Small business ownership is akin to raising a child.
It needs constant attention. It cries when you don’t feed it money. It keeps you up at night. It wants you to take it places. It laughs at you when you are not keeping up with the latest trends. It needs your time and energy and unyielding support. It is anxiety provoking. It wants attention on social media. It makes you question your life choices. But, it also inspires you and challenges you to do better and be better. It wants to grow and become independent. It cares about its appearance and desires recognition. It wants to be successful. It wants to come first.
It is hard to raise four kids, 3 animals and a business. Because when it comes down to it, the business doesn’t come first. It doesn’t come last either. The hedgehog does. But, it definitely needs more nurture than it currently receives. What you feed grows, and so we must find a way to satiate our entrepreneurial offspring without starving the others so that it can grow and mature and be a blessing to our community, which is what we want for our kids too. And we will.
And so the Heart Gallery would like to recognize all the families that are about to send their kids back into the wild, and all the logistical madness and mayhem that comes with it, by inviting you to a Back to School, All Ages Paint and Sip at Logan Brewery tomorrow night. Let’s paint and sip, and process all that this time of year brings. And in doing so, we will grow together!
Hope to see you there.
Story Time With Heather Pasley 
I hope kids all over B town will come celebrate art with their folks and paint up a storm! Here’s to the HeArt Gallery!
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Hi Heather,
I’ve enjoyed your blog posts for a number of years and always open them right away. 😊 I’ve been a friend of Rob Watson’s since well before the turn of the century and that’s how I came across your blog. I think your mom shared a post or two on Facebook.
My family has self-employed small business people out the wazoo through several generations and on both sides of the family tree. The Armenian refugees became raisin farmers and the Dust Bowl refugees were pay-as-you-go crop workers until they got a footing. My dad wanted to be a mortician – eeew – but ended up in the home improvement business after his job that got him through Bible College turned out to be more promising than the mortuary business.
Dad taught my brother how to install draperies and drapery installation turned out to be the business that paid for my brother’s education. Six units away from graduation from San Jose State, he dropped out and bought the drapery business. And we’ve been in it ever since. It’s a strange little niche, but interesting and creative, too.
I hope you’ll figure out the path for your business. I wonder if there is anything you can do to bring consistent repeat business along with the crowd that will come for the occasional night out with the girls. You mentioned doing karaoke one night – if you’ve got a little stage, maybe you can showcase local comedians or singers or something.
My parents both had Alzheimer’s and while we were dealing with that, I heard that painting helps your mind stay sharp. So I bought a Van Gough paint-by-number kit and listened to RC Sproul’s lecture series called, “Dust to Glory” while I did. I was amazed at the recall I had of the lecture and how… I don’t know – maybe “restful” is the word I’m looking for – it was to my brain. Maybe if you had paint by number kits there for people to dabble at while someone sang, or read a novel or something weird like that – I wonder if people would come. Instead of eating pretzels they could contribute to a PBN and sign the back when they are completed, you can display them for a while. (Mine ended up being a great gag gift.) I don’t know… I’m truly thinking out loud here.
I saw a piece on CBS about an autistic young man who perfected the art of coffee while he was home during the pandemic. He now has a coffee cart that he sells from at his dad’s business and he was warmly welcomed there. Plus the coffee is great. Maybe you can bring in something like that – like young people being able to sell something they’ve designed while the contortionist contest is taking place on stage. 😊 I don’t know… it’s that time of day when I’m starting to fade so I’ll leave it here before it devolves any further.
I just really want you to succeed, and I know how hard, expensive, demoralizing, and exhausting it can be trying to get a little business to take root and become established.
Hang in there – God will lead you and you can trust that, even if he nixes the contortionist idea, which I think could really draw a crowd.
Diane Comstock
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