You Got This!

by Maya S Penn

  The first thing I created was a plush cat made out of pink and green fabric. I named her Watermelon. To be honest, she was anything but beautiful—you could see the stuffing coming out of her seams. In fact, she was kind of a mess. But I still was proud, and I still have her. As I write this, Watermelon is somewhere in my room, chilling out.

  After that, my interest in sewing kind of took off and I began to make whatever idea popped into my head. My parents are hardworking folks, but they didn’t have tons of extra money, so I mostly used vintage or recycled fabrics I found around the house, like discarded swatches, leftover felt, or cast-off ribbon. And either because they weren’t too difficult to make or because I just wanted something to put in my hair, I started experimenting with crafting cloth-style headbands, the kind you tie at the nape of your neck.

  I still remember the first two I made: one was made out of blue ribbon, onto which I sewed a yellow flower appliqué; the other was orange, with an orange-and-blue flower. To my delight, they were pretty darn cute. Totally cute enough to actually wear out in public. So I’d wrap one around my hair and head out to the grocery store or to church or wherever.

  At that point, sewing and making headbands was just a hobby—not like animation, which I knew I wanted to pursue professionally one day. But I quickly started getting compliments on my creations, first from family and friends, and then from total strangers. I’d be standing in line at the grocery store, and the cashier might say, “Oh, what a cute headband. Where can I get one?” Or a woman at church might ask, “Do you have any more of those for sale?” I’d always smile and say something like, “Maybe someday!” At that age, it just hadn’t occurred to me that a kid could sell his or her creations.

  All of that changed, however, when I discovered a website called Etsy.

  My mom was on the computer, scrolling through pictures of jewelry, scarves, and antiquey-looking knickknacks. When I asked what she was looking at, she explained that the website—Etsy.com—was a place to buy handmade and vintage items online.

  These days, Etsy is a super-popular e-commerce site (with more than fifty million users!), but back then it was only a couple of years old. In fact, online shopping in general wasn’t nearly as popular as it is now, and I hadn’t even really grasped the concept that it was possible to sell things online. (I might’ve had a growing interest in technology, but most of what I knew about the Internet extended to “Don’t talk to strangers online” and “Don’t tell people your name or give out your address.”) I always thought that to sell stuff—to run a business—you had to have an actual, physical brick-and-mortar store. So when people asked where they might be able to buy my headbands, that’s probably what I pictured in my head: a physical location. And that just wouldn’t be possible for an eight-year-old kid. I mean, how was I supposed to buy a whole building? Would I have to, I don’t know, hire a construction crew?

  When I saw the website, though, something clicked: I realized that I didn’t have to have a physical brick-and-mortar store. And I certainly didn’t have to hire a construction crew. All at once, I saw a way for the interests and passions I’d been cultivating—my love for drawing and designing, my growing interest in tech, and my sewing and crafting hobby—to come together. In a flash, I had that Big Idea. I was going to start my own business.

  Truth be told, it wasn’t the first time I’d tried running my own company. As a little kid, I briefly had a “store” that I ran out of my bedroom, selling plastic pizzas to all my stuffed animals. Back when I was still a toddler, and still eating my meals in a high chair, I owned and operated a very special “restaurant.” The special of the day, if you’re wondering, was something called snake soup, a carefully crafted blend of water, ketchup, dried beans, and a plastic snake toy. It was pretend culinary goodness.

  This, however, was different. I wasn’t just playing around anymore. I was serious.

  I might have been lacking in experience, and I might’ve had the fashion sense of, well, an eight-year-old, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me! I was going to launch an actual, viable clothing company, and it was going to be awesome.

  THE BIG QUESTION: WHAT WILL I DO WITH MY LIFE?

  Not all girls know what they want to do with their life by the ripe old age of four. And not everyone starts a business at eight. But I’ll bet that, even if you have no idea what you might like to do, you’ve probably asked yourself—or someone else has asked you—the question. Probably the first time when you were still teeny-tiny. And it probably went a little like this:

  KIND, SMILING, SPEAKING-IN-A-BABY-VOICE ADULT: So, [insert your name here], what do you want to be when you grow up?

