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The Permissible Personality

Journey To Entrepreneurship

Nov 2, 2011 by Bonnie Simon

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The house has been taken over by a tiny canine visitor, the chickens are molting and looking ridiculous, and an adorable, squealing baby is running around the house.

Snowball the Cat is not pleased. Not pleased at all.

Wait! This post is supposed to be about starting a writing business and here I am writing about my home life. Isn’t it irrelevant? Shouldn’t I screen out these fascinating tidbits about my personal life?

Therein lies the question, doesn’t it? When I worked for the big corporation, I sought to find ways to express my slightly oddball personality without clashing too much with the official Corporate Persona. Coworkers who had become friends would talk about leaving their personalities in their cars every morning in order to fit in and gain respect. We’ve all seen the advice about how to dress for success and express ourselves in a professional manner.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s mostly good advice if your goal is a good corporate job. Your choices considering how to dress and speak do influence what people think of you, but don’t take it too far. After all, you can’t shut off your personality without shutting off the human uniqueness that houses your talents. For example, I spent many years resisting my natural urge to make jokes in meetings and ask a lot of questions. I didn’t want to stand out or be inappropriate, but upon becoming comfortable with those traits I discovered a talent for meeting facilitation, a talent that made me very good at my job.

I want to apply that same principle as a writer. One of the best things about running my own businesses is the freedom to let it express my personality. My first business, Chickens in the Kitchen, made that easy. Its mission has everything to do with my own personal mission to enjoy my Colorado Springs home and become more self-sufficient.

Community Writing Services is a bit different. Writing about other people’s businesses requires a bit more detachment, but not so much that I lose the ability to tell a good story. As I’m learning from assignments to write for the Gotta Love It! Market, every business has a story and it’s my job to convey that story with all its excitement and adventure. I can only do that by allowing my personality the freedom to respond.

My own tale, and that of Community Writing Services, includes a pint sized dog sitting next to me as I write, a suspicious cat on the couch and molting yardbirds. They are part of this yarn and I want to weave them into my objective to tell the story of this business.

And so I will; loose feathers, growling cats and all. – Written by Bonnie Simon; blog writer, chicken keeper, community enthusiast

About the Author

Bonnie Simon Has Written 35 Articles For Us!

I am an urban homesteader in Colorado Springs, CO where I raise chickens, make my own yogurt and am learning to grow some food, all within sight of downtown in a 1950s era neighborhood. I am starting a small business designed to fill the gap between local farms and local dinner tables.

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