I’m Just Going to Be Honest…

Door after door flung open in my mind’s eye, while I sat there with needles poking out of my entire body.

(PS. Buckle up. This is a long one, but I swear it’s worth it. I hope you’ll reply and let me know if you liked it. ❤️)

It was late 2016, and I’d been a health coach for about 9 months when I started seeing an acupuncturist for stabbing, ram’s horn headaches that would later turn out to be from the chiari malformation in my brain.

The hour I spent on the acupuncture table each week was some of the most peaceful and transcendental time I’ve had in my life.

Going into that week’s session, I felt so defeated.

I’d left my less-cushy-than-you-think corporate lawyer job to become a health coach and now…. I didn’t think coaching was the right path for me either.

I felt like a failed Goldilocks who’d tried all the porridge in the world.

Thanks to all the questions hitting my DMs about legal stuff (and not my cooking skills like I’d hoped), I’d had a little seedling of an idea for a legal business planted in my mind.

🌱 But I was so scared to take my idea from seedling to sprout.

What if this “fails” too?

Am I just hopping from thing to thing to thing? My Dad always said I can’t stick to anything…

But blissed out on that acupuncture table, a visual came to me clear as day.

I started visualizing my future business not as you might imagine, but as a series of doors opening.

🚪 As door after door whipped open before my mind’s eye in a seemingly endless hallway of doors, I realized that my little seedling of an idea might be on to something.

Did the idea of writing legal templates light my entire soul on fire?

Absolutely not. I am, and always have been, honest about that.

But did the idea of helping people feel safe and secure enough to go out and start their own incredible business light me up? Absolutely!

What does any of this have to do with anything?!

Unlike what you might’ve heard, I actually don’t think that your business has to “light your soul on fire.”

Everyone in the marketing world is telling you to…

Create what you’d want to buy! Create from the heart!

Besides the fact that that’s terrible advice because it’s centering YOU in your marketing and not your ideal customer, what they don’t tell you is this:

Running your own business is still a job. It’s really hard freaking work, actually.

So on the days when you’re doing your “soul on fire” type of work and you have down days, or sales are down this quarter — then what?

I truly believe that some people’s businesses don’t grow because they don’t ever stick to things long enough to see them through. They quit when things don’t feel “soul aligned” anymore. Or they don’t create a smart product to start with, because they only thought about creating for themselves.

But what if you create a really great product that actually helps people and works, and you love the result it gets your clients?

What if you have your own door opening moment and come up with a really great idea that could create a giant business that you’d feel SO proud of — but the product itself wasn’t the sexiest most interesting thing?

What’s wrong with that?

To be honest, I think my take on this has allowed me to practice some healthy detachment from my business. I don’t feel devastated anymore if sales dip or if followers leave. It has nothing to do with me — it’s just business.

Clearly I have a lot to say on this topic — 🤣

Which is why I sat down and went really deep, and got really honest, with you in this week’s podcast episode on On Your Terms.

🎙 Listen to Episode 123 “Real Talk: Your Business Doesn’t Have to Light Your Soul on Fire” of On Your Terms here!👇