Lessons On Entrepreneurship With Brand Strategist Lynsey Owens

Jumping into entrepreneurship is jarring for anybody, and that’s why it’s crucial to equip yourself with the right advice and tools. Lynsey Owens, founder and Brand Strategist at Lynsey Creative, shares her entrepreneurship lessons with Yanet Borrego on the show. Lynsey has faced multiple challenges and setbacks in pursuing a business in the creative field but overcame them with the right mindset. She lessons and tips that will help you on your journey to establishing your brand and launching your business. She shares anecdotes on how she found and continually strives for clarity by following her passions and investing in herself. It’s all about not being afraid to experiment. Lynsey also gives practical advice for business owners just starting out to help you stay on track on the road to success.

For more on how you can gain clarity and find purpose in your life, visit https://www.ybcoaching.com/.

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Lessons On Entrepreneurship With Brand Strategist Lynsey Owens

Lynsey, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

I so appreciate you. Everyone, Lynsey is a brand strategist. She’s the one that helped me build my brand, which I use every single day.

Thank you for trusting me with your brand. It’s such a big deal to take the leap into entrepreneurship and then to say, “Here is my vision for my business. Please, help me bring it to life.” I know that is a very vulnerable task. I thank you for trusting me with it.

Thank you. I love that you brought that up because a lot of the questions and a lot of the experience I want you to share in your story is about entrepreneurship. The first thing, tell me more about yourself. Were you born here? Tell me your background. Where did you study?

I am from Houston, born and raised. Technically I was born in Houston but grew up mostly in the Missouri City, Sugar Land area then went to college at Texas Tech. I studied Communication Design, which is just a fancy word for graphic design and photography as well. I’ve got a multi-creative background. I came back to Houston after college and have been here ever since.

I see that even what you studied is very aligned with what you do now.

There are a lot of people who will study business and then go into something completely different or study history and they’re a lawyer, which part of that makes sense. I knew very early on that I wanted to be in a creative field. Graphic design spoke to me. I pursued that as steadily as I could. I still am doing graphic design. I know that’s not the case for a lot of people.

I studied engineering and now I’m doing coaching.

Sometimes life takes us down a winding path.

Whatever it is you think is going to make you happy, just try it.

From earlier on in your life you knew you want to do something creative. How did you know? How did you get that clarity?

Many different things. I feel like I had always had creativity in my life. My mom is an interior designer. We were always encouraged and inspired to rearrange our rooms, paint and be messy. I hoarded magazines because I was drawn to ad layouts, which is weird nerdy stuff. You don’t think a middle schooler likes the layout of a magazine. We love it for the quizzes, for Seventeen Magazine or whatever but I just loved the typography and color theory.

I was always drawn to something visual. I was also in the marching band in high school. I loved anything that had a creative outlet. Interior design was a hobby and passion of mine because I could see that that was my mom’s gift. I felt like I had a different skill set but I felt that creative energy from her. It was always spurred on in our household.

My dad likes to say that I got my creativity from him but he’s a lawyer. He was like, “You didn’t get it from your mom, the designer. I gifted that to you.” It took me a while to understand what graphic design was. It still can be a whole host of different mediums from logo design, which is what I do, to editorial layouts or even product design for a big brand. We’re presentation design. We’re a whole host of different things. I just knew that I needed to do something with a creative visual medium and it found me pretty early on.

Tell me more about it. You went to school, you studied that. What happened after that with your career?

Many twists and turns. It took me until I was in the middle of my freshman year. This was fall semester. I just got into college. I started out as a Photography major because I didn’t quite understand the difference between advertising, marketing and graphic design. The communication school at Texas Tech had advertising, marketing, photography and journalism. I thought I needed to be in the advertising and photography realm because that’s what I thought was the visual medium of graphic design. I was very wrong.

That’s how you learn.

They’re interconnected but the actual graphic design portion, which is more of the visual art versus the strategy side, which is funny now because I love strategy. The root of visual design was in the School of Art. I started as a Photography major. I told myself, “I’m never going to photograph weddings.” I ended up photographing 50 to 60 weddings in my life. You say the things like, “I’m never going to do that.” That is ultimately what ends up happening. It was wonderful. I love all my wedding clients. I decided after my first semester, I was like, “This is wonderful. I do want to study photography but it’s not what I’m 100% passionate about. I want to learn how to design logos, how to create with type and learn about color.”

