 With the internet playing a major role in our everyday lives and the freedom that it provides, it's becoming more and more common for individuals to work from home. This is especially true for entrepreneurs. A booming technology industry has made this easier than ever to accomplish. Between Skype, Google Business Apps, and a bevy of online collaboration platforms, doing your work remotely is no longer simply a rarity, it’s a highly accepted norm. It can be an incredibly attractive option for a number of reasons. Here’s what we consider to be some of the advantages of working from home… You Define Your Office Space Working from home provides a more flexible option for creating a work space that is uniquely tailored to you, allowing you to be more comfortable in your work space. Whether it’s listening to your own music without the hassle of headphones, saving yourself some back pain by working on the couch, or having control over setting the ideal temperature, having a work space that is expressly your own trumps working from a cubicle any day. No Dress Code Though many corporate cultures are incorporating a less strict dress code, we are all humans with the instinctual desire to portray a “well put together” sense of self when in public, especially in professional scenarios. However, there is much to be said about not having to spend the extra time spiffing up during your morning routine. Rolling out of bed in your pajamas and going right to work can be incredibly freeing. No Driving, or Traffic! One of the worst parts about having to go to the office is getting there. Commuting is a pain in general, but between hitting morning traffic as everyone is commuting to work, and evening traffic during rush hour, driving to and from the office is entirely too tedious. Working from home cuts driving out of your schedule and gives you more time to be productive!  Sit back, relax, and get some work done. Saving Money There are a lot of aspects of working from home that will give your wallet a break. For instance, not having to maintain an in-office, professional wardrobe leaves funds for other interests. In addition, removing your daily commute saves on gas expenditure. Furthermore, you save on food by not being tempted to eat out as much since you're able to whip up your own lunch from home. Allowed to Manage Your Own Schedule When you work from home, you can manage irregular hours and organize your time in a way that best suits you. Whether you’re a morning person or night owl, working from home can work for you. It also provides an opportunity for using breaks to actually refresh and reinvigorate your mind. Relaxing with a power nap, embracing some Zen with a bit of yoga, even taking a ten-minute walk will benefit you more, and the bonus is that you can do it all in the comfort of your own home or neighborhood. Acquire Greater Knowledge and Independence Without distracting colleagues around the corner, or the IT department conveniently downstairs, you innately begin to develop skills that you never had before. You gain the confidence to find the answers on your own, becoming more and more productive along the way. Before you know it you become a one-man or one-woman business operations guru! Who needs IT anyway! (Just kidding... we all do sometimes) Improved Communication Skills You’d be surprised at how much your communication skills improve when you work from home. Being forced to make a more concentrated effort towards maintaining contact with the appropriate channels helps you to appreciate the value that effective communication has in the workplace. You’ll notice yourself writing more clear and concise emails and being more sensitive to your team’s different schedules because now that your coworkers aren’t just steps away, active communication is more crucial than ever.  More Enjoyable and Effective Meetings
No amount of free coffee and breakfast pastries can make up for having to sit in a congested conference room between the incessant throat clearer from marketing and pen-clicking guy from sales. The beauty of video conferencing allows you to choose both your seat and your breakfast, and with only a few clicks you can bring the entire team together for a meeting that can now last 20 minutes rather than an hour. Don't forget an agenda! Personal Space Traditional work places tend to shrink your personal “bubble”. The overwhelming ins and outs of the average office work day don’t allow for much personal space. Having a home work space not only reduces anxiety and stress from the external environment, but also grants you a larger allowance of room to breath, which everyone needs at one point or another. If you’ve ever watched “The Office”, you know what we mean. Avoid Office Politics, Gossip, and Drama You’d think high school would have taught most of us otherwise, but somehow politics, gossip, and personal drama always seem to find their way into the workplace. Removing the possibility for idle chatting and time spent whispering by the water cooler helps to create a more positive environment in which productivity can be the primary focus, as it should be. Those are some of the things we think are most advantageous about working from home. Can you think of any? Let us know in the comments below, and stay tuned later in the week as we flip the coin and detail some of the challenges of working from home, while also discussing how to overcome them.
