 50 people saw something I had posted and drove from Akron to Cleveland (30+ minutes) so that he could pay me in cash and therefore save me the credit card processing fees. Of those 50ish people well over 90% are returning customers (I still use restaurant lingo and call them my regulars). I know this because I know their names and faces.  I've met them. I've engaged in actual human interaction.

Sure, I could inflate my numbers by posting vapid lifestyle photographs in my feed. I could repost unoriginal material because it looks good and will earn me some likes. I could conduct surveys where I don't bother reading the answers so long as I can count a higher number of interactions. I could offer give-aways and gain (and then promptly loose) 100 followers in the hopes that a small percentage will stick around.

I don't though. Not just because it makes me feel cheesy, not because I'd rather be making stuff than posting about it, but because I'm not concerned about growing the percentage of fair weather followers on my feed. I'm more concerned about finding that 10% that will stand around in the rain with me.

My take away from all this. Be honest. Work hard. Make good shit. Of all the people in this world only a small percentage will get what you do. If you focus on staying true to what you do they will find you. Everything else is just noise and worry.

(P.S. Bob Dallas and Frank Newhart are just figments of my imagination and weren't harmed during the making of this post. If you are actually named Bob Dallas or Frank Newhart I'm not writing about you it's merely coincidence, but seriously, you should check out my Pinterest account. You might find something useful there.)

As an owner of a small business I've had to learn to tackle the world of social media over the past year. While it is a powerful an effective tool for any fledgeling entrepreneur, I also worry that it is doing as much harm as good. In the interest a clarity I'm going to break this one up into three posts. Part Two: Down the Rabbit Hole;  Don't Believe Your Own Hype

In part one I discussed social media as an alternate reality. The idea being that by continually witnessing a series of notable moments (staged or otherwise) you are hampering your ability to advance your own purpose. In part two I'm going to take this idea a bit further and look at what this alternate reality does when you become part of it.

When you really boil it down social media (and branding in general)  is all hype. You are basically taking your message (look at what I make, I like cats, I'm important, here is something that needs attention in the world, high school was awesome, high school is over...) and putting it out there in the hope that other people will be affected by it (they read it, relate to it, like you more, take action, buy something). There is nothing good or bad about this. As a business person it gives me a unique opportunity to educate people about what I do and why I do it. Obviously, hype can be used negatively. Like how the burgers in fast food advertisements don't look anything like the sad lumps of green/grey proto-meat you get at the pick-up window.  Don't get me started on the negative impact social media is having on our collective self-image.

As I have gotten more into the business of doing business I've started to tackle the hype hurdle. I'm focusing on better pictures, sharable nuggets about my business, packaging, my story and visual identity. Like everything in life, this will be a perpetual work in progress. What I'd like to look at is what happens when you get so caught up in nailing this one aspect of your business that you forget what it is you are doing. I'm going to do this via a real life case study.

The Bandana Bandito (not the actual name of this company BTW)

So I have been following a graphic designer on Instagram for a while. He has started his own line of of screen printed clothing and accessories. His message is one I enjoy. He has a really clean aesthetic. Lots of pictures of campfires, mountain sunrises, old trucks, making things with your hands, and quality old stuff. He got me; I moseyed over to his website. The website is solid too (lots of stories about travel and foreign places, Kinfolk-y pictures) and really well designed. I went to the store and looked over the products. They look pretty cool. I'm a big fan of bandanas (pocket sized functional artwork), so I picked one up.

A few days later the bandana arrives. Again the branding is spot on. The envelope it comes in is custom made, a nice linen bag with custom graphics, a cool looking free sticker, and a screen printed bandana. The bandana is lame.

The design isn't bad, but it is really poorly printed. More importantly the material it's printed on is plastic-y and see through.  Why is a company that markets itself as rugged and outdoorsy sending me this lame-ass man doily?

I don't think he is a huckster. He is not lazy. Clearly a lot of very hard work and long hours went into the message. The bandana was fairly priced in comparison to its competitors (about $20). I think he got lost in his own message. I hear the expression a lot "I'm not selling a product. I'm selling a lifestyle."  This is the new battle cry for branding on social media. I think that is a bunch of crap. I'm selling leather goods first and for most. Yes, my message is important, I want people to get what I am trying to do. First, however, I have to start by executing everything I make to the best of my ability. I constantly ask myself if what I am making lives up to the hype I'm trying to create for it. If the answer is "no" then it goes back to the drawing table. Because ultimately my message ends in your hands. My message will speak every time you use something I've made.

A solid website, engaging posts, jaw-dropping photographs, and perfect staging can be essential to elevating your brand. If what you are producing doesn't live up to the promises that you are making then you aren't "selling a lifestyle" you are shoveling something else entirely. Let your work speak loudest. Everything else can follow after.

