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Tuesday.  Another edition of Fear, Exposed, baby.

If you don’t know Catherine Caine already, be prepared to have your mind blown. Catherine is one of those people who makes you step back and say, “Wow.”  This woman is a hustler if I’ve ever seen one, and she’s not only managed to launch not one, but two, businesses over the course of the past year…but she did it all with perfect grace, while still maintaining her good-natured, carefree spirit…and a sense of humor.  Pure brilliance, this woman.  And with that, I present to you, Ms. Caine!

*****

I used to sleep like a goddamn champion.

Within five minutes of hitting the pillow I would be rock-solid asleep, done. Then my eyes would pop open eight hours later; I would leap out of bed refreshed and revitalised, with no memorable dreams. I used to be almost offensively cheerful and awake as soon as the sun came up.

It’s been six months since I started working full-time for myself, and I really miss sleep.

Let me tell you a brief version of how I got here.

Hi, I’m Catherine and I used to be verrrry comfortable.

I worked pleasant jobs that I changed every few months as I got bored. I was well-paid and I wallowed in disposable income (and a pair of credit cards). I was a bit hard to buy for at Christmas, because I usually had just bought everything I had my eye on. DVDs, books, games… I was well-padded with entertainment (and sugar).

I’d gotten rid of the Drama Friends of my early 20s, and my relationship with The Dude was solid.

My life had no rough edges. I was living what I thought was the good life…

…except for that bit where it wasn’t.

Even with ten thousand distractions, I was bored stupid.

So I did something rare: I deliberately chose discomfort. I hadn’t been fired or told I had cancer. I wasn’t rebuilding from a broken ruin. I would have to tear down my normal functional life to build something magnificent.

Stage One: Immediately forget this plan for two years

I freaked out and backed right off any ideas of starting a business. Seriously, how the giddy fuck would I do such a thing? Me? No-one I knew had ever done such a thing, everyone I knew had a Day Job or lived on benefits. I hadn’t the teeniest tiniest conception of how to make such a plan work.

*sounds of frantic back-pedalling*

Instead, I bought a Tony Robbins box set that was advertised on late-night TV and started going to a personal trainer three times a week. I got much fitter but still felt edgy and dissatisfied.

Eventually I pulled the “Hey, I could start a business” plan out of hiding, dusted it off, and thought hard.

Stage Two: Terribly expensive hobby

Instead of buying piles of entertainment, I started buying education instead. Books and e-courses and audio series and and and…

I was enjoying myself immensely! I love learning new things. But I was doing worksheets, not actual work.

Stage Three: A totally tentative dip in the pool

A wonderful friend by the name of Kevin suggested we start a business together. Together? That’s awesome! Together is safe.

We had long and interesting discussions about what we could do, and I did optimistic spreadsheets. We decided this business would be about websites, and I came up with a name: Be Awesome Online. I pre-wrote a big chunk of content and we went live, to absolutely zero fanfare, in October 2009.

Kevin promptly got swallowed alive by his work and he never really became part of the business. But he got me started, bless him.

Stage Four: I haz a website

I did my serious face (which looks a stunning amount like my squinty face) and decided that 2010 was going to be IT, baybee. I spent the daylight hours of New Year’s Eve writing out worksheets, I got up at 5am on New Year’s Day to shoot some video with the dodgy camera function on my old Canon, because the audio pickup was so debatable that I figured it was the quietest time – people don’t drive by at 5am on New Year’s Day, right?

(They don’t. But planes fly overhead. Grrr.)

I spent the rest of that weekend and public holiday shooting, editing, uploading, looking concerned at e-junkie, yelling at buttons… and voila! I had a product. I called it Website in a Weekend, and I priced it at $27. (It’s free now. If you need to start a website you should check it out.) When someone bought a copy three weeks later, I was so surprised that my first response was to refund the money. (Luckily I stopped myself.)

Stage Five: I experiment. A lot.

On January 1st, I also started a new posting regime: I would post an article every single day, no excuses.