  TEENY-TINY, GRINNING EAR-TO-EAR YOU: A firefighter! [Or a superhero, singer, doctor, dancer, candy store owner, and/or lion tamer.]

  Of course, at some point you probably realized that becoming a combination veterinarian–movie star–Olympic athlete wasn’t exactly a practical choice. I mean, sure, there are a handful of people out there who seemingly always knew what they were put on this earth to do—the NBA forward who was practically born with a basketball in hand, the concert violinist who begged for music lessons before she started kindergarten, the pediatrician who began his medical training by monitoring his stuffed animals with a plastic stethoscope. For most of us, though, it takes much longer to find a path forward. And the older you get, the more you begin to turn those questions over and over again in your mind: “What do I want to be? What do I want to do with my life? And how on earth will I do it?” Some people (especially Under-Thinkers) can even become distressed at not knowing the answers. It can be incredibly daunting, particularly when you’re still in your tweens and teens, to envision a life that’s full and influential and meaningful.

  But here’s the good news: you might already be figuring out your future, maybe without even realizing it.

  Do you take your “fun” seriously? Let me explain what I mean by that. There’s a saying by child development experts that “play is children’s work,” meaning that play—building with blocks, solving puzzles, reading stories, or coloring in coloring books—helps kids develop the social, physical, and emotional skills they’ll need to become happy, successful grown-ups. For little kids, playtime isn’t just important; it’s vital. But I think playtime is just as necessary for older kids and teens, too, because one of the most important aspects of play is that it nurtures our innate creativity—it stimulates the creative mind.

  Creativity has always been a major part of my life, even when I was still knee-high to a grasshopper. From those earliest doodles to the way I arranged tater tots on a plate (usually half covered in ketchup and half not, stacked up into some kind of teetering tower or shape), I’ve always tried to do things in unique and creative ways. Now, I’m not saying that’s always been easy. Some days, it seems as though finding the motivation to be creative would require going on a long trek up the mystical Mountain of Ideas on the one thousandth year of the full moon, and waiting for the magic portal to the Valley of Inspiration to open up (or, er, something like that). And yet, whenever I experience a lack of creativity, I feel thirstier than when I have a lack of water. Maybe that’s because creativity isn’t just instinctual, it’s spiritual.

  For example, I never got to meet my aunt Lisa, because she passed away before I was born. I know that she was a very talented artist and painter, though, and I keep a picture of her in my room. Through creative expression, I can feel her presence. I feel as though whenever I draw or paint, I’m having a conversation with her. I feel like she lives on through me and my passion for art.

  Inspiration (which I like to think of as creativity’s cousin) can also be an elusive, mysterious, or even mystical thing. After all, inspiration is that moment when a creative spark presents itself to you seemingly out of nowhere. It can reveal itself slowly, or progress quickly. It can strike when you’re in a quiet space or in the middle of a loud crowd. During happy times or sad. It’s never expected. Never predicted. But should alw
ays be welcomed. Inspiration is that thing that propels you to create, to feel, to act on a sudden idea or thought process. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Here’s how Beethoven, the great composer, described it: “I call inspiration that mysterious state in which the entire world seems to form a vast harmony, when every sentiment, every thought, re-echoes within me, when all the forces of Nature become instruments to me, when my whole body shivers and my hair stands on end.”

  So that moment when a thought pops into your head completely out of the blue, when inspiration strikes, when your hair stands on end? That’s the work of your creative mind.

  But, wait. Let’s back up for a minute. What do I really mean by “creativity”? That you can draw or sculpt or take amazing photographs? That you can whip up just about anything with a needle and thread, or pick up a guitar and pluck out a tune? Sure, all those things are wonderfully creative, but when I talk about creativity, I don’t just mean things you can accomplish with a hot glue gun or by filling a blank canvas. Creativity can also be expressed through creative thinking and creative problem solving.