As an owner of a small business I've had to learn to tackle the world of social media over the past year. While it is a powerful an effective tool for any fledgeling entrepreneur, I also worry that it is doing as much harm as good. In the interest a clarity I'm going to break this one up into three posts.  

Part One: An Alternate Reality.

The primary threat to a new business social media presents is one that usually starts doing damage before the business is even started. It is also a plague on any business that is still trying to find it's footing.

If you are anything like me, or if you are reading this on any social media platform, you probably spend a fair amount of time looking at other people's lives. If you are a small business owner, or are thinking about becoming one, you probably follow a lot of other business owners in your field. Their feeds can be very inspirational. Photos of well crafted leather goods perfectly staged on one hundred year-old barn wood that has  "I *heart* Judith 1911" carved into the bottom corner are part of what got me into this gig. Photos like that are also why I almost didn't start this business and why I have to reaffirm my desire to keep with it on a regular basis.

Okay now, stay with me here. There is this thing called the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which basically states that by observing an experiment we alter the results of that experiment. The way I see it, every business is an experiment. We come up with a theory of how to reach a goal (How do I make money?), come up with an experiment (make leather goods) and alter the procedure based on the results (write more blog posts).

Now we assume that we are accurately witnessing the results of that experiment by following along on social media. Pictures don't lie after all. This is the heart of the problem. Ignoring the fact that some of these pictures are painstakingly constructed by a staff of stylists/marketers/photographers/set-designers to look natural, the fact of the matter is that this reality is being presented by someone who is part of the experiment and has a vested interest in the results.  Assuming that the person running that feed is genuine and trying to be honest about their business, they are still making a decision that something is notable enough to be worth mentioning.

The result is that as a fledgling business owner, in a best case scenario, you are being bombarded with other people's notable moments. In reality most moments are not notable. Every hour isn't perfectly lit and surrounded by perfect decor. The people in your life are not always influential. Your kids are sometimes weird looking or boring. You have to sit there and write your return address on all your utility bills and sit on hold with the cable company. There is no lake with a tire swing in the backyard. The backyard needs to be mowed and the neighbors have ugly lawn ornaments.

The damage comes when you look at your life of relatively un-notable moments and feel like you are missing out on something or that your aren't in a position to be a real competitor.  It gets worse when you start thinking things like "I need move to Portland, rent a cool studio space, and then I can start my business the way it should be."

I had to come face to face with this a few weeks ago. I'm planning on relaunching this website sometime soon and as part of that I had a photographer come over and take some pictures in my "workshop" (read this with fully intentional air quotes around it).  At first I really didn't want to shoot here because the reality is that it is located in my sad, crappy basement. There is no golden hued light streaming in through barn windows. I've got glass block and fluorescent bulbs. There is laundry I haven't gotten to yet in the corner. My tools are not family heirlooms oozing patina. They are the cheapest ones I could find that would get the job done. For some reason I felt like I had to hide all of this. Like I wasn't legit unless I had a shop-dog napping next to a freshly baked blueberry pie cooling on the window sill complete with antique silver server.

Then I realized that is a bunch of crap. I started this business a little over a year and a half ago with $150. I turned that into a business that I can do full time. I have waded into the deep water and painstakingly hauled my life back on to shore. I've done it all in my crappy basement with my ugly tools.

You don't need perfect lighting, artsy tattooed friends, a rehabbed industrial studio space, a white washed house in the country, or a set of tools that look like they were last used by Noah while building the ark.

People do amazing things every day with what is available to them. Most of them don't even live in the Pacific Northwest. All you need is the desire for change, the will to take action, and the determination to keep moving forward. It may not always be pretty, but it is pretty damn notable.

I was never a very good art student. I would not have made a very good "A"rtist. The problem was that I was always far too practical.  I couldn't justify asking someone to spend money on my work when there was no practical benefit. You couldn't eat it.  It didn't provide shelter.  It wouldn't make you healthy. 

Some people might disagree with that last statement. They would say that art can provide meaning, clarity, or solace in an otherwise cold and confusing world. I agree with that. Art can be a very powerful thing. Just not the art that I was making.

My problem was always transitioning from craft to art. Craft is the study and use of the process. Art is the reason why. During class critiques I'd would hear things like, "This portrait represents mankind's struggle against alienation in a world where technology is ever present" or, "This is a still life of items left behind by my grandmother. She raised three children in a Japanese internment camp". I was just making things that I thought looked good.

I think that is why I've fallen so happily into the life of being a craftsman. You may not be able to seek shelter under something I've made, but at least you've got a place to keep your library card. The tricky part is that successful craftspeople don't just make things really well. They have a vision of why they are making what they make. 