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 Zeisemer & Meyer of ZM Communications Maveriq Profile: Kim Ziesemer & Heath Meyer, ZM Communications When starting a business one of the most important elements is working with the right people. Whether you're a self starter, or part of a team, eventually you're going to need to form relationships to grow your dream. One such relationship has been developing between two professional public relations executives in San Diego for a number of years. Working as colleagues at Qualcomm in years past, they have since launched their own company and are navigating the waters of entrepreneurship as an exemplary model of business partnership. They are Kim Ziesemer and Heath Meyer of San Diego's ZM Communications. I had the pleasure of meeting them last weekend and was able to learn a lot. Here's how the conversation went. What is ZM Communications, and what services does the company provide? Heath: ZM Communications is a Marketing Communications firm, which primarily supports clients in the technology sector. We also work with clients in the nonprofit, consumer, and general lifestyle categories. Our sweet spots include media and analyst relations, events, digital media, content development, and editorial strategy. Kim: We work with a mix of larger established corporate companies like Samsung, TCL (The Creative Life), and Kyocera, and smaller startup companies. A lot of the work we do is driving positive media coverage, getting our client’s names out into the world, building brand awareness, and additional efforts to publicize their products. How did the two of you come to form your business partnership? Kim: We actually started doing this on the side at our previous jobs. We were both working at Qualcomm, and we started it as a general partnership for the first 6 months or so. Then we changed the structure to an LLC that’s taxed as an S-Corp. That change was made per the advice of our tax accountant. We did that when we knew we were going to be working on this full-time, and that we were going to be a more established company. We wanted to switch to being an LLC because it was the right move legally. Heath: One of the great things about the relationship that Kim and I have is that we both came into this knowing that we wanted it to be split down the middle 50/50...for it to be an equal partnership. I think that's a critical piece if you’re going to go into your own business and have a partner. You need to put together a structure and an agreement that you can both work under. I think the fact that we both agree that the business is split 50/50 is the only way to make it work for us. What was it that you saw in each other that made you want to go into business together? Heath: Kim and I worked together on the same team for about five years at Qualcomm. We’re both from Wisconsin so we share that bond as well. I've always had respect for her work ethic, her intelligence, and her ability to think and work on the fly. As I started to think about having my own business she was at the top of the list as a potential partner. It's critical to find someone that you respect. I also spend more time with her than I do with anyone else. You have to like the person you go into business with, and Kim is just a really good human being. Kim: We joke sometimes that having a business partnership is like being in a marriage. You have your joint financial account, you have your vision of the future, and it’s your baby that you’re growing together. You need to have those lines of communication open. You need to enjoy the person that you're working with and you need to respect them as well. Heath is amazing! I really appreciate the fact that he pushes us to grow, keep learning, and trying new challenges. That's so important in what we’re doing. He does that in his personal life, and brings that energy to the business. Having someone that you admire and want to learn with is really key. Heath: Also, when you have an issue it's important to have an open dialogue. We've certainly had some hard conversations and disagreements about working with particular clients, going after a piece of business, or how we're going to structure something. The great thing about our relationship is that we’re so open with each other. We can say to each other, “It’s been a long day. Let’s get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll talk about it in the morning.” Not letting issues fester is a critical part of the business. We require a direct line of communication with each other.
