Hesitation, apprehension and doubt, Oh My....

Last night was my "graduation" from the WA CASH entrepreneur class. We had a sales contest, food, an overview of the class and the presentations of our certificates. Stuart our leader for the class had a list of three things he wanted us to answer. When it came time for me to stand up and get my certificate and speak, well it went something like this....

Stuart introduced me and said that he was happy to know someone who had been on TV in reference to my story on the local news. I think I thanked him but the rest is a blur because at that moment it came over me so hard and fast like the waves at Waimea on the North Shore Oahu in February. I lost it, me the one who could get up and give a great elevator speech, me who can talk about yoga until the cows come home, me who usually is never at a loss for words, me who teaches multiple yoga classes a week in front of groups of people. I turned into a blubbering idiot due to that wave of "Oh my god I just realized how far I have come in nine short weeks!"

When I walked through the doors for that first class nine weeks ago I was hesitant and apprehensive about being there. I had to come a long way each week to get there, 45 minutes each way and I felt that I knew a lot about business and what I wanted to do. I was doubtful that I would get enough to make the investment of time and my limited funds to continue. I went because my friend Judy told me I should contact the Worksource people and when I did a lovely woman named Carolyn talked to me for some time and told me she could help me find a job but she felt I was headed in the right direction and that she felt that the class with Stuart would do me good. After that first class as I was driving home I realized just how juiced I was from attending and getting up to give my elevator speech that first night I did pretty great for a first run and on the fly. I know my product, I know my services and well I spend a lot of time talking to people while I teach so I am comfortable in front of a group of people. It was wonderful to spend time with people who were all trying to find their way with a business as well. Our coaches were wonderful and I made some really great friends in the class.

Since that first class so many amazing and wonderful things have happened.... I met my friend Nate Murphy who does PR and marketing. We spoke and he proceeded to tell me that he felt that I had a great thing going on and would like to help me with some exposure. I was thrilled and passed him my head shot along with some of my marketing materials and off he went. I had no idea what that might look like. As a result of our time together he has given me multiple ideas on things I can do to expand my brand and to get exposure. He is the man who put me in front of the reporter who did the story on me on KCPQ Channel 13 in Seattle and I was off and running.... I was quoted briefly in a story for CNN Money online and on June 11 I will have a feature article about me in 11 publications in the Sound Publishing family in Kitsap County. Now none of this has resulted in huge sales of videos or people signing up for private sessions but it sure has done a lot to get my story out there and along the way I learned a lot more too.

I am not that great of planner when it comes to my life, I like to go with the moment. I don't like restrictions and I love to have the option to change my mind whenever the mood strikes. I don't like feeling boxed in and yet on some levels I love knowing the space I move in and the routine around it. I am however a risk taker and good at listening to what feels right and when I get the fear to kicked to the curb ideas flood my head and the wheels churn and people show up to help me do things I never thought I would ever do. I had to write a business plan, oh man that was a struggle for me... Mostly because I have multiple pieces to my business and no firm set idea yet on what the magic mix is to be able to support myself doing what I love. I did however get in and sit down and work the numbers and put things together in a way that made sense to me so that I could have a clear idea of just what I would need to make financially to have my business be viable. I put it all together with my logo on the cover, my flyer on the inside, my business card and a copy of my DVD and was happy to turn it in last week for Stuart to review.

Each week I refined my presentation around my story and each week I set up a list of 3 things to do before the next week. Sometimes I was successful and other times not so much. Then last week I answered a Help a Reporter Out request and the result is the story on June 11 in 11 publications. There is a symetry to those numbers. A funny thing happened while I was telling the woman writing the story about what I do to stay sane while still looking for a job. As I shifted into talking about my yoga and what that has done to help me stay sane and how teaching has been a huge source of sanity for me we started talking about my finding a job and how I was shifting my view to thinking I would have to create something for myself and sell it to the right person. It's hard out there for job seekers right now and what I know after everything that has happened in the last 18 months is that I don't want to go back to doing what I was doing, that I have a calling, my path and purpose to do more with my yoga than I thought. As we continued to talk an idea that had been tumbling around in my brain came into sharper focus. An email the day before had things churning and tumbling and the conversation with the writer sharpened it down some more. At the end her comment was " you need to get your proposal put together, put on your selling hat and get out there and sell this. You have a wonderful idea and the passion behind it, don't stop."

The next couple of days more things aligned, I spoke to people, new ideas joined in and the tide started moving forward faster than I anticipated. More people have stepped forward with help and to offer their connections and the proposal is starting to take more shape and have some clarity in my mind. I have hesitated doing some things and making some changes and I didn't know why but I suspect that after what has happened in the last week that something bigger and more involved than I anticipated has come forward and it was good to pause. I have people telling me that I will need employees soon.... I haven't even finalized the proposal yet and I have not figured out how to support myself, yet and people are telling me I will need to hire people and my career adviser has asked me to keep her in mind when I need to hire. Now that moment was a mind bender!! She called me "a freakin powerhouse" and told me that her heart gets full just observing me... We spent a lot of hours working together and where I am coming around to right now is eerily sort of full circle in many senses back to where we started when I walked through her door over a year ago.

All of this and so much more flooded in last night after Stuart said he was glad to know someone who was on TV and I blubbered my way through what I am sure was incomprehensible to most of the others there. I learned more than I could have said in the time we had to talk last night, how to listen, how to trust my ability to mine my past for all of the talent I have accumulated, to lean into my confidence and presence and feel comfortable there, that I need to keep talking and telling people about my ideas and plans and engage them to go along for the ride with me and that hesitation, apprehension and doubt are signs of so many other things that in the end mattered not at all. I will succeed because I believe in what I am doing and I will stick with it until I find the right place, the right people and the right combination to shine my light. The last question, what will I do tomorrow? I will wake up and dream bigger than I did the day before because the only limits are the ones I impose on myself and look at how far I have come in 9 short weeks.... Oh and I will walk the beach because it was too many days since I did it last....

Thank you Stuart for your wonderful class, thank you all of the coaches for your time and energy and support and thank you my fellow students for going on this journey with me. Thank you Nate especially for believing in my story enough to want to connect me up with your connections and get my story out into the world. If anyone had told me nine weeks ago I would be on TV and have an article written about me I would have probably thought that sounds great but how in the world is that going to come about. I wish everyone from the class all the success and joy you deserve and never, ever give up! Hold on to your dreams and find a way to figure out the mix to create the life you want to live and live it fully every single day...

Namaste,

Sherry