I wrote every morning before the Day Job, and sometimes at the Day Job. (When I didn’t have any other work to do, of course.)

I wrote a manifesto.

I gave away my services to anyone who signed up in a week, and did 40 free half-hour sessions at 5am. (Hooray for time-zone differences!)

I created services and products based on problems people were telling me about in the first sessions.

I made a couple hundred dollars.

And then a bit more.

Then quite a lot more.

On my birthday, May 28, I did a full-on LAUNCH of a product (which includes an interview with our lovely Ash). I made two grand in the first two days and almost fell over from shock.

Stage Six: Ohshitohshitohshit

The Dude and I had some Serious Conversations about whether I (the winner of ze bread) could afford to quit the Day Job and do this full-time.

I knew I wanted to (and that I really didn’t want to try and manage a 40-hour Day Job AND building a business during winter, my least energised time of year).

I knew that I’d have a couple of months of grace to start making bill-paying money.

But could I?

The Dude said, “It’ll work out somehow.”

And so I quit.

Stage Seven: This is really fucking hard, who knew?

The last six months have been intense.

I’ve gone to BlogWorld in Vegas on a mind-bogglingly snap decision. This was totally freakin awesome.

I’ve had to borrow money from family to pay the rent.

I’ve totally redefined who I most want to work with and how I can serve them, and it turns out that my best work is transformative marketing. (Marketing! And it’s the work of my soul! Who would have seen that coming? NO-ONE.)

I’ve cried and hated and despaired and said, “I can’t be bothered. I can’t do this.”

I’ve jumped for joy, high-fived the world, and wept with joy.

It’s been more than half a year since I bought anything that wasn’t food or World of Warcraft.

I’ve lost about 8 kg (that’s 18 pounds, strange imperial system users) in the last few months. Possibly due to stress.

I never sleep perfectly any more.

Do you want to know if it’s all worth it?

YES.

Even when it’s been a week since anyone hired me and I have no idea when the money will come in next.

Even when I’ve burnt myself out by launching Cash and Joy, Goddamn Radiant: a transformative marketing intensive, and completing two courses in the same month but I still have work to do so I push hard for two hours then fall over for the rest of the day.

Even when I’m sick with worry and frustrated.

I’m rarely comfortable nowadays.

I seem to be always working or decompressing, all the “I’ll never be like that!” stuff I swore I wouldn’t let happen to me. (I’m taking my business to a much higher level that will eventually allow me some breathing space, but it’s not quite there yet.)

But…

I do work that matters, every single day.

I am never bored.

I change people’s lives.

I’m not comfortable. I am FUCKING MAGNIFICENT.

Woooooooo!

There’s a point at the end of this story.

I was quirky but completely ordinary. I had no special advantages.

I knew no-one, at all. (For the first three months, the website had four subscribers. One of them was me. One of them was a friend.)

I had no examples in my life to model myself on.

I was just Some Chick who persevered and committed to doing awesome work.

I had no idea where it would end up. I just kept showing up, being as magnificent as I could be. For a really long time. (I’m not known for my perseverance. Or at least, I didn’t used to be.)

You can do the same, dearests.

Really.

Yes, you.

Right now.

Start a website. (It costs almost nothing.)

Start showing up.

We all get preachy about this, don’t we?

Everyone who is doing their own work can’t wait to get you into the club.

Because we want you to LIVE.

We want you to be totally fucking magnificent.

If you can be magnificent in a cubicle or behind a cash register, go for it. But I don’t mean “pretty awesome”, I mean “flaming, incandescent, transcendent”.

I assume that if you’re reading this you want those things.

And I really, really, really want you to have them.

So the bestest way I can enourage you is to say this:

We all start clueless, alone, unprepared and scared shitless.

It’s the passion and determination to push even when you’re weak that gets you the glory.

Wherever you are, start pushing.

You won’t be comfortable, but you will ROCK.

And it is worth it.

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Tags: catherine caine, fear exposed, fear of starting a business, online marketing, start an online business