Having already been at a large established company, and experiencing that stability, what was your inspiration for going into business for yourselves? Heath: It's funny... If you would have asked me 3 years ago if I would have ever considered starting a business, I would have said “no.” I sort of pitched it to Kim as a joke. I knew that she had just finished her MBA program and that it was something she was interested in as well. She said, “We need to talk about this.” One conversation led to another and all of a sudden we were both very excited, and writing a business plan together. An old colleague of mine from my days back in Chicago had reached out about needing some freelance support, and that work sort of fell into our lap. It just felt like the universe was putting things on our runway as we were getting ready to take off. It rolled out very naturally. Kim: For me it was a little different. I had always wanted to own my own company. That was part of the reason I went back to business school. I had a couple of false starts, tried a couple things that didn't work. I was opening a juice shop in my husband’s gym, working on a couple of apps with some other friends, and a number of things that weren't really making sense. When Heath approached me it made a lot of sense. This is our core competency. It’s something we know we’re really good at, and that we can do well. I think once you find the path that you’re supposed to be on, things do happen pretty naturally and pretty seamlessly. It felt serendipitous. We had the conversation, this piece of business fell in our lap, and from there it was off to the races. We just kind of took off! Now that you’ve been in business for a while how do you go about sourcing and qualifying clients? Heath: 90% of the business we have, and the business that we are pursuing, is through referrals. Old colleagues, old bosses, mentors, and friends have provided us with the connections that we’ve needed to continue to move forward. We've been fortunate enough that we’ve not had to go out and do a ton of business development, and we’ve had a lot of people refer their colleagues and their business partners to us. It's happened very organically, but we do want to expand outside of tech, which is where most of our business has been. We’ve worked to identify opportunities for expansion. Recently we took on a pro bono client in order to support our growth outside of the technology sector. We're going to continue to look for those opportunities and pursue them as they make sense for our business. Kim: To add one more thing about how we source clients; we really make sure the culture is a good fit. We've actually turned down some clients that are kind of in our sweet spot because we don't feel like we could provide them with the right level of service, we don’t vibe with them just right, or they’re requiring more than we think we can handle at the time. We’ve made sure to look very carefully and ensure that it's a good cultural fit for the both of us. How do you ensure quality in the services you provide? Heath: I think there's a learning curve to understanding how you keep your quality of service very high. A critical component to that is learning when to say “no”. It's something that we've struggled with in our first year of doing business. It actually took us saying “yes” to a couple of things that we shouldn't have to determine when to say “no,” and when to push back. There’s only so many hours in the day. Kim and I are very honest with each other about what we want our work-life balance to be, and how much we're going to take on before it starts to become too much and quality of service declines. It’s something that we’re going to continue to figure out as we move the business along. There’s really not necessarily a clear cut answer. Kim: We also have an interesting and scalable business model. Right now everyone that's on the team, outside of us, is contracted. So we can very easily scale up or down. We have about eight people on the team that are not full-time employees. They freelance for us. So if we get a really big project that comes in we can tap into them and make sure that we have the resources available to deliver. In addition, they have a mix of skill sets, which allows us to staff up and present the right team for the work. Heath and I are actively involved in every single account. We make sure that we’ve provided the right fit of resources for the work. I think our sweet spot right now is six or seven clients. If we grow beyond that I think we’ll need to bring in another full-time team member. Be patient. Let the chips fall where they may, and make your next move based on where those chips fall. What percent of your time is spent on working with existing clients vs. growing the company with new business? Kim: Heath and I have very similar personalities. We're both big idea people, and we love driving the strategy of the business for our clients and ourselves. We also have a really strong operations person who runs our finances, logistics, and manages all of our contractors. That’s really key in freeing up our time so we can continue to think of the vision for the company as well as service our clients directly. I would say that 80% of our time is spent servicing our current clients while 20% is new business, networking, and pitching new people. Heath: I think that we're at an interesting inflection point with the business as well. Over the next