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Yashi SrivastavaParticipant
The last time I was burnt-out in my business was at the end of 2021. It was also my best year financially. And I think that’s my landmine.
My entire business right now is built on trading time for money. I’ve never had a digital product. I get paid when I show up on a call with someone. I also get paid to do some behind the scenes workshop design work. But most of it is hourly billing. And it’s not very reliable. I’d love to create something that helps me get out of trading time with money and make RELIABLE, monthly income like drawing a salary.
I am also afraid of creating a product because of the time and energy it will take – and then what if no one wants it?
I don’t have much experience in creating offers/products and really do want it to be worth the time and energy it takes to build it.
Probably also worth mentioning: 7 years into the business and I’ve never done active sales. I hate spending time on social media so I don’t do much there. This past year, I’ve been writing and sharing because I wanted to do that. But as far as selling is concerned, I’ve either outsourced it to companies who bring me clients and pay me for my contribution OR I receive clients through word of mouth and referrals.
So, I don’t have much of a social media presence/following and I also don’t have a lot of experience selling. And now that I want to find a slightly different way of generating income, I feel like I am starting from scratch and am at a bit of a loss.
- This reply was modified 9 months, 2 weeks ago by Yashi Srivastava.
Yashi SrivastavaParticipantI so hear you on feeling disconnected with the body. Have lived most of my life in that disconnection. All the best with the unpacking! I’d say that’s definitely a key piece of the whole “being” puzzle 🙂
Thanks for nudging me to continue reflecting. There’s this one thing that has ENRAGED me ever since I was a child – and continues to do so: gender based norms and discrimination.
I grew up in India where female foeticide was prevalent. It still is.
That’s a more extreme version of what I’m talking about, but every single day I received messages about how good girls behave, what kind of a woman is a good woman, and what makes a good mother. Parts of me are still buried under that conditioning. I am actively working on digging them out.
With time, things have gotten even more challenging for women, I think. We’re told we can have it all. Whether or not all women want it all or even agree about what “all” means is a whole different story. We’re supposed to have it all and do it all and always put other people’s needs ahead of ours because that’s what good women do. And sooner or later, we’re burnt out, full of resentment because we constantly abandon ourselves in our pursuit of being good, selfless women.
What if we could stop all the self-abandonment?
What if we could care for ourselves like we care for others?
What if it was okay to be selfish?
Because here’s the thing: prioritizing our own needs, desires, and dreams can fuel us in a way not much else can.
And isn’t it better to give from a place of fullness rather than emptiness?
The societal norms were designed to keep us compliant.
Those of us who want freedom? We’ll need to break some rules.
——
Okay. That ended up being a bit of a rant but I do feel like it’s closer to what I see my kindreds going through and what I hope to help shift in their lives.
Yashi SrivastavaParticipantI struggled with this prompt more than the earlier ones. Here’s where I am at right now:
There are a few things that upset me:
1. UNSOLICITED UNIVERSAL SHOULDS. I find it troubling how some people INSIST that they know what you should do in your life – just because it worked for them or because it’s always been done this way or because everyone else is doing it. This is the kind of job you should get and this is how you should build a business and this is how you should parent. Ughh. People are unique. What they want and need is unique to them. I think offering advice without taking into account this uniqueness leads to more problems than solutions.
2. BEING LIMITED TO INTELLECTUAL KNOWLEDGE. This is the hole I recently dug myself out of. I KNEW so much about all the science and the research on living a happy and fulfilling life. And yet, I found myself struggling to be happy – even though I had a lot of what I’d once longed for. What was I missing? An embodied understanding of what all that knowledge felt like. I knew being kind to myself would help me. But I needed to stop over-identifying with my mind so that I could tap into the wisdom of my body, heart, and soul and learn what it feels to be kind to myself. It has been game-changing. So much of the self-improvement world out there is purely mental. There’s isn’t enough out there about how to actually put this advice into practice in a way that shifts one’s way of being.
3. TRYING TO FIND ALL THE ANSWERS EXTERNALLY: People spend so much time and energy in trying to/hoping for things outside of them to change that they don’t make use of all the ways in which THEY could change their own lives. Yes, circumstances and people can be challenging. Yes, systems are broken and we need changes at the institutional/policy level. Yes, organizations should be designed to take care of employee well-being. AND, individuals have power too. Every single one of us can take action to improve our own lives – irrespective of what’s happening outside of us. It makes me frustrated to see so many people giving their power away.
I don’t know if I actually answered the prompt but these are the things that came up as of now.
Yashi SrivastavaParticipantLOL. Thanks for sharing how hard it was for you to call yourself a writer – boy, do I know exactly what you mean!
I appreciate your encouragement. Thank you.
Writers write. I will keep that in mind 🙂
Yashi SrivastavaParticipantThat’s exactly it, Dre. Just like that teacher did for me, what’s deeply honoring about this work is to have the opportunity to be that ONE PERSON who helps someone see themselves in an entirely new light with new possibilities and potential.
I’ve followed your work for almost 7 years now and I’ve always loved your unique take on things. In a world full of advice that never resonated with me, yours has been a breath of fresh air. Thank you. And yes, you’re exactly the kind of person I would love to geek out with about all of this if we had an opportunity!
