What a week! Last Thursday my wife, Holly, was in a car accident. The car was totaled and she has a fractured pelvis that is healing more rapidly than one might imagine.
Special note: I SO appreciate all of your care and love for her, for me, for our family. Please send that to me through your thoughts and prayers and not through email. I’m way behind on email as it is. 🙂
First and foremost I have such deep gratitude that she’s okay and going to recover fully. It could have been much worse. Secondly, I’m grateful the kids and the dog weren’t in the car. And third, I’m grateful to our community, both White Hawk Ecovillage, and our larger circle of family and friends here in the Ithaca area and elsewhere. We’ve received so much support.
I’m also deeply grateful to the team at Heart of Business, and of how well-developed Heart of Business is at this point. It’s such a big deal. I can miss days, and things still function. The business doesn’t fall apart.
Here’s what I want to say to you
Yes, hug your loved ones. Yes, put time and energy into community, because it’s what makes us resilient and healthy.
But also: invest in the development of your business.
I know, I totally get that I’m the wrong person to say this. We *sell* business training, so of course I would say that, and if you take me at my word, we sell more.
So please hear me out.
In a workshop I held this past weekend (yes, someone was helping with the kids and my wife – I wouldn’t have done it otherwise), I met people who had invested months, sometimes a year or more, into learning how to do what they do. Did they put similar time into learning about and developing their business?
I know, it doesn’t seem fair. You should just be able to be great at what you do, and the business should just work. But it doesn’t.
People come to us having sometimes spent years, and thousands of dollars, trying to piece it all together, and it rarely works. Or, if it does, it took them years.
Imagine doing that to learn how to do massage therapy? Acupuncture? Bookkeeping? Architecture?
It’s crazy thinking, and yet I also completely understand where it comes from.
So again: invest in the development of your business.
Notice I didn’t say invest with us in the development of your business. Of course, I’d love it if you did, but this is more of a general statement.
First, identify what your business needs. (You can use the Readiness Assessment for that. It’s free and doesn’t obligate you to working with us in any way.)
Second, find someone who teaches business that you trust. Someone you wouldn’t mind soaking up their energy, and that you trust is doing things that work. (Pam Slim. Tad Hargrave. Robert Middleton. And, of course, us.)
Third: Immerse yourself in their work. Taste it if you need to be sure. But once you’re clear, just immerse yourself and soak it all in. Give yourself the 1-3 years you need to really learn and integrate and apply it all.
Enough with piece-meal classes! Enough with trusting your business development and income solely to articles found on the internet. Enough trusting your Divine gift and service in a basket that has been threaded together from odd bits of straw found on the ground.
Life happens, and whether or not your develop your business you’ll get through. Lots of people have.
However, if you can develop your business, not in an insanely fast, adrenalin-pumped fashion, but with focus and clarity and nourishment, it means that you’ll be more easily able to handle the challenges, and to have what you need to celebrate, when the inevitable bumps do happen.
When your business is developed, when it works, it is an amazingly fun thing, and wow… so much your life can handle when your business is developed to a point of sustainability.
With love and may each of you and your loved ones be kept safe,
Mark
p.s. If you are interested in working with us…
Starting the first Monday in November
If you want to start with one of our acclaimed Foundations programs in November, the deadline is November 2 – that’s today! Check out our two core programs, for the first two stages of business:
-> Start up? Nearly so?
For people in start-up, are contemplating starting up, or maybe you’ve been at it for a while, but your income has been extremely low, and you just need to learn how to get clients and money in the door.
Click: Foundations1: Clients and Money – only $95/month!
-> Inconsistent? Ready to grow?
Some months you do okay, even well, other months not so much. If you had a larger audience, a great website that really felt like you, and organic, authentic ways to reach out, you know you would fill your programs and schedule.
Click: Foundations2: Expand Your Reach – only $167/month!
-> Unsure what you need?
Get a Readiness Assessment. It’s free and you’ll learn exactly what stage of business you are in, and what you need to focus on. And you’ll get a personal response from us!
Questions? As usual, we’re here!
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Heart of Business Community Update
As a community member, here’s quick access to resources and conversation!
It’s a new month and so we have a new Monthly Business Focus – Trimming and Pruning.
This month is about letting go of projects, clients, beliefs and behaviors that no longer serve you and your business so that you have time and space to take on new possibilities. Go here now Monthly Business Focus and dig in!
In our Facebook group yet?
In our Facebook group, here are some discussions happening right now:
- Needing help selecting a WordPress theme for your new website? Check out what your fellow Community members are sharing now!
- You are waiting to hear back from your client and are feeling nervous – how do you support yourself as you wait? Jump on over to the Community now and join in the conversation!
These are just 2 of the many discussions happening every day in our active, compassionate group! Don’t yet have access? Click here.
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2 Responses
Dear Mark,
Much love and peace to you and your whole family in this trying time. When I read what you write here I’m filled with gratitude. I am one of those people who has spent all my time in becoming as good as I can at what I do and then in between, in annoyance, I’ve spent time on learning business, piecemeal, here and there. It does not work.
Thank you for doing this work, for being here for entrepeneurs and helping us do business from the heart consistently and building businesses that support us and our clients. <3
Marie
I’m spent my day with my family, my friends and my work. If I miss anything then i’ll realize that every phase is important in my life. I have only one life, so be happy and spent moments with everyone.