year or so we’ll really be fleshing out what our plan for growth is, how big we want the company to become, and whether or not we want to bring on full-time employees. I love what we have right now and what we've been able to build in a relatively short amount of time. We've got friends, mentors, and old colleagues that we stay in touch with who asked, “Are you guys going to grow?” or “When are you going to start hiring people.” We’re in no rush. We want the business to continue to move along as steadily as it has. That would be one piece of advice I would give to anyone who is getting into starting their own company. Be patient, let chips fall where they may, and make your next move based on where those chips fall. Kim: Another thing about hiring the full-time employee is that we want to make sure we’re being careful. It can change the dynamic of the company quite a bit, and change the culture. So we want to make sure it's a really good fit, and someone who's really driven. They’ll need to share our vision on where we're headed and be able to help us get there. Do you have any existing partnerships with other agencies? How do you establish manage them? Heath: We were fortunate enough to have a relationship with a sister agency that helped to launch our company. That’s one of the reasons we were able to get ZM Communications off the ground. An old colleague of mine in Chicago that I worked with years ago, owns her own agency. That agency doesn’t offer the same services that we offer, and reached out to us to act as their public relations and communications arm. We’ve been fortunate enough to have them funnel a lot of business to us. That partnership was critical to us launching the business. Since they offer services that we don’t, we’ve been able to tap into that team as well. It really fits into the business model that Kim explained a bit earlier, where we’re not in need of additional full-time employees that we’d need to be taking care of. It’s worked out very well for us. Both in business, and in personal life, where do you draw creative inspiration from? Heath: I draw a lot of creative inspiration from Kim. I’ll often have a ton of ideas going through my head and I can’t tell you how many times I’ll text or IM her with them. It starts as a brainstorm, and then we’ll be moving down the path. I also come up with a lot of crazy ideas when I’m out running or when I’m in the pool swimming. Working out and fitness is something that we’re both passionate about. I’ve been doing triathlons for ten years. It’s always been a haven for me to go out, get on my bike, and just head somewhere else. That’s when I can focus and think about what it is I want to do next. I can come up with new concepts for our current clients or think of a piece of business that I want to go after. It’s been an incredible outlet for me, and a place that I draw inspiration from. Other mentors as well. Kim and I have been so lucky to surround ourselves with some amazing, smart, intelligent business people over the course of our careers. Sometimes just sitting around having coffee and keeping an open mind can produce meaningful results. Those are three areas where I draw my creative inspiration from. Kim: I agree with those, and I think Heath’s last point about networking is very important. We still travel up to San Francisco once a month, and meet with a lot of our previous teammates and colleagues up there. There’s so much innovation happening in Silicon Valley. We want to hear what’s going on as well as what people are up to. It’s so cool to see what people are doing in the space. We also keep a finger on the pulse of our industry by reading a lot of news, and seeing what other creative campaigns are out there. Then there’s the other things I do like going to concerts, running, Crossfit. My husband owns a gym where I’ll workout. Travel is also huge for me. I love going out and exploring the world. I find so much inspiration from other cultures, and how other people are living their lives. Getting out in the world as much as possible and living your life allows inspiration to come from everywhere. What is your “Why” factor for being in business? Kim: I love having something that I own. The feeling of it being my passion project, which I’m driving forward, and creating something exactly the way I want it to be created. We’re picking who we want to work with, in control of our own destiny, and producing something bigger than ourselves. I also love that we constantly get to learn and grow within the agency. We’re always learning another industry, learning another business, and seeing how other people structure things. There are tons of awesome new products or exciting things going on. It’s very inspirational to keep meeting new people while getting out there to learn more. Heath: This “baby” of ours has opened so many doors, and I agree with what Kim has said. I think waking up in the morning, being able to set your own agenda, and do what you really want to do that day is super empowering. Having choices is what gives you power in life. Anything that’s worth pursuing is going to be high risk. There’s going to be some fear there, but if you can overcome that fear the reward is amazing. I love surrounding myself with really amazing people including Kim. I love being able to work collaboratively with our clients, our team, and other people in the industry.  Dream Team Where do you turn when you want to self-educate?
