i will do better

hey there beauties & bosses!

last week, i hit you with a doozy of a challenge—a tough love exercise straight from shane parrish's playbook:

i promised to share my personal reflections because, let's be real, there's something powerful about peeking into someone else's self-evaluation. it's kinda like reality tv but for personal growth—& who can resist that?

the last two years have been a crash course in entrepreneurship, emphasis on crash part. so it’s time to get brutally honest to avoid a full on crash & burn.

today you’re getting a seat at the board room table with the new ceo of MacKenzie & Co. you’ll see that she’s mapping out quite the master plan. (& yup, i’m going all third-person on you for a bit of narrative flair)

requesting a rose ceremony

the first & most important change of business is to do less.

merry makery has been playing a wild game of business bingo meets whac-a-mole. what started as a cozy little shopify spot for greeting cards ballooned into newsletters, custom stationery, digital designs, freelance gigs, & a consulting hustle—not to mention the social media content merry-go-round.

it's a classic case of too much sauce, diluting the flavor. or in the blunt words of the law of diminishing returns:

she's doing too much & doing a lot of it not so well.

don’t get me wrong just starting & experimenting is a huge part of the entrepreneurship game, but to get to the next level she needs to stop dating all these business idea bachelors.

she’s gotta pick her final rose.

barriers to blast

let's dive deeper into what’s been jamming the gears.

this cocktail of commitment-phobia & fear of failure is a recipe for staying stuck. it’s been about playing it safe, which means playing small. floating from one idea to the next without ever really planting her feet has meant that she’s built a castle on sand, not stone.

her indecision is silently killing her business.

she can't call for backup if she doesn’t know the battle.

she can’t be anything if she’s trying to be everything to everyone.

& she certainly can't win if she’s not even sure where the finish line is.

cutting clutter

so, what goes? well, for starters, those low-return endeavors that have been more about vanity than sanity.

those products barely scraping by. those half-baked courses that promised much & delivered little. those exhausting endeavors of pleasing everyone.

it's time to stop ’em all

& to zero in on what truly matters.

doubling down

what matters most are the high-impact activities that not only promise but deliver value to everyone involved.

just because she can do something doesn’t mean she should.

time to turn up the discernment.

building routines that reinforce success, establishing systems that support sustainability, & cultivating habits that aren’t just good on paper, but show in the bank.

setting the stage for grand performances, not just rehearsals.

changes incoming

& with that we end my brutally honest third-person review.

i shared this today for two main reasons. first is because i know many of you, like me, are standing at a life crossroads with a flashing "now or never" sign.

& i think it’s GO time for us to chase our scary dreams.

but i want us to remember that what got us here, won’t get us there.

as mr. leonardo dicaprio once said:

“every next level of your life will demand different you.”

the second reason i’m sharing this is to be transparent that big changes are coming for merry makery. i’ll be spilling all the details to you dear newsletter readers in the weeks ahead.

it's going to be one hell of a ride that i hope you’ll stay with me for.

but if it’s not your thing, remember you can always unsubscribe by clicking the link at the bottom of this newsletter. i’ll miss you, but i fully understand.

keep rockin & rollin,

p.s. if you have ideas or feedback for me, i always love to hear it & promise to reply!