Things that ✨sparked joy✨ for me this week
My 2 Notion clients are starting to have so much fun in Notion 🤩
Spent some time being a gremblin 👹 and took a short break from social media
Joined Threads to share more unhinged, text-based content 🧵
Did you know that I’m a certified Notion expert and ambassador? If you’ve heard about Notion online, you’ve probably seen some crazy complicated and over-engineered set ups. You’ve probably felt like Notion wasn’t for you. As a neurospicy🌶️ baddie, I FEEL YOU. That’s why as a Notion coach I help you get back to the basics and build Notion workspaces that work for you. DM me on Instagram and let's get you feeling like you have a greater command over your Notion space 💫✨
In January 2023 I released my first Notion template on Gumroad. It’s a Human Design roadmap, meant to guide you through learning about your Human Design.
I was nearing my 1 year anniversary of using Notion and I was experimenting with what kinds of templates I could create; I didn’t wanna do the usual planner/journal/to do list, yknow?
I was also experimenting with Human Design so I figured this template would be a good first one. It’s a free/pay what you want template, and at the time I thought:
“It’s my first template, I’m just playing around with making templates, people probably won’t buy it either cos Human Design is kinda niche”
Boy was I wrong
I made my first sale on Gumroad with this template. Someone typed ‘20’ into that little box and charged their card to get my free template while I slept.
When I saw the sales email the next morning I thought, “Now why would they do that?”
Weird first thought, right? I’m an entrepreneur. I should have been ecstatic to earn that passive income! Why am I losing my mind over someone paying me for something they didn’t have to pay me for?
Well if grew up with constant financial insecurity like me then you’d understand the vibe.
For a lot of my life I understood money to be a measure of your work and your worth; you make a lot of money doing a lot of hard work. If you’re ethnic (i.e. not white) you might relate to this even more. Think of the kinds of jobs your parents encourage(d) you to have:
Doctor
Lawyer
Engineer
Nurse
(My father was so disappointed that I didn’t wanna be a vet anymore he kept hinting every other biology related profession to me LOL)
These are jobs that do a lot of work and make a lot of money*. The work is pretty tough or otherwise specialized so the work is worth the amount of money those professions make.
*sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t
If I’m sitting at home, doing a Notion template for funsies and earning $20 quite literally in my sleep, is it still work? Is this template worth that? I’m I worth that?
Honestly, it didn’t feel worth it to me when I saw that email. My perception of worthy work doesn’t always equate to this. This is the exact kind of work I want to be doing and it’s hard to settle in happily here because of my conditioning.
“So what are you doing with these feelings, Sue-Jan? How are you working through this?”
Good question friend! Firstly, I’m sitting in them LOL. This is probably the most annoying part about ✨having feelings✨
I’m sitting in them and figuring out which parts of these feelings are mine, and which ones I’ve inherited from my parents and society. In that simple acknowledgement of what’s mine and what’s not, there’s so much relief and release - I don’t have to worry about the feelings that don’t belong to me.
Every time something like this comes up I also remind myself that someone isn’t just buying a finished product with a template like this. That person is also paying for the time, effort, knowledge and skill it took to make that template a reality.
The tough thing about that is that these things aren’t always easily quantifiable. Sometimes the time put into a template isn’t actively working on it, but passively observing what other people are doing, or how people use/interact with tools - like Notion!
Some skills and knowledge aren’t even learned in a formal setting - they’re an amalgamation of all your lived experiences in addition to things you learned formally. (Foreshadowing for an upcoming newsletter 👀)
It’s now July 2023 and my Human Design Roadmap has over 50 downloads, I’ve made 6 more templates, and I have 2 more templates in the works. One of those launched templates is my first paid template, which ironically is a companion to my first template.
As I’m typing this, I’m realizing the connection 😂
I’ve already had two sales of that paid template (it’s Human Design stats collector), and this time when I saw the sales emails, they didn’t make me feel nervous and unworthy. Instead, I felt excited 🤩
As I’m learning to detach my worth from my work and how much money I make, it’s been easier to charge what I want and feel good about getting paid in my sleep 😴