Heath: In the communications and marketing industry it’s very important to keep your finger on the pulse of what big brands are doing, and how they are expressing themselves. For me it’s fun to get up in the morning and read the news. I like to see what interesting stories brands are creating. Looking at industry trade publications like Advertising Age or PR Week where you can see case studies of the work that other people are executing is useful. It’s really important for us to stay fresh while keeping our ideas creative, new, and different. So we need to have an understanding of what other big brands are doing. Kim: I think what we mentioned before about networking and seeing what your colleagues or peers are doing is important too. Especially people in different industries. It’s cool to draw inspiration from friends in unrelated areas, like doctors or nurses in the medical field or friends in the restaurant industry. You ask yourself, “What kind of activities are they doing, and what platforms are they using?” I also subscribe to content marketing newsletters that have many ideas. Sometimes I’ll have time to read them. Sometimes I won’t. It’s just good to have a daily reminder with information you can reference. One of the subscriptions I have is to “Think With Google.” They send a daily thought and are doing so many unique and innovative things. There are people like Seth Godin, and other gurus, there are podcasts or webinars, there’s an endless supply of resources. It comes down to picking the ones that are right for you. What advice do you have for self-starters? Kim: Just do it! The key is to start. No matter how small. It’s easy to overthink things, and believe that you need to be perfect before you get out there. You really don’t need to spend a lot of money or time. You can get started and just see where it takes you. I think what you’ll find is that your path shifts from what you expected. You’ll need to be open to those different influences and opportunities that come your way. Heath: It’s kind of like having a child. No one can do it alone. So surrounding yourself with an army of people who support you, love you, and build you up all while giving you constructive criticism or feedback is vital. Make sure to have a network that lifts you up. A network that helps you move forward. There’s going to be an element of fear whenever you get started. Especially when your livelihood depends on what you’ve created. You want people in your life that are going to help you overcome the fear and do it anyway. Where can we find and follow you? Heath: Our company website is www.zmcommunications.com. We’re both also very active on Twitter, engaging with reporters. You can follow me on Twitter @ironman_heath26. Kim: I’m on Twitter @kziese and would love to hear from you. We want to thank Kim and Heath for allowing us to speak with them about their entrepreneurial journey. If you have any PR or Communications needs for your business we highly recommend contacting them. We'd love to hear what you think about ZM Communications in the comments below!
One of the great things about being based in San Diego is having the opportunity to regularly interact with a plethora of innovative thinkers. The community of intelligent and business savvy individuals in this city is abundant. Understanding that these people are in the area, but may not have the entire toolkit for entrepreneurial success has driven a couple of forward thinking collaborators to create a unique growth and learning platform called The Pineapple Project. I'm lucky enough to call these driven and visionary entrepreneurs my friends, and was able to sit down with them to gain an understanding of what motivates them to help people become a better version of themselves. They are Chloe Hom Banales and Mike Sebastian, partner founders of The Pineapple Project, and here's what they had to say. What is The Pineapple Project? How did you come up with the concept, and why? Chloe: I always knew that I wanted to create something that would allow me to give back in a big way. The “Something” project has always been on my mind. I was searching the internet looking for inspiration, and I love pineapples. Especially what they represent when given as a gift. So essentially I chose The “Pineapple” Project as the name of what my future outlet for giving back would be. To elaborate a bit, when given as a gift, a pineapple represents the phrase “ You are perfect.” As a growing business it is our belief that no one is given a gift that they do not have the capacity to fulfill. Mike: The Pineapple Project is an annual event committed to empowering people to take responsibility and create extraordinary lives. The event is aligned in personal development, entrepreneurship, and contribution. We’ll be hosting twenty smaller meetup events a year that are bi-weekly and geared toward more focused topics. These smaller events will lead up to a much larger event that takes place once a year. What type of attendees are you trying to attract to these events? Chloe: The people who are going to be attending these meetups are going to be entrepreneurs. They may also be intrapreneurs. They’re people who have the mindset in which they want to give back or they want to become more fulfilled in their jobs. They’re also people who are already contributing and love what they do. We're also going to be connecting with the young motivated people that have questions on how to really create and design a life that they’re passionate about.  