Creating A Successful Biz on a F*cked Up Brain
If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a bit, this is an episode I’ve been dancing around. It’s been on my mind since my 30th birthday last month.
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In classic birthday routine, I was reflecting on the past year.
And it being a milestone birthday, the passage of a decade, I was reflecting on all of my 20’s.
I looked back on my 20’s and it made me sad. I tortured myself.
I think this is common because there aren’t many great examples of how to live a truly fulfilling life, and we’re spoon fed the idea that we need to go to college, get a degree, get married, buy a house, have a baby, while also getting a steady job, making money, saving for retirement…
It’s a lot of external markers that we’re shown as success.
Maybe in certain religious communities there are other markers of success, like connection to God and building community.
This is actually something I’ve long envied in Christianity -- you can show up in just about any city or small town & find a group of people who have the same belief system as you.
I mean… how epic would that be?
That’s really an aside though.
Because of my confusion on how to make myself happy & what my life was supposed to look like, I had so many pockets of hating myself, abusing myself, second-guessing myself, being unsure about my direction, and dealing with depression and anxiety.
I put myself through so much pain when I didn’t have to at all.
But just being on the other side of it & being so clear in my vision and clear of the future and happy with where everything is at and where everything is going…
It’s just so clear how much torture I put myself through that was really unnecessary.
And that brings us to the point of today’s episode --
Building a successful business on a f*cked up brain.
I had the standard issues of a 20-something woman in Western society, like low self esteem, low confidence, second guessing, and being indecisive…
I also had heavier psychological shit I was dealing with, like the aftermath of my dad dying when I was 19. The dad who I was really close with and who was essentially a single parent for my brother & me.
I never really got help with that & it popped up in all sorts of fun ways.
I had a really messed up relationship with food from ages 16 to 23. To the point where it was an all-encompassing obsession and oscillating between severe undereating & binge eating.
I have experienced fairly chronic anxiety since I was a kid with dips into depression starting at 14. Where some days I couldn’t get out of bed.
And despite all of this, I built a financially healthy business by the time I turned 30.
A business that is profitable, that pays me well, and allows me to employ one woman full-time and another part-time. Even during a pandemic.
A business I believe to be of service to the world, and in support of women who are doing life-changing work.
& it’s all on my terms.
A fucked up brain doesn’t mean you can’t be successful. Or of service. I’ve helped my clients significantly all while dealing with this shit. So you can be successful even if you have a mental health disorder. You can have a successful business if some days you can’t get out of bed or you’re vicious to yourself in your own head or you're dealing with an eating disorder.
It was actually through building my business and running through that fire that I built confidence over time, made the massive changes over time, and through working with magic, and through working with money, and through working with business, and through working with clients — all of it was very much a part of my healing.
So if there’s any doubt in your head that because of your inconsistent mental state or inconsistent energy levels or inconsistent emotions, that does not have to be a barrier towards building a business that you really love.
PERFECTION
You can create a successful business just because you want to. Just because you decide to. It’s this really weird myth in the spiritual and magical space that you have to have the perfect spiritual practice the perfect meditative practice, do everything right… Meditate for two hours a day, be a raw vegan, feng shui your entire house, and only then will you get to have the success that you want. But you already know that’s not true.
Do you really think that the CEOs of fortune 500 companies, the owner of Amazon, and all of those people who have all of the monetary and business success you could dream of and beyond, — do you really think that they’re doing all this shit. No. They decided they were going to have a successful business and then took action steps to fulfill that desire.
And as far as the myth that you have to have all your shit together to be helpful in the world, or to be a healer, or to do good work. You already know that that’s not true.
You better believe that nurses in hospitals that are saving hundreds of lives don’t have all their shit together. But they are incredible healers and making a massive difference in this world.
And I guess now is a great time for me to talk about the fact that people don’t have to be perfect to make an incredible positive impact in the world.