  For example, not long after launching my company (and we’ll talk more about that in part II), I started dreaming of having my own website. I did some research online and came across lots of website-building platforms, but none of them were as customizable as I’d hoped. I also didn’t want to pay for a membership to any of those platforms, which would’ve been necessary to unlock the customization tools. So what did I do? I Googled “how to make my own website from scratch” (or something like that). And that’s when I came across something called HTML.

  HTML, as you may know, stands for HyperText Markup Language; it’s one of the many “languages” that are used to speak to computers, and it’s used in a lot of website building. Now, learning code isn’t exactly a walk in the park. In fact, it can be just as difficult as learning a human language, like French, Spanish, or Mandarin. But I was only ten at the time (I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into), so I decided that I’d just teach myself as much as I could about HTML in order to build my own website. Before long, I’d learned enough to be able to write some lines of code in Notepad (that program you’ll find preinstalled on any Windows computer), and after a quick test run in my browser, it worked!

  The point is, being creative doesn’t just mean that you’re artistically inclined. In my case, I wanted to do something to improve and grow my business, and I didn’t want to have to spend any money to do it. Teaching myself HTML was a creative way of solving a problem.

  Speaking of “solving a problem,” that’s probably what prompted a fifteen-year-old named Chester Greenwood to invent earmuffs way back in the 1800s. (The problem he was solving? Cold ears, of course!) It’s certainly what inspired Krysta Morlan, a high school student, to invent something called the “Cast Cooler,” a device for keeping a broken arm or leg cool and comfortable while encased in a healing (yet often hot, itchy, uncomfortable) cast. Did you know that Braille, the reading and writing system for the blind and visually impaired, was invented by Louis Braille when he was still just a kid?

  There are a zillion people out there who can’t carry a tune or draw a bowl of fruit, but who are just as creative as any artist ever born. It’s how you express that creativity—whether through singing or drawing or inventing a machine or solving a problem—that makes each of us special and unique. In other words, your creativity is what makes you awesome.

  So now that we’ve got a handle on what creativity is, how do we start to tap into it?

  The great thing about creativity (in all its forms) is that creative impulses are generally fun impulses. If you have a creative idea, chances are it’s to make something or do something that you and others will enjoy. It’s positive and upbeat—it’s fun.

  Think about it: my interest in art and animation didn’t have anything to do with seeking out a future career path. I was interested in both things for no other reason than that they were fun! (So fun, in fact, that I recently took some summer animation classes at the Savannah College of Art and Design; I continue to work on the craft both as part of my schoolwork and during my free time.) Likewise, my interest in designing and making headbands was based solely on the fact that it was something I genuinely enjoyed; I just happened to be able to turn that love into a business. What motivation other than “fun” could there have been for the person who created the first popsicle (an eleven-year-old named Frank Epperson, by the way)? Or the trampoline (a sixteen-year-old named George Nissen)? Some truly fun—not to mention amazing—inventions have come from the minds of kids. After all, most kids have a natural desire to play, experiment, and explore. Sometimes what we like to “play” can actually become our work, our career, our future.

  The trouble starts when we’re made to believe that our crazy, silly, fun ideas aren’t serious. As we get older, we sometimes fall into a trap of believing that our imaginative ideas are immature. We start to confuse childlike fun with being childish. We tell ourselves that it’s time to buckle down and get serious. We start to shut those creative impulses down.

  But if we ignore the ideas that spring from the fun part of our brain, we may forgo some valuable contributions to the world. Just think what we’d be missing if Steve Jobs had said to himself, “A phone with a computer screen that you carry around in your pocket? That’s a silly idea.” Where would we be if J. K. Rowling had never imagined writing about a boy wizard named Harry who studied magic (or if she had had the idea but never pursued it)?