I went to my advisor and said, “This is what I want to do with my life.” It took me that moment of being in the wrong major for me to have that sense of clarity, “This is not what my purpose is.” It was a great learning curve for me. I love photography as a medium. I still photograph for my clients all the time, like brand photos and things that we could use for their graphic design pieces that we work on. My heart was in design. I just didn’t know that it wasn’t advertising or it wasn’t marketing in the educational sense.

I went to my advisor and they were like, “You need to go to the other school. The School of Art is on the other side of campus. You need to shift your degree over there.” The Graphic Design program was a four-year program where you have to get accepted into the School of Graphic Design before you can continue on. I took this risk and I said, “Sophomore year, I’m going to take all the classes that I need to apply to get into this program.”

It was my spring semester, sophomore year. I’d already been in school for four semesters when I took this big risk to hopefully interview and apply and be accepted into this program. They only accepted half of the students so 60 applied, 30 got in. “We’ve already gotten you three semesters of college. Why are you changing your major? What is it that you’re doing?” They’re very supportive. They just didn’t quite understand why I was taking this unnecessary risk.

That situation that you feel that you’re aligned with what you want. There may be other people around you saying, “What are you doing, Lynsey?” What strengthened your decision to continue pursuing what you wanted?

I knew in my gut and my soul that this was what I needed to pursue. Everyone around me was supportive but they didn’t understand what graphic design was. With photography, you could take a picture and you can either print it out or show it to someone on a screen. They’re like, “I see that you took this photo.”

It’s more concrete.

It’s a cause and effect medium, “I took this picture, here’s the photo.” With graphic design, a lot of it is conceptual. I’m sketching but that sketch is not the ultimate design. I’m sketching and I’m thinking about the concepts and I’m learning how to take a communication strategy, like goals for your business and then transform that into visuals that communicate those goals.

It’s hard to understand until you see that end result, which could take weeks or months. My mom’s like, “Why are we paying for another year of school? What are we doing?” I just had this gut feeling like, “This is where I’m supposed to be.” I saw the work that the graphic design students were producing and the jobs that they were getting. I was like, “That is what I want to do.”

That’s beautiful. One of the things that I love is that you were not scared to experiment and take action. Often, we believe that clarity is this thing that comes to us and we know our whole journey. It’s not until you go here and you realize, “This is not the way,” and then you want your way. You experiment by trial and error. You get to where you want to be. Is that what you experienced?

Now, I’m several years removed from that decision. It’s almost more difficult to take those risks as you get older because there’s more financial responsibility that you have or other very close relationships in your life. You’re like, “I’ve been in this job for ten years. I’ve known this way of living or this career for so long.” Now, I’m afraid to take those risks. In college, the world felt wide and open for me. That’s something that I would love to continue to tap into. My 20- or 19-year-old self is like, “Take those risks. It paid off for you.”

Especially if you know that in your gut this is what you’re meant to do. Even if you don’t know that’s what you’re meant to do but you have this inkling like, “I want to explore podcasting. I want to explore the side hustle. I want to explore taking every Friday off.” Whatever it is that you think is going to make you happy, try it. Until I miss for myself so that I could watch this back later and say, “Lynsey, you’re telling yourself what you need to do.” Sometimes it’s hard when you’ve got more roots in the ground and you’re like, “I’ve been in this environment for a while. This feels steady but I’m still not quite certain about what that next move is.”

It is normal. It can be scary as you get more comfortable and you stabilize yourself in a place. After eight years of a corporate career, I took the decision to start as a full-time coach. It was scary in every sense, like what people might think in the financial sense. At the same time, we do have one life. What are we going to do with this life? I know that even if you’re afraid, you’re trying to bring up your 90-year-old mindset into now and see, “What is there for me. What is the next step?”

You have to be the one to put yourself out there.

I am so proud of anyone who is able to take a little bit of a leap. It doesn’t have to be jumping off the cliff into the deep end. It could be putting your feet in the kiddie pool and see what does this look like if I do this for an hour a week or 30 minutes a day. Bring in some of those things that speak to you.

I try to experiment.

You can always jump off the cliff. You were in this career for eight years and you had been doing coaching on the side for a while. You’re building up your confidence and you’re like, “This is what’s bringing me joy. How can I bring that more into my life? Maybe we’re at a turning point where I need to make this my fulltime gig for at least six months to a year to see what the payoff would be.”

