The Two Times I Almost Gave Up on Turquoise Moose

I’ve tried to give up twice on Turquoise Moose. None of the times I thought it was serving the right purpose until I realized something new I could do to save the situation.

Creating Turquoise Moose helped me find my true north star. After a few doubts and rebirths, now I see creating businesses and projects as marathons, not sprints. So I want to share my thoughts with you, my fellow creators of art and business.

The first time I wanted to quit, was when Turquoise Moose just came on Instagram. In 2017, Instagram was a blank canvas, and nobody knew if they ever could build a community on Instagram including myself. I was thinking, with merely 100 followers? Forget it. I am going back to finding projects to make my ends meet and just be comfortable.

That was my first limiting thought, “I have no followers, and there are many people who have beautiful things, it is never my turn.” Then one time, I saw an artist (my role model at the time), when there were no likes and comments, they kept posting, and adjusting their products, photos, and kept reflecting on what they could improve.

Yes, I wanted to do the same, and just try to be consistent instead of quitting right away. I found out that when days are good on Instagram, I interact with my followers. When they ignore me, I go back and summarize on a piece of paper everything I could do to improve, such as making a better cut stone, providing a different material, having a different way to take photos, etc.

I found out that our followers began growing when I put consistent work in, instead of getting tons of likes on merely one or two posts. It was us creating thousands of photos, and hundreds of videos, we kept that speed and pace and resilience since 2017, and today we are still improving.

The rule was really simple: double down on things you do right, fix things you do wrong, then repeat. By moving inch by inch over the years to improve, here comes Moose today! We are still improving, every second of our lives, and when we are tired, we take breaks. When we are working, we are always trying to improve everything we touch.

The second time was when I found help to build the website, and bring Moose to the next level. They were asking me about my vision, I stumbled, and had literally no vision. I knew only a few things about cutting, mining, and I didn’t have a vision of what I could do long-term with cutting stones.

At that time, I had just quit my high-paying corporate job (I called it the golden handcuff lol) and thought I’d break out of it by finding passion in creating art. And that was it. I personally think that it is terrible to not have a vision and plan and only have passion because I later found out the time and energy you spend on painting a vision can be over-consuming yet it is worth it. It is a process of struggling and finding

My vision, later on, was to touch as many artists as I can to encourage them to try our material, and inspire them to be happy (and I had done the same, finding a ton of joy from creating Moose! I was unhappy at my old job, and the unhappiness really got me before and I won’t elaborate here).

This simple vision has driven us a long way and continues to drive me: when in doubt, find happiness by creating. I encourage everyone to take time, slow down and find your true vision that drives you to create your future.

Stay true to yourself in what you love and hate, and let creativity inside of you drive you to find that vision. The part of my vision of touching as many artists as I can, truly helped us grow Moose to artists in over 30 countries in 2021 (what?! Yep, I cannot even believe it myself! But we did that…wink at you, who can certainly do the same!)

Perhaps the third time lies someday in the future, that I want to quit again. But I always know that I will never, ever, ever give up on growing Moose and helping others find happiness, regardless of any setbacks. Maybe I can even be an inspiration someday to others. And now I know failures are usually coming from people quitting, no issues with the failure itself.

When in doubt, take a break, rinse and repeat, and never forget why you are creating, is to find happiness, just because it was not sold, it takes time to create, learn, and improve. You are not alone. 

Continue to create and inspire your community, show your work! This is no rocket science because even we could do it and we are nobody…if we can do it, you can do the same, really! If you decide to pick up your torch and create again, tag us at #madewithmoose and we always give you a shoutout back, rain or shine!

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