So many people like to discredit leaders, teachers, and gurus, highlighting an aspect of themselves that’s truly fucked up. They say these things to try and discredit their entire body of work. But them being Human, with a human brain, with human dysfunction, with all the things that we have to deal with as humans, doesn’t discredit the power and magnitude of their work.
For example. Bob Marley. Pretty well-known to mistreat women. Does that not mean that he wasn’t an inspiration to people of color, and an incredible musician? No of course not. Does him being crazy successful with an enormous following mean that he’s a perfect human? Obviously not.
There are 1 million examples of this, of highly successful, impactful, high profile people, that are still human. That are still fuck up in their own special ways. That still have a human brain.
When you’re able to give these people grace, when you’re able to realize that them messing up in certain areas of their lives doesn’t mean that they aren’t geniuses in other areas of their lives, that is when you can start doing the same for yourself.
Not everyone in the world desires to be a business owner. Not everyone in the world is attracted to Magic or spirituality. We are not one size fits all.
There is no one right way. While there may be a singular force that contains all of us that we can all access, that force wants to experience all of the different hues of life. All of the different shades of it. The full spectrum.
You have to realize this when you start actually tapping into your desires.
If you desire to own your own business, to have your own platform, to be known in your industry. That was put in you. That is safe to trust and safe to follow.
And even if you are on a healing journey right now, whether that is physical, mental, or emotional healing, that doesn’t mean you can’t build a successful business. That doesn’t mean you can’t be financially stable or even wildly financially abundant, while you’re healing, while you’re figuring all that shit out.
Because your worthiness in the world is always there. It doesn’t matter if you’ve messed up in the past, or you perceive yourself as messed up.
You are worthy now.
I know for myself, when I continue taking action towards the business I desired to have, the business I desired to own, the business I desired to build, that’s when so much healing happened. That’s when I proved to myself that I can handle anything. I can handle rejection, uncomfortable conversations, people asking for refunds, failing, not hitting my goals, not hitting my clients goals, and always learning.
I feel like so much of building a business is building resilience. Emotional resilience. So much is building certainty and becoming unshakable in your vision. But that doesn’t have to even come over time. You can just decide that now. And really looking back onto my 20s if I would’ve realize that, I would’ve not had to go through so much torment.
As I said earlier, I second-guessed myself over and over again, I wouldn’t make decisions because I wasn’t sure if I would like the end result. But the truth is you can change your course whenever you like! You can be going towards owning a stationery business, and realize halfway there that you don’t want to do that or you’re lit up by something else. But in the process of taking action you learn so much.
Everything you learned in the process of making that stationery business, in this example, is an asset for you for all of the stuff you do going forward.
And that process of experiencing yourself building a stationery business… maybe that’s the exact process you needed to clearly know that that’s not for you, and something perfect comes into view.
If you just stick in the hem and hawing of deciding to do that stationery business in the first place.
And you never take action because you’re uncertain, then you never have that learning experience. And you were just reinforcing this belief that you can’t trust yourself that you don’t know how to make decisions, that you can’t handle it.
You can decide now that you can handle it. And they’re always going to be hiccups and unexpected turns in business, and over and over again, and you can just prove to yourself that you can handle it.
There are actually plenty of examples of successful people in history that had mental illnesses. So many artists, so many writers, so many inventors and scientists. So many amazing people that contributed incredibly to a society that were living with their issues. And birthing their work into the world, their art into the world, their ideas into the world. That was a gift of what others could label mental dysfunction.
So in this world where most of us only see the positive aspects of those around us and of our peers or our mentors, or teachers, or leaders in the industry’s that we work within because of the filter of social media. In this weird time when we’re only seeing those positive sides of peoples lives and rarely seeing the depression, anxiety, grief, torment. So many of us suffer in silence.
That’s not to say that you have to air your dirty laundry or your problems publicly, but to compare yourself and your journey with only half of the picture that people are showing, it just won’t serve you.
