I hope I don’t need to explain why it’s important to do your business accounting. (How the heck can you make strategic business decisions without knowing what’s going on under the hood?!)
But if you’ve never tried using cloud accounting software, aka accounting software that lives online vs on your computer, you’re in for a treat. I recently made the video above describing all the ways that cloud accounting makes your business life That Much Easier. Check it out if you need more inspiration to make the switch!
Yes, a specific cloud accounting software company pays my bills. Yes, they charge a subscription fee. Yes, I 100% believe it’s worth it (and I wouldn’t be working there if I didn’t believe in what the company is doing). Yes, there are alternatives, both paid and free, but buyer beware; sign up for the free trials, kick the tires, talk to your biz friends and advisors to find out which software they use and what they think of it. But by all means, free yourself (and your business financials) from your desktop!
It’s hard to deny that there’s a lot of shit going down in the world right now. As the daughter of two immigrants (into the US) and an immigrant (into NZ) myself, what’s happening at the US border hits me in a particular way, and there are so many other examples we might point to around the world.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it takes to stay open to and present with this sort of unpleasantness, for a couple reasons. First, I believe it is important to actually SEE and GRIEVE these atrocities, rather than pretending they don’t exist or that they don’t hurt. And more importantly, I believe we must be present to what is going on if we might hope to effectively address any issues that are not in alignment with our own values.
And so I have been super inspired by a few things that my friends have shared this week. They remind me that there are so many ways to contribute to upending the status quo, and so many ways to take care of ourselves as we do that work. Continue reading “Self care and art as acts of resistance”
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There are a lot of things that art, broadly speaking, does for me. During tough times especially, I appreciate the opportunity to get beyond words and into something deeper, vaster, and paradoxically more accessible, if less explicable.
Here are four dance performances that illuminate the challenge of staying on one’s own path, which to me often feels a lot like going against the grain. The differences, gross or subtle, between what I believe and what I value, and how I live. The various arguing inner voices, the wrestling-with-angels, the sleepless nights.
I highly recommend watching full-screen with a good headset or speakers. I have to believe the third was inspired by the second, but who knows? The last one gives me the most hope, though I reject the implication that we need to buy anything in order to liberate ourselves, as it were.
I’d love to hear how you interpret any or all of these performances, how the lyrics resonate with you (or not – honestly I’m so moved by the physical performances it’s hard for me to pay attention to the lyrics!), and/or to see any art you’ve made to represent the struggle of remaining true to yourself when it feels like you’re supposed to stay within the lines. ❤
If you’re not already familiar with him through any of his video series (including vlogbrothers, CrashCourse, and SciShow), Hank is a very influential person within the YouTube universe. He is also a heterosexual cis white male who uses his position of power to advocate for YouTubers who don’t necessarily hold that privilege… many of whom are trying to make a living (or at least, earn some money) by sharing their videos on the platform.
Short context, which he does cover in the first video below: there are some YouTube policies that are currently affecting the LGBTQ+ community in a way that simply boggles the brain. As in: certain religious groups are paying so that their anti-gay videos will run as “ads” before videos created by and designed for the LGBTQ+ community. Meanwhile, YouTube has also changed certain policies so that it’s harder to earn money by posting content that is LGBTQ+ inclusive.
Hank’s righteous anger, condemnation of policies, and his very firm request that YouTube fix the problem — complete with suggestions for how they could do it! — give me hope that humanity might prevail, even when The Algorithm fails us.
Thanks, Hank, for showing us how to use privilege effectively!
Scott picked Laura Mvula’s Let Me Fall as one of his top songs of 2017, and I’ve been listening to it multiple times a day lately. So many layers to discover, and the lyrics make me think…
I made this video ages ago for work and even though we decided not to publish it, it’s still one of my faves 🙂 especially as it’s all about the inevitability of crashing, which I hope can paradoxically motivate all of us to get over our fear of failure.
