Wendy Cholbi in the Green Room (with Shiny Gold Stars*)

Welcome to the Green Room! Come on in, have a seat…

The Green Room is a cozy backstage space where our favorite business performers come to kick off their shoes and dish. And we get to listen in.

(*A convoluted Clue reference, because we couldn’t help ourselves.)

…………………………………………

We’re so lucky to have Wendy Cholbi with us today in the Green Room!

Wendy calls herself a Technology-to-English Translator, and that’s pretty much the most spot-on job description we’ve ever heard. Wendy just has a knack for taking the complicated bang-your-head-against-a-wall technical stuff and making it crystal clear. Somehow she manages to do it with humor and grace–and most importantly, without talking down to people.

We love Wendy because she’s kind and smart and hilarious. Not to mention, she calls her Wordpress classes Wordpress Swimming Lessons–and as you know we’re suckers for a brilliant metaphor! (By the way, the next session starts October 18.)

You can also find Wendy swiming around on Twitter. (She’s @wendycholbi.)

…………………………………………

What surprised you most about the process of creating one of your things?

What surprised me the most was that I went through the same stages everyone else does.

See, I’ve been trying to create a product for at least two years. I’ve steeped myself in mastermind groups, online forums, helpful blogs, and infoproducts on creating products. I’ve cheered friends and colleagues as they created their own first products. And I figured that, having seen all the roadblocks and sandtraps that beset my fellow entrepreneurs, I’d be pretty good at avoiding them myself.

Hahahahaha.

It turns out I’m only human (Human League, anyone? Anyone? Bueller?).

The best example is the challenge of the final 5 percent. I’ve seen, over and over again, that people do crazy fantastic work, they’re on fire with capital-M Mission, and they get 95% of the way to launch day, and then all of a sudden that final 5 percent seems completely impossible. It’s like it gets exponentially harder as the launch gets closer.

And I’ve totally been on the cheering squad of people I know who’ve navigated this final 5 percent. I’ve been there on the sidelines saying “You can do it! You’re so close I can taste it! It’s probably good enough right now! It’s OK to release it into the world!”

So when I suddenly had a panic attack two days before Shannon and I launched the Love Your List homestudy, and I found myself thinking “This product is a steaming pile of crap and it would be criminal to let anyone pay money for it,” it was a bizarre and surreal experience.

One part of my brain was totally convinced that the product was not just mediocre, it was dangerous and would ruin my reputation forever.

And another part was observing this drama, nodding sympathetically, and saying “Oh, NOW I get what my friends were going through. Wow, isn’t this interesting?”

So, I absolutely knew it would be OK even though I also absolutely knew everything was hopeless. (Gee, thanks a lot, brain.)

Mark Silver wrote about being 90% done in The Missing Ingredient Before You Launch a New Offer, and talks about letting yourself be vulnerable, and finding someone to witness you. Shannon was there to witness me, and I would not have finished that final 5 percent without her support.

What’s the hardest part about the creative process for you? What’s scary or challenging about launching something?

The hardest thing about the creative process, for me, is also the scariest part of launching something.

Let me ’splain…

As long as something is still an idea, still unfinished, it is perfect. Because it lives in the Land of Potential, with magical unicorns browsing from cupcake trees next to shining waterfalls of chocolate and champagne.

And I love the Land of Potential (I have an official part-time resident visa). Everything glitters, there are so many possibilities, everything’s just around the corner, I’m always on the cusp. It’s intoxicating, it can be highly motivating, and I think it’s a totally necessary stop on the Small-Business World Tour.

But I can’t live my whole life there. It’s amazingly energizing, but it’s also like a sugar high. It’s not sustainable, and it doesn’t pay the bills.

And traveling from the Land of Potential to the world where things have dates and times and costs and limits — that’s hard, and scary. And it’s even scarier when you’re trying to bring something with you, one of those beautiful possibilities. Because the moment something leaves the Land of Potential and enters reality, it’s no longer “everything it might be.” It can only be what it is.

Even if that thing is wonderful and beautiful and desperately needed, and even though the act of creating a real thing out of potential is miraculous and awesome, there’s a feeling of coming down from that sugar high, of going back to Kansas where things are black and white. It’s scary. It’s hard not to believe that my beautiful possibility has somehow been diminished by becoming a tangible thing.

That’s why putting one word on a blank page (or in a blank blog post window) is so hard. It’s why picking a date for the class brings up huge resistance. It’s why sending that important email leaves me feeling inadequate, as if there’s something I’ve left out. What got left out was all the possible things I could have written, but didn’t.

It’s so easy to get uberfocused on the end result – How do you make sure you enjoy the ride?

Truthfully, I rather enjoy being curmudgeonly about how much I hate the damn ride. Even though I know it’s true, that doesn’t mean I have to smile and nod every time someone tells me that life is a journey or everything we do is a work-in-progress.

No, give me the satisfaction of checking something off a list. Give me a shiny gold star and a certificate of completion. Journey schmourney.

My trick is to declare numerous small completions along the way, thus completely obscuring the fact that I’m on a long journey. So I get the chipmunky satisfaction of hoarding my mini-gold-stars and Things Done and checkmarks, and when I look up, surprise, I’ve arrived somewhere new (whether it’s where I thought I’d end up is a different question, having to do with planning and intention).

What’s the best (or worst!) piece of advice you’ve heard about creating and sharing your stuff? Or what is your advice to people getting started out?

The worst piece of advice, from anyone, including me, is “Do it my way.” And it’s even worse when it includes (sometimes sneaky and hidden) followups like “…because it’s the only way” or “…or else you’ll never succeed.”

There is nothing that instantly raises my hackles like being told what to do. That’s one reason I know I’ll never be an employee again (or at least I won’t be a good one — I hope you’re reading, potential future bosses. Thphphphbbt!).

So when I’m telling myself what to do, I do it by wondering: “I wonder what would happen if I tried X? I wonder how Y could be a little better? I wonder if I really need Z?” And then I see what comes up, and maybe try something, and wonder some more. You could try it, if you want.

How’s that for advice

If you were gonna send us a postcard from anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

Antarctica, because there’s a mountain named after my great-grandfather there.

And if there isn’t a post office in Antarctica, then I choose Loveland, Colorado (I grew up in Colorado — but not in Loveland itself). Because how great would it be to get a card with a postmark from the land of Love? Pretty great, I think.

…………………………………………

Thanks, Wendy!

Wisdom from Wendy that I want to fold up and keep in my back pocket:

• We’re (all of us) only human.
• If a project gets exponentially harder as the launch gets closer, try to find a witness or cheerleader to help you to the finish line.
• Moving from the Land of Potential into the “real” world can be scary, but that’s not just okay, it’s totally normal.

Wendy has agreed to hang out in the Green Room for a while today, so if you have any questions for her, feel free to ask in the comments!

…………………………………………