If you’re listening to this right now, I would bet a lot of money that your deep desires for your business is to change the world and to support your community, and to benefit financially. And all of that is beautiful. You not thinking that you can go bigger or even start because of whatever thing is happening in your head or your life, is just keeping your incredible genius, your incredible magic from those in the world that need it.
So this is definitely less of a practical episode today, but it has been weighing on my heart. So I’m hoping that a bit of my story, and my thoughts on the subject, will help to motivate you to step up.
We’re in this beautiful time period of reinvention with what is happening globally and what is happening within our country. I’m recording this in October 2020 and plenty of places are still quarantined, so many people are out of work, and also so many people are flourishing. Many of my clients I mean, actually all of my clients right now are doing even better now than before the pandemic hit. Maybe it is an expansion of consciousness. Maybe it’s just because people need this work now more than ever. So if you’re magically inclined, if you want to do good work in the world, I want to reinforce to you that there is so much opportunity right now.
My final message with this is — really to tap in to what you really want.
What you truly truly truly want. What turns you on. What would be your dream business, what would you be sharing, what would you be teaching, who would you be working with. In your wildest dreams, if everything you desired was acceptable & it all would come true, what would your life look like in 5 years? Do that now. And Start taking action on that now. Maybe you need to learn new skills and there are some in between steps to getting there. Or maybe you can just start pivoting immediately.
The sooner that you start, and start building up your own identity as this new version of yourself, and reinforcing it on the Internet, in your community, with your friends. And I know that your inner circle is probably the hardest one to change your identity within. But starting now, deciding now. That is what is going to give you the quantum leaps and it can really shock you how quickly things can change and shift.
Of course that means showing up each and every day and doing things that are hard and doing things even when it doesn’t look like it’s going to work. But every time you choose to take action towards what you actually desire you’re reinforcing that new identity. You’re teaching yourself that you can trust yourself.
And you’re showing yourself that you can have whatever you want now. You don’t have to wait until you’re healed. Or until you feel better. Or you have everything figured out.
For me, I used to have anxiety at least on a weekly basis around my future. Whether I was going in the right direction. Whether I was making the right decisions. So much anxiety, stress, and dysfunction that was totally not useful to me.
I still feel anxious often, but it seems like now my anxiety is up leveled into being worried about more useful things. Like worrying about my clients or worrying about hitting the big goals I’ve set. And I’m obviously still working on my anxiety, but I’m now at a place in my life that I actually want to be at, instead of sitting on a fence not even taking action towards the future I desire.
I don’t worry anymore about whether or not I’m going in the right direction or if I’m making the right decision.
And that is an unbelievable gift.
To love the direction I’m moving in, and also knowing that if at any point I want to change course it does not mean I did anything wrong or that I had made any wrong decisions.
And I do remember a time when I’d push myself too hard and it would push me into a downward spiral that would take me out for days. So it took me a long time to slowly reinforce to myself that I can handle challenges without falling into depression.
It took time and tools and healing.
And now I would label my work as what many would consider a high stress situation. Because the amount of money I have to manage for clients in their ad campaigns and because of the fast turn over rate, and because I pretty much am managing the marketing elements of 4-8 businesses at one time.
I’ve built up to this capacity.
So give yourself compassion for wherever you are now & open up to being able to handle more and more.
So in closing, I wanted to note that you may need help. From a team. A mentor. A therapist. An energy worker.
Maybe that’s actually another lesson from my 20’s.
I tried to do everything myself & just piece stuff together.
Learning to talk with other people about what’s on my mind & what I’m dealing with helped so much because it was out of my fucked up brain. Now I have a support system of friends who are also entrepreneurs & know that life, I have mentors, my husband, my team. And being able to talk openly about in safe spaces has allowed me to get over things & bounce back quickly.
I hope this episode helps you. In whatever way you need it to.
If you have a fucked up brain, and in case you didn’t realize this, I’m using the phrase fucked up brain in the most loving way, if you have one & have a story of triumph to share. I’d love to hear. And I’m sure lots of other people would love to hear it.
Find us on instagram at @thedirtyalchemy.
And have a great week.
