One of our clients in the yearlong Opening the Moneyflow course has a compelling business doing great work. So great that a teenager spent money on her offer instead of a car.
People love her work. And, as she’s told us, because of what she’s learned in the course so far, she’s set to make two or three times as much income next year as she did this past year. Very exciting, considering it raises her income to a place where she’ll being able to breathe and care for herself with some spaciousness.
She also has big plans to reach even further heights in 2011, including creating some products for passive revenue. Very exciting.
Then, in a moment of realization, she dropped the “creating products” project. Just turned her back on it. Huh?
It’s Not What You Think
She doesn’t hate products or creating easier forms of income. What she realized was that she didn’t want to continue living at a constant frenetic pace. Let me quote her:
“I HAVE to remember that the Silicon Valley start-up mentality all around me (not just where I live, but also my Stanford “indoctrination”) say businesses have to develop with massive efforts in short periods of time… That is just not the truth in what I am doing. Deprogram, deprogram, deprogram!”
That sure feels like a relief? Yet, speed is so compelling… Are there legitimate reasons for wanting to move fast? When do you need to get moving? When can you slow down?
The Fine Print on Speed Choice
One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that our client already has clients. She has an individual practice that was (sorta) paying the bills, and we helped her move further into momentum. She now has the breathing room to go as slowly as she wants to with new projects.
There is a “running start” that is needed at the beginning of a business, or whenever you just aren’t making it. That’s why the first three months of our yearlong program include the very basics on what it takes to get clients. Clear audience, clear offer, making connections, building trust, and being effective in the conversation with potential clients.
Important stuff. But once you start bringing in clients, you don’t have to live there. And there are all kinds of reasons not to.
Why Long-Term Speed Isn’t So Good For You
Let me count the ways:
- If you move too quickly, you won’t be able to properly integrate and express spiritual and emotional insights, or even digest new ways your business is changing you.
- You’ll do shoddy work. You may think you work best under a deadline… until you see all the typos and mistakes that your customers point out to you.
- You won’t make considered decisions and instead fill up your time with what’s in front of you.
- You’ll miss the miracles and opportunities that happen in the spaces between things.
- You’ll spend more money on unhealthy take out food, and other unnecessary “caring for yourself when you can’t care for yourself” luxuries.
- You won’t bring your full attention to your emails or phone calls, subtly alienating the very people you want to connect with.
- Inspiration and guidance will continue to whisper in your heart’s ear, but you won’t be able to hear it at the speed you’re traveling.
- You’ll create a project management train wreck, with missed deadlines, increased refunds, and the above-mentioned shoddy work.
It used to be we had a lot more contemplative time. We used to write letters that would take days or weeks to travel back and forth. We used to walk or ride horses places. Forty miles used to be a day’s journey.
Unfortunately, a series of unfortunate and unhealthy choices made over decades has created a complicated interrelated system that demands a LOT of time from each of us. Just going through junk mail takes so much time, especially if you shred all those unwanted credit card offers to avoid identity theft. Yes, you can take steps to get off junk mail lists… which takes yet more time.
If you have your own business, you have more control over your time than most. Please don’t just give that control away to the culture of speed.
But how can you resist the siren’s call for speed?
How To Slow Down
• Acknowledge when you do have to move quickly.
When you aren’t making it, you do have to get going. Acknowledge the reality of when speed is needed. It’s insane to think speed is just never needed, and so by acknowledging the occasional need for speed, your rejection of the speed culture won’t set off inauthenticity bells inside your heart.
What’s your “squeak by” number? What do you need to do to get there?
• Discipline yourself.
You have plenty of discipline, because you work hard all the time. Can you take the discipline from your workaholic tendencies, and apply it where it counts the most?
Many of us have made half-hearted commitments to spiritual practice. What if that time you spent in your heart was an obligation, and not a choice? What if you had to do it?
As you commit to this discipline, you’ll find speed is a function of your heart, not your mind. When your heart is connected, it knows the proper pace. Sometimes your heart moves slowly, savoring each step. Other times the Divine wind carries you at incredible speeds.
• Choose Wisely
Seeing your business clearly, and either figuring out or getting help to figure where it is and what it needs means that you can focus in on just one or two key projects that will move your forward.
When you are connected to your heart, and your heart is connected to Source, it’s much easier to see your business clearly, to see the possibilities, and to choose wisely.
Listen, I know it’s easy to say things like “know your business” and “choose wisely” and less easy to actually do it. Similarly, it’s easier to just go along with the culture of speed rather than to stop and do things differently.
Our economy is dysfunctional. That’s a given. People’s attention is taken up by a whole lot of distracting mess. It’s true. In this context you may not know how to assess your business. You may not know how and where to focus your business.
But is swimming in the culture of speed really going to get you there? Slow down, learn what you need to learn, and proceed at the pace of your own heart instead.
Do you have any other reasons that speed is no good for you? Can you join me in a commitment to bring health into our economy by slowing down?
