This last year has been hard. I’ve learned a lot, and gained a lot, but I’ve also lost a lot. (Hair, sleep, and 4 employees)

I want to tell you a brief and vulnerable story about my business, as a way to frame my gratitude to you, dear reader.

During the pandemic, Sunlight Tax grew a lot. There were 3 new tax bills passed, and I got busy making courses, writing articles and offering workshops on how these bills would affect you - the creative person doing that important empathy-building work. My audience grew as a result, and a lot of people joined Money Bootcamp. These things are wonderful.

But I made some mistakes.

Hard years can include, and almost universally DO include year one. So, we expect you to have a loss year one. A lot of artists feel a lot of guilt and shame that they don’t make money at first. But, neither did Uber. Neither did that restaurant you ate dinner at last night. That’s normal. You’re not a bad guy - that is completely normal.

“I think artists make a mistake thinking that their work speaks for itself.

Your work is wonderful.

But your work needs a frame, and you are the frame. You can tell people what to think of your work. Because if you don't, they're going to pick it up from other stuff - like the fact that you seem really insecure.

And they're going to be like, "ok, I guess it's not good."

You know, you're telling them that when you say, "I guess...uh..."

If you talk like that, you're saying, this isn't very good."

You have a superpower. If you have had to operate in a world that doesn’t always see you, or that underestimates you, then you see things that they don’t see. And there’s business opportunity in that.