Moving Forward In Silence
As an entrepreneurial business leader, (admit it, you love that name), money can be a challenge. It can determine what you pay attention to, how long you pay attention to it and when you pay attention to it. That’s not always a bad thing. But, it can be a terribly distracting thing if you allow it to be.
You need money. That’s how our society is built. You need it to pay bills. You need it to get food. You need it to take care of your family. However, it can also lead you astray.
Most of us don’t consider ourselves greedy when it comes to money. But, there is a certain level of stress carried on the face of each president. No, they don’t LOOK stressed. The money just seems to carry with it a sense of scarcity or fear of loss. And all too often, it dictates how we operate.
I’ve had several businesses. I started my first business, an online gospel music promotion portal, while I was still teaching full-time. It took a lot of time. I built the website from scratch, made most of the calls to record companies and PR firms, scheduled the interviews, conducted the interviews, called event promoters, set up the backend for the online radio station and much more. This was all done in the late evening hours and early morning. Advertising dollars started to come in a bit but it became hard to reconcile the amount of time I was spending with the amount of return I was receiving, especially when I had to spend time with family.
My third business was the first time I had the opportunity to pursue it full-time. In this case, I didn’t have the fallback of my teaching gig. So, I had to find a way to make some money. This is where the trouble began. When one avenue wasn’t making money, I had to search for a new one. When that one didn’t work, I had to seek another. When that one didn’t…and so on and so on. The problem was patience. Sometimes I got so caught up in having to make the money to survive that I didn’t always give an idea time to play out or fail properly. It was just not working now. I was getting the calls and the hole was getting bigger and bigger. In desperation, I made several decisions which would end up making the hole even worse. Now, every decision came from a place of scarcity and not one of focused strategy. I needed to slow everything down, focus and listen from a place of silence.
When you listen from silence, you close out the comparison. You decide to shut down the traditional. You decide you will move forward with as much integrity as possible but you will not be swayed into desperation. This is not easy. The bills will still be there. The phone calls will still come. You may even receive certified letters inviting you to a session with a robed arbiter. But, you must listen from a place of silence so that you can move forward from a place of clarity and faith.
When you reach this place, you realize that although every decision has a consequence, there are some bigger things at play. You are developing a strength that will serve you later. You are developing a focus which become a key element in your story. You are sharpening the ability to create instead of react. This place of silence doesn’t mean you live without words. It means you receive and hone the ability to filter, to place the magnifying glass on your destination. It may not be your final destination but it’s the place you need to get to at that moment. It’s the place where all vibrations seem to line up so you can be laser focused on the journey.
You might be wondering about the end of my journey and the hole I spoke about. I haven’t reached the end and the hole still exists. But, everyday, as dirt is being poured into the hole, I’m shrugging it off and standing on it. It’s moving me closer to the top. As Grant Cardone writes, I’m 10x-ing my efforts but it’s happening at my pace and I’ve chosen to smile all the way. I smile because I see the road ahead and on it, there is an image of me, raising my hands triumphantly because I’ve persevered and won.
This is Day 44 of a 12 week writing journey. Here is a post from yesterday:
