Meet Ellen Sizemore

We were lucky to catch up with Ellen Sizemore recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ellen, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

The short answer is that I still haven’t, and it’s likely I may never fully kick it, but rather learn to quiet it a little. The real lie is thinking there are people out there who feel fully confident and comfortable in their own skin. That is the lie that keeps us stuck. The biggest antidote to imposter syndrome that I have found is getting in deep conversation with other creatives that you assume are “ahead of you” in their journey. I can promise you that the person you look up to that you think you could never be… the person that you deem so much “further along” in their process… they have just as many insecurities as you. They too have a person they look up to and long to be like. I have been fortunate enough to become friends with a few key entrepreneurial women I look up to. Befriending them and getting into real conversation with them showed me that they struggle with the same imposter feelings that I do and they almost always have another person they look up to and long to be like.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

A year and a half ago I quit my day job (that I loved!) to help my husband run our small restaurant, High Tide (acai bowls, coffee, sandwiches). He had been living the business owner life for quite some time, and I had a successful career in the local wine industry. While I loved my career, I found myself very intrigued and inspired by the life he was living and I deeply wanted to be part of it. Not long after I quit my job and jumped onboard, we exponentially expanded operations and added 3 new businesses within a year.

It has taken time for me to find my role within this new space, but the way I see it is that I create inspiring spaces, most of them in a fairly small footprint. We love to find small, special buildings and pack them full of creative energy & community. Each of our businesses (High Tide, Pie in the Sky Pizza, Mosey’s Burgers, Cayucos Coffee) specialize in some sort of comfort food (sandwiches, pizza, burgers, coffee) in a slightly elevated version.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

1) A delicate balance of humility & confidence: It’s important to enter the business owner world aware that you will always be learning, but you also have to come confident in your abilities. It’s a hard balance to find!

2) Be flexible: You have to be willing to reevaluate & reinvent constantly. A system that is currently working may stop working all of a sudden & you’ll have to turn on a dime.

3) Care for your community: In our world of small business, being connected & having a heart for the community around you is imperative.

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?

I’ve always seen the value in being a “generalist” rather than a “specialist”, at least in my field of work/creativity. I very much see the value in artists that hone one specific craft over their lifetime, and I think they offer a perfect balance to the generalists like me. The way we run restaurants requires a general knowledge of a lot of different areas rather than a laser focus on one specific area. The lucky thing is when we do need very specific knowledge of one area, we can partner with someone who can help us. Part of being a generalist is knowing when to ask for help from a specialist!

Contact Info:

• Website: hightidemorrobay.com, pieintheskypizzacayucos.com, moseysburgers.com
• Instagram: @hightidemorrobay, @pieintheskypizzacayucos, @moseysburgers, @cayucoscoffee

Image Credits

Pie in the Sky Photo is from Sarah Kathleen Photography