Want to build your business? Let go
How I’m learning to surrender, not hustle
Maybe you’ve had enough with ‘hustling harder.’ Tired of the ‘struggle porn' that Gary V and Elon Musk espouse.
You don’t want to push, strain, and burn yourself out on your way to building your business.
You’re asking yourself: is there a better way?
I have been asking myself this question for many years, and suffered burnout when I pushed myself to the max as an employee a few years ago, when I was running a film agency with huge clients like Toyota, Saint-Gobain and Center Parcs.
It is only since becoming a freelancer that I’ve realised that letting go is the key to creating what we want in life.
After all, there’s so many unknowns when you’re running your own business.
Where will you be this time next year? How many clients will you have in three months? Will you hit your financial targets for the year, or greatly surpass them?
When you’re self employed, this is the thrilling yet equally shit-scary side of shaping your own destiny.
The opportunities are down to you. Your personal and company growth is down to you.
It’s all in your hands.
Or so it seems.
You see, trying to do everything purely under your own steam can be challenging as a freelancer or entrepreneur.
- How do we spot those great opportunities, and know which ones to turn down?
- How can we stay focused on the job at hand, yet create a vision that pulls us forward every day?
- How can we know that the work we’re taking on is of benefit and aligned to who we are?
- How do we know that what we’re doing is creating the right momentum for our business?
Answer= we don’t. As I wrote before, we fuck up. We make mistakes, learn from them, and grow immensely. It’s the beauty of being self employed.
But what if there was another way?
Last week I watched a webinar on ‘bending reality.’ The presenter, Vishen Lakhiani , talks about accessing a different level of consciousness in order to access our most productive state and create opportunities.
In short, we relax. We let go.
We meditate. And we keep what we want in mind, not with a forceful ‘need to have this' energy, but a relaxed, non-attached, open receptivity.
I had already been trying this method to see what results I could create with my business.
- I had the intention of creating a course, and whilst I was planning a course for one platform, another platform contacted me out of the blue and asked me to create one for them.
- I had the intention I’d like to do more paid speaking, and whilst I was planning a free talk, I got asked to do a paid workshop.
- A woman invited me to apply for a freelance job yesterday to refresh her brand copy for her meditation business, turns out she was being interviewed by Mindvalley later that day. We had a powerful and stimulating conversation about being in ‘the flow’, and her ideas mirrored my own.
With each of these experiences, I did nothing but hold the intention, and take non-attached action.
I was not surrendering my desires.
I was surrendering the way they would come about.
It’s truly thrilling to learn that you can surrender into more relaxed states of being, and instead of being less productive, you actually draw more opportunities to you.
I don’t work terribly hard. In fact, I only work about 20-25 hours a week. I like it that way. I have time for singing in the gospel choir I’m in, doing hotpod yoga, looking up vegan recipes on Pinterest, finding new techno music, reading on Medium and spending time with loved ones.
I’ve only just started ‘letting go' and becoming incredibly calm about growing my business, but the results have certainly piqued my interest.
When we surrender into ‘the flow’, what is it that we’re trusting in?
I believe it’s love. It takes action on our part of course, but it’s also a gentle energy of action that glides, rather than pushes.
All the great mystics and sages say we must ‘be like water' and ‘surrender’ to the now. Oh, and Bruce Lee.
I’m beginning to think there’s something in it.
Imagine floating, rather than striving, towards your dreams.
How nice would that feel?