Since starting my business and fully devoting myself to my craft I've discovered something really interesting. You don't start out with a vision. You end up with one. I'll be the first person to admit I didn't start out with a vision. I started because I was sick of waiting tables and working nights. It has been only recently that I have really been able to say what kind of work I make and why I make it. This is not a process that you can rush no matter how much energy you devote to it. It's kind of like growing up.  Below is my take on it.

The Steps of Creative Development:

Step One: The Baby Phase. When I started leather working (or anything really) everything was new and exciting. I knew very little about what I was looking at and it all seemed amazing. During this stage I kind of collected everything into my mental database and stored it all away. There is no curating or direction. It's all great. Like shiny car keys.

 Step Two: The "I want to be just like older brother" or the Aping Phase. This is when I started to have a little bit of discernment. I had found a few people who's work I really liked. Makr, Will Leather Goods, and Bexar Goods Co. were chief among them.  I spent a lot of time making really bad knock-offs. This is a normal and healthy thing. Most classically trained artists and craftspeople spend their early days producing stuff that looks like other people's work. The important part is that I saw this for what it was and knew that I had to make work that is my own. Don't sell your knock-offs!

Step Three: The Terrible Twos (or the Everything I Make Is Crap) Stage. Turns out you can't look at a Picasso and then sit down and paint like Picasso. No matter how much time I spent staring at the Makr website I couldn't make anything that looked as good. Stage Three is filled with a lot of nos. I started to learn what works for me with my methods of production. A style that works really well for Will Leather looks really bad when it comes from my hands. So I started to cut back on what I was trying to make and started making what I could make.

Step Four: The Snotty Teenager. So now I knew what I could do and I was starting to make work that looked like my own. Here is where I almost got caught up. I found a narrow space that I could occupy and thought,"okay, this is the kind of work I do."  This can be a really good place because for the first time I could tell what I didn't want to make. Designing got a little easier and I spent a lot of time dismissing other peoples work. "Ugh,  I don't like polyester thread", "look at how sloppy that stitching is", "that design really sucks." Now I'm not saying I'm above a little Schadenfreude from time to time, but at this point I didn't really have a right to talk. I was no longer producing work that sucked but I wasn't exactly Corter Leather either.

 Step Five: Moving Out of Mom's House. This is the stage I spent most of my time in (I still do spend a lot of time at this stage). Here is where I stopped worrying about what everyone else is doing. I don't see how I could have gotten to this stage without quitting my day job. When I had to start making a living, I stopped focusing on the outside world and really began to focus on the work I was producing. Instead of trying to find a new clever wallet design I was more focused on making sure I had enough product on hand for the show I was doing that weekend.

This sounds like the most boring phase, but I found that by keeping my nose to the wheel I began to really develop my vision.  When I would dye ten or twenty wallets in a row I found that there were some I liked more than others. I began trying to replicate those features on the next round of wallets. It's not always a conscious action either. There are a lot of little tricks that my hands have picked up on that my brain is not aware of. As a result I'm a lot faster now than when I started.

I also learned that I like the funkier leather. Vegetable tanned leather will show off all the scratches and weird blotches when I dye it. I started trying to bring that out more in my process. I like things that are unfussy and my design reflects that. I like things that look old, so I try to make things that will age beautifully.

I wouldn't have learned any of this with out grinding out the work that I have to do on a daily basis. It's a type knowledge that is gained in increments.

  Stage Six: The World Traveler. This is the stage I'm just starting to get into. I don't think anyone really gets to spend all of their time here. It seems like most people jump back and forth between 5 & 6. I couldn't have gotten to this stage without the confidence that was built up in the previous step. This is the stage where I'm confident enough in my vision to draw intelligent inspiration from around me and use it to create work that speaks with my own voice.

For example, here is an iPad case  I did over the holidays. The blue part was inspired by a Japanese textile pattern that represents waves. I include a journal with all of my cases in that hope that this will be something that you carry with you on the journey of your life. The waves speak of the journey. The contrasting color scheme inspiration came from a really old Louis Vuitton logo that was screened onto some of their bags. You can see how nonuniform the grain is which has been brought out by the dyeing process. I tried to create a contrast between the highlights and the darker areas of the leather. This reminds me of old photographs.

Why I'm doing what I'm doing not always a straight forward answer, but the spirit of my personal style is beginning to show. I'm very focused on gradient and tone on the leather's surface. I'm always referencing my love of personal history and my hope that someday my work will become part of it. I like things to be simple and unfussy. 

