How To Love Your Day Job While You’re Building Your Empire
(Previously published in Thrive Global)
f you are an entrepreneur, artist, or anyone dreaming of building another life while working to pay the bills, you might be closer to your dream than you think.
Six months ago, I decided to deal with the “split” in my life (working a full time job I did not love while creating my transformational coaching business) by treating the company I work for as my most important client.
To do this, I realized I first had to make myself a client. I committed to the practices I teach not only in “creative” work, but in what I viewed as “work work.” I plugged into my own power source. I set a vision for the company. I committed to that vision, no matter what. I stopped whining, and started having fun.
All along I have known that working at a growing company would benefit my clients. Some are writers, artists, healers or coaches, but all are entrepreneurs. I knew my hands-on experience helping to build a bona fide American manufacturing business would benefit them.
What I did not realize is that it would benefit the manufacturing business so much, and that the results would be so measurable, palpable, (and relevant), so quickly.
Since I have fully leaned in, overall sales have made a steep and continuous climb, the customer base is spiraling outward, and we are on the threshold of deals that could vault the business into a whole new category. To be clear, this is not only because of me. I do contribute talents the company needed, but what is obvious to me is that this expansion is the inevitable effect of even one more human being contributing fully to an organization that is willing to expand. Everything and everyone in it grows!
The other result is more personal. My own income, which I thought was not negotiable or flexible in this setting, has suddenly become…expandable. The growth we have all created as a team continues to create new opportunities for everyone involved. And this internal success now allows me to focus every morning from 5:30–7 on my passion project, without having to check my bank balance to see if I can pay my rent, and to pay for a virtual assistant, so I don’t have to spend all weekend trying to load a video onto Wordpress.
So here is what I have learned so far, for those of you who are juggling and may need some inspiration!
1. Show up 100% each and every day, full-time, with full energy. You can actually generate your own enthusiasm for a job you don’t love just be being in love with your own energy.
2. Set your vision for the company, and if work drama surfaces, keep coming back to a vision-based mindset. Bring the conversation with disgruntled colleagues back to the big picture and the next step, ALWAYS. Don’t let your emotional reactions consume your energy, or allow anyone else to use your energy in this mindset.
3. Practice unmasking your whole self at work, your humor, your enthusiasm, your spiritual consciousness, your open heart, even if you feel like you don’t fit in. You don’t need to offer details about your inner life or your beliefs, but you will be amazed by what happens when you unblock your light. By bringing your full self, you grow your enthusiasm, the business, relationships, and opportunities. It also makes you more playful. Growing is exciting and gives you focus and energy!
4. When the dirty work gets you down (spreadsheets, technical issues etc.) walk outside for a minute. Regroup. Breathe. Get back into your vision mindset. Hunched shoulders and tight stomachs will not get the work done faster.
5. If you are in a project based setting, you will work REALLY hard creating massive projects, put in tons of hours, distill ideas, get in front of a decision maker, be sent off with marching orders, put in countless more hours, and get turned down. That’s business. It’s also the process of creation. You will have an even BETTER idea tomorrow, and you will have the muscles to do the next presentation more efficiently. Your first deal might also resurrect six months, a year, or five years down the line. If you keep coming back to the BIG picture, to the vision for the company, you will find the buoyancy to keep going. Which is exactly what you will need in your own business.
6. This might actually be the most important one: set a practice for yourself before work that will nourish you, no matter how short or long you have. Walk, meditate, and NEVER miss it. Ever. This is the key to the power source that will keep you buoyant and encouraged.
7. Touch your own work, your passion project, every day, even if it is only for 15 minutes. This way you build trust with yourself that you are LISTENING. You know who you are, you are in the process of becoming, you are taking action each and every day, and everything is working in harmony to support you.
Keep showing up! It works.
~
Sheila Gallien is a writer, channel, conscious creativity coach and soul surfer. Her screenplay, Dropping In, inspired by her own story of finding her voice and courage through surfing is soon to be a major motion picture. She lives on the Big Island of Hawaii, where she dreams of someday getting barreled. Visit www.sheilagallien.life to find out more about her transformational work.