It’s 6:10 p.m.

I haven’t clocked one minute of billable time today.

Because I haven’t made any money, I have to keep working. The only job I can work on tonight will bring me about a third of the way to my daily quota, and that’s all I’ll be able to do.

Because I still have lots of work to do, I can’t go workout.

Because I’m freaked out about not being able to workout and not having made any money, I’ve been eating … umm…. everything. Most recently: uncooked whole wheat spaghetti. No, really. I’ve got a knot in my stomach (plus a little indigestion) and a small feeling of panic.

It’s moments like these that bring up the fear of failure. I’m not a good business owner, I think. I’m not really an athlete. I’m going to put back all the pounds I lost. I’m going to end up fat, depressed, poor and living in my parents’ basement….

Not too terribly long ago, these thoughts would grow to paralyzing levels. They’d lead to me making a sobbing call to my sister. I’d stop working and start looking for driving routes to Colorado, back to the basement bedroom. Or I’d start looking at the want ads. Or I’d just eat a cupcake and pick up Maureen Dowd’s book “Are Men Necessary?”, which is my favorite “my relationships are doomed” reader.

But… things have changed. In the past year, I’ve learned my work cycles. I know I have the ability to make a living. I am aware that if I skip running for three days that I will be able to run on the fourth. And I know that even if I eat something I shouldn’t, I won’t immediately lose the respect of friends and family.

So, instead of dwelling on the little things I didn’t get done, I recognize that I’m making great progress each day.

• Tomorrow I’m taking the train to Orange County to do a presentation and get more leads.
• I played diva to the meeting planner and asked for a first-class ticket so I can work on the way up and back.
• I’ve prepared to take a big project with me, so I’ll bill more than my minimum tomorrow.
• I spent the day doing some kick-rear marketing for the blog and my business. I also finished up some billing, took Mickey Mouse to the vet for her allergy shot, tuned up my road warrior laptop and wrote a letter back home.
• I didn’t eat a cupcake.

A must for freelancers:

I just heard about this new service that allows you to sign up to see who is Googling you and from where! I think you can use it for your name and keywords.

I’m not 100 percent sure of all the functionality because the site is down, probably from the national story that I just saw. You might check back tomorrow.

www.ziggs.com

More about self-Googling

Sometimes when the going is tough, I recite these phrases, some stolen, some original, to help me muddle through. Hope they help you as well. Add your own!

1. All I’ve got left is tenacity, but I’ve got a LOT of tenacity!
   I repeated this phrase over and over again during my first 20-mile run, which was one of the toughest physical and mental things I’ve done. I was running alone, overheated, dehydrated, crying, exhausted, dead last and absolutely not in shape for the physical exertion. But I kept repeating those words, and somehow I finally got to where the rest of the team was waiting. I still use it when the road gets rough.
2. Enjoy this day.
   This is Mom’s phrase. She ends almost every conversation with those words, said in a way that never sounds commonplace. She really means it. “Beth, enjoy this day.” It makes me smile every time, and I really try to think about the enjoyment of my daily life because of her words.
3. “I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul.”
   The line is from “Invictus,” a poem by William Ernest Henley. What a motivator! What a rise-from-the-ashes inspiration! I’ve memorized it, and I often think of it when I need to be strong. You’re probably more familiar with the last two lines: “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”
4. If you’re happy where you are, you can’t regret where you’ve been.
   This is another Beth original. My philosophy is that we are the sum total of all the good and bad that we’ve encountered… every experience, traumatic or euphoric, has shaped our lives to get us to where we sit today. And if today we’re sitting in a wonderful chair in a beautiful apartment as we work at a job we love, we cannot regret choices we’ve made or be sad about situations that have befallen us. Because if those things hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
5. Today is a great day to be amazing.
   This is my signature phrase — definitely my favorite. I thought of it in Philly and turned it into a wall decal for my office. I have a dream to get someone creative to turn it into a nice design and sell these on CafePress. But I don’t think anyone would buy it… Every time I say it, I get surprising reactions, such as, “Beth, I think today is a great day to be mediocre,” and “That makes me tired,” and “Who wants to be amazing all the time? It’s too much work.”