I'm not all the way there yet. I'm not really sure that this is something I can reach the end of anyway.  I have learned that they only way to get here is through consistent and thoughtful work. I first had to learn what I didn't want to make, how to make what I did, how to stop worrying about what everyone else is doing, and then finally I could start to understand what I had to say.

If you would like to see where some of my inspiration comes from I've set up a Tumblr account where I keep a curated collection of things I find that visually inspire me. I also have a Pinterest account where I like to keep inspiration for projects I'm actively working on. If you are active on either platform please look me up as I'd like to see what inspires you.

"Well, you've got two choices. We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way."

--Dr. Saunders, pediatrician, before giving me every shot I ever had as a child.

I don't remember Dr. Saunders very well. For some reason he looks kind of like Orville Redenbacher in my recollections of him. He also had a big, brusk nurse who must have modeled for Nurse Ratched at some point. He was an old man when he said these words to me. He was a young man when he said them to my mother for the first time. He was her pediatrician too. 

What I do remember about him was this saying. I think about it often.  I always chose the hard way, which involved a bear hug from Big Nurse, tears, and a lot of evasive squirming. I haven't really changed much as I've grown up. While I can now take a booster shot like a champ I still find myself choosing to do things the hard way.

I try not to judge. Some people are good at the easy way. I'd probably produce a lot more. I'd probably be less busy, work at a different job, and stress out a lot less. I don't think I would be very satisfied.

Somewhere in me there is a deep conviction that for every solution there is one right answer. I can't figure out what that right answer is until I've seen all the wrong answers. When I'm designing something new I have to spend an unconscionable amount of time creating God awful, over-designed messes before I get so tired of thinking about it that I just cut out all of the unnecessary crap.  Suddenly I'm left with the right answer, the bare bones of the idea, and I'm always surprised and annoyed by how simple of a solution it ended up being. 

This is why I hand stitch everything. It's stronger. It looks better. It's the right way. This is also why I hand dye everything instead of buying already dyed sides of leather. Because if I dye it myself I can control the color and make it look the way I think it should look. Make it look right. This is why I've spent months and months trying to formulate my own dye rather than sticking to the store bought stuff when store bought works just fine.  By making my own I can control it better. I can be sure that I'm not spreading harmful chemistry onto something that people touch everyday. I can make it from locally sourced ingredients. I can make it naturally. I can do it the right way.

I've never figured out if the hard way is the right way, or if I'm just taking the hard way to get to the right answer.  I know that when I find the right answer it comes with a feeling of conviction. I know that in all the time I've spent learning from the wrong ways I've built a foundation for something that may not be perfect (nothing ever is) but is on the right path.  I feel like it takes all the little right pieces from all the wrong answers to build something that is right.

So I might always be the Tortoise and not the Hare. I might miss out on some perceived opportunities because I'm being stubborn. I probably spend more hours being frustrated and less hours sleeping than I should. In the end I'll always choose the hard way with the right answer. That is good enough for me.

After a whirlwind of a holiday season I've just stumbled out into the light of day and turns out a new year is upon us. Today is my first official day back at work. I'm recharged and filled with exciting new ideas. The workshop's siren song has been whispering in my ear for two weeks and my fingers itch.

There is still one very important thing I have to do before I get back into it and it is the main reason why I have deliberately been unproductive for the last two weeks. All this week I'll spend my time not in the workshop, but hunched over a notebook planning out what I want to do this year.

Now I know I've said I'm not one for planning, and I still say it's more important to take action than to get bogged down worrying about minutiae, but this week will be one of the most important of the year. The trick is to not try to figure out everything at once but spend some time figuring out what direction to go. It's like finding your way out of the woods with a map and a compass. You don't stop and mark out every tree you need to pass. You get a reading and say, "Okay, I'm here right now and I want to go to here. So lets head in that direction." Spending a little time figuring out what direction I'd like to travel this year can save me a lot of wasted energy.

"Okay, I'm here right now and I want to go to here. So lets head in that direction."

My method is pretty simple. I sit down and think about what I'd like my life to look like by this time next year. I write this down on the first page. I then write down the general steps I need to take to get there on the opposite page. That's all that gets written down to begin with.

I'll then take each general step and break it down into actionable steps. This is really important. The general steps are the only part of this process where I can be vague. The actionable steps are actual tasks to be completed.  So my list might look like this:

Sell More Stuff Online: (general step)

 -Take more product photos

    -Shoot Notebooks
    -Reshoot Wallets
    -Build a better background

 -Blog More

    -Write out a list of potential topics
    -Write out 3 drafts for posting later
    -Look for inspiration on other blogs

 -Develop wider reach on the internet

        -Research other online store opportunities
        -Make a list of markets I would like to develop
        -Do some guest blogging
        -Create some buying guides
        -Look for some online collaborations
        -Upload new photos
        -Check and update store policies

It is important that each one of these items is something that can be checked off as done.  Having an item on your list that says something like "Find more ways to sell stuff" will never get done.  Worse yet, you'll feel bad about not getting it done.

