Feelings
The most prevalent emotions I've felt since starting this venture full time are 1) happy overwhelm and 2) defensiveness.
Overwhelm in a happy way - from all the ideas I have and projects I want to work on. I have a long list of things that I actually cannot WAIT to work on. So many new things I want to try...but one thing at a time!
Defensiveness is from feeling that I am constantly having to defend what we do - not only to clients who have feedback, but from friends who have feedback about how we could change the way we're doing things, as well as friends who don't believe our program is really for them (we believe that if you eat food, you will get something from our program!).
Talking about food is like talking about religion. Everyone has strong beliefs. But nutrition is a science, and everyone believes they're an expert.
I welcome feedback so we can create the best products and services possible, but much of the feedback I’m talking about here ends up suggesting doing things the way other companies (that we’ve been customers of) do and are the exact things that we’re intentionally trying to get away from.
The positive spin here is that these difficult conversations with friends have actually served to strengthen my resolve in the way we are going about things.
I'm glad that I can talk through these things with Tyler, who fully understands as an owner of two small businesses. Like anything, unless you've experienced it yourself, it's hard to understand the ups and downs. I can count the people I can talk to about it on one hand.