I don’t know about you, but the past few weeks have really felt life giving. Mrs. Money and I are both fully vaccinated and it feels like we’re emerging from our COVID hibernation ready to take on the world again. I’ll admit that I envision this being a bit of a transition period for me as an introvert who’s been keeping to himself for the past year; although I desire and crave social activities again, I expect it’ll be a little bit of getting used to!

During this COVID ‘slumber’ I did a lot of reflecting about what’s important in life and where I’d like to spend my time. I spent a lot more time with family (virtually), via almost daily FaceTime calls. Not to say that I lost friends, but I instead focused more on a smaller, core group and invested in those relationships. I also continued my side projects; whether it was trying to capture the moment early on around Contact Tracers, starting to mine a cryptocurrency, or maintaining our rental house as a landlord, I’ve kept busy. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember, I always have entrepreneurial endeavors, mostly without success but hey that’s entrepreneurship, but some with moderate success (i.e. this blog).

I also kept my regular 9-5 corporate job, and believe me, I was very thankful for it throughout the pandemic (and still am today). My employer is beyond amazing, and I love working for them. I also love what I do, and genuinely look forward to coming to work (virtually) most days. However I also believe that I’m an entrepreneur, and my mind is constantly thinking of business ideas and how I can improve inefficiencies in the world around me. 

It was during a catch up conversation with a friend where she actually pointed out that maybe instead of calling myself an ‘entrepreneur’, perhaps I should call myself a ‘creator’. She is also a creator, and invited me to explore what that meant to me. I’d always found myself somewhat hesitant to ‘leave the corporate world’, and as a creator, I found peace in the fact that maybe it was ok that I’m not a successful entrepreneur yet, perhaps I’m happiest working for a larger corporation, and working where I’m able to leverage my creator tools. 

As I explored what being a creator means to me, I jotted down the following 3 items:

• Creator is a verb
• Success is a journey
• Small steps are success

One of the big areas I’m trying to work on professionally this year is a) getting better at telling stories, and b) telling stories more often. It’s with these goals in mind that my next side project is called the “Progress Project”.

The Progress Project is working to bring fellow creators together to share stories. Stories of what they’ve been creating during COVID. Stories around how they got through the lows of the pandemic, and how they celebrated the highs. Stories around how they’ve plotted out their roadmap to success, and how they’re defining success. My co-lead and I aren’t 100% sure what this project will look like, but we are excited and believe that there are other creators like us that are craving a space to share their stories and to collaborate. 

If this is of interest to you, I invite you to check out the landing page for the Progress Project to learn more!