The nice thing about this process is that it can get done in chunks. Once I have my direction (or my list of general steps) I can sit down and work on turning that general step into a list of actionable steps when I feel like it. Sell More Stuff Online might get a lot of attention this week because now is a good time for that. I might have a general step that says Update Pop Up Shop Setup that I won't even start on for months.

Once I have my list of general steps and a good idea of the direction I'd like to go, I stop and take a break. Here I give myself a little chance to get inspired. I'll reread some good books (I like Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and The $100 Start Up by Chris Guillebeau ). TED Talks can be a good source of inspiration. Cleveland's own Weapons of Mass Creation has a great archive of their guest speakers that can be found here.

Once I'm feeling a little more enlightened I'll go over everything I've written down from page one on. Does page one still represent an accurate description of where I want to be by this time next year?  Have I left out any general steps? While I'm feeling all brainy I usually try to write down a little philosophy about why and how I do what I do. These notes end up in the margins and on the backs of pages. This might sound silly but I'll reread these a lot when I'm having to make decisions about things like shop policies, return policies, describe your business to us questionnaires, and the rare pre-interview thought organizing. 

When I feel like I'm done with all of my general steps I will sit down and prioritize them into what I need to deal with first. I do this by using a method I call Make Money Today/ Make Money Tomorrow which I covered here. Once I know which general step I need to take first I'll flesh out the actionable steps I need to take to work on that step.

I know this might all sound a little precious but what I'm doing here is setting a foundation for the year. It might seem all theoretical and the list will probably get changed around quite a bit as things come up. I can't tell you how valuable it has been in the past to be able to go back and reread these things when I'm in the thick of a busy season. It is the work I'm doing today that I'll look to for answers when I'm debating pursuing a new business opportunity, updating my product line, or buying more materials.

So just do it. Do it on your iPhone. Do it on a bar napkin. Do it in a fancy journal you bought just for this reason. I've tried them all. It really doesn't matter so long as you save it and reread it. First you have to write it down.

I have never been a huge fan of motivational memes. Especially since they are typically presented in either a barrage of positive thinking or completely lacking in context. Let's face it, twenty separate quotes from Herodotus, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Maya Angelou, won't make you get out of bed and face the day, no matter what font they are in.  A few days ago I stumbled onto this little nugget. For those of you who don't feel like clicking over it says,

"Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged people who kept on working."

Wise words indeed. This quote happens to be paraphrased from a Douglas MacArthur quote (the above being more gender neutral).  It got me thinking about a little story I think about on a daily basis and how it relates to running a business in general.

This one comes from the good folks at Mason's Creamery. Like me, they are also experiencing the trials and tribulations of their first year in business. About midsummer they were handed a string a bad luck. First the lid blew off their freezer en route to an event. Then the trailer for the freezer broke. When they finally made it to the outdoor event it was raining and cold. Tired and discouraged they unpacked their sodden tent and began to set up for a long day. It was during set up that another, more veteran, vendor looked over at them and said something along the lines of,

"Welcome to owning your own business. The ones that make it are the ones that keep showing up."

-Attribution Unknown (help me out here Helen)

There are a lot of different things people claim that you must have in order to be an entrepreneur. Determination, charisma, good financial skills, chutzpa , gumption, or just dumb luck. In reality none of these qualities are worth a damn if you don't show up to use them.

Owning your own business is just like starting your own business. It is a decision that you must make. The day you decide to give up on your business is the day that your business fails.

I have really taken this message to heart. Right now I'm in the deep end of the holiday season. In true indie business style I've just found out that the hardware I use for my best selling item is no longer stocked on this planet. (Those of you hoping for a new watch band this Christmas should rethink your list. You have no idea how sorry I am about this.) One third of the leather I ordered for the season arrived way too thick. I'm really struggling with balancing making money versus making promises of Christmas delivery dates. I've had to tell more people "no" in the last month than I have all year. Finally, looming just around the corner, is the dreaded slow season. Which I'm really hoping to make it through with my credit score intact.

Any one of these makes me want to throw my hands up in the air and just walk away. Instead I'm planning on designing a new watch strap. I'm making products that work with thicker leather (iPad cases anyone???). I'm saying "yes" to those that I can and forgiving myself for those that I can't. I'm making lists of what I need to do now, but can't, so that when January rolls around I'll be able to keep myself busy.  Because that is what it takes to have your own business. All the leather in the world could be back ordered and I'd figure out something else to show up with.

