I’ve always been a creative person.
And an entrepreneur.
(Ahead I’ll share why this is great and also why I really struggled to be this.
As a kid, I collected rocks, painted them, and set up a little rock shop on the corner of North Second Street.
The entire process overjoyed me.
By about four or five, I had hosted my first retreat! OK, so it was an admittedly uneventful performance on the swingset at Grandma’s house, but it was a huge success!
The reason I found it successful was twofold:
- The other grandkids on the street and I earned $2.25 candy money through our charismatic efforts at ticket sales
- My original vision was to bring together all of the ‘old ladies’ on the street, who were each sitting home alone, to create connection. This was achieved.
I’ve always seen the value in creating experiences that connect.
Sadly, my mother came home from her job as a bank teller just as the show was ending.
I was so excited to share with her about my entrepreneurial victory. To my surprise, when she’d discovered what I’d done, she immediately began apologizing for me and shaming my vision.
“You can’t do that!” was the message I received.
I’d had the vision of the win-win, and the results. But clearly, I’d been wrong.
There were many times in childhood where I received the message that my ‘head in the clouds’ ideas were crazy and unwelcomed.
Fast forward to choosing a college. Of course, I became an engineer – the most grounded and practical choice for someone who had a lot of options.
So imagine my surprise when in my corporate engineering gig I discovered coaching, through a series of live training experiences, and fell in love with this work.
I knew with every cell of my being that this work of understanding how our views and our energy affect our outcomes in life was way more valuable than the work I was doing to sell more fake juice (my corporate gig).
Yet this career felt so fluffy and impractical. And many people had no problem giving me that input about my choice as well. I was so afraid at this point to follow my own vision that I simply didn’t. I chickened out. For almost ten years.
So what does this have to do with you?
You, like me, have a big vision.
You may at times find this vision to seem highly impractical and idealistic. Perhaps you’ve been accused, in one way or another, of having your head in the clouds.
And this might be just what keeps you sneaking in work that you don’t love or that feels heavy to you.
When I took the leap into starting my coaching business, I felt as if I’d just stepped off of a cliff into a totally unknown world. I was going to earn a living at this fluffy work called coaching, and my engineering friends thought I was crazy.
And I thought that was the end of it – there I was doing what I love!
But conditioning runs deep.
Nine years later I’m still undoing it.
At my core I am a creator. Every assessment I’ve ever taken reveals my tendency toward idealism, my innovative view of the world, and the fuel I get personally from creating what’s needed in the world. Like painted rocks or swingset get-togethers.
A few months ago after a night of dreaming, I woke up with the words “wealth dynamics” flashing across the screen of my mind.
I remembered that Wealth Dynamics is an assessment I’d taken about a year earlier, but hadn’t really engaged in. (You can find it here: http://www.wealthdynamics.com)
In this system, I am actually called a “Creator.”
When originally reading the results I’d thought, “yes, that sounds like me.” But I didn’t believe there was any new information there.
When I went back to read the assessment, thanks to the directive of the Universe, I was struck by new insight.
A key descriptor of the Creator profile reads: Head in the Clouds.
And while a part of me recognized myself instantly in this, a part of me recoiled at the thought. Head in the clouds? How fluffy! How impractical! You can’t survive life in that way!
Yet, I also learned I was among the likes of Bill Gates, Sarah Blakely, Richard Branson, and Walt Disney. Not a bad peer group.
As I reviewed with fresh eyes this profile, and others, I suddenly saw a whole new level of possibility for myself. What if I actually designed my whole business around giving myself permission to be who I was born to be??
(This is exactly the point the Wealth Dynamics assessment was wanting to make for me way back when I first took it!)
Now, it’s not news to me that I need to get support in my business in areas that aren’t my genius. I’ve been doing this since day one and I can’t imagine running my business without it.
But having people do things you’re not good at is very different than fully designing your business to allow you to do your best work almost all of the time.
And for me, specifically, setting myself up to have my ‘head in the clouds’ (where it belongs) feels so scary!
What if I totally lose touch with ‘reality’? What if people REALLY judge me? What will my team think if I go truly hands off on execution and let myself create?
Yet I know deep down that elevating my view in this way is exactly what makes me great at sensing trends and deep societal needs. And I know that Spirit wouldn’t lead me in a direction that wasn’t ultimately useful and serving.
I can trust myself and my internal guidance system. It is OK if some ideas don’t look how I envision them right away as long as I am moving in my soul-guided direction.
The more I give myself permission to live this way (FULLY), the more I pave the way for others to feel valued for their creator ways.
Sure, business is practical. I’ve found lots of ways to make transformation very practical to my clients and readers, making the physical manifestation of it highly tangible in people’s lives.
But what if business were also magical? I wrote last week about having an energetic framework for life. Cultivating a growth energy in your business will create magical results. We miss the magic when we try to stay too grounded and practical.
As with any transformation, we first experience the new possibility (for those on my newsletter list I had you imagine what it might look like to truly let yourself have your head in the clouds for just a minute), and then we must integrate it into our lives by looking at our environment.
I’ve personally begun to look at any places I’ve set up the things and people in my environment to keep me sensible and practical, and I’m shaking it up. I’m no longer available for that.
And I’m hiring! One thing I’ll be looking for is the team that will support me in being the creator I am born to be, without expecting me to be anything different.
What about you?
If you resonate with this article, what might it look like for you to be EVEN MORE YOU? Even in the ways that society has said aren’t practical or simply don’t work in business. How might you challenge that notion?
I fully believe that the RICH skills (Right-brained, Intuitive, Connected, and Heart-centered) are where the value lies going forward. Our world is screaming for more of this humanity. And I for one am committed to pushing my edges in living in this way even further. Join me?
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