For when your business is evolving … an Entrepreneurial Pep Talk

ENTREPRENEURIAL PEP TALK

For when your business is evolving …

Evolution is tricky business. It can come as a response, an adaptation, a rapid change, and it can also happen so slowly that you don’t even know it’s happening until you’ve, well, evolved! It can be easy — or hard — or both at the same time.

This month’s Business Animal interviews have talked a lot about evolution. Cara kicked us off by sharing how Fast Horse Photography has evolved into a business that truly supports the lifestyle she prefers to live in a way that offers positive challenges and beneficial rewards for her.

Amy shared how moving through the entrepreneurial experience evolved her confidence into a program that now helps her clients do the same through mindset shifts.

Risa shared how a life changing diagnosis can awaken an inner evolution that, in turn, spurs both entrepreneurial and personal growth.

The process of evolution, however, is rarely smooth and pain free. In all of the interviews this month, and in my own business, growing pains happened alongside the evolutions. We also each experienced evolutions that didn’t work — business plans or even complete other businesses that were tried, but became a dead end on our evolutionary tree. Like I said, evolution is a tricky business.

Today I’d like to give you some wisdom about how to thrive through the evolutions in your own business.

The nature of change means there’s always another change coming.

Let me acknowledge, change can be exhausting and knowing that more change is coming can seem like anti-solace rather than a peaceful bit of wisdom. But here is where I suggest you embrace the nature of change differently. Most people don’t like change because change can swing wide the door to failure. Change is uncertain and uncertainty is uncomfortable for most of us.

There are two things I can feel fairly certain about regarding change, however.

One: The inevitability of change brings possibility. Change is inevitable — it may be slow, it may be rapid, it may be tomorrow, or it may be in a decade, but change — will — come. This means if a change leads to a failure, change has the potential to overwrite it. If you make a wrong decision, go down a wrong path, move in the wrong direction in your business, change offers you an opportunity to, well, change that circumstance. Change in its crazy consistency means there is the possibility of something else. So there is a far greater likelihood that, if I make a bad change, another change will come along with a chance to improve the situation versus me being stuck in the situation forever. The latter happens, yes, but not as often.

Two: I can choose how I respond to change. I can hold change as a bad thing in my life and business and allow it to bring up fear in my gut. Or, I can hold change as a good thing — an opportunity to be excited about what else is possible. Disruption, which is another word for change, is often the spurring influence for great and positive movement in ourselves, our businesses, and the larger world. Even in catastrophic change, if we look, we can find gifts. Witness Covid — a horrible change that also evolved our global attitudes in so many ways. In my own business, this meant virtual work became not only possible, but in many cases preferred. I now get to spend more time on my farm and with family because I no longer have an hour-long commute several times a week. Would I have chosen a different way to get here? Absolutely. In the end, I can’t always choose the mode of change, but I can choose my response to it.

Evolution occurs alongside awareness and clarity.

Discomfort, dissatisfaction, indecision, and confusion are often the first indicators that an evolution is on the horizon. When they show up in your business, they compel you to seek out how to close the doors they threw open in your life and, it is in this moment, a magical opportunity presents itself.

One of the greatest gifts my Gestalt and Hypnosis trainings have given me is the keys to the doors that open awareness and clarity. So much of my work with my clients revolves around giving them the opportunity to fashion their own keys to these two aspects of evolution. Whether it be awareness of how the influences of their past show up in their business — both good and bad — or the clarity of their next step on their journey to create a business that supports the life they want to live — these two doors, clarity and awareness, are the portals to a better future.

Evolution happens in the wake of these two influences. When you know better, you do better. When you feel better, you can respond better. When you have clarity, you gain confidence. When you are aware, clarity becomes crystal clear.

If you find yourself in the midst of a business evolution — planned or unplanned, wanted or unwanted — be open to awareness and seek out clarity. I guarantee you they are both present if you look for them.

Rebellion is part of the process of evolving.

Evolution is rarely a clean, straight, upward line from where you are now to the next neat shelf of equilibrium. If only, right? It’s usually more like a toddler scribbled all over the pages of your nice, neat, Gantt chart in Sharpie® and it bled through onto all the other pages of your business plan.

In these moments, you want to rebel. You may even want to quit because staying where you are would be so — much — easier, even if it isn’t ideal or even comfortable.

In my own evolutions, I refer to this part of the process as the “teenage” stage. I harken back to that stage of my life where evolution happened, like it or not, and I moved from frustration to sullen to pissed off to adapting and then back to frustration in the flash a moment. I have to remind myself that, today, this desire to rebel is part of the process and that, just like in my teenage rebellions, these moments are not only part of the process, they are the catalyst for the tweaks I need to make to form a better outcome.

Evolution is exhausting and that’s okay.

Evolution is a birthing of sorts and birth is both pain and euphoria, mess and perfection, disaster and cohesion. It is also exhaustion and exhilaration. The process can wear you out as much as it excites you or brings you unrest depending on the circumstances. It is okay to be exhausted with its process just as much as it’s okay to be thrilled about the possibilities of what it will bring.

For me, right now, I am deep into this dichotomy of exhaustion and exhilaration in my own business. I am so excited for a launch I’ve been working on all summer. I’m pleased with how it’s all coming together, and it feels so damn good to see my ideas cohere into a fully formed program and product. On the other hand, I am fricking tired. The thought work, the emotion, the process of yet another change, has worn me out mentally and emotionally. My body is as tired as if I had run a marathon. I’m cranky because things haven’t gone as fast as I would like while at the same time being a bit uncomfortable with how quickly things are moving.

When we’re tired, negative self-talk sometimes bleeds through mental barrier because we’re too overwhelmed to maintain it. When this happens, it’s a clear indication to me that I need a break. That break may be 15 minutes in the sun on my porch with my eyes closed listening to the goats graze around me or it may mean an hour grooming a horse where the next steps are super clear and almost mindless. It also may mean a full on bitch session with a friend over a cup of coffee. At this point in my personal evolution, I know negative self-talk doesn’t lead to anything other than me feeling crappier than I need to. I have adopted a simple policy: negative self-talk is not tolerated. I am, however, open to deeper clarity through my subconscious, more awareness through reflection, and more peace through pause.

I hope you have found these nuggets of wisdom helpful if you’re going through an evolution in your business right now. If you’re not currently in the process of change, I hope you hold on to them for the next cycle of evolution. I’ll also leave you with one other thought — we are all in a process of evolution. You are not alone no matter where you are in the process. Look around you — everyone out there — every entrepreneur has been or will be where you are now. The chances of surviving this evolution are excellent and the chances are the key to open the door to a business that supports the life you want to live is in your hand.

As always, I am here to support you in whatever way feels best for you. Reach out if you’d like to explore one of my programs or discuss the possibilities of working together.