Lynsey, you’re an entrepreneur. You run your own Lynsey Creative brand, firm and everything. Were you always an entrepreneur after graduating from school or is that something that you evolved in the way?

Yes and yes. I have taken some fulltime entrepreneurship time and also side hustling while working for somebody else. The short end of the very long story is right when I graduated, it was the height of the 2008, 2009 recession, housing market crash, all of it. Getting a job in that market was pretty abysmal. I’m sure most other Millennials out there would be able to tell you the same thing.

I don’t feel like I had the confidence right out of school to just say, “I know everything that I need to know about starting my own business.” I was photographing weddings for friends as people were getting married out of college. That was something that I was having fun with but I knew I didn’t want to photograph weddings all the time.

I did that to keep my skills sharp and have a good fun memory with my friends but that wasn’t my core passion. Right after school, I ended up working for another small company. It was a fine art company that needed an in-house graphic designer so I worked there. The company was run by an entrepreneur. There were maybe seven employees at any given time. I learned a lot by being right next to someone who was building his dream company.

I’m very fortunate that both of my parents are entrepreneurs. My dad is a lawyer and my mom is an interior designer. They’ve both been doing their own thing for longer than I’ve been alive. I also grew up in an environment where entrepreneurship was, for me, the norm. I know that is not necessarily the norm for the majority of people. I had always had this entrepreneurial spirit within me because I could see my two main influences in my life had been doing this for their whole career. That had always been in the back of my mind, more like the forefront of my mind.

I started out with Lynsey Photography then I was like, “No, we’re not going to do that.” I changed it to Lynsey Design. I’m like, “That’s great but it’s still a little limiting.” I changed it to Lynsey Creative because if I wanted to go into anything else, I could under the creative umbrella. I’ve been a creator ever since. I had always done a few things on the side while I was working for other people. There came a moment when I was working at that fine art studio that I felt like, “Maybe I’m ready to spread my wings and fly off the cliff,” so I did.

How did you know that moment? What was for you the thing that said, “Now is a good moment.”

There are a lot of times you’re almost pushed into a corner. Maybe the environment at work is not ideal. You’re working too much and you’re underpaid or you’re undervalued. You’re like, “This is not a sustainable job for me. I could take the time and the energy that I’m putting into someone else’s career, someone else’s business and put that into my own.”

That’s what happened in this particular instance. It’s what happened when I quit both of my jobs. It happened here at the fine arts studio. A couple of years later, I’d applied and worked for a graphic design agency here in Houston for a little over three years and moved into a leadership position. At that point, we had lost one of our biggest clients. The environment at work had shifted.

I realized it’s time to take that risk again and do my own thing. I had always gravitated towards working for somebody when I felt like I didn’t have all the skillsets or the clarity that I needed to support myself. When I was first out of school, I was like, “I don’t think I’m quite ready to do this whole thing myself.” I have no idea about how to do any accounting or take payments or invoice clients. That was so foreign.

I learned all of my skillset for the tangible tools that I needed. I learned how to design but I didn’t learn how to run a business. I felt like I needed to work for someone who was running a business so that I could at least absorb a lot of that, how to run a client meeting, how to write proposals and just absorb the things that I probably could have learned if I had studied in business but I didn’t have any of that experience.

There was always a pressure point. There’s something in my gut that’s telling me this is no longer the right job for me. I’d saved up enough money to make like, “This is a financially less risky decision. We’re not totally going broke here.” I saved up enough to quit that first job and try to make it on my own. I was taking on every single project that I could, wedding photography, baby photography, designing invitations for people’s events, designing logos, books, posters and T-shirts.

You have had instances where you have worked with someone and a couple of times that you have worked for yourself. What would you say have been the big differences for you and why at the end? This is not the end, you can change your mind in the future. Why is being an entrepreneur the best decision for you?

I have a lot more control over the work that I’m able to produce and the life that I want to live, which is also hard because I can often get into this trap of, “You’re a business, not necessarily entrepreneur.” Businesses work 9:00 to 5:00. I put myself in this unrealistic box of, “You have to be on-call for your clients 9:00 to 5:00.”

That’s not true. This is subtler and you have made this life choice to run your business and your life in a way that suits you and your clients. When you are in corporate, you want to quit your job and work for yourself. When you work for yourself and it gets hard, you’re like, “Can I just go get a job somewhere?”