Yashi SrivastavaParticipantI was an introverted, average-at-school, dark skinned, serious teenager in a family and society that valued extraversion, good grades, fair skin, and entertainment (often at the expense of other people.)
I was often implicitly and explicitly criticized/made fun of for not being smart/pretty or funny enough and for living in my own world.
What I most longed for was to be loved, accepted and appreciated for the qualities that set me apart and made me who I was: trustworthiness, wisdom, being observant and reflective.
I graduated high school convinced that I was average, at best, at most things.
Soon after high school, in a different environment, a teacher called me “impressive.”
That shook my world.
Impressive? Me?
And what happened after that changed the course of my life.
I went on to score the highest grades in my class and was offered a job to teach there.
I couldn’t help but wonder: had I really been average? Or had I just believed I was?
That experience sparked a deep fascination with the human mind, leading me to study psychology and build a career helping people question what they think they know about who they are.
A lot more has happened since then.
But my ongoing fascination with how our self-perception changes our reality has remained constant.
The thing that excites me the most is to keep working on expanding my own understanding of who I am and what I am capable of, and helping others do the same through writing, teaching, and coaching.
And to do this on my terms, which often involves ignoring anything that doesn’t resonate with me – even if “everybody else is doing it.”
Yashi SrivastavaParticipantLoved reading your post, Erica! As someone who has struggled with the challenges you describe your clients face, I can totally imagine how liberating and empowering your work with them would feel!!
Yashi SrivastavaParticipantThe thing I couldn’t help coming back to until about a year ago was writing.
I have always loved writing and have spent over a decade in inner turmoil about how I want to write and want to share what I write but what if I am not good enough and I don’t have anything new to say and what if no one reads what I write and blah, blah, blah.
Thankfully, almost exactly a year ago, I put that inner chatter to rest. FOREVER.
It took me working with a spiritual teacher + consolidating everything I knew about living a happy, fulfilling life to get there. But I am here now and writing is going to happen. No questions.
BUT – it has to be writing I want to do – not on someone else’s terms. AND, at a deeper level, I know that I don’t want writing to be the ONLY thing I do.
The thing I deeply care about – for which writing has always been an awesome tool – is to live well. To go in directions I am being called to – even if they don’t make sense to anyone else. To be who I truly am, even if no one else gets me. To fulfill my soul’s desires. To live a life that in the end, I look back and say, wow. That was incredible and if I have to go back and change something, there wouldn’t be a thing I’d want to change because each experience taught me something valuable and made me the person I was meant to be. To live life on my own terms and have no regrets.
Until a year ago, not writing and sharing what I learned would have been my biggest regret.
Now, staying small seems like what I would regret.
The big question for me is, how do I play big on my own terms – retaining the freedom and the life I’ve created but without trading time for money – which is what I currently do.
Yashi SrivastavaParticipantSo inspiring to read everyone’s stories and whys! Thank you all for sharing. I definitely feel less alone in my pursuit of what I want, when I want it, and who I want it with 🙂
Like many of you, I worked in corporate for a number of years. I actually liked my job for the most part but every now and then I’d have this feeling that I was meant to do something else with my life.
In 2012, I had a personal crisis that led to a bit of a spiritual awakening. That led me to study the topic of happiness in great detail. First informally, and then I spent a year formally studying positive psychology. I also got my coaching certification around this time. This was early 2016.
At this point, I would have happily taken another 9-5 if I could land a job that let me do what I wanted to do: apply positive psychology and coaching.
But that was not meant to be.
So, I became what I thought of as a “reluctant entrepreneur.”
BUT, after 7+ years of doing this, my reluctance has melted away. I love being a solopreneur and there’s no way I am going back to a 9-5 in the near future.
While my initial why for starting a business was to get to do what lit me up, my why has evolved since then. Here’s what drives me to stay a solopreneur:
– The freedom and flexibility to do what I want, when I want it, with who I want it. To live with balance.
– The ability to be there for my family in a way 9-5 couldn’t even come close to (Dre – I can pretty much copy paste all the “mom-life” stuff you mentioned in your post here. I have always dreamed of being the mother I wish I had had and so giving motherhood my best is one of the KEY factors that drives me.)
– Opportunities to spend a majority of my working time on stuff I’d be doing in my personal time anyway (self-improvement, personal growth, effective parenting etc.) I love how investing in my own learning and growth and evolution DIRECTLY impacts what I can bring to my clients.
– The variety of tasks I can take on if I want to: from writing to coaching to teaching/training to facilitating to speakingSometimes, I think about what I would be doing if I had all the money I’d ever need. It boils down to three things:
1. Work on my own learning, growth, and evolution – especially as a parent
2. Share what I know with a motivated, eager audience (in different formats that I choose based on how I am feeling, but writing would be a consistent one)
3. Travel to see the natural beauty around the worldYashi SrivastavaParticipantDre…it was surreal to read your email because that’s exactly the journey I’ve been on for the past two years. Confidence is inner peace for me too. It is about knowing (deeply in my body, not just in my mind) that I have my own back – no matter what. Cultivating deeper and deeper levels of self-acceptance will continue to be my journey. It is the lens I now bring to all areas of my life – from business to parenting to relationships to money to food. It is powerful and magical and still a work in progress 🙂
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