(NOTE: This title is not SEO friendly, heck the entire format of this blog is not SEO friendly. If you enjoy this installment of what’s going on in my brain, I hope you’ll share it with your friends.)

I’ve got a monster list of blog topics and I’m ignoring all of them in favor of a story I haven’t told in my blog.

A Walk Down Memory Lane

Most people know that I spent a couple of years as a rep for Dove Chocolate Discoveries – now known as The Cocoa Exchange – the direct sales arm of Dove chocolates. I was The Chocolate Lady.

In that role, my circle of acquaintances exploded, I learned to have fun in a way that I never had as a kid, and I generally gave the world The Bird. The networking began, I joined BNI, and tried to hustle chocolate parties without being too obnoxious about it. Additionally, I was doing some writing on the side.

Here’s the problem: at the core of my being, multi-level marketing is not what calls to me – even when the product is so super yummy. The expansion of my circle plateaued, the fun was becoming a drag, and I was not getting much gratification flipping off the structure I grew up with. While being the source of easy and amazing chocolate martinis was cool, it was no longer enough.

Then I came face-to-face with the possibility of losing one of my favorite writing projects. I had a hissy fit. And that is when, finally at 39 years old, the lightbulb turned on! If I had been in tears over the chocolate business for months (yes), and if the idea of losing a writing gig was so upsetting (yes), then maybe I was focusing on the wrong thing!

Emotional Revolution

That was on a Monday morning. By Friday morning I had: the domain, tag line, Commandments of Writing, and request for some business card ideas. I went to my networking meeting ready to fill out the paperwork to change categories. Before the meeting even started, I had multiple people tell me I was looking great and what was up. Just an emotional revolution.

Fast forward a bit, maybe a year, I ran into a friend (who I see regularly) and his wife (who I see rarely) in a restaurant. Knowing that I was doing something different, but not exactly sure what, she asked what I was up to. The passion for clear communication and the positives I took from being The Chocolate Lady summed up as, “Writing with Chocolate.”

Except for revamping my favorite chocolate blog, I haven’t written about chocolate. I do, frequently, eat chocolate while writing. I also think about chocolate with great regularity. Neither, however, fills my Chocolate Blog category.

What is Writing with Chocolate?

For me, this is the combination of many of my pieces and parts. Writing is my preferred form of communication and how I best put my thoughts together. I get a bit of a high helping clients get their message across. I definitely get a buzz when I get to that point with a client where I get it, they know I get it, and the ideas just flow into content.

I have fun figuring my clients out. What they do, what’s important to them, and explaining all of those things in a way that is true to them while connecting with their readers.

I moan and groan about my business. However, being a business owner is not what I mean when I say I’m writing with chocolate. And not all the writing I do is “with chocolate.” Writing with chocolate is when I’m in that place where I’m producing great content for great clients. It’s when I make a suggestion or observation that seems like no big deal to me while blowing my client’s mind. (It’s even convincing someone to not hire me because I know I’m not the solution they need.)

Writing with Chocolate is why I deal with all the other blech of being a business owner.

What is the “with chocolate” aspect of what you do?

– Lorrie Nicoles