Having a business, there is no schedule for me. I end up working on Saturday, Sunday, from 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM. I do have flexibility. If I want to walk or run or go to a store, whatever, I own my time. It’s an art on how to balance everything out when you’re the one running the show.

It’s a test of willpower. Not only to make your time your own but also to protect your time. To be able to set those boundaries with your clients and with yourself like, “I’m not going to work on the weekends. Maybe this weekend I have to hustle because I’m about to go on vacation.” You have that flexibility.

You have to take care of yourself before you can pour into your clients.

With being an entrepreneur, there’s so much risk that’s on your shoulders that the first couple of years can feel hard. You’re trying to get your clients, you’re trying to attract clients first, figure out your process. I’ve heard this from a lot of entrepreneurs especially in the creative space. That’s where I live with other designers and creatives.

In year three of owning my business and this was when I was doing this fulltime, I’ve been on my own fulltime since 2015. I’ve had little pit stops. I had a pit stop in 2011. In 2008, I did a little bit of Lynsey Creative or Lynsey Photography or whatever the business was called at that point. It’s been several years since I quit my last job. In the first 1 to 2 years, everything feels hard. You’re trying to understand how to do your own accounting and just get your processes in place and your marketing. You’re literally learning at all on the fly oftentimes.

That’s what it feels like.

In year three, something clicks and you can start to take those weekends off. That may not be the case but I’ve heard it from a lot of people. I reached that year three in 2018 and I was like, “This feels good.” My process is good. My clients are referring me to other clients. Things started to build in this engine. That’s when you don’t necessarily have to feast or famine anymore. There’s a little bit of like, “I can have a reprieve. I can start to take a little bit more time for myself.” It’s funny because a lot of people are like, “I want to work for myself. I’m not going to work nearly as much as I would at my corporate job,” and you end up working 80 hours a week.

That’s a key point because a lot of times, we have goals. We don’t think of the sacrifice that that will entail. All the time, whenever they finalize a goal, I always ask them, “What are you willing to sacrifice in order to accomplish these?” It will be easier when you have that in mind. For you, what did you sacrifice when you took that decision to be an entrepreneur?

My sanity. It was emotionally hard and emotionally taxing. My husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, was incredibly supportive of me wanting to quit my job. I had to lean on him for a lot of this emotional and financial support because there were some circumstances as to why I quit that design job. It wasn’t necessarily like I had built out this financial runway. It was like, “We got to do something about this toxic work environment.”

What are the things that you sacrificed?

My sanity and financial security. I had 401(k), health benefits and all of the things that come with a salary job. I felt very secure in that financially and knowing that I would always be at work from 9:00 to 5:00, whatever it is, my routine was pretty consistent. When you quit and go into something that is completely risky, you do sacrifice a lot of that routine and a lot of those creature comforts.

You’re out there putting yourself out for hire essentially. My routine shifted a lot. I had to sacrifice a lot of my time and even time building relationships with my friends and family. I did try my hardest to continue to be social. It’s hard because I’m an introvert as well. Putting on my sales hat and trying to pitch myself to clients drained my energy. As an entrepreneur, you have to be the one to put yourself out there.

I almost tried to cocoon myself. After trying to get the website up and running, figuring out my pricing, all of these different elements and pitching myself, I’m exhausted. I didn’t necessarily want to go out and have drinks with friends or be as social. That was challenging as well. Sacrificing not only a solid, steady paycheck but your social life a little bit as you’re building up your business. It always will come back as long as you make time and effort for that.

I always tell people it’s not a matter of if it’s going to happen, it’s a matter of when. As long as you’re putting the effort and you’re walking the path, it’s going to happen.

The first couple of years, I feel like our hustle in order for you to get this business up and running. “We’re learning how to make a video today.” You’re learning a lot of things on the fly that a lot of your peers are probably not having to spend their time doing. You’ll learn those new skill sets and you’ll feel more confident and comfortable in those things. You’ll have more clarity in what you’re doing. Things will start to slowly go back into your routine, whatever that is. Whatever you make time for will always be there.

There is such an expectation of hustle culture and I’m not going to lie, I’m worn out from just doing the day. You have to take care of yourself and pour into yourself before you can pour into your clients or cohost. It doesn’t have to be hustle every single day of the week. You can take time off as an entrepreneur. It’s hard because you’re like, “I’m trading my time for dollars. If I’m not using my time for being productive then I’m not making money.”

