Shameless Business Building is not something I thought I would have to name and talk about in this way, but apparently I do. I just started talking about this last summer after I had a bad experience with being shamed for what I am doing in the world, and it came from other “spiritual people.” Yep. Can you believe it?
Let me tell you what I’ve seen just in the past few days.
The sad thing is, I am seeing this everywhere recently. We already had a big wide world out there not always on board with who we are and what we do, but this is even worse, a sense of “your own” turning against you, and especially because it’s people who say they believe in an Infinite and Abundant Universe and are all about Love and Peace and all that good stuff. But bring money and business into it, and some people just go plain crazy.
As more and more people like myself choose to integrate our life and our work and turn our life’s calling into a business so we can express all of ourselves, use our gifts in the world, and live the life we want to live, more and more other people are creating a backlash against it.
This was all in my face this weekend, so I knew I had to talk about it.
First, one of my Mentors experienced some serious hate mail and started talking about it on Facebook. She is very clear about who she is and what she’s doing, and she has created a lot of success and stability already, so though she was shaken and wanted to bring it up and talk about it, she wasn’t stopped by it.
The next night, one of my friends and colleagues took a bold step with her business and was so excited to share it on Facebook, and she got a nasty, mean-spirited reply that was totally unnecessary. It was public, on her business page, and it was from a “Spiritual Life Coach, Interfaith Minister, and Metaphysician.” Yeah. She has been in business for a while, and she knows to get support when she needs it, and she reached out. We talked through it. She did some extreme self-care afterwards, took a healing bath, reminded herself of her worth and value and her why. And she was good to go.
Today, however, I got an email from a client in my Spiritual Business School who is quitting it all. Her heart is broken. She is so new to all this and so vulnerable, and as she jumped out into the world with her big bold dreams and intentions, she was met with less than the support she expected from her community. And now she has found herself trapped in the Crabs In A Bucket I talk about in The Entrepreneurial Hero’s Journey.
Did you know, if you put a bunch of crabs in a bucket, you don’t have to put a lid on it? They will all stay in the bucket. If one crab tries to climb out of the bucket, the other crabs climb on top of him and push him back down. But, if you put one crab in a bucket, he will climb up the side, peek over the lid, and climb out.
I wish I could convey to this client how much I get where she is right now. I was there. When I made the big bold move to taking my local business online and global and discovered how to make it work so I could do this and only this as my work and my life, people in my spiritual community didn’t like it. I got a lot of backlash. Who was I to charge that much? Who did I think I was? Did I think I was too good to work out of a back room in a rented building for my $1 a minute? It was brutal. And it blind-sided me.
You see, I stepped out and was facing forward, ready to fight off any naysayers from “those people” out in the world who don’t always get what we do and who we are, and some of them really don’t like it. I never expected my own community who had been right there with me in the trenches – living and telling the story of, this is hard; people aren’t able to make this work; people can’t make money doing this; nobody will pay for this; you can do this, but you can’t make a living at it – to turn against me when I actually found a way to make it work and make it happen, and wanted to share it with them.
It’s simply not true. I climbed out of the bucket and found Mentors, Teachers and Coaches who were doing what I felt called to do. They were being it and living it, and they were willing to show me the way.
I created Shameless Spiritual Business Building last summer, and I tell you all about what happened to me in the call I did for my community, and you can access it now for free, listen to it online or download it to go. I get into all of this stuff, and at the end, I don’t just leave you hanging, I take you through a clearing and healing process to deal with all the junk that got stirred up and to help you move out of it.
www.shamelessspiritualbusinessbuilding.com
Who are you showing up as? The crab in the bucket shaming others who go for their greatness while hiding behind your own “spirituality?” Or one of the crabs who has climbed out of the bucket and is finding your way through this Entrepreneurial Hero’s Journey?
I am here to tell you, we are out here. There are others of us who celebrate your greatness. We are showing you the way. We are giving a hand up instead of a push down. Keep going. We are getting bigger and bolder every day.
We have staked our claim to create a spiritual business that supports and sustains the life we want to live, providing us with the Spiritual Freedom and the Financial Freedom we desire. And we’re not ashamed of it at all!
And you don’t have to be either!