Always A Student: Lessons Learned As A Business Owner
Queer Chocolatier is entering its sixth holiday season after opening in 2017. Not a single one of those seasons looks like another. My positive spin on this is that I've been lucky to be constantly learning something new over this course of time.
Holidays are vital to small businesses. Chocolate businesses in particular can experience a “make or break" span between October and February. Somehow, much like every election cycle, this season seems to be the most important ever for QC.
I’ve learned so much over the years.
I've developed new skills: chocolate-making, basic carpentry, social media management, small machine repair, crude accounting and bookkeeping, and understanding regulations to the best of my ability.
I've learned that community is everything to the success of a small business, not only because of sales but because of the ability to uplift and carry an individual through the most challenging of times.
Management and leadership are not the same thing and I have varying levels of competency in both.
Doing business with friends is hard but I always want to make those efforts first because the grace I'm shown is the grace I want to give.
But I'm going to take a moment to work through one of the most important lessons I’ve been needing to process for some time:
Perfect isn’t the enemy of good, it is my enemy.
Of all the things I've learned as I've owned and operated this business, this lesson is the most painful and has yet to stick in my brain, so perhaps writing about it will make it a bit stickier.
I keenly feel every mistake I make in my business. Queer Chocolatier has, for better or worse, become an extension of my personality and identity. Whenever I make a mistake, I end up in a cycle of self-abuse. Sometimes I can move through that cycle more quickly than other times because something more urgent comes up to draw my attention. But there are occasions that I fall into a pit and can’t easily lift myself out.
That perfection pit is a dark, cold, spikey place.
I can fall in it anywhere. Mostly because I'm afraid of falling short. Cycles, y’all.
I under-roast my cocoa beans out of a fear of burning them. I over-refine my chocolate formula out of fear the texture may still be grainy. I over-promise when I can get tasks done out of fear of not seeming productive. I under-sleep out of fear of not catching up on my work load.
It seems like being a business owner has made me afraid but maybe it’s because it’s the first occupation in my life that has mattered so much to me.
But that fear has got to be reigned in. Fear should be a warning system, not a guidance navigational system.
It was a big risk to start this business because I had no clue how to do any of it other than make good chocolate and relate to people. I have learned so much through this risk, though, and I have to allow myself to keep learning and growing and not be as afraid as I've allowed myself to become.
Perfect isn't a noble goal. Growth is. Joy is. Empathy is, even empathy for myself.
Y’all have been part of helping me learn this lesson by extending grace and kindness with me over the course of QC's existence. I will look to take these lessons more to heart and not throw away these opportunities to learn.
Thank you.