The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising Journey!

So on Friday, September 10th, I got my book, The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising, printed on the Espresso Book Machine! There’s a reason I look so happy in that picture! This proof represents three years of work.

The Beginning:
I read Tim Ferriss’s “The 4 Hour Workweek” in 2007, and I thought, “How can I take what I know, and help people with it?”

And more importantly, “How can I scale my impact, so that people I never meet will get the benefit of my experience?”

So I decided to write a book. I started calling it “The CD Project,” because originally I wanted it to be a CD series that people could listen to while they were driving, or doing something else.

I started talking about it with my friend Jacob, and he agreed to hold me accountable. We would have weekly calls where I would tell him how the book was coming, and what I was writing.

I would write like a woman possessed. I needed to get all of this information out of my head and onto the page. I took everything I had learned in my development career and started researching to flesh out the project even more.

Then I got a new, stressful job and let the book fall by the wayside.

The Middle:
For a year and a half, I was working at this job where all I could do was work. I wanted to prove myself. And I wanted to succeed at this job. Then I realized that I was spending 80 hours a week at work, and that I had no life.

So I decided that I would get a life. I started teaching encaustic art from my apartment.

That was fun, but it didn’t keep me from staying late at work. So I got on the internet, and started going on dates 3 or 4 nights a week.

I met a lot of diverse kinds of people, and that was fun, but I needed something more. So I joined a band. And a board.

That was fun, but now I realized that I didn’t have time to do the work I said I was going to do for the board, or time to really practice for the band, and eat well, and take care of my house.

So I dropped the board, and I dropped the band. The stress at work never seemed to let up, and there were some personality issues at play there, so I started looking for a new job more actively.

And I started thinking about leaving the city I was living in. Because it just seemed like it was time. I loved my friends, and loved my green, rainy city, but the economy there was downright terrible. Time for a shift.

The End:

I left my job in May, 2009, and biked to freedom. I looked for a job for months, but no interview panned out. I started sitting down and seriously considering what I wanted to do with my life. I moved into an old victorian house with friends. I started drawing illustrations for the book. I started thinking about other ways to make money. In short, I became an entrepreneur.

And the new beginning! Next post tomorrow!