The real reason why my previous businesses failed.
Over the holidays I almost helplessly watched myself binge Netflix shows.
Don’t look up.
The Path.
Behind her Eyes…
I can recommend them all (within reason)
I’m not proud to say that I didn’t even want to meet or be with people other than my family so I had more time to be glued in front of a screen.
But it’s the new year – I’ve got a feeling it’s gonna be an epic one – and it’s time for me to get serious and confront the actual reason for my binging.
I was kinda surprised to recognize that the binging (or numbing as I also call it) was caused by fear!
What? Why?
My last work-related act of 2021 was to confirm the first purchase order and wire the deposit for the first Koryphae order.
Super exciting! AND I’m fucking terrified.
Because it leads me into uncharted territory: marketing and sales. All areas I don’t believe I have enough experience in or the experience I’ve had up until now left me empty-handed. So old thoughts that were relegated to the far remote backseats of my chattering mind, kept sneaking back in “Who would want to buy from me? What if I am sitting on hundreds of garments and can’t sell them. What if I am just burning cash again?”
At the root, these thoughts come from the universal fear of I’m not good enough.
Over the last few years, I’ve done a lot of work on breaking down inner blocks and barriers – especially around unworthiness and not-enoughness. I honestly had no idea that I lived all my life running around with an unconscious program of unworthiness. Yet once recognized, those patterns are hard to unsee and that is the start of the healing process.
Unworthiness and not-enoughness were the real reason why all my previous entrepreneurial attempts ‘failed’, stalled, or fizzled out unceremoniously.
Because unworthiness and not-enoughness simply doesn’t resonate with success.
Let me repeat that again – unworthiness and not-enoughness don’t resonate with success.
THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS THE REAL REASON WHY BUSINESSES FAIL. All of them.
At the level of story, I can tell you plenty of totally plausible excuses why previous attempts weren’t successful from not having a work permit to incompatible market fit. But the root cause was that I attempted to create a sense of worthiness by creating external success. Kind of trying to prove my worthiness through achievement.
I had it totally upside down because building a business on the foundation of unworthiness can never be sustainable or wildly successful.
No surprise that I felt frustrated and defeated because I had done so much work breaking through these patterns.
Then I started to observe myself navigating this fear, trying to work through the issue.
My first attempt started at the level of mind.
This is what the vast majority of us do: Going up into my head and try to come up with a solution, and talk myself off the ledge from there. I attempted to do ‘mindset shifts’ by break the overall order number into smaller seemingly manageable sales per day targets. I told myself the universal truth that out of 7 bio people on the planet, with 4.5 bio women, there surely are 200 – 500 women on the planet with a similar value system who would love to buy elevated, beautiful garments made with love and intention.
I told myself that women want to spend money on beautiful and meaningful things.
I told myself that there is more than enough money out there.
That people want to spend money.
Curious side story: A friend told me recently about the new business opening next to hers offering exclusive bottles of wine with price tags starting at $10.000 per bottle! In Portland, Oregon.
All these things I just mentioned are true AND they didn’t make me feel better!
So why is that?
Because it’s my MIND trying to talk me down from the ledge. That’s why mindset or positive thinking doesn’t actually work – it doesn’t get to the root of the problem. It’s just a band-aid.
Walking around mantraing “I’m abundant, I’m abundant, I’m abundant” won’t actually work if we have unknown scarcity programs running our subconscious.
But what I realized is that it wasn’t unworthiness that got me stumped, it was SCARCITY!!!
Scarcity doesn’t live in the mind, it lives in the body. That’s where scarcity got stuck.
My second and vastly more successful attempt to nip the fear in the bud was a guided Breathwork session! That really shifted stuckness for me.
Why would a bit of breathing create a shift or relieves fear?
If it’s o.k., I’m gonna go a little wowo and quantum physics on you all right?
We are multi-dimensional beings.
We are physical beings (what we can see), we are mental beings (that’s the voices in our head), we are emotional beings (our feelings) and we are energetic beings (we radiate a frequency and we can pick up on ‘good’ or ‘bad’ vibes from places and other human beings.)
And as everything in this universe is energy, including you!, the most profound shift you can create is on an energetic level.
Bad feelings, the feeling of fear, anger, sadness – that’s all emotions.
And E-motion – like the word says it already literally is Energy in Motion.
Usually, ‘bad’ energy gets stuck in our system because we want to avoid it, want it to go away, not deal with it so we stuff it down. It’s not universally acceptable to show emotions – not in schools, not at work, not in public life.
How do we get stuck energy moving again? How do we integrate emotion that got stuck in the body?
These are the two ways I found to work magic both by itself or supercharged in tandem.
- Breathwork. gets energy moving without having to engage on the level of story.
- Creating a Quantum shift through powerful story re-framing. (Coaching)
Instead of interpreting fear as a ‘cue to back off, because where we are about to go is not safe’ – to ‘fear is a telltale sign of importance’. That whatever you are embarking on will allow you to fulfill your potential.
Because this is also true: Fear is a sign of a growth edge.
The bigger the fear, the more liberation awaits once you break through (without white-knuckling) whatever brings you fear.
I’m honestly tired to get stuck in the same place over and over again. For me it’s time to lean into my growth edge and breakthrough!
Almost like a video game where we have to overcome a challenge in order to get to the next level (which inadvertently is gonna lead to more challenges).
Invitation for you
If you are interested in shifting some powerful beliefs with me then let’s schedule a free 30 min breakthrough session to see if coaching is for you.
And if you are specifically interested in Breathwork – which is what I have found to be the most potent, accessible, and simple tool – stay tuned for an incredible opportunity to breathe and shift energy with me while you help me work towards my trauma-informed breathwork facilitator certification.
Let’s get our shift on!
With much love to you and a fearless 2022!
