Kate Toon > Quotes

“But you’re also dealing with imposter syndrome –the crippling moment you realise the collective knowledge of the group you’re talking to is far greater than your own. And I’ve already mentioned the copycats, the emotional ups and downs, the stress and the haters. After a while you start to feel like too little butter spread across too much bread.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“If you try to be someone you’re not, you won’t attract your kind of people. So if you put yourself out there as some big furry balled sales bitch, then you’re going to attract customers who want that kind of attitude from you day in and day out.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“It’s truly exhausting trying to be something you’re not.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“As I said earlier, I don’t play well with others. I never have. While I can manage to be a sociable human for a while, it isn’t long before I want to scurry back into my hole and hide.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“WHAT DOESN’T WORK SO WELL Psst: Check out all the contradictions, which are all part of the entrepreneurial life. Afternoons: Once it hits 2pm my brain doesn’t work so well. I use this fuzzy time to do monotonous tasks such as social media scheduling, WordPress fixes, editing, etc. Scheduling/ batching: I’d also like to batch things like writing blog posts and creating videos. But I tend to do them randomly when the urge takes me, which isn’t productive at all. Social media: It’s a huge time suck that I wrestle with all day, every day. Boundaries: I try to switch off each evening around 3pm (school days) or 6pm (work days). But I often find myself logging in again. (It doesn’t help that Netflix is on my laptop, which makes it all too easy to flick over to my work email or business Facebook groups every two seconds.) Bravery: Because I’m willing to give things a go, I sometimes launch them without thinking things through!”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“The ‘better done than perfect and undone’ mantra is something I live by.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“If you’re feeling a little burned out, taking a break can help recharge your wiggly bits. You don’t necessarily need to head off on holiday. You can simply take your foot off the accelerator and cruise for a while. I call this my ‘fallow period’. It’s a farming term that means letting the field lie unplanted for a year so the nutrients can return to the soil. Who knows what could grow next year? So don’t be afraid to just do your work for a while without constantly thinking about the next big thing.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“The more of yourself you bring to your business, the more vulnerable you can become. So it’s important to build up a big blob of internal confidence before you let everything hang out for the world to see.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“As the old adage goes, “Pioneers get arrows in their backs”. So learn to accept the copycatting, and develop a thick( er) skin.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“I believe succeeding at what you do means realising that some people are just not that into you, and that’s okay.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“They say that when people are far away from you, you admire them. But the closer they get, the more you envy them.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“Although your daily ‘to do’ list may change, your overall work priorities shouldn’t. My priority list goes something like this: Existing client work New client luring Financial admin –getting paid Marketing, self-promotion and blog writing Faffing about on social media It’s a simple and effective way to make sure I focus on my customers and don’t get sucked into random videos about cats on Facebook. (Well, most of the time.)”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“I’ve already talked about how my fear of not looking right stopped me making videos and doing any public speaking. Well, when I let go of that fear and started booking speaking jobs, it transformed my business. It gave me more authority, more confidence, and helped spread my name farther and wider.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“Because let’s face it: running a business can be stressful, boring and difficult (a nice way of saying that sometimes it totally sucks balls). And being able to laugh and take the piss out of both myself and my business has always helped me get through the tough times.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“If you want to get anywhere interesting you need to be able to cling onto the magic business carpet and ride it all the way.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“Don’t wait until you have all your ducks in a row, because by the time you get started some of those ducks will be dead (or at least incredibly elderly).”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“WHAT WORKS WELL Mornings: I tend to get a lot done in the mornings. Scheduling/ batching: I spend time each month creating and scheduling social media posts all in one go. Project management: I use Asana to manage all my projects. (I moved to it recently after finding Basecamp a truly painful experience.) And I have ready-made projects set up, which means I can ‘set and forget’ and then wait for the alerts telling me what to do each day. Psst: By ‘ready-made projects’ I mean templates that are set up with standard tasks for each type of job I do. Documentation: I have documents for everything. I also have templates for all kinds of project emails, as well as ad hoc things such as interview requests, favour requests and tech issues. Toggl: I use Toggl to track my time (when I remember to switch it on). Typing: I type super fast (one of my superpowers). Bravery: I’m willing to give stuff a go without fear of failure, which means I don’t procrastinate much.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“There are days when I just want to sod off the entire day and lie in bed bingeing on Netflix while eating crisps. But once I reach my Toon Cave my motivation usually kicks in, helped by the coffee and pumping up Spotify. I spend the first 30 minutes: Clearing out junk mail Reviewing real emails (not answering at this stage –just reviewing) Making my ‘to do’ list Posting in my Facebook groups Acknowledging shares and tags on social media And I do it all while standing up, having set my Tomato Timer for 25 minutes.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“If you’re just starting out, there’s little joy in comparing yourself with a well-established business. As the saying goes, don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle, or your behind-the-scenes with their highlights reel.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“I don’t think there’s such a thing as work-life balance. But it is possible to do the things and have a life.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“As the meme goes, “Working for yourself gives you the freedom to work whichever 70 hours a week you like”. But then I realised it totally defeated the point of being my own boss. Here I was sweating that it was nearly school pick up time, when in actual fact one of the reasons I’d started my own business was so I could be there at school pick up time.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“These days, I judge every opportunity by four questions: Does it support one of my three businesses? Will I enjoy doing it? Will it make me money? Is it something my customers want? Three yeses makes it a ‘maybe’. And four usually makes it a sure thing.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“We’ve all envied someone else’s business boobs now and then.”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself

“Investing a few hours here and there in a VA or other assistant will make very little difference to your business. It wasn’t until I started paying for around ten hours a week that I saw a real difference. Ten hours is enough time for the VA to get stuck into tasks and take ownership”
― Kate Toon, Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself