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Well hellooo. It’s Monday, and I’ve got another *fantastic* Fear, Exposed entry for you, written by none other than the wizardess that is Amanda Farough. Amanda rocks and rolls over at violetminded, her blazing hot web design biz where she helps creative professionals look GOOD online and get taken seriously.  She is so on my radar for 2011 – TMF design should be just as bold as the words that compile it, right? Here is her story talking about the fears she had in starting her business, and taking the world by storm on her own.  Enjoy!

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I sat on my old bed in my brother’s childhood bedroom and contemplated my surroundings. My dog slept peacefully in the crook of my legs, twitching in his sleep, content that I was home. My sparse belongings were unpacked and neatly arranged.

Everything was silent, except for the wind that rustled the evergreens on the mountainside.

I glanced down at my wedding ring and idly scratched my dog between his ears with my other hand.

It had been five years since I’d lived in this house. It had been nine months since I’d gotten married on a beautiful summer afternoon in a backyard ceremony. It had been two days since I’d arrived back in my hometown with my $600 car filled with suitcases, books, and technology.

So I cried.

The truth was that I didn’t know much of anything at that point, other than I had no idea where I needed to be. My path — this career path of technology meets collaboration meets hellish failure — was broken in little pieces at my feet. Two universities and a handful of jobs later, I was exactly where I started: on a mountain, in a cedar house, with a little dog, staring out at desert spaces between stars, wondering where to go next.

This was two years ago, in the crux of something resembling an epiphany and a total nervous breakdown.

My marriage was four and a half hours southwest of my current locale. I didn’t have a career. I wasn’t utilizing my university education. I didn’t have a clue.

And that, more than anything, terrified me.

The variables.

The unknowns.

The x’s, y’s, and coordinates between those stars: blank, empty, and drowning in everything from failure to possibility.

It presented a big question.

“Where the hell do I go now?”

When I woke up from my reverie close to two months later, I decided that I wasn’t going to let any workplace or specific career define who I was or what I was capable of.

A spark. A flame. A roaring fire.

It was time to take my life into my own hands and do what my grandfathers (and father) had done: when the going got tough, the tough solved the problem by creating opportunities of their own. Instead of waiting for that fancy certificate — stuck in a box somewhere in Vancouver — to manifest itself in the form of a challenging, rewarding job, I had the brilliant idea that I could just… create that job.

violetminded was born.

In spite of unknowns and variables and desert spaces and terror clutching my throat, amongst all of the competition and coopertition, I birthed a business. It came into the world kicking and screaming and completely unsure of itself. It was strange looking. Didn’t really resemble me, either. But it was me. All me.

I hustled for clients without knowing what my end was result was going to be. I wasn’t even sure I was going to get paid for it at the end of the day. In a lot of ways, I didn’t give a shit. I wanted to create. I wanted to be a part of something that would make someone else shine.

I was like that annoying little kid that’s the teacher’s pet for no reason other than, “I just wanted to help.”

Yeah, that was me in entrepreneurial-web-design-née-software-developer form.

And so, I created. I coded. I hustled and busted my ass. I worked as hard as I ever had just to make a cool couple hundred here and there. But I made sure that my clients knew that no matter what they paid me (or could afford to pay me) that they were rock stars in my eyes.

I earned a reputation for being accommodating, reliable, honest, and hardworking.

But I was afraid. Constantly.

I took on so many projects at once that I collapsed under the weight of it all. I was so terrified that no one would trust me ever again that I just… soldiered on. I kept going. I kept working those insane hours, even though in the past I’d been fired for balking about slave labour hours for slave labour dollars. I kept saying yes because I thought yes was the only way to get ahead.

About five months into this insanity, I poked my head up for air and decided to try my hand at something else. Y’know, in addition to web design. Yeah, I said it. Addition. (Damn it.)

Game journalism.

You want to talk about scary?

Scary is boarding a plane to Los Angeles without knowing where you’re going, what your hosts are like, or how I was going to survive the infamous LA smog. (Turns out that these lungs are made of… cheese. So I had asthma attacks to compensate for the pollution.) Scary is standing around at LAX, waiting for a ride from a woman you’d never met before, panicking that she’d forgotten about you so you’d be stuck there until the conference was over.

But even scarier?

Not going at all. Not realizing my dream of attending the biggest North American video game trade show just because of a few variables. I made some amazing friends and even more amazing connections. (And, as it turned out, my hosts were amazing and I still adore T and her hubby to itty bitty pieces).

It was two weeks of dreamland for me, while I let my business stagnate back in Vancouver.

Had to come back to reality eventually.

And then reality kicked my ass. Hard. With a frozen Canadian boot. Because it’s an asshole like that.

I had to crash and burn.

So I did. Hard. Possibly on my face. I went from zero to sixty to three-thousand back to zero again in the span of a year. In that time, I was accused of plagiarism (yeah, that was cool), of having lost my touch (burner, bro), and of not choosing the right path because I was so dismal at what I was doing (that one stung).

It was enough to exhaust anyone. But exhaustion didn’t even begin to cover it.

Suddenly, fear had a new name. It didn’t have a face (yet) but it had a name.

Child.

In its own strange way, this pregnancy has been a revelation for me. It’s been an exercise in letting go and learning to relinquish control. My headstrong way of accomplishing goals and overcoming barriers — charge forward and hope for the best — is the exact opposite methodology required for embracing this impending mamahood.

Instead of insisting on overcoming, I’ve had to learn how to relax.

Instead of bashing the problem over the head with a hard-hitting solution, I’ve learned to set expectations by the wayside and just breathe.

Fear is an inevitable. There’s no hiding from it. There’s no putting it in the closet to deal with it later, like some long-forgotten spring-cleaning project from three years ago. (I’ve had those.) And there’s certainly no turning back.

As parents, every day is an exercise in failure; every day is do-over. As Kelly has told me in our various conversations, “You have no choice but to get up the next day and do it all over again.” Failure, fear, and all.

As entrepreneurs/solopreneurs/biznez owners, we’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to fuck up. We’re also going to have wild successes and celebrations. In the midst of it all, we’re going to be terrified as shit that we made the wrong choice or that our choice will have screwed someone over or that we’re bad people just for following our dreams when there are many people that aren’t nearly as privileged.

Relax into fear and failure as inevitabilities.

Then get out of the way and let the rest of your existence shine on.

*****

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Go check out Amanda & violetminded.

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If you liked that jazz. . .check out some of these:

• Fear, Exposed – Featuring Avril David
• Fear, Exposed – Featuring Kelly Gurnett (AKA Cordelia)
• Fear, Exposed – Featuring Heather Mamatey
• Fear, Exposed – Featuring Caroline McGraw
• Fear, Exposed – Featuring Rich DeMatteo