I’m a professional life coach, and after 10+ years in this business, I’ve come to know that the internal ‘gremlin’ voices are part of the territory of ‘playing a bigger game’. They don’t mean that you don’t believe in yourself. They mean that you’ve committed to continually step up into a greater level of creativity and getting your unique work out there.

That any of us stumble and learn (you always learn, and you generously share your lessons with us) is to me evidence that we aren’t settling for the safe, known territory or status quo. We are committing to go for it, and there’s always a bit of pioneer-ship that goes along with that decision.

The internal voices of doubt are only a part of us, and they are infintesimal compared to our creative, resourceful selves. Anyone who reads your writing regularly can see that you transcend any insecurities with your creative true self.

I’m incredibly inspired by your willingness to stay with the creative process, and to believe in your creative ideas and yourself. You go, girl!

I’m not going to spend a lot of time here. But a quick couple of notes: your response itself declares your “intention was to criticize” (vastly different than critiquing).

I think your energy would be better focused on positive things right now, especially if you are pregnant. I appreciate if you were trying to provide constructive feedback, although I’m still waiting to hear what this might have been.

Do you know how many artists there are in the world that I don’t like? Why would I bring negativity into my life by trying to share that with those artists? I wouldn’t, I’d rather bring positive by focusing on what I can create.

Whatever your true intentions, I hope you’ll give some thought to how to professionally provide feedback and to what type of feedback is valuable and useful.

My intention was to criticize according to my opinion as a consumer, mother, professional and frequent online shopper. The value of that differs from person to person obviously. It was not meant to insult or hurt feelings. I apologize if it was seen in that way. I didn’t feel that I was being smug or disrespectful. We are all adults and I would welcome this type of email if I were in your position. But, people’s view on that varies immensely apparently.

I am not and will never be your “competition”. It was just my opinion. Nothing more, nothing less. As I think you’ve recognized, when you put yourself out there open to people voicing their thoughts regarding your business - you can expect and hopefully appreciate some candor regarding consumers’ opinions. I might have been a little too much in the “business, straight forward, tell it like you see it” mode, and could have been more “sensitive”.

Maybe what a potential customer thinks is not of importance to some of your supporters. I think this would be incredibly naive and counterproductive.

Best of luck to you in your business …which I think has many attractive facets in the baby/mom world. And, again I apologize if my comments hurt you. That was not my intention at all.

Secondly, I have contacted a manufacturing company in the US that is private and kind of guides you through the steps, but I do not know if this is the best route - I am sure it is costly. can you give me some tips on what to expect and perhaps a good manufacturing company?

Lastly, how do I go about getting my product/pattern graded? I live in Canada? What does that involve?

Thanks in advance for your assistance and I look forward to reading your post.
Stacey

“You are so obviously need of advice that I had better be as frank as possible so that you may re-cast yourself in the image I have in my head as the ideal boutique even though I just shop. I could never create and run one. Also? You are too hard on yourself (you can leave that to me.)”

She is simultaneously smacking you down and bucking yo up, which is a particularly pernicious combination. There are little time bombs set to go off (like, those designs are selling even though she said they were crap - the fact that you even need to say it to yourself shows that it worked). And each time one goes off, today or next week or next month, you will remember the kinds words and attempted friendly attitude. This lady is dangerous.

Now I have to go look in my DSM to see what that term is!

By the way, the first thing I thought upon coming to your site was, “Ooh, what creative use of images, must bookmark for inspiration.” So there. : )

This email - you can tell it got to me more than it should have, the style part was particulary ruthless - but I’ve been in plenty of boutiques where they don’t like the style - it was more the personal attack. Because I do open myself to feedback by blogging, I really had to sit with this a few days to figure out if it was fair and even if she was right. No, we shouldn’t let unknown people out there bother us, but unfortunately, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t.

Amber - what you say about me handling it better - you might not have thought so on Saturday morning or Sunday and Monday when I was still talking about it.

But THIS was my response, I didn’t write her back. I did search emails and found she wrote me a month or so ago sharing that she’s trying to break into this industry, so I don’t what the chip is - I do know whenever I start telling myself “well their stuff’s not REALLY all that Great”, jealousy if often a root cause

Writing this post about it helped me deal with it and get over it - so that I can move on, - with a thicker skin LOL

Oh and the picture on the other site wasn’t our blankets (shoot!), but Gwen does have one - so maybe someday.

Thank you all - please keep commenting and writing and blogging on your blogs, it’s so wonderful that so many of you are willing to share too!!!