Chloe recently met with Tyler Jensen, founder of The Startup Garage and The Lifestyle Business Accelerator What types of opportunities are offered to entrepreneurs through The Pineapple Project? Mike: What we’re trying to do is fill in the knowledge gaps that people may have. If someone’s trying to start a business and has a great idea, but doesn’t understand how to do accounting, or doesn’t understand how to do tax laws that shouldn’t stop them from creating what it is their after. So we provide an easily accessible destination where they can go to learn these things. The biweekly meetups are smaller and deal with more granular topics, while the big annual event will be the main goal and cover a broad range of topics. Attendees can come to the events and learn what they’re interested in. More importantly they’ll be able to make contact with experienced resources that they are looking for. These resources will be able to answer a question in 15 minutes that the attendee may have been mulling over across six weeks of searching. After leaving an event our attendees will have connections with companies and individuals who have been there before. Chloe: They’ll have the knowledge to move forward with their next step. It’s going to be a transformative event where you're doing the work then and there. When you leave you’ll have tools in your pocket, a mindset for tuning into people that you want to connect with, and a community of contacts to fall back on in case you need additional help. What makes The Pineapple Project different than all the other business accelerators or entrepreneurship programs out there? Chloe: One thing that we have been set on from the beginning is that it's not just about business. It’s about who you are as a person; your way of being in and outside of your workplace. We are going to be working with other local companies such as The Evo Room, who really bring experiential learning into the events. They’ll be present with us in April 2017 at our larger annual event, and possibly at some of the smaller upcoming meetups. We’re also really trying to incorporate more than just what your business dreams are. We want to address who you are as a person with the relationships that are around you. Do you bring mindfulness? Do you bring your health into play? As you know, being an entrepreneur requires a lot of energy and fuel. Whatever you’re feeding yourself be it food, drinks, books you’re reading, or content on social media, you’re doing that everyday. What you feed yourself makes a big difference in how you approach your life. What is the geographic reach of the program? Mike: We’re working with content creators nationwide. The smaller meetup events and the larger event are local here in San Diego. Our goal is to attract attendees from across the entire United States so that they can benefit from the opportunity. Chloe: We’ll be hosting meetups in the Los Angeles area before the big event in April as well. I fully expect people from everywhere to attend the event in April as we will be bringing in speakers from everywhere. Are the two of you going to be running the events that take place outside of San Diego? Chloe: One of the things that we believe in 100% is community and collaborating with others who are aligned in the same mission. When you’re an entrepreneur you’ll be more successful when you’re able to get yourself out of the way and do for other people. We all have the same intent, which is to make massive impact in a positive way. A perfect example is our meetup that took place on Thursday, August 18th. It was in collaboration with The Startup Garage and The Lifestyle Business Accelerator. We were connected to Tyler Jensen, who’s an amazing San Diego-based entrepreneur, through Danielle Blum, who’s also a leader in the space with World Nativ. It’s not every man for himself, and should never be that way. That’s a big reason why The Pineapple Project is going to be putting together collaborative events. We won’t be sitting up there and preaching to you. It’s really about what we can all learn collectively. So we eliminate the middle man and provide access to experienced individuals as well as interactive learning. What channels are you using to spread your message? Mike: Meetup.com, Facebook.com, Instagram, and a whole lot of networking. Networking has been huge! Most of the people that we’ve come into contact with so far have been through a shared connection in the industry.  Tylere Jensen speaks to a group of The Pineapple Project event attendees What challenges are you facing in growing your organization? Chloe: I would say time management, but that’s a pet peeve of mine. Everybody has 24 hours in their day, and it’s really a matter of what you choose to prioritize within each and every hour. The two of us have our own businesses outside of The Pineapple Project that we’re also building. So it’s been a balance of work, life, health commitments, and even social life commitments. It’s very important to have those outlets where you put your phone away or you put your computer away, and just be with the person who is in front of you. Mike: One of the prevalent challenges I’m seeing is narrowing the focus down to a specific group. Everybody wants to be better. We would like to make everyone better. But we want to answer the question of, “Who can we help with these activities, events, and programs?” We have entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, and people looking to better themselves. How to define the audience, and who to say “no” to has been an obstacle that we’re working to manage better everyday. What tactics and strategies have you utilized to overcome adversity