🚀✉️ Trust your instinct
Your five minute mentor is Kirsty Goodlett, Director (Nashville), Ketner Group
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Happy Friday letter getters,
Today's letter is about direction. Do you feel lost in your career? Maybe the problem you set out to solve isn't as much of a problem as you thought. Not enough anyway to pay the bills. Or maybe fear is a factor. Many people are afraid of failure, but I think more people are overwhelmed at the idea of success. When things start to get going, do you find yourself excited or anxious about all the new things on your to-do list? Perhaps recently, it's been hard to concentrate. At some point the fun part of starting a business wears off and founders discover that most of what they do is invoicing and taxes or finding someone else to do invoicing and taxes. Focus is generally a tough concept to master that only gets harder when work and life are so intertwined.
Enter listening skills, confidence, attitude and north stars! We can use all these ingredients to find the correct path. For today's LaunchLetter, these ingredients led to a new city hub for Ketner Group, and the right person to lead the move.
Ketner Group Communications is a communications agency that supports B2B technology companies poised for market leadership. The team creates content and manages media relations to increase brand awareness. Their aim is to be an extension of their clients’ marketing teams. After calling Austin home for close to 30 years, Ketner Group expanded in January to New York City and is proud to be launching its second satellite office in Nashville in August. Kristy Goodlett serves as the Director of Nashville at Ketner Group. This is her third experience working with Ketner, beginning as a client and then transitioning to Account Manager before she took a brief hiatus to work as the Marketing Manager at Rustici Software. Meet your five minute mentor, Kristy Goodlett.
As technology continues to impact the way we do business, our daily work has become increasingly more independent. This has often left me feeling disconnected from other people in my day-to-day. As I prepare to launch our agency’s Nashville office and work remotely with colleagues in Austin and New York City, I feel this sense of disconnection, despite working at WeWork. And I’ve even had this feeling of disconnect when working locally with a full, in-person team in place. I wish there was a solution to this feeling of disconnect, which I think is becoming more common as remote work becomes more prevalent and we spend increasing amounts of time connected to our devices.
I’ve found from experience that my artistic process is limited when it’s tied to how I earn a living. There are plenty of people who can tie their artistic passion directly to their livelihood, but it’s just not the case for me. Having a creative outlet that is separate from my daily work is much more effective at fueling my creativity, gratitude and positivity through the rest of my life. Since learning this, I’ve finally begun to make good practice turning art-making into a regularly practiced hobby.
Meditation, every morning. I read a book ages ago -- I wish I could remember the name -- that gave me the tools to hack habit creation and I used those tools to create a daily habit of meditation, which I use to accept existing situations and manifest future ones.
Your career isn’t everything. Especially in an entrepreneur ecosystem, people are encouraged to tie their career to their identity. But truly, there is so much more to us as humans than just our work.
Always, always follow your instinct. Trust your instinct above all else. Trust your instinct above all people, above all ideas, above all experience. As you learn how to follow it, as you practice that art, it will only become easier to do so in the future and it will guide you to some very beautiful, surprising places.
Kristy Goodlett is the Director of Nashville's Ketner Group office.
Recent Achievements:
I'm really excited to be moderating a panel at 36|86 this year, titled "How to win press and influence customers." But even more than that, I'm excited to be moderating that panel around the launch of our Nashville office for Ketner Group Communications! In addition, to celebrate putting down Ketner roots here in Nashville and officially kick off the 36|86 festival, Kelley is joining me Monday night, August 26, on an all-female panel at WeWork East to discuss storytelling best practices, "From the Frontlines: Storytelling Tips From Nashville & Austin." We welcome anyone in the business community in Nashville to join us for an interesting discussion, not to mention to enjoy free cocktails.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/from-the-frontlines-storytelling-tips-from-nashville-austin-tickets-65273024373
This week's letter is about focus-- and lots of readers are also from Tennessee, so I thought I'd include this article that gives an overview of 36|86 - a Tennessee based entrepreneurship festival that is great for networking, presenting a new idea, and great for helping you think about your own business.
Here's a good article that talks more about self-awareness and focus as you continue your journey.
Need help being more productive? Here are some productivity hacks that might actually be useful.
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LaunchLetter is a weekday newsletter from Southern/alpha, a website that features collections of stories and resources for underestimated startup communities.
LaunchLetter is for founders getting started on an idea or business. Our goal is to share the perspective, habits and positive messages of more experienced founders and CEOs. We hope you find it relatable and delightful as you get focused for the day on your own goals. Enjoy the ride.
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