My entrepreneurial journey began when I was pregnant with my first child, twenty years ago. Looking back I now see three phases of that journey, each of them preparing me for the next.
In the first phase I was working with the woman who was me, the mom entrepreneur, the woman who wanted to balance her business dreams with her desire to be a mother. I loved this woman, had so much to offer to her and got great pleasure out of serving her. But, I quickly learned, that as she sat with her mom entrepreneur hat on, she didn’t spend money. After putting much time, learning, money and effort into a business to support her. I made the hard choice to walk away from that business model and from that woman.
I got to acknowledge my gift
In the second phase, which was a direct result of what I learn in the first phase, I got to acknowledge my gift, which is that I do things really easily. When I created the first business, I did the majority of the backend work on my own. I was a student of everything regarding online marketing. So, I studied and implemented, a lot. I observed that so many of the entrepreneurial journey I connected with were struggling with the critical piece of HOW to get done what mattered to them. They knew WHAT they wanted but got stuck actually doing it.
My challenge was how could I teach what I knew if I didn’t believe that I was a teacher? I had to get over my big self-imposed block and address my limiting belief that I wasn’t a teacher. Why did I think this? How could I conquer it?
As I looked at the classic definitions of teacher I chose to rewrite the definition to suit me. I’m not formal. I’m very approachable and I choose to be one step ahead of my students. I teach today what I learned yesterday. I don’t make it more complicated than that. And I don’t sit above my students, I sit amongst them.
With great support, I shifted my limiting belief to one that was more supportive.
Before I could teach I had to observe how I do what I do and package that knowledge so others could benefit. For months I observed myself in action and documented what came naturally to me. With the support of friends who could see me more clearly than I could see myself, I packaged my knowledge into a system that became my quintessential foundational info product.
Over these years, as I’ve allowed myself to sit as the teacher, in a way that feels comfortable to me, the ideas for the content my clients need have flooded into my brain. I became quite prolific.
I struggled with self-sabotaging behavior as I fought the “get it done” part of myself.
Moreover I dismissed that which comes easily to me because it’s not sexy. Being the “get it done girl,” a name I gave myself, left me feeling like the “how-to” girl, the masculine implementer. Yes, it’s what people want, and more importantly what they need and will pay for, but is this who I wanted to be?
I fought this part of me for years as if there’s something wrong with me showing up sharing my biggest gift. I disregarded what I teach others which is to acknowledge what comes easily and step into it. It was self-sabotaging and it needed to stop. I sat on a potential gold mine and squandered my gifts and my information because I didn’t want to be what I naturally was. Basta!
Third part of me is softer, more feminine, more intuitive.
My third and current phase showed up quite unexpectedly. For the past year I’ve been intrigued, almost as if I’m sitting outside myself, watching a new part of me develop and unfold without an agenda. This part of me is softer, more feminine, more intuitive. My conversations are deeper, more connected, and very satisfying. I’ve been on a journey with a group of very special people exploring their choices. We’ve discussed what fears they’ve had to conquer to make the choices they did. Why the choices mattered, how they had to shift and what became possible and opened up for them because of their choice.
This new phase, while still action-oriented, is not as much about the hard-core doing as it is about knowing the importance of taking action so you can trust and observe and allow what’ll happen.
It’s about the possibility of how your life opens up as you take action.
A bit of time ago, while sharing this new emerging phase with a friend, she had an intuitive sense that the second and third phases were meant to merge somehow, that my left-brain implementing side was to be softened by my deeply, inquisitive exploring side. I had the same feeling, but I couldn’t see far enough into my future to really see how it’d all come to be.
It’s just recently that my path is becoming clearer and I’m seeing how to integrate who I was with who I am.
The beauty of entrepreneurial journey is that our business growth is a reflection of our personal growth. I couldn’t have become the get it done implementer, had I not jumped into the mom entrepreneur space and learned the ins-and-outs of online marketing. Moreover, I couldn’t have evolved into my current role of coaching people around choice. Had I not stepped up as a teacher in my online community.
Life is our school. And this is what makes it so tantalizing because, while you may have competitors, no one has had your journey. You’re the only one who can share your story.
Do you struggle to accept your expertise as I have? Enjoy a short coaching video that will support you to embrace what comes naturally to you.
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