Confessions of a (Former) Workaholic
Confession: I was once a workaholic.
My husband was on his first deployment, and I have no children. It was like destiny.
I was fresh from my college graduation. My husband had been gone a few months, and by chance, I met another Army spouse named Ann. She is an illustrator. We were an ambitious pair, and I can honestly say that is probably the reason we didn’t succeed in the end.
Initially, we discussed working on a children’s book together, but the more we got to talking, the more we realized we had another, better opportunity. We decided to work on a music magazine together. Not only did I have a degree in journalism, I also have a background in music, and being a music journalist was pretty high on my list of dream jobs. It seemed like a daunting task, especially since it was just the two of us about 99% of the time. We had to book interviews, interview musicians, write articles, and take photos and video.
It turned into something more than just that. Because neither of us wanted to risk putting a lot of money into printing the magazine, we decided to do an online release. But, it wasn’t just an online release we were looking to do. We wanted a launch party, which meant finding a space, booking musicians, and getting the word out about it.
Now, in most places this probably would’ve been an easy feat to accomplish. But not Charlottesville, Virginia. Not at the time. Even though Charlottesville is a small college town, the social scene was lacking in many ways, which made finding the right space for our launch party incredibly difficult. Strangely enough, they didn’t have a lot of venues you could use for what we were trying to accomplish.
Do you know what Joomla is? I didn’t until I became a business owner. I learned how to build a website. I probably put hundreds of hours into the website alone. Ambition is a harsh mistress.
I literally became a workaholic during this time in my life. If I wasn’t working, I was thinking about all the things I could be doing. And truth be told, if I didn’t need to sleep to live, I probably wouldn’t have slept most of the time.
We eventually had to call it quits on the magazine. We bit off more than we could chew, and neither of us had the financial means to launch the magazine or find the type of help we really needed to keep it running on a monthly basis. But, I learned a lot about myself and about business.
These are some the things I learned:
- Trust is everything. I think Ann is one of the most trustworthy and hard working people I’ve ever met. I truly learned how to have a great business relationship with someone, but also got a really good friend out of it as well.
- Know when to call it quits. We worked ourselves to the bones, and the worst part was that we didn’t get very far. We tried for a very long time to keep the dream of our magazine going, but it was so overwhelming. We both decided it was best to get off the Titanic and into the life boats.
- And lastly, put all of yourself into what you love. Even though the magazine did not work out in the end, I wasn’t disappointed. I learned a lot about business, life, and myself. I loved the things I had done, the people I met, and the experiences I had. And that alone was worth the blood, sweat, and tears.
Have you ever tried at business, but it didn’t work out? What did you learn? Sound off in the comments below!
