If you haven’t read my latest post you might not be aware of this major liminal space I currently find myself.
Something about the liminal is that it always inspires me to digest and reflect.
It’s prime integration time in other words.
I don’t talk about this too much here on the blog, as it is the blog, however some of you dear readers might have been familiar with the fact that for over 10 years, I built and then closed a business.
It was super personal.
It felt fated in every way.
And something about my recent reflections on my work now, also in the liminal, all of the changes that have been happening, have had me wondering … what should I do with this time in space?
I recently did a financial tarot reading that kind of surprised me to be honest. It also inspired me to do a series of journal entries – healing entries – about what kind of business advice and wisdom (after much heartache and learnings) my current self would have liked to give to my past self.
As I started to write these pieces of wisdom down, I realized it might be helpful to share them with you, dear reader, in case you might find them a helpful or a soothing balm or the naked truth you might need in this moment in time.
So here it is … part 1 of business advice to my past self from my present self.
Never put your business (or creative project) in a situation where you have to hustle.
If you need money or means to survive, pay your rent, pay your groceries, etc., get a job, take a break from your work and step back, pause, but for you, putting financial/survival pressure on your business will kill your passion, purpose, and the creative juice you need in order to effectively bring in income.
Seems counterintuitive.
Contradicts a lot of the business advice out there including the advice I was marketed – and bought into. This idea of “jumping in both feet first” and how after you make the “decision to invest” (usually a scary financial decision to join some business coaching program) that there is some law of reciprocal return that will somehow “kick my lazy butt in gear”.
Truths about me:
- I’m not lazy and do not need my “butt kicked into gear”
- I am strongly guided by my values and ethics
- Money is pretty much my lowest motivating factor ever
- No matter how dire the situation gets (it got pretty fucking dire, my friends – more than once or twice), money will still never motivate me to hustle nor bring me income in my business
- I have a very high risk tolerance in much of my decision making and actions
In fact the more dire my financial situation got, the more I sucked at not just the work I do, but my business. Desperate situations call for desperate marketing tactics and opened me up to believing and doing all sorts of things that left me not just more financially stressed, but ethically bankrupt.
In fact, I am still healing and recovering the trust I had in myself – once believing it to be unshakable.
Another truth:
I am not everyone.
Just because something motivates one – or many – to act, does not mean it will motivate me.
Another thing I know about myself is that I will work hard at something and don’t mind taking on mundane tasks at all – if they serve a greater good … and … that greater good better serve my soul, humanity, or the planet – preferably all 3.
I learned the hard way that I’d actually chose the street to selling out.
And I tried to sell out too, except it didn’t work so I scraped that pretty fast thankfully.
But my dance with ethics, moral, money, survival, and motivation taught me something I wish I could have told my past self when she was just starting her business.
I would have encouraged her to be more frugal with coaching, learning, and spending money on “programs” and “communities”.
I would have told her to seek out more mental and spiritual health support outside of the coaching online space because her personal relationship to her business touched her so deeply that she would need constant support in untangling what was her stuff and what was business.
I would have told her to take more breaks and that it would take a lot longer to build the thing she wanted to build and to really save up enough money to sustain her through that.
There are many many many coaching programs and groups I would have told her to stay out of because for her, they are not a good ROI and that she actually already knows what she needs to know and not to get sucked into thinking other people know some “secret truth” about business when it really is simple common sense in the end.
This morning while sipping my coffee, on my mom’s porch, admiring her beautiful flowers, I read a quote that I feel like sums up the heart of so much of the business advice I received and once believed:
“The problem with trying to emulate a millionaire (or a coach, etc. – my words) is that it isn’t a business. Making money isn’t a career. It’s the result of good business. There is a huge difference between a result and the cause of the result.”
Somewhere along the way in being coached, and “learning” all about how to market, sell, and “do” business, I actually started to believe the advice I was given. After all, the coaches walked their walk, and had financially successful businesses, right?
We need money to survive but it is so so sooooo important to understand what our deep down motivators are.
If money doesn’t drive you, it’s better to understand this and work with what does.
Emotions drive me – when I was young and rebellious, often my anger and rebellion and indignant youth pushed me to accomplish amazing things. Now, after integrating a lot of my pent up anger, and teenage rebellion, my deeper values, ethics, and passion are my biggest motivators, as is my curiosity for the things that really engage me.
Self knowledge – and working with it – alongside our humanity and human animal nature are really the keys to unfolding our path, aren’t they?
Self knowledge and self forgiveness.
Although this is a letter to my past self, I know that I cannot change the past, nor can I change all of the consequences of the chain of events that brought me to where I sit today. However, I can forgive my past self. She didn’t know what my current self knows today. She made decisions in the best way she could at that time.
As I sit now in the liminal, wondering what will be emerging next, I can reflect on this wisdom and self knowledge. I can decide to build something new – or not – with the wings of grace beneath me, and the rooted support of the earth anchoring me.
And so it is.
xx,
jenn