I’ve been fortunate that I’ve had good advisory over the years, especially in my business life.
And one of the things which has been a theme lately is that when fear is engulfing you, you’re very close to success. Gosh I hope this is true! At the moment, it feels like it is rainbows and butterflies one minute and tears – a lot of tears – the next.
I’ve done A LOT of learning this year and had a lot of introspective activities. And I believe this is part of the problem. As introspection without activity causes a lot of angst. You see, I’ve been scaling my program, developing partnerships, editing my manuscript, and talking… a lot of talking. Now I love a good chat, but sometimes talking does become incredibly draining, especially when you’re building.
The things I’ve learned over this year will no doubt become the subject of many blogs, but one of the most important revelations came when I learned how I build businesses and the pros (and cons!) of this method. This is a result of both my university training and my collection of experiences over the years.
First things first, I build businesses top down, as in from vision and brand, through product and channels, and then on to sales. The bottom up approach is to move first into sales, then channels, then product.
To create a strong and authentic brand, you need to be clear on a few things. Firstly, your intent and your values – your why. Be crystal clear on what energises you, and what your big game is. From here, you can develop product.
I learnt these frameworks from Shirlaws, and there is heaps more information on their website.
The biggest challenge of building a business from top down, is spending significant amounts of time in the design phase, and not seeing your design come to fruition.
The upside is, businesses which invest in their brand phase have the ability to create an incredibly strong market pull and they will be pulled up through growth incredibly fast.
This week there has been a lot of learning and a lot of tears. I’ve been learning about what has been holding me back and how I am going to be moving forward.
While I’ve had this incredible learning which I’m so grateful for, it has revealed some serious needs I have in my life which simply aren’t being fulfilled, and this is really painful.
I’ve learnt that I like to collaborate.
I like to share the journey and it helps me share the load.
But I’ve also felt incredibly unsupported. And this makes me isolate myself. It makes me go into hiding, both philosophically and physically. I stop talking about what I’m doing, I stop creating and I go hiding behind the things that come easily to me (and are rather lucrative!), but unfortunately aren’t fulfilling by themselves.
I’m sure I will look back on 2015 as a formative year, the first in the step of scaling, sharing, and stepping up.
For now, it is time for me to take a course of action which is probably uncommon to most. First, I need to recharge and refuel myself, then refresh my action plans. And then there are the things I need to stop doing. I need to stop doing things for others which just don’t serve me, and create a clash with my own integrity, even though they’re reaaaaallllly luring, and create short term gratification and wins, but don’t provide the long term fulfilment I am seeking.
So, it is time for a break. A change of physical scenery. Some writing of new content. Some final editing of my latest book. And a lot of summer self loving.
No doubt there will be more posts over this break time, as I find it is part of recharging and refuelling to clear out my thinking and when I clean things out and make space, I get extremely energised, and creative and I like to note it down.
Happy summer people.
Becx