That can be challenging especially in those first couple of years. You’re like, “This is how I need to make a living.” If you’re not working, you almost start to feel guilty, at least I did. I started to feel guilty for not being productive. I was burning myself out and I experienced a massive burnout in 2018. It was hard.

It’s a big lesson.

I know you and I bonded over that. Being able to take care of yourself is something you shouldn’t sacrifice along the way.

One of the things that I’ve found while working these two months that I have fulltime entrepreneurship is there is a lot of faith involved in the process. Faith that the work you put on that you’ll get back in terms of finances or energy of clients. In those moments that were challenging for you in your path, where maybe you were losing a little bit of your faith, how do you keep yourself going?

Finding clients like you. I learned a technique. It’s not really a technique but this system from my mother-in-law. When she worked, she had this smile folder. Anytime she got a positive email from a client or someone who was happy with the work that she had done, she saved it in this smile folder, essentially like an affirmation bucket. I am queen of words of affirmation. That is my jam. There’s oftentimes where I would feel incredibly drained or I would be losing faith like, “No one needs me. No one is having success with the work that I’m doing. I’m a terrible logo designer.”

I would compare myself and still do to this day, to other entrepreneurs on the internet. You can start to constantly compare yourself to others and think, “I’m not doing enough. I don’t have the secret to whatever your goal is. I’m not hustling enough. I’m not enough.” You start to doubt yourself and think like, “Am I even good enough to do this anymore? Do people even need what it is that I’m serving?”

This has always been helpful for me. I look back in that smile folder of all these emails. I’ve saved one from you. I saved one from all of my clients that send me like, “Thank you so much for helping me put myself out there.” You start to remind yourself that what you’re doing matters. It fills up that faith bucket a little bit more like, “This is still worth the risk. I don’t need to go get a second job.” That’s the words of affirmation that I need whenever I lose that steam and I’m down on myself. Sometimes you have to ground yourself and think back through all of the times that it did work out.

It’s amazing what happens when you take care of yourself.

I have experienced days because I had a super busy day and I’m drained at night. I started getting irritated. I started storing the reality in my mind because I’m so tired all day. I’m like, “I don’t know what I’m doing and this and that.” One of the things that I do is try not to interact more with people whenever I heed that mental state. I’m like, “I don’t have energy for anything else. I’m going to bed.” The next day, I wake up happy.

It’s amazing what happens when you take care of yourself.

That’s me. I learned that more. Even when I’m with them, I’ll interrupt someone and say, “I’m irritated already. I don’t have more energy to do it.” When I am noticing that behavior in myself, I’m like, “I got to go to bed.”

I am so impressed that you have already learned that about yourself a few months in. It could be hard to be able to take care of yourself in this season because there’s always something you can learn. There are always 30 things on your plate. Being able to know, “I’ve reached my limit. I need to go take a bubble bath, eat some chocolate cake or go on a run, go to bed early,” and being able to decompress and approach the next day with a fresh set of eyes. Your problem may not be solved but you may have more faith in yourself that you can solve it once you sleep.

It makes a huge difference. Sleep is a biological need. One of the things you mentioned is finances. That’s a topic that whenever you make a big transition, like the one I’ve made or you have made, a lot of people have that in their mind to ask but no one asks. It’s like a taboo like, “Don’t ask anyone about money.” You mentioned a couple of things on how you navigated finance. What was your mindset around finances when you started your journey and now that you have been in your journey for years?

It is a roller coaster of emotions. When I first went out on my own the first couple of times, I’m paying off student loans. I was not as financially responsible as I am now. Thank you to my husband. We have a very good financial relationship. Prior to our relationship, I had credit card debt from being a broke college kid and things like that. That was part of why jumping into entrepreneurship felt even riskier because I had this burden of things that I was accruing and had to pay for.

Having a job or a couple of jobs in between my entrepreneurship career helped me get back on track with my finances, helped me save for retirement and build up those things that would be a little bit more challenging to do if you’re just jumping into entrepreneurship right out the gate. I’ve got some money set aside, which helped me feel more financially ready to jump into this risk of, “Hopefully, my talents will get me paid.”