So that is what I tell myself when I get up to deal with the day's problems. You just have to keep showing up.

Right now is a stressful time for Wright and Rede. I'm heading into the holiday season for the first time and I don't really know what to expect. One of the ways I'm coping with this stress is by talking about it. Sometimes I learn the most interesting things by having casual conversations with people I'm close with.

After getting my one of my notebooks mentioned in Cleveland Magazine this month, I jokingly said "Maybe now people will finally start to realize that I don't know what I'm doing." It was a lighthearted comment but there is a lot of truth in that. I tend to joke about things that worry me.

I am an impostor, or at least that is how I feel. I've tricked people into thinking I know what I'm doing. I've mistakenly gotten attention I did not deserve by accident.  I always feel like I'm probably doing things wrong. Maybe it's because I am self taught. Maybe it's because I've never started a business before. I'm just fumbling in the dark here. Sometimes it seems like I live in a house of cards built of misinterpretations and coincidence, on a ground of false hope, and populated by little people made of LIES. Maybe I need to spend less time alone in my basement workshop.

It is true. Most of the time if feel like a fake. When someone buys something from me it fills me with pride, but a tiny part of me want's to say "Wait! Are you sure you want to buy that? It's not ready and I don't know what I'm doing."

I always just figured this was a personal quirk. Maybe it was just part of being self-employed. What I found interesting was what happened a week later.

The person I had been talking with was asked to join the board on a nonprofit they work with. While being very happy they also told me that they were kind of intimidated.

"I'm not old enough to be on the Board. It's kind of weird that they picked me. What do I know?"

There it was again. This feeling that they had somehow accidentally tricked people into thinking that they are qualified for something they are not. What really struck me was when they told me that they had confessed their fears to a coworker who said something similar.

"I sometimes feel like people are going to walk into this office at any moment and tell me that I don't know what I'm doing."

The interesting thing about these two is that they are both very successful. They went to good schools, work for a multimillion dollar company where they have both received accolades and promotions, and have happy families. So maybe this feeling is not unique to me.

I did a little research. Turns out this phenomena is called the "Imposter Syndrome" and it affects about 70% of the population at some point in their lives.  Tina Fey, Mike Meyers, Maya Angelou, and Stephen King have all been quoted as feeling like frauds.

Okay, so it's not really all that uncommon after all. I like to think that there is more to it than that. The same study suggests that more successful people are more likely to experience this phenomena. The Imposter Syndrome can be a driving force.

It is this feeling that makes me try to reach for the limits of my ability. If I always feel like I'm going to let people down then at least I can give them the best that I got. It is this feeling that is always forcing me to try to do better than I did before. It's feeling like a fraud that drives me to learn the skills that will make me a master rather than a fake.

Take a look at it from another angle. While doing my research I found that there is also something called the "Dunning–Kruger effect". This is "a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes."  So that jackass at work that thinks he is Gods-gift-to-the-company, but is really just an incompetent buffoon, is displaying the Dunning–Kruger effect. Are you as happy as I am to know that there is a term for this???

So if you take a look at our Dunning–Kruger effected coworker (lets just call him Jack) you can see how the Impostor Effect can be a good thing. Jack thinks he does perfect work. Jack doesn't need to try hard. Jack doesn't feel the need to improve. Jack will never rise above his failings and Jack will never reach for his full potential. Poor Jack.

Personally I'm comforted knowing that I'm not alone in this. Most people feel like a fraud at some point in their lives. Statistically, it means that you are likely succeeding at something. More importantly it can be a powerful tool if you don't let it hold you back. So I say go forth, do the best you can, feel like a bit of an ass while you are doing it. It's okay to smile while you do it, and when you are alone with someone you trust tell them the truth. You might be surprised what you hear back. 

I use to spend a lot of time worrying about people stealing my ideas. In fact there are a lot of things I have missed out on because I spent so much time sheltering my good ideas that I never got to use them. I have only recently come to understand that this is not only harmful but pointless. If you have a successful idea people are going to steal it.

So why did I stop worrying about this. It is because I embraced an idea called "gesture". Gesture is an art school term for how an artist manipulates their material. Jackson Pollok had a frenetic gesture. Van Gogh had a very heavy one. The way I think of gesture is like terroir for people. It is the combination of personality, environment, technique, materials, limitations and emotions that create a "youness" in what you make.  I feel that learning to identify your gesture and then develop it is the single best thing you can do for yourself and your business.

It can be really hard to focus on this. We live in a society that values innovation. It seems like everyone is trying to come up with the next big idea. The problem with this plan is that as soon as you put that new idea out there, people will begin to replicate it, and suddenly it's not that big of an idea anymore.  I think it is more important to spend your time thinking about how to develop your gesture. 

