Today. We are standing on business. How does that correlate with Go Off & Create? Well, I'm happy to say that Go Off & Create is five years old. Can you believe it? That's right. Five years old and I want to talk about it.

Five years ago went ahead and, you know, made Go Off & Create official by getting an LLC. I must admit prior to that I was in name ideation, purgatory for years trying to figure out what to even call this business. Because the name of your business is just as important as all the other intricacies that come with starting your own business. But anywho since that was years ago, clearly the name thing worked out. So not to get too far in the weeds, but I want to talk about business expectations or should I say lack thereof. Before you judge me, let me defend myself a little and say I'm a researcher and someone who likes structure. I do these things for Go Off & Create, but I must admit, I didn't start this business with a five or a ten year plan. I didn't have quarterly goals, yearly goals. That may sound absurd to some and I completely understand that, but all journeys are different, right?

I truly go with the flow on some I want to put emphasis on some areas of the business because I'm not going to stress about things and create unwanted tension. I am a woman of faith and I believe He guides my steps and what's for me will be for me. There is action behind my faith, but not tension. So I just want to make it clear that this is more so about ease. Like I said, not creating tension, unnecessary stress and all those things that can potentially come up with the business. With that being said, here we are five years later celebrating a birthday and I'm thankful. When I started Go Off & create, I didn't have a conscious thought on how long the business would be here. Or what it would look like as business evolves. Honestly, I wasn't even thinking about if the business didn't make it. I was just excited to be on the journey because it's my purpose. I'm still excited, for that matter.

Truthfully, I'm kind of amazed that it's five years. I actually thought it was four until I did the math. This is a big deal. Five years doing this is incredible, especially when I'm someone who when I first got out of college, didn't even want to have my own business and I verbalized that. So this is totally a big deal. So exciting! But anyway, what kind of helped me to feel this way is that this is a small business and I like the character that it brings. It's quaint and has more of a personal experience for clients, and that's important to me. You know, sometimes things can get so big that you feel like a number or you feel like you're just a part of the peg in the wheel. I think it's how the saying goes. I'm not really sure. But anyway, I like more intimate settings and I like that for Go Off & Create. It's not on my heart to be a big company with a lot of employees. It could change, but for right now, it's not in the foreseeable future.

That kind of mindset does require more quantitative goals as opposed to my go with the flow approach. But my flow makes me happy and I think that’s important in life, not just business, but it's important to be happy and to do things that fulfill you or do it in a way that fulfills you. So does Go Off & Create work hard? Absolutely. Do we produce good work? Absolutely. Are we going to make sure our clients have the best possible experience with us? Absolutely. We are here to make sure our clients can Go off and create confidently. The point I'm making is me not having certain expectations does not equate to failure. I've learned so much by going with the flow of business and not bringing tension to certain areas. It works to not cause any kind of added stress when I don't have to. Because I said I'm a person of structure, sometimes being that way, you think that you got to stay within this box and sometimes you realize that you don't.

I'm not sharing this because I think that's the way everybody has to do business. Not at all. But I'm sharing this because, you know, there may be someone out there like me who kind of wants to go with the flow of things and not really say, in five years, this is what I want to do with the business or ten years. And if you do that, that's fine too but there's probably more go with the flow people out there than you realize. The one thing, I was pretty adamant about with this business was community and in the beginning years I did think that path was social media, even though for me it was about an organic build of community, I still was going back and forth about my social voice, the content I wanted to post, basically who is go off and create on social and being consistent about it. I'm not going to lie. That's something I still struggle with today. When you wear a lot of hats, it's hard to kind of maintain the social aspect of it, and I'm okay with that. Again, I think it's because I have an organic build. I'm like, if you come, you like, you stay. That's great. If not, that's fine, too. I don't believe in forcing people to do things.

What's going to happen is going to happen. But anyway, in year three, I realized that I had another community and that was a wonderful team. I get to work with through partnerships. I'm not going through business alone. I'm going through business with friends and people I admire, which is also built in support and that's dope. So for any of you out there trying to start a business or are running a business it's great to have a support team or people you can talk to, whether they're in your business or not. When I had this euphoric moment of realizing that I have a community in partnership, it amazed me because the only way I thought I was going to have community was through social, and I truly felt like God was like, Nah, here's, here's a super team, if you will.

And if it wasn't already clear, let me just say I'm not saying you cannot have a community on social. You totally can. I'm just saying I thought social was the only way I could achieve it and it turns out I was wrong. It's okay to be wrong in business and. It's okay to not go on a business journey alone.

Happy Birthday, Go Off & Create! (January 23)

To everyone. Remember, not always having expectations doesn't equate to failure. It's okay to be wrong in business and you don't have to go the journey alone, now Go Off & Create.