NickVenturella.com 5-8-20 - Let's Make Lemonade

Let's Make Lemonade

May 08, 2020

How are you these days?No, really. How are you holding up? There is a lot in the wake of this pandemic that has upended many things – physically and emotionally.If you need to vent or you want to share what you’re grateful for, either way, feel free to hit reply and let me know – expressing your thoughts and feelings can help.Finding positivity can help…We’ve been given lemons, let’s start making lemonade.  I’m a big proponent of being resourceful in the time and space you find yourself in, and using whatever you have available to creatively forge a path forward.Success is a mindset that can be learned and cultivated into a habit. No one is entitled to success. It requires action to make things happen.Perhaps this isn’t the tough love message you want to hear at the moment, but believe me if you heed this idea it will benefit you now and in the future.We're all wearing thin in different ways these days. Below are some ideas to help... Maybe this is you…“Everyone’s working from home, and I don’t need another hour-long Zoom meeting.”  What can you do? Especially if you manage a team, but even if not, insist to your manager that meetings are not scheduled if they don’t have an agenda shared ahead of time. That agenda should have no more than three main topics, challenges, questions, or takeaways that need to be discussed. Keep the meeting to 15 minutes and spend 5 minutes on each topic with follow up via email as needed.You may need a half-hour, tops, but most meetings don’t need to be an entire hour, or longer. Plus, now with all Zoom meetings all the time it should be relatively easy for people to show up on time and get down to business quickly compared to in-person meetings.Maybe this is you…“I have a business (or a side hustle) that used to do reasonably well financially, but now that everything is closed my business model has to shift to some digital format to survive, which I’ve never focused on before.”  What can I do?Get your digital infrastructure put together. If you didn’t have an online presence before, or only a minimal one (like a Facebook Page), build your own website now so you can own more of your business’ online health and financial future. Doing so now will also help you to expand your business revenue once in-person opportunities open back up…essentially, you’ll now have an online, digital revenue stream and an in-person one.These days it’s not hard create a website. There are many website builders that make it easy and do not require you to know any computer programming code to build a nice and functional website. A very easy one I like is Weebly – I’ve used it for years, but there are a ton including Squarespace, Wix, and others with a simple Google search.If you have skills you can teach others via video, written words, or even over the phone a website can help you promote and sell that kind of education.Or, if you can create physical products, or provide a digitally delivered service (graphic design work, copy writing, video chat guitar lessons), then you have something to sell online. Here’s a guide to help you learn more, if that’s of interest.Also, I’m currently reading this book, Marketing Made Simple by Donald Miller that is an easy-to-follow playbook for earning revenue online. Maybe this is you…“My kids are driving me nuts as everyone is cooped up in the house.” What can I do?This is a tough one, especially if you’re in a geography where the weather doesn’t always make it easy to get outside and have the kids burn off energy to get their wiggles out. I’m not entirely promoting that you bribe your kids, but incentivizing them to work together, get along, and/or not totally bother you every minute of the day, may be worth a shot.Here’s what you can do…set a budget for each kid (probably need it to be an equal amount for each - don't want fighting over it), let them pick out something, an item to be shipped to the home from Amazon (or your preferred online retailer), but let them know they have to earn that item by each playing for one hour with their siblings without arguments or fighting and doing an activity that said sibling has chosen for their hour that day, and doing so each day along with any daily chores that are required throughout the entire school/work week. Meeting these requirements will result in them receiving their item by the end of the week.It’s not the perfect idea, but it helps give the kids something to look forward to, promotes them sharing and getting along/playing with one another, and perhaps keeps them out of your hair each day for an hour or two. Given all that is going on, I too am shifting some of the ways I’m providing value and earning online income to replace revenue lost from in-person services (i.e. live music performances, among other things).As a result I have begun a Patreon page for my music and more, which is being built out just about daily at this point. If you are so inclined to support what I do as an artist/self-expression/self-improvement advocate I would be grateful for your patronage. This Patreon platform will have general free content for you, but also exclusive behind the scenes content for patrons only (my “nVIP’s” – Nick’s Very Important Patrons club).I plan to do some more livestream music performances, I'll let you know more soon. Also, stay tuned for some other projects that may benefit you.In the meantime, here’s how you can stay connected to all I’m up to, and if you decide things I post are worth sharing online with others, I'm grateful for that…

I appreciate you!  Stay safe, hopeful, and motivated!Sincerely,Nick VenturellaCreative ProfessionalNickVenturella.comNickVmusic.netGrowLoop.comTurnUpToEleven.com