Technically Speaking

I've been plugging away at the business and tech side of the blog and learning something new and surprising everyday. Like that Wordpress is more complicated than it seems, Etsy is expensive, and Cheerios are the greatest pregnant pick-me-up at midnight. I'm also learning a lot about myself. Like I'm actually less technically-challenged than I thought, I can force myself into better time management habits, and I can only stay up past midnight for three nights in a row before reaching zombie mode.

I meet regularly with my website whisperer, Kristen Womack, who encourages me to get out of my comfort zone and tap into my inner tech-goddess. While this has caused some late nights and a lot of panic- (not pregnant) induced sweating, I'm actually pretty impressed with what I've been able to accomplish.

Women regularly sell their abilities short because imposter syndrome is evil, life-sucking black magic that eats women's souls and forces us to apologize for things at which we're actually pretty good. I meet the bastard in every aspect of my life.

Exhibit A: last week I did the opening and closing for a MPLS MadWomen event, something I'm used to doing. When a male coworker told me I did a great job, I explained that I was so nervous and ill-prepared. In reality, I was excited and extremely well-prepared. I totally down-played my badassery and made it seem like it must have been luck that made words come out of my mouth instead of vomit. The worst part about this is that I was speaking at an event telling women to be themselves and own the shit out of everything they do. Insert brain vomit.

"I couldn't possibly be that good at anything," says every woman. We apologize for our successes and make unnecessary excuses for being good at something. Well here's the truth: we're probably good at the things people recognize in us, and we could actually be good at the things that freak us the f*** out (like technology).

Building a brand, website and product isn't easy (go figure). I work with brands everyday, but I've never been on the technical side of any of them. When I'm not working with Kristen, I'm on Google. Have you heard of it? It's this amazing place where you can spend hours searching for ecommerce platforms and wind up watching videos of otters eating lettuce. Click on it- you won't regret it.

The good news is, things are moving pretty quickly now that I've watched that otter video a bunch of times. I'm testing shirt sample fabrics, narrowing in on a purchasing platform and working with a my kickass design gals to bring you all some sweet gear.

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I'm still working on tech-confidence and imposter syndrome, but here's a mission for all us #girlbosses when we come across our next challenge: kill it, own it, then celebrate it.