When Brit + Co asked me to be a coach for their first installment of Selfmade, I thought it could be a fun way to give back and share what I'd learned over the past eight years since launching Headbands of Hope.
But I had no idea how much more I was going to get from it.
Let me give you a little backstory. When I was in college, I interned at a wish granting organization and realized that kids who lost their hair to chemotherapy loved wearing headbands after hair loss... but they were only given wigs and hats. So in 2012, I launched Headbands of Hope: for every headband sold, one is given to a child with an illness.
To date, we've almost donated 1 million headbands to kids with illnesses all over the world.
It's been a pretty incredible ride, but I'll admit, I was starting to forget what it felt like to be a beginner. When you're running a multi-million dollar business and taking care of employees and doing a bunch of legal stuff, the spark of starting a business can feel like it's in the rearview mirror.
Enter Selfmade.
While working with these amazing women on their ideas, I was reminded of the fire that I felt eight years ago starting Headbands of Hope. I was reminded that businesses are built to solve problems. And I was reminded that there is nothing more powerful than your founder story that you're living right now.
In fact, I was so ignited through coaching Selfmade that it pushed me to go all-in on a new idea that I've been toying with for about three years.
I decided to finally build and launch Bright Pages: a guided online journal for doers and creators.
When you sign up for Bright Pages, you get your own private online journal with daily prompts built especially for people who want to create something: a business, a podcast, a blog, a craft, a book, a talk.
Because I want to help people work through their ideas through journaling, I also created a feature that no other journaling service has ever done: Prompt Pathways™️. You pick the goal or interest you're working on, and we'll deliver guided prompts around that specific goal.
We send daily prompt out via email Monday through Friday, and you can even reply to the email and we'll archive it for you. My belief is that just 15 minutes a day of journaling can be the difference maker between thinking about our ideas and actually doing them.
When we journal, it takes the clutter in our heads and makes sense of it on paper. It's like power washing our minds before we allow anything else inside of it. Journaling helps us get the clarity we need to pursue our ideas and swing for the fences, which is what Bright Pages is designed to do.
But it hasn't been easy. I've never built a technology product before so I've run into tons of issues: bugs, glitches, credit cards not running, emails not sending. You name it, it has happened.
However, with Selfmade fresh on my mind, I'm taking my own advice that I gave to hundreds of women starting their ideas.
Starting a business isn't supposed to be easy, it's supposed to be worth it.
So all of the issues that you run into when you try to bring your idea to life aren't signs that you're not ready or the idea isn't working, it's just research to help you build something even better. Once you're eight years into a business idea (like I am with Headbands of Hope), you'll be able to look past and connect the dots between the things that didn't work and the innovations that came from those failures.
I want 2021 to be the year that you went for it. I want it to be the year that you look back on eight years from now and feel reminded of the fire you had when you started your idea.
That's why I'm hosting You 2.0, a 21-day journaling challenge and community to discover who you want to be and what you want to do in 2021. You'll leave with a mission statement, a new bio, and a game plan to bring your bright ideas to life.
Plus, Brit Morin will be one of our guest speakers in You 2.0 and she'll be our first guest prompt takeover on Bright Pages following the challenge.
The challenge starts January 11th and you can sign up here (it's totally free).
See you on the inside!
