I just got back from my annual trip to solopreneur summer camp, otherwise known as the AIIP Annual Conference. I always come away inspired and challenged, ready to try out new ideas and approaches.
This year’s conference focused on pivoting as a strategic approach—something that we solopreneurs do continually as we adjust to our clients’ changing needs and pain points. We were lucky enough to have Jenny Blake, author of Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One, as our keynote speaker and Anne Caputo as the Roger Summit Award speaker. Their talks sparked rich hallway and mealtime conversations about how we can remain nimble and responsive while staying grounded to what our clients value the most. Here are some of the insights I brought home with me.
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Today’s Wall Street Journal has a nice column by Elizabeth Bernstein on the use of “I’m busy” as a point of pride. (It’s behind the paywall at 
I’m from Boulder, where there seem to be more professional rock climbers than people like me who like our feet planted firmly on terra firma. Whenever I drive up a canyon, I can see the tiny figures of people halfway up a sheer rock face, appearing to defy both gravity and common sense.
We solopreneurs are CEOs of our business, but that stands for Chief Everything Officer. We are responsible for everything from strategic planning to marketing to sales to accounting to – oh, yeah – whatever it is that we charge our clients for.
Every business experiences lulls, times when it seems that you barely have the energy to drag yourself into your office, and you can’t stand the thought of having to go out and generate business. This happens to everyone, and it often happens at the end of the year and during the middle of the year, as people are out of the office or in vacation mode and not doing a lot. Here are some of the actions I add to my marketing plan when I need to rev my marketing efforts up a notch.
One of the critical characteristics of a successful solopreneur is the willingness to hold what Zen Buddhists call shoshin, or “beginner’s mind,” in every situation. Beginner’s mind looks with wonder and without preconceptions, assuming that you do not understand or see all aspects of the situation or all the possibilities present. Even (especially!) when you considers yourself an expert, you look at it as if seeing it for the first time. This willingness to let go of the ego-attachment of being an expert lets you see things in a different and fuller way.
