“One of the things I’ve learned the hard way is that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.”
Lucille Ball
Oh how true is this.
This post is going to be a little different than some of my others. And, I promise you – there is tremendous value in the words I am about to share with you. Please continue to invest a few minutes in reading this. Share with others who may benefit. Thank you.
Earlier, this year I declared it would be my year to “thrive”. And Q1 and most of Q2 were hot, with many fantastic things falling into place, personally and professionally including my strongest financial quarter to date, numerous new clients,a new mentor, a new relationship and a newly upleveled vision for the business and me.
Yet, sitting here at the top of Q4, I’ve caught myself feeling like I’ve been in a season that is demanding resilience from me. And if you know me at all, you know a word like “demanding” is not a word I use often given its rooted in scarcity. So naturally I’ve been working diligently on flipping this thought to something that empowers and serves me on the daily, something like…I’m being given the “opportunity” to embrace optimism and find ways to be more resilient.
And yes, there have been a time or two when I’ve said that last line, almost with a mockery in my own inside voice. Leaving me repeating it multiple times until the mockery disappeared and I not only believed it, I felt it.
Deep down I know optimism and resilience are definitely not being forced on me, they are a conscious choice…even in those moments this past quarter when I knowingly fell below the line of conscious leadership into victimhood..I’m informed and educated enough to know that was a conscious choice too. 😉
A quick refresher on exactly what optimism and resilience mean…
Optimism: hopefulness and confidence about the future or successful outcome of something.
Resilience: the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.
When things like an $15K+ investment in a marketing firm fell completely flat as it did not come anywhere close to delivering what was guaranteed on their website, a bookkeeping/accounting firm whose entire service delivery team walked out and the owner is no longer responding to email, text or phone – leaving me to jump through hoops with Intuit to gain access to my own books…
Did I mention there have been some really big (and costly – time and money) lessons these last 2 quarters? 🤨
Having had multiple conversations with other savvy business owners these past few weeks, I know I am not alone.
Guessing a few of you reading this right now can also relate…
And, as I often do in these situations, instead of staying in the gloom and doom of situations, I look for things that are going right – things that I can celebrate to raise my energetic vibration.
So here it goes, my clients – oh my gosh, I appreciate every single one of my clients and what they are building and creating for themselves.
Their list of celebrations include:
- have their clearest vision of what they are building;
- doubled their revenue from 2022 in the first half of 2023;
- successfully growing their team to the largest size to date;
- Adding offers/revenue streams;
- crossing milestones like $250K, $475K, $770K and $1.7M in revenue and we were only 3 quarters into 2023;
- removing themselves from the day-to-day operations so they can truly lead the organization;
- enjoying more time off – out of the office then ever before with revenue still climbing;
- taking care of themselves (finally understanding this is the ONLY way to ensure they have 100% to give to their business, their clients, their team and their family);
In addition to the costly choices I made this year, I’ve also made some really good profitable choices this year – I’m working with a new mentor, I’ve doubled revenue over last year, I’ve added a team member, I have a call with another potential new team member next week and I’ll be diving into a new program to up my visibility game in the coming quarter so more people know of the various ways to work with me (fitting a variety of budgets and preferred learning styles).
Personally, my son is thriving in middle school and actively playing 2 sports right now. My family is happy and healthy. I started a new, exciting, beautiful adventure with a new man. Truly grateful, thankful and blessed.
What I know for sure in business (and life) is that there are ALWAYS things to be grateful for.
That is my hope and intent that you receive from your 3 or 4 minute investment of time reading this article – that there are ALWAYS things to be grateful for, which is a part of optimism and resilience.
Many of those things can go unnoticed, if we aren’t careful.
I once heard the line, “What if you woke up tomorrow and only had the people and things around you, that you expressed gratitude for today?”
Read that again.
Such a powerful thought.
I encourage you to live accordingly.
In your corner, Dana
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If you are a service based business owner looking top optimize your results with long-term, sustainable financial growth, know that I’ve been working with service-based business owners who are tired of being the biggest growth bottleneck and want to stop wasting time putting out fires in their business.
I’ve used my optimization framework to help 173 clients in nine industries rapidly create more business growth and time freedom.
We still have 2+ months left in 2023 and can quickly position you for the STRONGEST year yet in 2024!
If you are ready to create this in your business and life as well, I’m guessing it’s worth exploring with a 30 min call to see if we may be a good fit? Grab a day/time that will work for you and let’s start talking to determine if we’re a good fit.