Finding Peace When Our Latest Business Attempt Doesn't Work (YET)

Is it a failure? What lessons can we learn? How can we see it as a brave step?

In recent months I have accepted that my business is not sustaining the household that I share with a husband and two cats.

On the plus side, top line revenue grew by 20% last year over the previous one. I celebrate the fact that I made strides to keep it growing, working on aspects of business and marketing. I’m giving myself applause for being brave, and bringing in new sources of income from my book, as well as direct client work.

I also added 39 more podcast episodes for a total of 75 through end of 2023. 🎉 Throughout that process, I had five conversations with my friend Patrick Geary✨, Intuitive Coach and Astrologer. The Somatic Wisdom podcast also featured fourteen new guests sharing their perspectives and deep experience.

I appreciate my time talking with three authors, and a wonderful array of coaches and practitioners who I now consider part of my community. This generosity of spirit reminds me how deeply connected we all are, and how collaboration has a multiplicative effect.

On the “lessons learned” side, I have uncovered areas where I want to grow. I will reflect on the main challenges here, in hopes that others can benefit or at least feel less alone if they have also struggled.

The administrative parts of being a business owner are MANY and varied. As one of my coaches, ❤️ Jenny Blake, writes about in her third book, Free Time, bottlenecks occur as business grows if we wear ALL the hats. Not only was I coaching, I was also the founder, brand developer, acountant, sales manager, podcast host, editor and producer, and the project coordinator/admin.

Those aren’t all roles I’m very good at, honestly. I absorbed the advice from a mentor years ago that about third of our time would be “billable,” a third of it is marketing, and a third is for admin when we are solo-preneurs. We must price accordingly, but the energetic math didn’t add up for me.

While I enjoy coaching, love podcasting (even the audio editing that many find tedious), most other elements fell by the wayside. Since I was trying to keep it “scrappy” and low-budget, I didn’t (yet) have the resources to invest more deeply into branding. Visual media aren’t my strength. I also don’t love the accounting and invoicing side, though I managed to get a fairly good system set up for it.

I noticed that every time I reached a certain level of client work (before I truly became profitable), all other items started to slip. I experimented with locating project partners to help, and am deeply grateful for our collaborations.

But when I thought about pitching speaking opportunities, and potentially taking on more clients, I felt immediate overwhelm. It all felt precariously balanced in my neurodiverse brain (though I did start moving some project management to my Notion database).

Though I didn’t have a huge client load, I was working with my own clients as well as acting as an “associate coach” for another business. All of these clients were amazing and wonderful to coach. I am deeply grateful for the additional income that came with this collaboration. I also noticed that my client definition was expanding. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but it can make branding tricky.

Late in 2023 I started receiving indicators that coaching was wrapping up. One client got a great new job, and was bringing her coaching to a pause to learn the new role. Another decided our work together had helped her see she wanted to return to grad school, and wanted to be mindful of her budget.

Many achieved their intended goals, and I’m proud to have walked alongside them on their journeys. Several others had contracts that had been provided by their organizations and the budget year came to a close, with some uncertainty for funding in 2024.

My intuition had me feeling antsy about 1:1 coaching. It suddenly no longer felt aligned, which was startling. This prompted me bring it to a halt for at least a quarter or two, and to honestly assess my financial situation.

Photo by Ashraf Ali on Unsplash - I love the juxtaposition of this photo.

Goodness, that one is hard for me! I want to focus on high quality coaching, and helping my clients feel seen and heard, not on the numbers. But without regular engagement with the numbers, we don’t have a viable business.

Some part of me is still embarrassed to admit this is not “working” for our family. I may have to "springboard” to a more full-time type of role for a few years, to recapitalize and strategize for next time. I also feel grateful to the experience for teaching me things I couldn’t have learned any other way than by trying them. Also, I don’t want to do ALL the things anymore, just the ones that light me up.

The upshot is that next time I will need to find the right collaborators so I can focus on what I do best. I will need to budget for that. In the meantime, if I need to work for a more “full-time client” (better term than employer) to recapitalize, I will keep building my body of work. In fact, it may even give me the ideas and fuel necessary for more insight on practicing somatic wisdom in the workplace.🧐

Using those terms, this is not “failure” I need to hide. It is a chapter of learning and growth. I had told myself a false “either/or” story about needing to give up my creativity. I didn’t acknowledge I have the fortitude to do both.

Everything is temporary, and big structural changes are happening in organizations. I am curious to see how workplaces have evolved since I exited last in 2020. And maybe I’ll be part of creating a new, more somatically aligned kind of workplace. I’m open to that possibility.

I felt some grief with this decision, but a surprising peace has arisen simultaneously. I trust the right role is out there, where I will make meaningful contributions. In the meantime, I will keep discovering delightful practitioners who inspire me with their stories.

Thank you for following along on this journey. Wishing you the abundance you desire in 2024, in love, money, and nourishing connections. ❤️