The Hardest Thing is Being True to You
So I started reading this new book last night, written by somebody who I know from ‘around the traps’ so to speak although I don’t know him personally as such.
And the book, well, it’s obviously CHOCK full of very awesome very well thought out very highly TESTED –
Strategy.
And what it’s about?
Is a formula.
And this formula?
Is one that has literally resulted in MILLIONS – multiple MULTIPLE millions – being made around the internet.
And all I could think as I started to dive in and got even a hint of what the formula was going to be about?
Was fuck.
me.
dead.
And all I could feel?
Was almost like an internal silent SCREAM. A sigh. A shrinking.
Because I guess what it comes down to, even for me with my modicum of success, is that if I get even a WHISPER of an idea that the way to in any sense ‘level further up’ might be with strategy and formulae and following steps?
My soul wants to curl into a ball and cry.
And if I were to try and DO it?
My poor little soul would die.
But then there is that part of me, the part that I’m pretty sure wears a suit and glasses and has her hair pulled back in a stern not and carries a briefcase and shit and makes a great living doing normal people stuff and is, well, NORMAL, that wants to shake its fist at the rebel free-spirit Kat and scream ‘what the hell are you THINKING, what you think that just because you’ve got away without doing all this shit and created a million dollar biz and somehow manage to travel the world non-stop doing whatever you please that you can just keep GOING being so la-di-dah about how you do it all? You think that you’re going to get to the MULTI-MILLION dollar level like this?! Good luck honey!’
God she’s a bitch.
And for a moment I listened to her, last night, as my soul started clawing at my insides and I started to read, to learn, to consider how I might apply.
And I thought (with a sigh) –
Yes. I suppose I SHOULD pay some attention to all these system-y things at some point if I want to go even bigger.
{Sigh}.
Now fortunately at that point I passed out asleep and when I woke up this morning I re-read a blog I’d bookmarked by the most fabulous (and also my favourite writer) James Altucher.
And in it he says:
“The only real fire to cultivate is the fire inside of you. Nothing external will cultivate it. The greater your internal fire is, the more people will want it. They will smoke every drug lit by your fire. They will try to ignite their own fires. They will try to light up their own dark caves. The universe will bend to you.
Every time you say “Yes” to something you don’t want, your fire starts to go away.”
You know when you read something and you suddenly feel EXCITED just by the idea of it, the sense of it, the essence of it?
That simple paragraph, THAT lights the fire within me! That excites me! That makes me feel alive, just the very IDEA of doing things based on what FEELS right.
And in reading it I remembered:
There are many paths to wealth.
Yes, the systems path definitely works for some! Play the numbers game and tweak and improve and fine-tune your conversions, your processes, and build your empire the step-by-step way. Of COURSE it works and especially for those who add true care and compassion and actually know the stuff they’re teaching. In short they’re combining true messaging with building the business machine via systems and strategies and processes and it WORKS for those who commit to this and follow it all the way through.
But FOR it to work you DO have to obviously do it properly! As with anything right? And yeah yeah you can outsource some of that stuff but you DEFINITELY still have to bring YOU to anything you do in your business.
So, I could do that.
I could totally dedicate an hour a day or a few evenings a week to systems. To building the machine. But here is where I baulk at that:
In building systems, in being responsive to what people are asking for and then creating a ‘formula’ to sell to them accordingly, there is INHERENT in that an element of having to be REACTIVE and RESPONSIVE to what people are asking for and to adjust or otherwise tweak your content and sales processes accordingly.
And the creator in me?
The free spirit in me?
The rebel revolutionary fucking leader in me?
Well honey that chick just wants to go on about her day merrily on her own path from the heart and wherever the flow takes her!
She doesn’t WANT to conform or even TWEAK based on what people are asking for or saying!
She is TOTALLY selfish about what she creates and wants to create via going INTERNAL – into her own fire – not EXTERNAL and yes that’s true EVEN THOUGH IT MAY COST HER THOSE EXTRA CONVERSIONS!
She wants to wake up every day.
And spontaneously just RELEASE whatever comes out.
And if she were to spend an hour or two a day on systems, or to base her business growth around having a formula and a process she would essentially be saying:
I don’t trust that I can do this based on following my path from the heart.
I don’t trust that just because I got to THIS point as a total free spirit (in fact ONLY when I allowed myself to be a free spirit DID I get to this point) that it means I can keep growing that way.
And mostly what she is saying?
I don’t believe I can carve my own way.
I don’t believe that following my intuition and my path from the heart can create MEGA wealth (fame, freedom, etc).
I don’t believe I have everything within me that I need to get my message out there and that it’s possible to DO so without it fitting into the normal template of success, in the online world or otherwise.
And honestly?
Well.
I just can’t. I just can’t allow myself to operate in a way that would mean I believe that shit!
Because me? I believe I can get there in my own way. I believe I got HERE because I STOPPED following formula’s and strategies and rules. I believe, deep deep within me that my ULTIMATE fame, fortune and freedom will come via my words.
Via unleashing the true message within me.
Via operating from a place of pure creative flow.
Not by trying to box in, repeat use, ‘machinate’ those words or my message.
I believe I will never run out of things to say.
That I don’t have to ‘save’ my best stuff.
And that the more I focus on being in the NOW and basically just dancing through my day following wherever my soul takes me the more I will find MY path. And that maybe one day I WILL look back and see I inadvertently created a system, a process, a strategy, a formula and I guess then I’ll write a book about it because of course I’ll want to share it, but that if I were to NOW focus on trying to FOLLOW a formula?
Well, apart from the fact that that’d be following and I’m not so great at that, it would take me OFF my path from the heart.
It would move me OUT of my heart and into my head.
It would sway me from ALIGNED CREATIVE FLOW and into ‘DOING’ rather than being.
And if there is one thing I know for sure.
About being a leader.
About LOVING what you do.
About finding your true path in the messy chaotic way that we all ultimately must do so.
About stepping INTO your calling.
And about getting your TRUE message out, in a way that impacts others and ultimately calls them to WORK with you, where you find you true Tribe and they just can’t get enough about you and it is all –
just –
BEYOND –
freaking awesome?
Is that it happens when you wake up.
Every day.
And be you. Do business from who you ARE and what you BELIEVE and what FEELS good.
Even though it makes no sense.
Even though it breaks the rules.
Even though it may be counter-intuitive or seem downright foolish.
The hardest thing you will ever have to do in business is remain true to you.
I believe – and I’ve seen – that if you can do that though? Everything you ask for will be yours.
All you have to do? Is trust. Trust more. Keep trusting.
And if you can’t do that, and fully?
It’s okay. There’s plenty of books full of systems out there. And apparently anyone who follows them can make millions!