I’m surprised we’re still together. I’d been cruel, insulting, and uncaring. I demanded more and more, and, at the same time, wanted to give less and less. Nothing satisfied me.
Thank God I changed, because the relationship had been going down the tubes. Am I talking about my wife? No. My best friends? No. I’m not even talking about my worst enemy.
I’m talking about my business. Early on, if my business had been a person, and I acted the way I did, I would have been beating it. I’m surprised my business did as well as it did, considering.
If your business were a person, what kind of relationship would you be having?
I’ve noticed that when my wife treats me with love and respect, I love doing things for her. And when I treat her with love and respect, she loves to support me in my needs. You’ve probably noticed the same in your life, not only with your personal relationships, but in how your treat your customers, too.
So, how are you treating your business?
Michael Gerber, in his ground-breaking book, The E-Myth, talks about how small businesses often start because the owner loves what she does, and wants to make it a business. But, the focus is all on the thing, and there is no attention paid to actually creating a business, which creates a mess in a very short time.
Businesses are as unique as the people who run them. Think of a business you love and a business you don’t care about, notice how you feel when you are in their store, or on their website.
Your business also has a feeling to it. But even more than that, it has a being-ness to it.
Your business has a heart, and it has it’s own impulses and needs, separate from you. Like a garden, or a child, a business needs support, needs nourishment, needs love, and needs some hard work, but it does the growing on its own.
When I’ve led clients through exercises to perceive the heart of their business as separate from them, they’ve been blown away by what they get. And the information, the priorities, and the clarity that comes through from actually being in a healthy relationship with the business itself can’t be argued with.
If you are wanting your business to grow up to support you and your family, or even more than that, you need to be in a healthy relationship with it, and to do that, you have to make a few distinctions:
1. Your business is not you. It’s a separate being. Practice by bringing the Remembrance to looking at your business, and at the heart of your business, and noticing what you sense about it. (The Remembrance is described in the free workbook you receive when you subscribe. Links for it are at the end of this email.)
Example: A musician and singer broke through the overwhelming combo of her marriage and career when she realized the business wasn’t her. She then made the decisions that have led to a happy marriage, a new child, and a growing career of teaching amazing singing work shops, and meanwhile starting to spend time in the studio on her fourth CD release.
2. How well you are doing and how well your business is doing are different. Related, but different. Your business can be very healthy, and doing well for where it is in its development, and still not be producing enough income for your own needs.
Would you expect a child to pay rent? Allow your business to grow up, and bring some attention to caring for and supporting your business to grow without beating it up.
Example: A client who runs a company that creates extraordinary pre-packaged food, way above and beyond what’s already out there, was able to separate out his internal spiritual journey from the business. He was able to allow the business to be its own being, with increased sales, new accounts, and significantly better financial health, even while he was dealing with his own healing journey. Today he’s happier, clear in his heart, working four days a week, spending time with his family. And his business is still growing.
3. Your business has things to teach you. While you might have ideas about the business priorities, your business might have other ideas. If you pay close attention to your business, it can show you your next steps more clearly than any you can dream up.
Example: I’ll use myself, this time, because it’s been so constant. Every time I listen to the business, I get different priorities than ones I think I need to do. When I finally drop what I think and follow my business, it works.
The result: I’ve effortlessly created five CD classes, continue to see my revenue increase, and written most of my book. Just not in the order I had originally been working on.
Listening to your business takes practice, but not that much. You can do it right now. Details below in
Keys to “Listening to Your Business”
Critical point: In order to listen to your business, you must drop everything you think you know about it. You must come into what I call “sincere questioning” – meaning, you don’t know the answer, and are willing to be surprised.
• Ask to be shown in your heart what stage of development your business is in, as if it were a person. Is it a toddler? Is it a teenager? Is it mature?
Businesses at different stages require different kinds of support. Often I find entrepreneurs continuing to cut up meat in small pieces and hand feeding businesses that are teenagers, or pushing toddlers to go out and earn the rent.
• Ask to be shown what your business is needing from you. Take your time, and sit with it, using Remembrance to help deepen your asking. You might be very surprised. On more than one occasion, I’ve seen that the business is asking me to rest more, to play more, so that my creativity can be more present with it.
*Note: I keep writing “Ask to be shown.” This is a much more direct way to ask these kinds of questions. It allows you to sit back and receive intuitive answers, rather than reaching with your mind. If your mind gets too engaged, its all over, because your mind can only process what it already knows- it doesn’t do well with the unknown. Your heart is what allows in the unknown.
• Ask to be shown what your business wants to do if it gets what it needs. Where does it want to go? What kind of organic growth is it set for?
Let yourself be willing to be surprised. And, I’d love to hear what kind of surprising answers you received.
