Fashion Business Owner Musings: When You Just Have to Go With It

Biz owner musings

I’m writing this blog post from a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in a town called Pahoa Hawaii. I’m traveling (one of my favorite things to do) and I was supposed to be mixing vacation with business. Meaning, I get to travel for a month as long as I’m also working.

In theory this works out well. In reality, there’s often a hiccup or two.

I’ve been traveling around Hawaii, visiting different islands, and while Pahoa is lovely and last night I had the opportunity to stand 5 feet from flowing lava, what Pahoa lacks is reliable internet. I haven’t experienced this much dropped internet since being holed up in a centuries-old former castle with 20 inch thick stone walls in the hills of Tuscany. That was interesting.

Anyway, today I’ve almost thrown my computer out the window more times than I’m comfortable admitting to. I’ve tried four different locations looking for an internet connection that won’t time out every time I open a web page.

I’m not having much luck. I’m writing this blog post in a Word document.

The amount of frustration, stress, and incredulity I’ve experienced today has been close to making me scream. Honestly, I almost screamed. But then I stopped. You know why?

Because sometimes you just have to go with it.

Sometimes, you just have to understand that things aren’t going to work out as you’d expected or hope and accept that fact.

It’s easy to get frustrated and angry, it’s not as easy to be like, “it’s cool, I’ll manage.” I know for me it isn’t.

I’m so quick to freak out. But as I think about my current situation of very little to no internet for the next 4 days, I’m learning to accept it. One, because what other choice do I have but to leave? And two, more importantly, I’m realizing that maybe this is a good thing.

Maybe, if I can just chill a little, I would start to see that the change in circumstance is a good thing. I mean, how often do I get to be disconnected? Pretty much never. What a gift this could be, if would just stop whining.

I think that we could all benefit from this situation that I’m in right now.

In business, things rarely go as planned. We’re always doing and reacting, doing and reacting. I wonder what would happen if every now and then, when things are not going as we’d planned, we allowed that to just be.

I think we would be surprised.

I think we would discover all the things that wouldn’t have come about if not for what happened.

I’m the spirit of this super zen little hippy town I’m in right now, I’m gonna relax, and just go with it.

I hope you’ll try that too sometimes.

Lots of love and encouragement,

-Nicole
Nicole Giordano

Nicole is the founder of StartUp FASHION, an online resource and community supporting for independent designers around the world with building their businesses. A deep love for the craft of fashion paired with an adamant belief that success is defined by the individual, led her to found StartUp FASHION, where she helps independent designers and makers screw the traditional fashion business rules, create their own paths, and build businesses they truly love. More than anything else, she’s in the business of encouragement and works every day to remind makers and designers that they have something special to offer the world and that they can, in fact, do this thing!

1 Comment
  1. Heidi

    Nicole, Thanks for the reminder that it’s ok to disconnect (and it seems what I really need is a vacation to Hawaii to force myself to do it)

    I’ve found myself obsessively glued to my phone, constantly checking email worrying I may miss something urgent. I need to cut that cord and realize it’s ok to be without internet (or your cell phone) for a few hours…or even a few days.

    Enjoy the time offline 🙂

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