Take DaVinci. You could spend your whole life trying to be DaVinci. You cloud learn his techniques, replicate his materials, move to Italy, buy a fancy hat, and paint similar subjects as DaVinci, but he'll trump you every time. That is because he could paint something that any stranger could walk past and say "that looks like a DaVinci." It's not because of his technique, his materials, his subjects, or his location but because of all of these things plus the unique thing that made DaVinci different from everyone else. 

When I am making a wallet (I'm seriously not trying to compare myself to DaVinci here) I try to think about all of the subconscious gestures I make while creating it. I'm left handed. I work in a poorly lit basement. I'm probably listening to music. I apply dye clockwise. I always start at the front and work my way back. I like it when the dye doesn't apply evenly.  I'm going to use a natural finish rather than acrylic. If I were to take just one of these, say uneven dye, and try to capitalize on it I might be successful for a moment, but other people would catch on eventually and I'd be out of luck.

Finding your gesture can be really hard and worse yet, it can't be forced. The only way to find it is examine how you do things and why you do them. Continually ask yourself what works for you and reenforce that. Work that really speaks of you is something that can never be copied. I think that this is the real value behind an item that is handmade.

I had the pleasure of getting out of the workshop briefly for a little human to human interaction the other day to drop some stuff off at my friend Stephanie's place for a photo shoot. We got to talking about some of the things she has in the works for the future. You have to understand, this is quite a list. Like a a lot of driven creatives Stephanie has a lot going on. Her two business (The Cleveland Flea and The Indie Foundry) keep her schedule full with planning events, organizing vendors, promoting the events, coming up with inspiration for new ideas, lots and lots of networking, and all the graphic design (and other ephemera) that going along with all of it. That is in addition to; traveling quite a bit, providing guidance to fledgling makers, being a cheerleader for anyone around her who is thinking about starting a business, being a Drum Major for many of us who have, running a pop up shop, and she just signed a lease on a new (or very old) building that she is going to run as a "creative clubhouse". One thing she said that stuck me at the time was, "Sometimes I have so much going on that I just have to focus on what I am doing this week."

That got me thinking about how I go about managing the precarious available-time/available-opportunity tightrope-walk that most of us in the creative community have to do every day. Sometimes it's really frustrating trying to figure out what to do with your day when a bunch of good opportunities are pulling you in several different directions.  What I have found helps me is a little system based around two simple questions, "What can I do to make money today?" and "What could I do to make money tomorrow?"

Make money today always takes priority. After all, today is what really counts. I don't want to look back at my life and think "Man, I had some really great ideas for the future".  So when I'm planning out my day I ask myself what opportunities are available today. For example: designing new things is fun. It's exciting to turn the great ideas in my head into physical things in my hands. Designing is important. I might come up with the next big thing and make it big. Who knows? But will designing a new product actually make me any money today. I already have plenty of things (maybe less glamorous) that I could be taking advantage of. I already have a strong product line. Am I making the most of it? How could I use what I've got right now to make a better living today. Could I try to get my products into more stores? Could I be working on developing traffic to my website? Would some better photographs lead to more sales? Could I build up my inventory so that I'll be ready when those orders come in?

This helps because it frees me from getting distracted by opportunities I might not be ready for. Laying a strong ground work for today will lead me to those plans for the future anyway. Another example: take that amazing thing I wanted to design in the previous paragraph. Had I focused on what I could do first (get in more stores, develop web traffic, take better photos) when I do finally develop that new product I'll be able to offer it to a much wider audience in a stronger way.

I'm not saying abandon the future. I have a giant notebook called "Make money tomorrow" that has all the ideas I wanted to pursue but didn't think I was ready for. When I'm ready to take the next step I have a great resource to draw from. It actually feels kind of liberating to take a really good idea that I might not have time for , write it down, and file it away, knowing that it will be there when I am ready for it.

Carpe diem, focus on one week at a time, make money today, call it what you want. The idea is always the same. The best course of action is frequently to capitalize on what you have right now and deal with the future tomorrow.

If  you ever want to figure out if you have a capable bartender there is a simple trick. Pick the busiest night of the week. Sit down at the bar and look at all the bartenders. The bartender with their head up, talking to people while they work, is the one with their act together.  The one with their head down, focusing on the immediate task at hand, is deep in the weeds.

I used to be the guy in the weeds. I used to hear it from my boss all the time, "You gotta keep your head up dude!"

I'd think, "Sure, I 'll keep my head up. Right after I make this next drink." (actually I was usually thinking "Holy crap! Please don't fire me!)

Then I'd go rushing around behind the bar, eyes set firmly on the drink before me. Past all the people who were desperately trying to get my attention, and I'd get deeper and deeper into the weeds.

