You Have The Power
Feeling overwhelmed or burned out?
Hoping the proverbial train hits you so you don’t have to make it to the light at the end of the tunnel?
I feel you.
I have a long history of putting my head down and holding my breath hoping to make it to the other side of whatever it is that I’m trying to accomplish before I collapse.
I’ve worked myself sick.
And I know that
It sucks.
It’s not sustainable.
And I don't want me or my clients to keep doing this as we build the businesses and lives we love.
Yes, building your business takes extraordinary amounts of time and effort. It calls on us to be resourceful and persistent. Usually, it requires us to have lots of irons in the fire, running parallel tracks to achieve our goals.
And we are bombarded by all sorts of societal ideas about hustle and start-up culture, unicorns, and college drop-out CEOs.
Yet we have to remember who created the rules of engagement. How one does business today has its roots in how white men created their businesses in the early 20th century. How we finance business today is the product of how white, male technology entrepreneurs financed their businesses in the mid to late 20th century.
This is not ancient history.
It hasn’t always been this way.
And none of these norms were created by or for women, especially Black women who now make up the largest segment of new business owners in the U.S.
Being able to define the terms of engagement - the culture of their business - is the one of the main reasons women start businesses. For Black women who want to lead, starting their own business is often a chosen path when corporate advancement is delayed and denied, when, by definition, the rules of work don’t work for them.
Replicating the norms of businesses built and led by others doesn’t unleash leadership, wealth, health, satisfaction, and achievement. So if we start our own businesses in order to create a life we love, we have to create new rules and ways of doing business.
Of course, our clients may not be thinking about rewriting the rules of business. For many, the status quo isn’t seen as broken. And the behaviors that do the most damage to our bodies, minds, and spirits are culturally defined as the attributes of success.
As a result, everyday I coach clients who struggle to
set and keep boundaries
avoid overworking contracts
resist the urgency of others that pushes them to make fast decisions or commit to unreasonable timelines
prioritize their own business plans when faced with client demands
define success on their own terms
embrace their ambition and demand their economic worth
They deserve to make choices from a place of calm confidence, not fear or scarcity.
Everyday I learn from my clients, friends and colleagues new ways to show up to work and build businesses that honor our need for
purpose
dignity
rest
challenge
impact
learning
connection
love
I’m inspired to reimagine work by my colleagues at Gladiator Consulting who are just finishing a two-week, company-wide pause (a purposeful, unapologetic interruption of work) as they prepare to do their mid-year retreat.
And by clients like McDaniel Nutrition Therapy who recommended the the book Four Thousand Weeks which offers a sobering perspective on the limited time we have, the limited control we have over it, and how that clear-eyed approach to understanding and being present in our current reality can help us make critical choices about how to spend time doing what we want and have to do to achieve our desires.
And by my coach, Dixie Gillaspie, from whom I am learning about what it means to be the primary creator in my life and choose to live a life I love.
I believe that by making intentional choices (over and over again) and focusing on creating new systems and structures rather than trying to fix those built by others to serve purposes that do us more harm than good that we truly have the power to transform what it means to own, run, and scale businesses, and redistribute wealth and power.
