What does wonky have to do crafting a business and a life?

While dreaming + planning for this site, I was searching for something, some short phrase the describe what the essence of this thing is.  I knew the site would encompass….everything.
Everything about building and crafting a business (life). But how to sum up my…my manifesto? My truth? What is most truly me?

Wonky.

The word I get teased for using in my knitting lessons and classes. My description for anything imperfect, wobbly or not-quite-right (yet still delightful).

I began to journal about wonky. Why I use the word, why I embrace it, why we shouldn’t be afraid to be a little wonky.

Ah, but not just wonky. Unapologetically wonky.  I don’t just acknowledge that yeah, we’re all a little wonky, I think it’s imperative to embrace it, to love our wonky bits, to be who we are without apologizing.

All that writing became my Unapologetically Wonky manifesto. It’s a synthesizing of everything I’ve been learning through the growth of my business.
About sovereignty.
About truth.
About connection.
About creativity.

From Havi. From Kelly. From Danielle.
From Diane. From Kim. From Rachel-Marie.

Unapologetically wonky is a way of being that influences my teaching and creating.
Embracing the imperfections in my student’s work and helping them accept it as a natural part of learning.
Avoiding holding up any one standard of awesomeness.
Recognizing that yeah, I fall. Offering a hand for anyone who feels a bit wonky.
Teaching through modeling. Creating through connecting (colors, people, ideas, information).

It’s this idea, this embracing of the wonky that informs my work: what I teach,  how I teach, who I teach.

It’s what  draws my right people.
People who feel a bit wonky. Whether it’s their knitting, their selling, their aversion to feeling salesy, or their isolation as they craft their business.

And that’s what wonky is about.
Connecting.
Creating.
Sharing.
Despite  imperfections, despite hesitations, despite being wobbly (and sometimes falling).

If you need a bit more wonky in your inbox, get it by clicking here.

5 Comments on Embrace the Wonky

  1. Yolanda Peralta
    June 16, 2010 at 4:53 pm (14 years ago)

    Love it! The name. The thing you do. Your honesty. Love it mucho.

  2. blondechicken
    June 16, 2010 at 4:58 pm (14 years ago)

    Thank you Yolanda!

  3. Kelly Parkinson
    June 17, 2010 at 3:50 am (14 years ago)

    I'm so wonky when it comes to anything to do with my hands it's ridiculous. I can't even do the dishes correctly. I always manage to position them precisely in the most-likely-to-disastrously-topple-when-someone-sneezes way. I am learning to embrace this quality. The manifesto helps!

  4. blondechicken
    June 17, 2010 at 4:34 pm (14 years ago)

    Ha!
    I guess I should have clarified that I wasn't calling you out for being *wonky* (although I'm glad to hear that you are!), but for teaching me a bunch about growing a business with a healthy dose of you-ness.
    And if someone is sneezing on your clean dishes? Then they deserve toppling!