Honesty Is The Best Policy

"I talked about the importance of vulnerability and honesty. The moment I started sharing my stories and experiences that's when things started to really shift for me." --Chriselle Lim

Let's face it. After winning Blogger of the Year award, everyone wants to be Chriselle Lim. Everyone meaning me.

Reading her post regarding her win, she talked about how honest and vulnerability changed things for her career-wise and unexpectedly so.

After being approached by a very qualified being about expanding my team (hi if you're reading this!), it drew a lot of questions about Polydeux and in fact, it threw me into a relatively short emotional tizzy.

Expanding my team has been a goal of mine for a while. Having an intern prior to this offer was a trial run of reaching that goal and it was successful at the time due to my overloaded schedule.

Now that I'm at a point where only Polydeux and school are my only commitments, I have no reason for someone else to help carry the load. With it being just me and Justin, I'm used to handling the logistics and being independent with the technical work.

There have been several occasions where I wanted to take Polydeux a step further.

They may seem small to others but are milestones in my perspective because they're investments for the future; whether that be purchasing a domain name, buying an email redirect, business cards or even a Wordpress plan, they were all things I wanted to do but always thought I wasn't "ready" for it.

Looking back, now I wonder what would I be losing? At the most, money maybe. At the time, I used my own money to fund these projects so reinvesting the money I earned into Polydeux wasn't an option like it is now. Other than that, it was just a mental obstacle.

Revisiting the idea of expanding my team made me wonder if Polydeux was ready for this step or if I was just doubting myself again.

I didn't want to disappoint my new team member either. I wondered if the work I would give her would disillusion the image she initially had, which made her so eager to work with us to begin with. I wondered if maybe she was more experienced than me and if I even had anything to offer her because of that.

The back-and-forth drove me crazy and was a combination of intimidation of her and my own fears and flattery. I thought that maybe because someone is approaching me for a position that Polydeux IS ready for this step.

Eventually, I had to be honest with myself. I'm not traveling as often as I like, I don't have back-to-back days of events and meetings (not to say I don't at all), I don't have enough to even pay for the work I give her (which was the hardest thing for me to admit), and I don't have so much work to the point where I can't handle it (although I'm still finding new ways to organize and function my brand properly.)

All in all, I wasn't ready for that step. Polydeux wasn't ready for that step. Justin told me that if I haven't completely mastered handling our brand, that what makes ME qualified to handle an extra member?

I think that was the biggest reality check for me. In my mind, Polydeux is still a fetus. On good days, I'd like to imagine it as a toddler learning how to walk and talk. Emotionally, decision-making is taxing but I'm so glad I did it.

It feels good to 'dumb-down' myself by taking a step back and looking at Polydeux the way it is. It's humbling to know that I'm not there yet even though on a lot of days, it does, even if it's for a moment.

Being honest with yourself is so much more difficult than being honest with someone else but when you are, everything opens up: your mind, your perspective, and doors of opportunity.

I may not be ready now but I will be eventually.

Jacket (ASTR the Label) and Top (Topshop) via Nordstrom 

In collaboration with Nordstrom.

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Photography by Justin Quebral