The Merging of Practice Ballroom Dance and TGWTTT

They were basically the same place anyway.

Somewhere along my entrepreneurship journey, wrapped up in hustle culture, I got it in my head that I needed a separate place for each piece of The Girl with the Tree Tattoo brand – the blog, the shop, the email list – they all needed their own home. Once I moved to Maine, as I continued to bask in the natural beauty of my own home and felt no need or desire to go anywhere else, I started to wonder why did The Girl need to be so spread out?

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Everyone’s Doing the Best They Can

April 16, 2022Leave a comment

*Photo by Roussety Gregory on Pexels.com*

I belong to a fitness accountability group and earlier this week, I posed a question. I wanted to know how the others in the group managed their workouts when Life got really crazy, like it has been for me this month. They seemed to be so much better at doing their workouts consistently and reaching their weekly fitness goals. I was sure I was slacking somewhere and I wanted the secret sauce. What was the magic ingredient that I was missing that made me less consistent and less successful?

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Epic Fail or Epic Happiness?

August 2, 2021Leave a comment

Happy Monday, dancers!

This week’s blog post is now live on Medium. Click the photo (view behind my house!) to read.

When Passions Change – An Interview with the Founders of Dancing Ox Coffee

March 8, 2020May 20, 2021Leave a comment

Last time, I wrote about how this ballroom dance thing is so much more than a hobby for a lot of us. It’s a passion. We take it just as seriously as any other commitment in our lives. We practice our steps under our cubicle desk at work and down grocery store aisles. We use all of our vacation time on competitions. The dance studio is our second home.

But what happens if we start to feel…less than passionate about ballroom dancing? What if the experience starts to lose its sparkle? What if something else begins to have a stronger pull?

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Interview with Starter Story: How Writing About My Passion Turned Into A Successful Business

July 23, 2019May 20, 2021Leave a comment

Between Desert Classic and last week’s trip to the Bay Area for a meeting with my business group, the last two weeks have been a whirlwind! While I let the dust settle in my brain, I’m pushing back this week’s blog post.

Don’t worry, I still have a story for you! Right before I left for Desert Classic, I managed to find the time to do an interview with Starterstory.com. Check it out to get a behind-the-scenes look at how I’ve built my business and brand:

Financing My Dancing Dreams

May 26, 2019May 20, 20214 Comments

This past week, I posted on social media about finally having my “oh shit” moment about competing at Desert Classic. Six weeks and four days to go! Teacher said we needed to make sure we had a game plan and pick a go/no-go date. He believed we’d be ready, but with me only taking one lesson per week, I had to be on point with my solo practices.

Then of course, as we went through Waltz, everything I wasn’t solid on yet came to light and it all congealed into this icky coat of self-doubt. Shit.

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Happy Anniversary!

January 20, 2019May 20, 2021Leave a comment

On January 22, 2018, I emailed the 108 people on the Solo Practice Guide mailing list about a special offer. I was ready to complete the Solo Practice Guide for Ballroom Dancing, but before I released it to the world, I wanted to test it. So I created a beta group and opened it to 10 people to help me review the Guide chapter by chapter. The result was awesomeness, and I’m so grateful to those 10 people for helping me make this dream a reality. Now that we’re reaching the one-year anniversary of that fateful day, I want to celebrate!

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2018 Reflections

December 30, 2018May 20, 2021Leave a comment

Another year coming to a close. It’s cliche to say, but each one really seems to fly by quicker than the one before. Maybe I’m just getting old.

2018 was witness to some incredible accomplishments in my life:

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You’re Making More Progress Than You Think

December 18, 2018May 20, 2021Leave a comment

Do you ever feel like you’re going nowhere fast? Like you’re stuck in a hamster wheel or walking the wrong way on one of those moving walkways in the airport?

That’s how I feel on the tougher days. Those days when I feel like it doesn’t matter how hard I work, I just can’t seem to make any progress. My to-do pile at the day job is growing faster than my done pile. I practiced over and over, but I still can’t seem to get that move right in my dance lesson. I’m doing “all the things” to grow my business, but the return still feels small.

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Dance/Life/Work Balance Doesn’t Exist

August 4, 2018May 20, 2021Leave a comment

The question of how to balance different aspects of life, such as building a business while working a full-time day job or training and competing as a dancer on the side of a non-dance career, has come up in multiple circles this past week. So I thought I’d throw in my two cents.

Multiple articles, written by myself and guests, have been published on this blog about finding a balance between these things. Now that I’m older and wiser, I think we were all wrong.

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