NEWSLETTER - BOSS WITH ME #1

Hello everyone.

This will be my bi-monthly newsletter. I'll be telling you all about my day-to-day life as an entrepreneur. I've been talking about this newsletter format for over a year now, and for me it's not normal! One of my character traits in life is to do things and then think about them afterwards. I'm not completely unconscious, I assure you, but I do things first and adjust as I go along. That's the way I work: I have to get my hands dirty to understand what's going to happen.

So for this newsletter, apart from being convinced that I had to do it, talking about it often and thinking for 1 year about how I was going to do it how I was going to do it, nothing happened.

The good news is that in the space of a year, I've come up with a lot of ideas for what to do next... But that's not all. me so unlike me. I imagined myself as a Carrie Bradshaw, writing my column for you every week (besides, what journalist who writes so little can afford an apartment in the West Village and a new pair of Manolo Bhaliks every episode? Ok, she's written books, but publishing isn't Eldorado! We were lied to at one point, freelance life is a bit more of a mess than that!). As you can see, I'm back and I'm digressing as long as my arm...

All this to say that I was imagining myself writing to you on a café terrace, from my little office overlooking Paris, on my couch in my jogging suit - in short, I was already there! All of a sudden, I was gripped by a whole new panic:

Hello syndrôme of the impostor! Or usurper, whatever you want to call it. It took me 11 months and 7 weeks of reflection to get the idea. On a day like any other, I was talking about the story of an inspiring woman who started from nothing and built up her business in a male environment, to manage 500 employees and finally sell her company in "jackpot" mode. Well, in the beginning, at DAY ONE, she was alone on her sofa.

Saying the words "on her sofa", it was an epiphany. But wait, I'm legitimate too, when I started out I was solo on my sofa, and now I employ 25 people and 2 interns, including 1 on a sandwich course. So no, I'm not in the process of selling my company, but I'm living it all, the whole "galley package": Make My Lemonade is my life. I've lived the last 5 years (okay, 4 and a half) to the full, and I think I can make my contribution (however small it may be at the moment) to the edifice.

This feeling doesn't dictate who I am. me define me. I live it, I feel it, so I'm entitled to talk about it. CQFD. End of therapy, or almost.

With me it's no more complicated than that. I move fast, have a chat, look at the problem.me face, identify what it awakens in me and boom, I move on. I'm lucky enough to work like that. But I can assure you that I have other worries that take a little longer to resolve.

The idea of this newsletter isn't to give advice - I think I'm far from there - but to tell you about the things I do on a daily basis. Things that me seem normal to me because I have my nose in it, but when I read your messages on social networks that me creative processes, how I listen to my intuition, how to create a collection step by step, how to recruit a team... I'm myself I have so much to tell you!

During this year of reflection, I wrote in the notes on my phone about subjects I wanted to tackle, such as : Is authority compatible with benevolence, the values of a company, ecology and my disgust with misinformation, the fear of failing and the risks to be taken, conflict management... In short, lots of stuff!

I don't have a miracle solution, but I can tell you about my questions and what I've been able to do for my company, in the hope that it might be of use to you (it's up to you to learn what you need to).

I'm learning every day and I'm far from perfection incarnate - and I think it makes you unhappy to try to be, but we'll talk about that too.

I'd be lying if I told you that being an entrepreneur is easy. You have to like falling down, know how to bounce back, look problems straight in the face and not squint your eyes to make things go better. But when you reach the end of your goals, it feels so good! And then there's one term I find overused, and that's the "success story", which often hides the hard part of entrepreneurship, keeping only the shiny side of the iceberg. Because (I'm going to be vulgar) it's hard work, hard work, hard work, tears, tears, hard work again, hard work again, JOY, and hard work again. So if you happen to come across the term "success story", don't forget to rhyme it with "work stories".

kisses

Lisa