Hey, Valentine! Question for you: Do you make decisions out of love, or fear? I always thought I showed up in my business coming from a place of service (love) and did scary things (speaking!) in spite of my fear. But somehow through a series of small, seemingly insignificant decisions over the course of two years, I was left in a scenario that felt undesirable to me, with almost no clear recollection of how I got there. Let me back up for a minute… The Free Mama grew very quickly… not overnight, and there were years of preparation that no one even saw before I started a community with the mission to help other moms make money from home. But still, I went from no email list, no following, no webinar, no course, no coaching experience to a 7-figure business, a team of 5, a published book, and tens of thousands of followers in 18 months. I’m freaking proud of that! Except, my business was growing faster than my mindset. I started to question if I was really qualified to lead the company I had created and felt like it was only a matter of time before people realized I wasn’t. Some call this imposter syndrome. Maybe you can relate? When I first started building the Free Mama Movement, I wasn’t even sure that it would work. Less than two years later I had obliterated every goal I had set for myself and found myself struggling to figure out what the heck I would do next. So… I hired coaches, and in an effort to “get my money’s worth,” I implemented what they told me to do. I hired people, and in an effort to keep them happy, I allowed them to influence the direction of the company. I looked at my favorite students, and in an effort to keep serving them after they outgrew our current programs, I developed new offers. None of these things are inherently wrong or bad. It’s just that I did them all out of fear. Fear that I didn’t know better. Fear that if I didn’t get them autonomy, they would leave. Fear that if I didn’t keep selling, they would move on. Here’s the kicker, though. These things are all true. I wasn’t afraid that they might happen, I was afraid of not knowing how to handle it when they did. In the early years of starting a business, it’s insanely smart to follow a proven model. You simply don’t know better when you haven’t done it, so you walk the path of someone else’s repeatable success. Reinventing the wheel and stumbling through trial and error is time costly, and most people start a business to make money, amiright? But these models only take you so far. The next step is trusting yourself. I realized several months ago that I had been operating things from a place of fear. And as a result, I had gotten really, really far from the freedom I had worked so hard to achieve. Once I had the awareness, I knew I had to trust my instincts and act with love – which also required a tremendous amount of courage. It’s important to share, just because we act with love doesn’t mean everyone will like the choices you make. And in my case, loving myself and my business ended up being a costly choice. In a few weeks, I’m thinking about launching an exclusive limited-edition podcast going into all the nitty-gritty details. But before I hit record, I want to make sure the information would serve you. Would you listen? Hit comment and let me know! |