I can remember that moment so vividly. My usual calm, soothing, and laid-back demeanor had changed. I was mad. No, I think a better way to put it is that I was fire hot, and now I was on a mission. I went into my home office, gathered my notepads and scraps of paper, and threw nearly all of them away. I knew at that moment, that I could not and would no longer conform to what other people wanted me to be or what they wanted me to do with my business. I mean I had been working so hard to figure it all out. I had "redefined" (or as other people might say changed my mind about) my role, my title, and my business at least a dozen times.
I'm not sure why they were so mad, I mean after all I was the one doing all of the work each time, to make sense of it. I had people tell me that I needed to quit changing my mind and even had an "expert" in the coaching industry that I once looked up to tell me that if I didn't stick with a certain business idea (one that felt so limiting to me, by the way) I wouldn't be successful with what I wanted to do. Yep, that's what she said. All I could think was, "oh really?!" Now, I'm not sure about you but I don't know how on Earth going forward with a business that felt like I was stuffed in a box, suffocating and gasping for air, could be called having a successful business no matter how much money it brought in or how much attention it brought me.
It was moments like that (and I have way too many of those) where I decided that enough was enough. It was time to rebel. Either I was going to create my business in a way that felt good to me, that felt complementary to the lifestyle I desired to live, and that allowed me to be simply me; or I was not going to do it at all. Being a girl who knew by the age of seven that she would be an entrepreneur, not doing it at all was simply not an option. That meant, my only decision would be to do it my way... and that meant in many ways going against the grain and fighting against nay-sayers, and dare I say it -- haters.
For starters, everyone and their mother is now a coach or a strategist or (fill in the blank with trendy words from your industry). Life coach, business coach, executive coach, dog coach, you catch my drift. And there is nothing wrong with that, I mean heck I'm a coach and a strategist! I have found that often what people decide to do is settle for what has been "proven" to work because, well, they know that if done properly it can work. While this may be just the method that is needed for some entrepreneurs, it is important that you do not get trapped in your business or that you do not feel obligated to stick with a business that sucks the life out of your soul and drains you to no end, just so that you don't seem like a flake or like a quitter or so that you can just fit in. I absolutely hate that I spent so much time trying to mimic what so many others were doing. I knew that it didn't feel true to me, and I didn't quite know if I could truly create my business my way and be successful with it. What I did know is that I had no desire to be anyone's carbon copy. I knew that there just had to be something I could do.
As The Couture Coach, I help entrepreneurs create luxury, high-end brands, with ease. A brand that comes without compromising the things that are most important to you. That means that I pride myself on creating The Couture Experience for my clients. We pamper you, we make sure that you have fun with your branding, and that you feel oh-so-sexy when you talk about what you do. I decided that simply rebelling was a waste of a perfectly good platform! If I was going to rebel, I decided that I would be a rebel with a cause... you do not deserved to be silenced, or put into a box, or to have your ideas crapped on by others in and out of the industry you are in. Make sure that you are always exploring yourself and your creativity in your mind and allowing yourself to go where that leads you.
When you decide to go against the grain, many people will not like it. They may tell you that it won't work, or it's not the current trend, or that it doesn't make sense. When that happens, just know that it's possible that you are on to something revolutionary, out-of-the-box, and other people can't hold a big enough space for the impact that your work will bring. And the next time someone advises you to go against your intuition, or to stay in something that you feel totally disconnected from. Tell them to Kiss Your Sass! And then you go out, step up, and do what you know your soul is yearning for you to do.