There have been seasons of wondering if I should get a part-time job because I’m doubting myself and my abilities. You look at that smile folder, check your bank account and you’re like, “We have maybe two months of runway.” You start to see, “Maybe in the next week or two, I need to network and build my relationships to be able to get some more clients on the doors so that I can do this for a little bit more of a length of time.” The more that you do that and put yourself out there, not necessarily woo-woo the money as if you’re attracting this money but I do feel like money goes where your energy flows.

At this point, I’ve been in this season of entrepreneurship for six years. I know now that I need a minimum of $5,000 in savings so that I’ve got money to pay Uncle Sam for tax time and just have a threshold of my operating income. Knowing your numbers is incredibly important and knowing what is a good investment.

Let’s say you’re paying $30 a month for your website hosting, you’ve got $5 a month for Gmail and you’re paying an accountant. You’ve got all of these different tools that you need to run your business. Add all those up, that’s at least your minimum operating budget. This is even before you pay yourself. You have to think, “Do I need all these tools? Can I scale back and maybe use a free tool to run my project management system?”

Making those decisions based on what you can bring in per client or per month is a great way to start. You can always add on or delete things that you’re not using. I’m currently paying $20 a month for an email service. I haven’t sent out emails for a long time but I’m like, “Maybe I will send out an email.” I’m at a place where I can continue currently to take that $20 a month hit. It’s not a big deal but if you would ask me that years ago, I’d be like, “I’m never touching email marketing.”

Be smart with your money. You don’t have to jump into everything that everyone else is doing because you feel like you need it. I’m probably going to delete my email newsletter, not my Gmail. I still have my normal email but it’s not necessarily a good use of resources. You can run lean at some points and you don’t have to invest in everything that everyone is doing.

That is so important. I always tell people and I learned this with all these journeys, “Keep it simple at the beginning because you are doing everything like invoicing website. You don’t have extra money to spare a lot of times.” One of the things that I did even before going into my entrepreneurship journey, we assessed legally all the subscriptions, the gym membership that I was paying, ClassPass. Now, I literally use my sweat up to work out. I would love to have a gym membership or go to classes. I recognize that right now is not the time. You got to prioritize. That’s one of the lessons that I’ve learned. In this path, you’re always learning and reinventing yourself. That’s the most important part.

That’s a great point. Going through all of your personal finances and saying, “What can I cut back on? What am I paying for that I’m not using? What can I reprioritize?” Set aside a number of money that you want to invest in your business, “I’m going to invest $10,000. That, for me, is a comfortable amount. It will pay for X, Y and Z for the first six months, for the first year.”

That way, you’ve got a number set aside for that business that you’re going to pour into. You’re not draining yourself personally as well. It takes some time to get to the point where you can start paying yourself as a business owner. A lot of times, the money that you bring in from the work that you do is going to reinvest back into your business, into upgrading your branding or getting that eCommerce website up and running or a marketing strategy, things that will help you bring in more clients. You may have to sacrifice paying yourself for a while.

I still don’t pay myself very much. When a big client comes in, I’m like, “I’ve gotten to this amount of money set aside. I can give myself a $1,000 bonus this month,” or what have you to help pay for personal things. I’ve been a sole proprietor. I don’t have an LLC so it’s just me. At some point I may upgrade that to an LLC for a little bit more protection.

I’m not doing a lot of work that would require me to need that liability. I schedule reoccurring payments to myself for my business into my personal checking every single week. At least I know that that money is coming in and I’m not even thinking about it. I do the same with any money that I need to pay for sales tax or my income tax at the end of the year. I got everything. All of my accounts are in the same bank. I transfer $100 a week or whatever the amount needs to be from my business checking into my business savings.

You do have a business account. I’m running on personal. That’s something I’m interested in.

It’s something I would recommend because once you go to file your taxes and interest, separate out your Netflix subscription from your website subscription and all of the meals that you may have for work versus personal. Being able to see what your business is bringing in. If everything is together, it’s hard because everything blurs the lines.

I highly recommend anybody to go get a business checking and business savings. My business savings is not my money. I’m not saving for the business necessarily. This is just for taxes so I know that I need about $5,000 to $7,000 in taxes in savings at this point in my income threshold. I make sure to pull money out about 30% of any invoice that comes in. I pull that and I put it into my business savings and I tell myself that is not my money. When I look at my total income, I subtract that business savings account and that’s how much money I have in my total possession. Anything in that account, I’m like, “No, it’s not mine. Can’t see it. Can’t touch it.” That way, I’m not overspending on something that is meant for state sales tax or income tax.

