[Stories] Breaking Into the Energy of “I’m Here! This is What I Do! It’s Amazing! You Should Buy It From Me!”

Kathy is growing a new business after leaving the corporate world four years ago. Like most of us, she has been on a journey to define the work she wants to bring forward as her own, to get the work she does aligned with her True Spirit, and to go from all the great ideas about what she could do in her business and actually pick one and make it real.

Here’s what led to her breaking through some of that caution and reserve and landing in a place where she is excited to get up and write and talk about what she does:

“After 35+ years working in corporate America in the financial services industry, I started pursuing the dream of my own business. Actually, it started while I was still working and it took several stops and starts to finally cut the cord (for good!) 4 years ago. As is often the case, I’ve followed various twists and turns to figure out what my work is, and how to bring it out in the world and actually make money offering it.

I’d worked with Isabel a few years ago in her Words on Fire training and started to bring forward the key threads of my work: the importance of pausing, the power of transition, writing to discover, the way change demands we walk a path without knowing exactly where it is headed, the power of creation in midlife, how we navigate that uncertainty.

With that new clarity, I ended a work partnership that wasn’t fully aligned with what I wanted to bring forward. I started focusing more on the quality of my own life, creating what I call my “multi-dimensional life” and figuring out how to work in a way that made that life possible (less pushing and striving). I also began to explore new ways to apply my work in new arenas.

Wanting more support to run with that energy, I came back to work with Isabel in her Firewalk Mentoring Group.

And something clicked. As I gave myself more freedom, I felt on the brink of breaking out and establishing myself in my business in a way I never had before. The more I developed myself, my life, and changed my old patterns and habits around work, the more I felt my desire to step into my work. To put at least one of my many (too many!) great ideas into action, to put an offer out that was really me, and see if people would come.

The challenge for me in business has always been that I want do it my own way, I don’t want a template, I want to create my own template. And I want to still have a life while I do it. That’s what drew me to Isabel for Words on Fire. She helps us find our own way of doing things and not many mentors do. So now it was time to create the next part of my template, my way, and actually bring my work out in the world.

The challenge I gave myself in this last cycle of Firewalk was to pick a specific offer and market it even in the middle of summer. I decided to offer a writing group. Something easy for people to engage in.

I had an initial idea of what would be involved in marketing, I wrote a series of about 7 emails but wasn’t sure what else I might do. I certainly didn’t want to bombard people with my offer.

I submitted my email sequence to Isabel for review. She thought they were pretty good but then on one of our coaching calls we looked at how I could make my communication stronger and deeper.

The problem was I felt like I had two tracks in my work: the Multi-dimensional life track. And the writing/creativity track. And I wasn’t totally clear which I was talking about or our how they worked together. On our call, Isabel was able to pinpoint where my words and message came alive, what the core message was of this offer and my work in general, and challenged me to infuse the remaining emails with more fire and clarity about what made this writing group different. I clicked in to the fact that writing was a powerful tool to put you on the path to your Multi-dimensional Life, and that was what made it different.

I felt it, and in fact, I got so inspired, I started doing Facebook lives and more Facebook posts than I had planned, talking about the power of writing to help you come alive, make new choices, move more into your right life. Suddenly, those two tracks became one! It really clicked and now the two pieces tied together, made more sense.

I got a group together. And even though I didn’t quite hit the numbers I wanted, I realized I had way more passion and energy to show up, to be visible, and to share my message than I realized.

But that wasn’t all! Seeing those two threads (writing and the Multi-dimensional Life) come together raised more questions for me about how all of those different pieces of my work go together.

And on one of our calls. Isabel had an intuitive hit and came up with a very simple assignment, for me to write about it (imagine that!)! She suggested that I use the “dropping in” way I show people to write, and to write about the connection between all the pieces,

The connection between what I call the Potent Pause and a Multi-dimensional Life. Between the Potent Pause and writing. Between the Potent Pause and Transition. Between Multi-dimensional Life and writing. And how creativity ties into all of this.

It just clicked. Writing to answer these questions became so easy. With each bit I wrote, I felt like I was pulling all the threads together. As I wrote, the connection between all the pieces became clear. It made more sense to me. And I will continue to write more. Just this exercise has given me a huge body of content I can spin off more content from.

The more I wrote, the more it became clear that this idea of how we live our Multi-dimensional Life is the overarching theme of my work, and that creativity, writing, and pausing are all powerful tools to bring us more fully into that Multi-dimensional Life. Wow!

This has been an amazing exercise – probably the best I’ve experienced in all my business years and that’s saying something. It got me deeper into the heart of my work and opened up access to even more clarity and understanding of who I am and what I offer. 

I so value that Isabel did not overlay a template on me of what I should be offering, or how I should be talking about it. She helped me to create my own template, my own way of doing something, my own way of thinking about and understanding my work. Helping me find my way to express it and offer it out in the world. Because the words and ideas came from me it became easier to execute my marketing. The things I chose to do to promote my writing group were more natural and innate.

Now I am energized, excited, motivated to dig in and do more, to explore more of my content and create more content. I am planning my next writing group for this fall, and designing a new program around the Multi-dimensional Life.

I approach writing, emails, and conversations about my work in different way. I go in with an attitude of “yes!” I have more confidence. This writing assignment helped me embody what she describes in Sufficient Visibility as being able to declare “I am here, This is what I offer, It is amazing. You should buy from me.”

I am now at the center of my own Multidimensional Life. And I am creating it for myself with my work, and outside my work. Even though I took on offering and leading the writing group, this summer has been the freest summer I’ve lived since high school!

Isabel showed me how to develop my original voice and then build a business around that. That the original voice should be the center point. Most business training has it backwards. And without that fiery message we spin around and flip around trying to figure out who we are and what we offer and how to present it instead of getting out there and bringing the work forward in a way that feels real and true.

Now I know without doubt that I want a business, this business. I’ve long understood some of the steps I needed to take to create that business, and now I have the fiery message that wakes me up in the morning and motivates me to get out there and share.

~ Kathy Kane, Kane Creative Consulting, http://kanecreativeconsulting.com/

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *