You, entrepreneur, are no stranger to drama.
You know the stomach-churning tension of fighting for something you believe in… the elation of hard-earned success… the bitter flavor of disappointment.
While many humans will spend a lifetime clinging to security and stability and accepting the restraints that come with it, you recklessly chase freedom through the black abyss of the unknown. You live to build something beautiful, something that matters. Regardless of your nationality, race, religion or any other box used to separate us, you, my beautiful friend, ARE the ‘American Dream’ in action.
While most ‘normal people’ drive to and from their 9-5 job knowing their pay check will arrive like clockwork and their family is covered for any surprise medical expenses, you glide, dive and soar from day to day. You do the impossible: making something out of nothing, clawing a living out of thin air.
There is very little reassurance for us, the world’s self-employed people. The words ‘everything will be OK’ ring especially hallow for us because we know, nothing is certain, nothing is guaranteed. Simply showing up does not count.
There are not enough words to describe the global impact of the recent U.S. election. Most of the best and worst ones have already been cashed-in… this is not attempt to repeat what many have already expressed so eloquently online, on TV and in print.
In fact, in a world that has literally gone mad in the last 48 hours, it feels like total stunned silence is the only possible response. But I have received dozens of emails in the last few days from my friends and clients – many of them telling me they cannot stop crying.
The are have asked for any words of wisdom I might have to ease their fears and broken hearts.
I find myself groggily moving through the shock, my heart sagging with the anguish of my dear ones, my beloved gay, hispanic, muslim, african american and female friends who find themselves feeling like outcasts in their own homes. My first instinct is utter devastation, then rage, then a successive battering of all the other stages of grief. But my desire to provide comfort has me grasping for words – for wisdom – for a still small spark we can fan into flame.
Your politics don’t matter. Whether you voted for feminism, for business, for hope, for change, for the evil you know or the evil you don’t… if you weren’t allowed a voice or a vote, or, despite having the privilege, you simply couldn’t bring yourself to vote at all… I think we can all agree the months and years ahead are filled with unprecedented levels of unknown.
This is where I see the spark for you, entrepreneur.
The unknown is our thing – it’s our jam. Our super power is masterfully wrestling with our crippling fear every single day to push ourselves blindly through the dark. To us, the unknown holds possibility, and dare I say it, potential. Where others see insurmountable odds or nothing at all, we see the faint outline of genius, we see beauty. To us, the winds of change taste like hope, not despair.
So I invite you today to block out the news, the networks, the noise – get yourself out in nature and look inwards to that unshakable entrepreneur inside of you. Ask HER how to cope and what she thinks you should do next. She’s been here before and she knows that even when you have no control of the crazy around you, it only takes a slight shift in perspective to find magic in the ordinary, or new life in the smoke and ashes.
She knows first-hand the truth behind all the cliches: that every closed door is an open window, that it is always darkest before the dawn, that this too shall pass, that YOU need to be the change you want to see. She knows from experience that no matter what is swirling on around you, you have the fortitude to persist, to survive until you can thrive, and thrive until you can flourish. She knows how to heal you so that self-preservation can give way to passion for helping others flourish too.
She is inside you my love, she is sitting in stunned silence, waiting for you to remember that the audacity of hope makes the impossible, possible. Until you can find the strength to summon her, we are here too. You are not alone.
I believe in her, I believe in you. We are better together.
Sending you all the love and light I can summon,
xx Nic