Candid Convictions

Shout out to Ariel Vaughan with Central Virginia Small Business Development Center and Tom Kelly with Crustworthy Pizza. They have both provided me with assistance in the past week which has reset my assumptions, guided my focus and bolstered my confidence. The process of starting a company involves painstaking detail, follow through, foresight and flexibility. Ariel and Tom have both given me knowledge and council which arrives at an auspicious moment. The timeline for Hawk City Pizza is still roughly intact, but as the final hurdles come into focus they appear more formidable than the conceptual obstacles that once dotted the horizon.

I must repeat my mantra – “This venture is not a referendum on me.” I state this categorically to an audience of one as I look in the mirror most mornings. Pursuing something intrepid and yet-without-form stirs the most insidious vocabulary in my lexicon. The story I tell myself when I think about what kind of person I am. These words bubble to the top of my consciousness as I get dressed in the pre-7am cold, pale grey twilight. Risk-Adverse. Procrastinator. Cursory Generalist. It becomes a challenge to push past them, like moving against the flow of traffic in a crowded station. My eyes must remain on the boarding train in the distance. I can only inhabit that which I allow in.

I am learning that when you are a sole-proprietor, then you ARE the business. I am selling myself and I am selling pizzas – in that order. To be honest, this scares me – but I am confident in my pizza. My deep dish pizza recipe is the totem I return to over and again. It’s the point of this whole show. To my Charlottesville neighbors out there, I look forward to introducing you soon. Stay tuned.