The Work Is the Work (Is the Work)

“I could never do what you do.”

A sentence I’ve heard from almost anyone who knows me IRL, is starting to get to know me better, or is getting a more behind-the-scenes look at my life.

Why?

Because they’re seeing the grit, passion, and special kind of intensity and insanity it takes to steward a company. To be an entrepreneur.

So much of the work we offer is healing and transformation-based and inherently spiritual in nature—even the business and money facets.

In that, many often miss that, underneath it all, this is a full-on company—built from nothing, now consistently bringing in high-multiple-6 figures a year, supporting a team of 4, and impacting and being impacted by thousands worldwide.

This did not happen by accident. This happened because my blood bleeds entrepreneurship.

Lately, I’ve been contemplating ‘entrepreneurial qualities’… 

• • what are these qualities?

• • how are these qualities cultivated, practiced, and refined?

• • how does having a solid commitment to healing and transformation amplify said qualities?

Here’s some of what I’ve come up with:

🔑 proactiveness

In the beginning, I learned how to do everything. Anything I didn’t know, I figured it out. (We are alive in a time where we can literally learn anything we want for free.) If I couldn’t figure it out, I sought help. My mindset was, and is, incredibly proactive and resourceful. 

I wasn't always this way. 

The space that’s allowed this mindset to grow is the healing and transformation that’s taken place around my childhood. Because this is where we learn or don’t learn this skill. This is where we are told figuring it out and making mistakes are highly important and also where we are punished for mistakes. The list goes on. 

Though I would say I'm naturally quite proactive, much of this quality was shrouded by the swamps of perfectionism, fear of mistakes, punishment, and more of the like. I had to, slowly but surely, re-learn this way of being.

Everything can be figured out. There is always something you can do. 

Because of this, when it came to hiring—I knew every nook and cranny of the business, and I knew how to train the habit of being resourceful and proactive. 

🔑 failure is a superpower  

In entrepreneurship, if you’re unwilling to experiment, try, and fail — your business will suffer. You will suffer.

Again, this weaves in perfectly with all that good good childhood stuff because this is the first place we learn that this is either okay or not.

You weren’t necessarily born with an inability to experiment and fear of failure. It was all learned. Or, ~ destined ~

This is one of the core business-related issues I see with most people I work with in my various containers. Somewhere along the way, perhaps in many ways, you learned to avoid failure. Now you find yourself with very little information about what works and what doesn't and a fear of getting on the field and potentially missing the goal in order to gain said information. 

The best entrepreneurs have failed the most. We only see successes, but what we often don't realize is anything great stands on the shoulders of endless experiments, mistakes, and failures. 

🔑 caring = resource

Passion, and thus deeply caring, is the blood of entrepreneurship. It's that connection to the juice of why you do what you do. The kind that wakes you up in the middle of the night and imbues the energy of your voice as you talk about something. 

This is what will resource you to do things that people who prefer 9-5s abhor.

I am a worker through and through (#virgostelliumproblems). And, I incarnated as a no-motors Projector in this lifetime (damnit, lol). I've had to learn over and over again how to work wise. 

However, like any entrepreneur––the beginning was just me. And because I was on fire that I was even getting a chance to do this work, I had no problem putting it in. 

If needed, I will work early and late. If something needs to be done and no one is available, I’ll do it. This takes us back to 🔑 1. There was a point where I learned how to do everything out of necessity. Now, up to a point, I can do most things. We're a small team of 4––this skill comes in handy. 

This doesn’t mean I don’t take great care of myself and have work boundaries. It just means if needed, I know how to mobilize––and with a good attitude. I am resourced to do so because of my belief in what we are doing.

🔑 most people have ideas… entrepreneurs are the crazy ones who bring them into form

Entrepreneurs are mad scientists, ambitious mystics, freaks n’ geniuses, if you will  

We are the ones who are not only tapped into a constant stream of ideas but are wild enough to execute and say, “let’s bring this baby down!”

In this way, entrepreneurs remind me of children who have yet to be hindered by the limitations of others. For some reason, we still live by the operating system that if we can dream it, we can do it. Just like children, in our doing it, there will be messes, mistakes, and mishaps. Yet there will also be joy, discovery, and wisdom. There will also be the experience that underneath it all, we’re all really in it for –– experiencing the power of co-creation.

In ‘what would you be doing if you were doing this games’ everyone (myself included) always says something along the lines of “you’d start another business.”

This work is my entire life. There is no ‘clocking out’ and going home at the end of the day.

I notice when people who have grown used to my healing practitioner side, are taken aback by this gritty side. But to me they’re one and the same. Allies and lovers.

All the qualities it takes to be a great entrepreneur can be applied to being a practitioner, a space-holder, a healer, a coach, etc.

I think we may be born with some of them, we may not be. I know, wholeheartedly, that the energies protecting them from being expressed can be transformed. Allowing the qualities themselves to be uncovered, cultivated, and refined. 

But, ultimately, you have to want it. 

Everything listed in this email has the potential to send some of you straight to unsub town. Others may be yawning and lit up, because you recognize some truth about who you are in my words, and the subsequent fear and pain that's been layered on top of it. Others are sighing with relief––finally someone I identify with who's also willing to talk about this stuff. 

It's important to recognize that no matter the nature of the work pouring through a business—the container is still a business and to steward it well, you will be chiseled and shaped by the fires of entrepreneurship. 

Where to go from here?

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