Danielle Sword

The best advice someone gave me was that you can always ask people for advice, but you'll really understand what you want to do based on how you react to their advice. And just because a lot of people are giving you the same advice, doesn't mean it's right. You need to kind of create your own path, and it might not be easy.

I think a lot of people want to own their own business because you get a lot of freedom and flexibility, and it sounds appealing. And it is. But I don't think people realize what that flexibility actually looks like. You know, I'm basically on 24-7 all the time, and it does give me a lot of flexibility to manage my own schedule, but I'm also constantly managing. So I think it's like anything you're going into, it's not all or one, you're always going to make trade-offs, and it's making sure you make the right decision for the thing that you want to prioritize.

One challenge is being independent and running my own business - I have to be a saleswoman. I'm always on calls with different types of people, different industries, and trying to convince people of my value, which I feel pretty confident in, but it's a matter of numbers and having the right number of calls, and getting on calls with people you aren't sure are even going to turn into anything. So one challenge is just making enough time for that, and realizing that every call can have value. Another challenge is that my work is 100% remote, which is very flexible and nice, but making sure that you can build a relationship with your client is a challenge. You can do it remotely, but it's just so much different being in person, so I think finding unique ways to do that is a challenge.

I've done so many values surveys and different Finding Yourself journeys, and two that definitely come up are authenticity and transparency. Authenticity makes a lot of sense because it stems from the business side - I'm always trying to stick to my path, not necessarily the most common path. And I also like to surround myself with people who are the same, even if they have completely different interests. The other one is transparency. I believe that we're all just trying to figure out life, and we're all trying to do the best we can, and so the easiest way to do that is to be transparent with people and just be who you are. This really helps with my business partner and in my relationships in general. The other value that I didn't mention earlier is community, and it's something that I've seen play out in my personal life and my career.