This afternoon, I finished up my first loaf of dutch oven bread and a minestrone from scratch. Besides feeling like a total bamf for making my own bread, it helped fuel my recent obsession with foodie culture. From reading food memoirs to learning how to make a wine sauce certain to please, exploring what it truly means to come to the table has me fixated. It’s been said often, but understanding the basics of any topic is so crucial to building upon that foundation.
The more I explore French cuisine and advanced techniques, the more I learn the importance of the basics – the way you hold a knife, the consistency needed for good baking, the necessity of choosing the best ingredients for the best product. This is what separates the good cook from the great.
A friend was talking to me about how after a teleseminar, she was hired to do a bit of work. It’s not bad work, but it’s not her work. When I pointed out that instead of doing the work for the client, she could easily record it and release as part of her upcoming course, she agreed – and it sounded way more up her style.
When you’ve spent time learning the basics and becomign an expert in your field, there’s a certain point you reach where what you used to do no longer makes sense for you to do now. Yes, you could keep doing what you’re good at. Or you could go deeper. You could do what you will one day be great at.
Where are you holding yourself back? What work do you need to stop doing so you can do the work you love to do? The work that matters?
You can choose greatness. Why choose otherwise?
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A big ask – and lots to give.
As some of you know, I’ve been staying at my mom’s since August. It’s helped me stabilize my finances some and keep up to date on all those lovely little pieces of debt I’ve been paying off while I was searching for a job. And if you’ve known me long, you know that staying there…
What happened. (Now leave me alone.)
Lately, I’ve been a little, um, emotional. Tapped out. Closer to fight or flight than I want to be. I kicked a foot-shaped dent into the side of some asshole’s Mini Cooper who tried to get me to get into his car. (I’m pro sex work/ers, but I’m real anti old white guys thinking everyone…
Fuck love and light.
Trigger warning: Woo woo bitches with no backbone taken to church below. I am very, very angry. I’ve been working online for the past 7+ years, and let me tell you, I never planned on being a marketer. Once upon a time, I just wrote. I shared the things I was learning in the hopes…
It took me 7 years to find sustainable success. How long will it take you?
I’ve been having a lot of great conversations with my colleagues about what it takes to be successful in business, especially around how long it takes. The common theme I’ve heard from people I respect and have watched grow alongside me is that it takes many of us 7 years. SEVEN YEARS?! I hear you…
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Dusti Arab, Fractional CMO
And the founder of the reinvention co, a marketing consultancy specializing in working with personality-driven companies with small teams.
Intense, fun, and relentlessly practical, Dusti understands the lives of small business owners are deeply intertwined with their businesses, and if their marketing is going to be sustainable, it can't get in the way of why they do what they do. (And honestly? It should be fun so they actually want to do it.)
She is the host of Referral Worthy, a podcast for small business owners ready to go from "best kept secret" to the go-to name in their niche.