Thanks to my colleagues Cat and Nadim and Kylie for the motion graphics savvy — turns out it’s not easy to, say, “draw” a red circle into a video, much less one that moves! — and to Luda for moral support always, including encouraging me to share this one ❤
The Xero Video Team set out to create a series of goofy, accessible, vlogger-style videos to support people who are just starting their own businesses. I hope they’re fun for you to watch; we sure had a blast making them!
This one is my favorite because I got to tell the story of starting one of the most influential businesses in my life. It didn’t go exactly as planned because… well, I didn’t have much of a plan, and I certainly wasn’t that clear about WHY I wanted to start a business in the first place. Don’t make the same mistake I did; watch this video for 4 things to do BEFORE you start your business!
When I was back home in California, I tried to shoot a video about the pros and cons of working from home. It didn’t work out as I had hoped, but it also kinda made my point:
Fortunately, we did follow up with a video that covers actual tips on running your business from home! Because as anyone who has tried to do it knows, working from home isn’t always easy:
When your business has grown to the point where working from home no longer works (or when you’ve just had enough of that lifestyle), here’s a video that covers several alternatives to running your business from home… both temporarily, and more permanently:
This one is a companion to the video above. I thought I’d share a little bit more about my personal experiences trying out several different office setups, and how each of them affected my work-life balance. It DOES matter where your office is, and who you share it with!
You don’t have to be an entrepreneur to suffer from insomnia… here’s a video covering the things I’ve found work best when I can’t sleep in the night:
I’m just going to come out and say it: I think the Burgerfuel logo looks like a vulva. Watch this video and let me know if you agree, or if I’m imagining things. In addition to covering some sketchy business decisions, this video contains lots of practical tips for creating a business logo, including advice on how to work with designers:
Waiting until everything is perfect to start your business? Don’t! Here’s some inspiration.
In the last coupla weeks I’ve managed to delete my Facebook account, get sick-and-then-better, demonstrate the high-level function of our relationship by making it through a 3-day power outage with minimal food wastage (we ate well!), attend a meditation retreat, and discover dozens of beautiful, brave people who are fighting the good fight(s) with regard to identity politics on Twitter.
I’m working up the nerve to write (but mostly still grokking how to connect the dots, and deciding how much I am actually willing to share) something that somehow weaves together the male gaze, heteronormativity, my own internalized beliefs about fashion and fitting in, representation, aging, model minority stereotypes, growing up bi-racial in a predominantly-white, very privileged community, the tension between building a platform that “scales” and staying 100% committed to my own voice, the dangers women face for expressing any sexuality, one (or more) of my #metoo stories, and what it means for me, as a woman of color who has so often reported to white men (I currently report to a Māori man), to fully step into my power.
It’s probably more like 12 pieces to write over the course of the rest of my life. Every other hour, I convince myself that I just need to keep meditating instead of attempting to make sense of it all, much less write it down for an audience.
In the meantime, I will share this stunning Janelle Monáe video, from which I have stolen the above screenshots:
I really don’t want to ruin it with any more commentary BUT (I can’t help it!) it gives me many of the same magical, tingly, “we got this,” “it ain’t all bad” feelings that this Bomba Estereo video also evokes:
May I one day master my craft to the point where I too can wrap the messages I’d like to convey in packages as powerful as these.
As soon as I posted my last video it occurred to me: what I said was sort of true, but not nearly a COMPLETE representation of my experience of identity growing up. I thought about deleting the whole thing, but then I realized it was actually quite interesting to think about why it bothered me so much to leave an “incomplete” presentation of myself up on YouTube.
So many questions around how we present ourselves to others, and why!
Is it even possible to fully represent ourselves, in all our complexity, to anyone? How would we do it? Would it be worth the effort?
I am Chinese and Canadian-European (though to be honest I’m not sure if I marked that or the “American European” box on the New Zealand census last week) with both American and Canadian citizenship. Oddly, moving to New Zealand has made me feel more culturally Chinese.
But there are so many other ways that we identify ourselves. People like me often get asked the question I’ve used as the title to this post… which, incidentally, is not usually considered respectful, in case you were wondering 🙂
Americans love to ask “what do you do?” as if that is the only way to define who someone is… and that’s a question I also find really limited.
Elizabeth Ü 