As a small business owner, do you know when you (or your employees) are leaving money on the table?

Consider this story: D.J. and I are on a road trip to Central California for a bike race he has Saturday in San Luis Obispo. He wanted to avoid the traffic near LA, so we left last night and drove to Santa Barbara.

I’m not sure what was happening in Santa Barbara, but the first four hotels we passed had no vacancies. We found a Best Western near the end of the strip and decided to try.

The nice clerk at the desk pulled up the availability on the computer.

“Well, we do have one room left,” he said. “It’s normally $185, but since it’s so late I can give it to you for $155.”

Huh? He was looking at an exhausted couple, ready to find a room for the night. His room was the only one we had seen available in miles. If he had said the room was $225, we’d have hoped for an AAA discount and paid the money (I’m pretty sure).

But, without any whining, bargaining, prompting or even any sufficient reason to pity us, he offered a fairly good discount off his only remaining room.

I have been in sales. I AM in sales. I sell myself and my service every day. And I have to admit it’s still tough when I state my price and hear silence. I have to stop myself from saying, “Ok, ok, I’ll drop it to X.” But I know much better than to walk into a selling situation offering a discount that no one has asked for.

Ask yourself — are you selling yourself short? If so, chances are you don’t believe in the value of the price you’re charging. If so, repeat after me: I am worth the fee I charge.

I’m not feeling too good… think I’m coming down with a cold. So I figured today was as good as any for some down-home whinin’ and moanin’.

1. The damn garbage trucks
   I live and work in a typical residential neighborhood, but I have no idea why we have so many garbage trucks go by. The regular truck goes up one side of my street and down the other once a week (every other week the recycling truck does the same). Then special trucks come on different days for different commercial/multi-housing bins. So almost every day at least one truck comes by at least one time. I also live near a military base with its helicopter and jet trainings, plus the airport is right here. And the highway. And one car with an overly sensitive car alarm.
2. My antivirus software
   This morning my Norton 360 alerted me that my computer was no longer protected from something. Fix this problem! it said. Ok, so I pushed the red button marked “FIX.” And the problem was fixed. Why in the world did I have to go push the button? Did the system think that today I suddenly didn’t want to be protected anymore? It also went through a phase asking me to fix every tracking cookie. Mostly tracking cookies are good. They make it so John & Kira’s Chocolates remember me when I go back to drool. I don’t want to delete all my tracking cookies, and it’s a pain that everything comes to a screetching halt when I don’t “FIX” the cookie.
3. Spam
   My gosh… does spam still work? Are people really clicking on these things enough to make it worthwhile for the spammers to still send me 50 emails overnight? Here’s a direct quote from one of my emails from last night: “It would work up into inconceivable copy for the devoted mothers and wives, to men who deserved two young people one evening in july seemed to great mutual esteem, i bet harry haydock’s never a natral death. There is no reason at all to believe.” Who would click on that? Who would think that an email from a person named “Kermit Lang” was actually “a charming blue-eyed blonde, who looks for a male pen friend, or just a man to talk with on Skype or in real life!” Don’t we all know not to click on spam yet?
4. My cat
   Ok, this may anger my friends who love cats. And please remember that I love Mickey Mouse dearly. But right now the dang animal is sitting between me and this monitor, and she keeps getting up to stretch. I don’t like to reject her, so I keep straining my head from side to side to read around her. Something is wrong here! My cat should not affect my productivity.
   
5. My neighbors
   The guy directly across the street from me is home all the time. I’m not sure why. He stands outside his apartment and does this hoppy/skippy/pace-y thing outside his front door, and he always looks up at me when I exit my front door. I’ve heard he’s nice, but I’m afraid he’s going to be too friendly if I say hi, so I remain sullen-looking and business-like when I see him, which makes me feel like a heel. And another neighbor talks on his cell phone loudly from the driveway between my house and his. He also let his smoke alarm battery die, and for three months I heard CHRRRP at irregular intervals all night and day. He is very nice, and when I met him the other day, he apologized about the alarm and fixed it right away. After three months, mind you.