in your entrepreneurial endeavors? Mike: Asking questions. It’s take a long time for me to really learn that I can in fact do this. There are a lot of things that I run up against every single day that I have no idea how to get to the end of. However, I know that there is someone out there that does have the answer...that has been in the same situation, and can give some kind of advice to help me get to where I’m going. Chloe: Yes, asking questions and asking for help, as well as acknowledging and embracing the journey. One thing I’ve noticed when this question is asked to entrepreneurs whether they’re already successful or just starting out, is that personal development is going to be key. Getting yourself out of your own way. That has been huge for me. I’ve invested a lot of time and money in myself through various books, various programs, and various training sessions that have helped me to grow into the type of person who can now take on much larger tasks. The person I was a year ago would not be able to do what I’m doing right now. When our large event comes up in April, I’ll be an even more improved person. It’s exciting! It requires doing something that intimidates you everyday, really stepping outside of your comfort zone not just talking about it. Where do you want The Pineapple Project to be in 12 months, and what will next steps be at that point? Chloe: A year from now we will have had our first successful event. It will have been attended by successful entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and Olympic athletes who share their wisdom and address much of what we’ve talked about here today. Everyone is given the opportunity to overcome adversity. Everyone who has a big dream is going to have big challenges to overcome. We’re moving mountains to make The Pineapple Project happen, but it’s great because we know that it’s only going to get better and better. This time next year we’ll be preparing for our second annual event, possibly a two-day event. In addition, like we mentioned before, we also see the program spreading outside of San Diego empowering other individuals to create a similar structure and host meetups like ours. It’s a movement! We want people to understand that they truly have it within them to succeed. No matter what their socioeconomic background, education, or current status in life is they have the ability to get where they want to be. They just have to bridge that gap. Mike: What I’m most excited about seeing a year from now is when the person who had a better idea and better capability to execute on it than I did comes back and says, “Hey! I wanna talk at your next Pineapple Project because you connected me with someone, and that enabled me to do what it is that I want to do.” Be unapologetic when it comes to your dreams and where your vision lies. What is the funnest part about being involved in The Pineapple Project?
Mike: For me it’s learning. Like Chloe has said, “Push yourself everyday.” We’ve done that a lot so far, and the movement continues to get bigger and bigger. With every “yes” we receive from contacts, and every lesson from self-educating, it gets better. The further and further I go makes me crave more. I want to know how far we can take this. How can it get any better! Chloe: It’s the leaps, the leaps in progress. We don’t always know exactly what we’re going to do to get there, but we know where we will be. We’re doing whatever is required of us to accomplish the goals. Whether it’s jumping on a Facebook live video when I have no idea how to position it, or doing other things like that. Some of it’s going to be uncomfortable, but it’s not about always about me. Sometimes it’s about the person you’re interviewing on that live video, and the content they can deliver that going to help your audience. Your fears don’t matter. They’re very small when compared to your end goals. The other fun part is the community. Surrounding yourself with a tribe who’s going to encourage your work and say, “That’s really awesome!” versus those who just say, “Oh ya that’s a neat idea.” You really have to be particular about who you spend your time with and who you choose to associate with. Even on social media. Unfriend people who aren’t contributing to where you want to go. Be unapologetic when it comes to where you want to be, and where your vision lies. How can our readers get involved with The Pineapple Project? Mike: Facebook is a great place to see what we’re up to on a regular basis. Instagram is as well. We are www.facebok.com/thepineappleprojectnow or www.instagram.com/thepineappleprojectnow on each of those platforms. The website is www.chloeatsalot.com/thepineappleproject, you can also always reach us via email at info@thepineappleproject.com. Chloe: If people feel strongly about getting involved there’s a link on our website and we can touch base via email. We are always happy to give anyone an opportunity to exercise their genius, talent, or whatever it may be. We’ve even had a friend reach out and help us with our logo, and we really appreciate that. If anyone wants to contact us directly go ahead and send us a Facebook request, but also send us a message. I love getting to know what people are up to. It’s what gets us fired up about all of this! We're honored to bring the concept and message of The Pineapple Project to our readers. Thank you Mike and Chloe for sharing your vision with us. We look forward to the success of your program. Please let us know what you think of The Pineapple Project in the comments below! |
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