I never understood it until I started training people. When it got busy, and the pressure was on, I'd see the new guy storming around with his eyes on the floor, shutting out everything else except what he need to do right then. 

There is something about stress and being rushed that gives people tunnel vision. You get fixated on the immediate crisis and everything else slips out of focus. If you are under continual stress (like the kind you get when starting a business) it's really easy to let the world around slip by while you over-focus on what will ultimately be an insignificant detail.  This kind of tunnel vision is dangerous because it's sneaky.

A little under a year into launching my business and I've been fairly successful. I've been paying the bills. Revenue is increasing. I'm getting a little recognition and repeat business. I quit my day job and didn't die! Considering that my entire business plan was to quit my day job and not die, I should have been  ecstatic. For some reason I have been  getting increasingly dissatisfied. The elation of being self employed still seems to be out of reach.

I chalk up part of this to a healthy entrepreneurial spirit. Enough should never be enough and any good entrepreneur should always be reaching for loftier goals.  There is something more than just that though. Then it hit me. I've been keeping my head down.

I've been so focused on making sure the bills get paid that I haven't been thinking about where I'm going. Right now I'm planning out my holiday schedule and drawing up new designs. It seems like a lot of progress but really all my planning ends in January. It's hard to be satisfied with a master plan that reads "Pay bills until January".

So I got out a sheet of paper and started to write out a five year plan. Not in the sense of what strategy I'd like for my business to follow in the next five years, but where I'd like to be five years from now. I wrote down what was important and how I thought I could get there.

I tried to avoid things like "make more money" and tried to focus on how I would like my life to look.  I wrote down things like, have plenty of family time, travel more, gain a greater sense of security, make enough extra income to pay someone else to mow the lawn (it was seriously hot that day and that lawn really needed mowing).

Once I spent a little time figuring out the direction I wanted to take my life things seemed to make a lot more sense. I started to be able to come up with post-January ambitions. I began to see how my holiday schedule was just one little part of a greater puzzle. That persistent drive came back.

So I've decided to make this a consistent part of my business planning. Every few months I plan on sitting down and going over my previous goals and then spend some serious time doing a little day dreaming.

I've decided to start a campaign to reclaim the meaning of the word "value".  It is an idea that we all understand, but is very difficult to define. I think this is why it has been so easy to co-opt.  I consider the meaning of the word value to mean something's intrinsic worth relative to the  demand of obtaining, or maintaining, that thing. 

A personal belief that one maintains despite the pressures of the outside world. A work of art that has inspired countless people and been preserved through centuries. A cast iron skillet bought at a hardware store that gets better and better, but only if you take care of it. A grandfather's journal from World War II which sailed across oceans, was sheltered from bombs and bullets, and carried through all the years of his life.  These are things of value.

Value does not mean a cheap deal. I'm tired of seeing things that are labeled "value brand", "great value", "value sized". When you begin to think about value in terms of its real meaning then you have to question where the deal really is. If you are willing to sacrifice next to nothing for something then it must be worth next to nothing. So is it really such a great deal to get a great price on something that is nearly worthless. To say it in another way, "value is a function of hard work and ingenuity rather than the product of financial acrobatics, clever arbitrage or casino capitalism." (from the Rustbelt Almanac)

Nor is value created by paying a high price. Does a plain white t shirt have a greater value just because it cost $120 (sorry Kanye)? Is a high-end sports car valuable? To a banker? To a single dad? To a carpenter? Value is not a function of cost alone but a reflection of cost versus intrinsic worth. 

Fads will come and go. Sticker shock and impulse-buys will get paid-off or used up. Many things will quickly pass through our lives, but it is the things of value that stick with us. Yes, you might have to work for them. Old leather boots need saddle soap and conditioning. A classic Mustang is going to spend some time on blocks getting fixed. An old cookbook has to be handled with kid gloves and protected from stains. Personal convictions will have to be reenforced and rallied when the tide is contrary. Trends will wane,  bills will be paid-off, what is hot today will fizzle tomorrow, and cheap deals will be quickly used up and forgotten. Things of value are those which we endeavor to carry with us. When the price is paid, it is value that remains.

I try to keep this idea a constant in my life. When I'm designing something I always try to ask myself if I'm responding to a trend or will this be something that will still be relevant decades from now. Not only does this apply to the things I produce but also in the way I live. I try to think not only in terms of "are the sacrifices I make equal to the life I am living", but also "am I living a life equal to the sacrifices that I am making for it". It is through this filter that I am able to figure out how to invest myself in the things that are really of value to me and avoid the things that seemed really important at the time but weren't. What are the things that you value?