  For example, maybe you’ve always loved the ocean. Maybe you’ve obsessively read about life underwater since you were a kid. Maybe Sebastian, the talking crab from The Little Mermaid, is your spirit animal. Maybe you’ve started creating these funny (to you, anyway) animations of crazy sea creature encounters—dolphin vs. clown fish! Is this really just wasting time? What if your talking turtles, whales, and plankton are the beginning of a career writing children’s books, or—like me—you have an interest in animation? Perhaps you’re curious about deep-sea photography or filmmaking, like the great Jacques Cousteau? Or maybe you’ll go on to study oceanography, invent a way to clean up oil spills, or fight beach erosion?

  Or, maybe you’re fascinated by makeup. Every spare cent you earn from babysitting or from your first part-time job goes toward the newest blushes, lipsticks, and illuminating creams. You’re a master of the cat eye. You can contour as good as the pros. You live for makeup, but you don’t really share that love with anyone, since some of your friends think your obsession is silly. Your mom might even ask, “Honey, why are you spending so much time thinking about eye shadow?”

  But maybe your love of long lashes could turn into a whole website devoted to makeup reviews? And maybe those reviews get the attention of thousands of readers, not to mention most of the major cosmetics companies?

  Your creativity is a gift. So don’t ignore your creative impulses, even if they seem silly or childish. Pay attention to your play. Take your fun seriously. Who knows? You could be doing something “just for fun” that could mark the beginning of a career path.

  FLIP-FLOPPERS, BLANK-DRAWERS, AND UNDER-THINKERS: WHICH ONE ARE YOU?

  It’s totally fine if you don’t yet know what you want to do with your life, especially if you’re just now beginning to ponder the possibilities. So take a break from worrying about that question, and try answering this one instead: “How do I make decisions about my life?” I’ll bet that, like most people (me included), you fall into one of the following categories:

  The Flip-Flopper

  If there’s one thing the Flip-Flopper doesn’t lack, it’s ideas. You’ve got lots of interests and passions, tons of things you want to accomplish. The problem? Sometimes it feels like you have too many career goals. Your aspirations can change in an instant:

  Hmmm . . . I love pizza. Maybe I want to be a pizza chef and open a restaurant one day. Or, I could become a food critic—I’ll write about the best dishes at restaurants all ove
r town! Or a cookbook author? I’ll teach other people to make tasty meals. But I also love electronics and technology . . . maybe I’ll build a robot that makes pizza?!

  On the one hand, having more than one vision for your future isn’t exactly a bad thing. Since you’re able to see an abundance of possibilities, you’ll likely be able to create an abundance of opportunities for yourself. On the other hand, Flip-Floppers tend to flit from one idea to the next really quickly, often with little to no follow-through. Ironically, the Flip-Flopper’s lack of focus can prevent her from getting anything done at all.

  I can relate: I am mostly a Flip-Flopper (although I’ve definitely got some Blank-Drawer and Under-Thinker tendencies, too). After all, I’m an artist, an animator, an eco-friendly fashion designer, an entrepreneur, a coder, a philanthropist, a writer, and a motivational speaker—that’s a lot of balls to have in the air all at once! It is possible to pursue all of your passions, though, without getting too sidetracked or overwhelmed in the process. The key is to focus on just one thing at a time. For example, I choose one thing to pour my energy into—like starting my business, Maya’s Ideas—and work on it until it feels sustainable. Only then do I take on a new project. In contrast, had I tried to launch a nonprofit organization at the same time I was starting my for-profit business, I’d be more all over the place than I am now (not to mention plain exhausted)!

  Like any Flip-Flopper, I’ve still got tons of ideas that I haven’t made any headway on yet. Another way I stay focused is by stashing those ideas in the “concept vault.” That way, I don’t have to worry about losing them; I’m free to get back to them when the time is right. If you’re a Flip-Flopper, pay special attention to the section “Creating a Concept Vault” on page 57. That’s where I’ll teach you how to make your own concept vault (a.k.a. an Idea Book), which will help you slow down, process, and organize all your amazing ideas, and choose which ones you most want to pursue.