That’s smart.

Know what your time is worth.

You can get yourself into a position especially as a first-time entrepreneur, you’re like, “I owe $700 or $3,000 for the income that I brought into my business but I don’t have that money saved.” Take a lesson from me. I did that my first year because I didn’t understand that I needed to be setting aside 30% to cover everything on top of having to pay state sales tax here in Texas. It’s helpful to build in that cushion so that you know that you’re safe when it comes to April of that following year.

Many good tips and insights. I’m selfishly here absorbing every information. It’s like housing freeze but in a good sense. Now that you have been in this entrepreneurship journey for a couple of years, what was something that you were scared of before that you’re not scared of anymore? What has changed on you from what you believed before versus now? What comes to mind?

I finally know what my time is worth. The very first few years that I was in business, you were taking on every single job that comes your way if you need to because you’re learning how much to charge or what you want in an ideal client. I have taken on projects in my early entrepreneurship days that I would never take on now because there were so many red flags.

A client wouldn’t want to sign my contract or they wouldn’t want to put down a deposit or they wouldn’t want to go through the process that I had set up as protection for both my client and myself. I needed the money. I will gladly sacrifice or give you this giant discount and you’re not respecting my time. I wasn’t fully aware at that point of the value that I was providing for my clients. That takes time and confidence.

It’s important. I’m learning that as I go.

It takes time and going through several different experiences with clients, winning and losing jobs or going through a breakup with the client. We were like, “This is not a good relationship. There are too many red flags. I’m conceding too many things or parts of my process to give you what you need,” and having the client run the relationship. Whereas instead of allowing you to be the guide of the relationship can also be challenging.

All of that allows you to start to understand, “This is how I want to run my client project or my relationship. This is how I want to be seen as an expert.” That takes time and confidence to start to understand and then you’re able to start charging more. You’re building the signature process because you’ve experimented essentially. Use the first couple of years to figure out what works, what doesn’t work and shift and change. I’ve gained a lot of confidence and clarity in knowing what I will and will not do. A lot of that also comes with maturity, having more time and projects under your belt and knowing what you want to do with your business.

You reminded me of something that one of my spiritual teachers says. He’s like, “I don’t want any clients. I want great clients.” You don’t want to take into everything. You wanted the right people to partner up with you. It’s a process. It’s a journey. There are a lot of people out there that maybe don’t have the clarity we have right now. It took me eight years to take the decision. It has taken you going different ways to know what is the way for you.

I may shift my business in another five years.

Who knows? There are a lot of people that in their gut, they feel something. Maybe they don’t have the clarity and if they have the clarity, they are afraid of taking action. Maybe they are fearful of success or failure. What will you say to those people based on your experience?

Experiment and try. Especially in times of COVID where there are so many people who are not making it past a certain age because of this virus. I continue to think like, “Would I be regretting this decision? Would I have this regret if I was in my last moments?” I know that sounds grim but I had a death in the family. It was a very unexpected death. I continue to think like, “I don’t want to be in that position regretting not taking that leap.” I know that that feels a little dark but I continue to think like, “What is your life’s purpose? Maybe your life’s purpose is to do something that right now, it feels terrifying.”

Any change.

I always think like, “What is the worst that could happen?” You get another job. Someone tells you that you’re taking too much of a risk. Most of the people in your life will tell you that they’re nervous for you or that they’re scared and, “How could you be quitting your job?” It’s because they’re projecting. They’re projecting their own fear onto you.

That doesn’t mean that what you’re doing is not a good idea or that what you’re doing is not something that everyone else needs or a certain niche group of people needs from you. Maybe it’s just because they, the people that love you, want to protect you and they don’t want you to feel pain from taking unnecessary risks.

They don’t know better.

It’s not a risk that they would take so they may not be as supportive because they don’t want to see you struggle but that’s not a reason that you shouldn’t try. When it comes to clarity, you may not have clarity for a while. I still second guess myself at least 2 or 3 times a week. It’s so true. I’ve been on my own for several years at this point and then off and on prior to that, I still am like, “Should I work for somebody else?” That’s the fear setting in that we’re not good enough or there’s this imposter syndrome.

