23 Sep My Letter of Truth

It struck me recently that I’ve not been completely upfront and honest with you, as someone leading you through the steps of building your business. Or maybe it’s that I’ve not been honest with me.

And so what you’re about to read is me getting honest, because being anything less than that is not honouring my values. And what kind of leader would I be if I was not being true to my values, my beliefs and my teachings?

Just over one week ago, my brother passed away and it was in the build up to that moment when I watched him take his last breath, that the rose tinted glasses came off. You see, I’ve always professed that life is what you make it and that your thoughts become things, that what you focus on expands etc etc.

And while I still fundamentally believe that, I have become more real. More realistic.

My brother died. That freckin sucks. It is wrong on so many levels. I didn’t create this, or think it, or focus on it, or envision it happening.

But now that it has, it has invited me to take a step back and REALLY look at what’s going on.

Life is not easy, it has it’s ups and downs, sometimes we have great days where everything DOES flow, but also there are days when it’s tough. It made me see that enough is enough.

Enough telling only the good, only the perfect, only the successes.

Because that’s not real.

It’s helped me to see that everyday people like you are experiencing challenges and obstacles in their life that they didn’t wish for, while endeavouring to build the business and a lifestyle of their dreams.  They are often dealing with a life less than ideal. But they are also making the best of it.

The human spirit is an amazing thing. Out of the crap, it will find the good. Out of the pain it will find the gift. Out of the clouds, will come the sun.

That’s what you are dealing with isn’t it? I know that you have days that are amazing, but you also have days that you question your purpose, your mission, your ability and whether you’ve got it in you to push through this. You have days when you sit in the contrast.

And that’s where I owe you an apology.

Me, with me rose tinted glasses that I wore. Me, with my sense of entitlement (this is actually quite common in certain cultures I have now noticed), eternal optimism and positivity. I actually feel like cringing at how that must have looked, month after month as I only wrote about the ideal, as I only talked about how you can BE your successful self . But I can ‘see’ clearly now.

I feared that if I let myself tell you this, I was keeping up the ‘path to success. I thought (silly me!) you might think less of me for ever being like that. But my truth is I was a ‘happy for no reason’ kind of gal because I never really had anything this tragic happen to me. Every other event in my life that went wrong paled in comparison to the loss of my brother. I saw the other events as perfect for me in that moment and drew out the positive.

But this time, I stand before you, naked to my pain. Naked to my willingness to admit that life sometimes is hard, and challenging and surreal. And while I’m being this brutally honest, I admit that being in business for myself has often times been goddamn awful, and heart-breaking and fear crippling.

But I share this with you not to have you feel like everything you believe in about success is about to implode but because it’s when we admit the breakdown, the breakthrough can happen. My greatest hope for you is that you take a big sigh and see that I go through the SAME thing you do. I have days when I want to pack it in.

I, too, have days when it’s all too much and I think it would be easier to go and get a job –
to let someone else take the responsibility. I have days when the thought of ‘making a sale’ has me shudder and want to curl up into a ball and say no more!

But I KNOW in my heart that THIS is my mission.

This is what I am here to do, and if it means I have to experience pain, obstacles, failure and cringe-worthy moments so I can truly know what you are going through, so I can learn from it in just enough time to teach you HOW to push through it, then I have found my purpose.

I want you to know that what you are doing, if it calls to your heart, and it lights your Soul, brings a smile to your lips when you think of it, and you FEEL that it is the reason you were born – then you HAVE to do this. You HAVE to find a way to push through the crap, thought the gigantic lessons, because there really is no choice.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to push through the low points, to reach the top of your mountain. I’m here to help you climb that mountain. To reach your Everest. To conquer the dragons that rear their ugly heads in your mind.

I’m here to help you belong to something bigger than you. To help you feel like you are not alone.

I’m here to help you stand in your power and rally you on. To be the shoulder you stand on so your mission can come to light.

And I’m also here to help you monetise your mission because without the money honey, you don’t have a business.

It’s one of the reasons that I’m putting on Inspire and Ignite in Auckland in November. So we can take this to the next level of awareness and go deeper in your business than ever before. Even if you’ve been to my event before, this one will NOT be the same, I can promise you that!

How do you push through and get to the top of your mountain, as you slay the dragon? You say YES. You make a choice. And every morning when you wake up, you choose it again.

You give yourself permission to show up fully, as the amazing Soul you are, to take your business and make it viable, to grow your client base, to get more customers, to share your message.

And you do so from a place of acceptance of who you are. You say yes to you. Because in doing so, you give YOUR tribe permission to say yes to them.

You surround yourself with people who get you and you be part of a safe place for you to come to be vulnerable and uncertain and real. A place where you can share your successes and your triumphs too, where people won’t judge you or belittle your reasons for being.

My promise to you is that I will continue to be real, as a Leader, a Teacher, a Mentor and a Woman, so you can see what it’s really like to build a business AND a life. My promise to you is the rose tinted glasses are off, but that I will continue to instil hope and possibility, to give you the confidence of miracles and of magic.

Thank you for letting me get honest with you, to speak my truth in this area. I don’t know about you but it actually feels freer knowing I can be me. What about you? What does this bring up for you? I’d love to know your comments about how this changes things for you too, with the decisions you are going to make with your message, your clients/customers, your tribe….

I, for one, am rather excited about how transformational this final Inspire and Ignite is going to be – based on the learnings I’ve had since the last one in March, and the way you are showing up too and with what you are shifting into.

So book your flight (or a babysitter – or both!), grab an early bird ticket, and come and hang out with your tribe! There’s some miracles and amazingness about to go down!

Hi from iLAB Entrepreneurs Institute, in Bali where I’m learning to surrender to my business and my journey in a HUGE way!

With much love,