one go around

If I may say so — sometimes I think people think too much about starting their own business rather than just doing it. If you think about it too much, you allow yourself to entertain the what-ifs, and then you’ll end up in a downward spiral of doubt. You only get one go around in this game. I wish I had more specific constructive advice, but really I feel that sometimes people just need a push off the edge. You’ll either succeed, or you’ll call it quits, but either way it will be an adventure, and it’s not going to kill you. You’ll have gone for it, and that’s what matters.  -  Sarah Ryhanen of Saipua

Fortuitous and a bit creepy to find this Design Sponge interview waiting for me on my feedly this morning. I don't usually (ie never) click on business interviews, but I've been reading Sarah's beautiful blog Saipua for some time; long enough that if she was going to give some advice, I definitely wanted to hear it. Turns out I needed to hear it.

Sometimes people just need a push off the edge.

(Photo and arrangement by Saipua, obviously.)

Isa Arfen

Beautiful things from Isa Arfen's Fall 2013 collection. Some decidedly vintage shapes, with a modern twist. If I had that blue coat and that black dress, I wouldn't still be in pajama pants.

Field of Dreams

Every time I've thought about starting this blog, I've thought of this movie (which I saw once, aged about eight, at my grandmother's house in Brisbane); more specifically, If You Build It, They Will Come. It may seem very presumptuous to be thinking this, in relation to a blog about a business, or possibly confident in a gross entrepreneurial way, neither of which are how I mean it. I suppose my thinking is: if I build it, and they want to come, there will be something to come to (even if I can't offer dead people, or Ray Liotta, and I haven't actually found premises yet - although yesterday we did have a look around town at a few prospective back-rooms, lunch-rooms, and dodgy alleyways). Today is a a month since we arrived in Dunedin (of which I've spent about a week in Auckland and a week in bed), and I haven't got a handle yet on what is K rd, or Old Kent rd, in Dunedin . I'm not even sure if my idea for the shop will work; I don't know enough of Dunedin people to know if they will like what I want to do, or if they'll hate it, and my idea will fade into debt and obscurity.

We will see.