I try to not consume content from anyone that is making me feel less than. I’ve taken a pretty significant Instagram and Facebook break because I was feeling myself second-guessing everything I was doing. I was not giving myself the space to have my own clarity. A lot of what you see on social media is people telling you that you have to hustle more, buy this course, unlock this secret.

While those things are great and some of those courses may be incredibly helpful, I also invested in courses but there comes a point where you need to dive in. Take the risk. Maybe that’s 30 minutes a day. Maybe that’s, “I want to pursue arts,” so start an Etsy shop. Carve out time, an hour or two a week or ten hours a week. If you have the flexibility, try to make those sacrifices. Maybe you’re not watching as much Netflix or maybe while you’re watching Netflix, you’re also knitting or whatever it is you’re passionate about. Start to carve out that time for the life that you want.

It’s so important because technology has allowed us to become entrepreneurs from one second to the other. We can be creative and resourceful. You can be in your corporate job and doing a side hustle. It doesn’t have to be all lean but experiment. I love that word, experiment. Thank you so much, Lynsey. This has been so full of knowledge and information. I’m energized. I’m ready to keep going. Experiment. In terms of purpose and clarity, anything else you want to tell the audience?

Thinking about having clarity, that will take time. I feel like you know what your purpose is. You have this incredible purpose in the role that you have in corporate or as a parent. You can also have multiple purposes. You can serve this particular role in your life. You can also carve out time for something for you, if there’s anything that is gnawing at you and you’re constantly thinking about.

For some reason, I go to bed every night thinking that I’m going to run the next day. Have I run the next day? No but I’m constantly thinking I laid my head on the pillow and I’m like, “I should run.” That is not necessarily a purpose calling because I’m not a runner. It’s my mind and my body telling me that I need to invest more energy back into myself.

If you’re constantly having something come up like, “I wish that I could learn how to take better photos or feel passionate about helping people get to that next level in their career or enter anything.” Whatever it is that you want to do, underwater basket weaving, literally anything. If you were passionate about it, you will find other people who are also passionate about it and will either hire you, pay you or buy your things. It’s worth investing back into yourself.

Everything you do through this experimentation process will go on to serve you in some way.

That inner voice, the more we narrow at some things, the louder it gets. Following your gut and experimenting, that’s the key thing.

Always think about what’s the worst that could happen. If the worst that could happen is that you start this Etsy shop and no one buys, that’s okay. Did you have fun trying to figure it out? I hope so.

Also, the feedback. There is no failure, only feedback. If no one is buying, what is that telling you? Can you try different ways, different things to get people to buy? It’s an experimentation process.

Your goal and purpose may shift some. I never wanted to photograph weddings. I ultimately photographed about 60 weddings over the course of five years. I learned a lot from that. I learned how to work with clients and make them feel comfortable. I’ve translated that into my design process and made sure that I’m taking care of my clients along the way.

Everything that you do through this experimentation process will go on to serve you in some way. Maybe it’s not a direct correlation like, “I’m now this amazing world-renowned wedding photographer.” That may not be the case. I’m not but I still have this great skillset and I’ve learned a lot of interpersonal relationship tools through that process. Photography is a creative outlet. I translated that into the work that I do now.

In between there, I thought that I was going to design wedding invitations. I even went to a bridal show and had my own booth at a bridal show for wedding invitations. It was great and beautiful but it wasn’t the final stop on my journey. What I’m doing currently, which is branding for entrepreneurs, is what I have been doing for a number of years.

I love that but 5 to 10 years from now, maybe my journey takes another stop. This may or may not be my final stop. This is currently what I’m incredibly passionate about. It’s where I can do the most transformative work for my clients. As my clients grow, my business ultimately shifts and grows as well. Don’t ever be afraid to try to experiment, to continue investing in yourself because you’re the only one that is going to make that a priority.

Thank you so much for being here. Will you share your info where you can find your social media, your website, anything?

I am @LynseyCreative on everything. You can find me on LynseyCreative.com, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. I’m just on the Gram.

Thank you so much for being here, for being part of this ploy to continue empowering people, to create the reality and making purpose.

Thank you for making space for this. This has been incredible.

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FREE Resources:

Starting your day without direction? Start your morning on purpose with my go-to 5 mins routine.

Need Clarity? 3 Simple Questions to boost your clarity and make authentic decisions that lead to fulfilling outcomes. You also have journaling space for each question so you can capture your insights.