During the time when I was in the throws of my entrepreneur journey. I felt a lot of shame because I thought maybe I wasn’t cut out for it.
I was constantly stressed and overwhelmed. I felt so much guilt when I was at work and I felt so much guilt when I wasn’t at work.
I couldn’t just enjoy the moment because I always felt like I should be somewhere else doing something else. It was exhausting.
I kept all that garbage shoved down deep and I put on a brave RBF face like I strong lady should do. But darn I was a mess inside.
I felt like I was the only one. The only person who opened a business and couldn’t handle it.
Until…
One day, I walked into a coffee shop and ran into a friend of ours. He had started his own company a year or two back and from what I knew, he was doing great and business was booming. But at that very moment in time, I’m going to guess it wasn’t booming like he hoped it would.
I kid you not, as I walked up to say hi, he looked up at me, and he was green. I’m talking like the puke emoji green. This man was beaten down. He was ready to throw in the towel. As he slowly pulled his eyes up from his computer, I noticed he had aged about 10 years since I had seen him 2 weeks ago.
When our eyes met, the only words that came out of his mouth were “Why do we do this to our family?”
I know I should have hugged him or felt sad for him, but the truth is – I felt relief.
I felt like I had hit the jackpot. I WASN’T THE ONLY ONE WHO FELT THIS WAY!!! This means I wasn’t a loser and I wasn’t weak. This made me feel normal and right.
It’s so easy to get on this island by ourselves, thinking we are all alone. No one wants to break in front of other people. We hold it all inside and put a smile on. Which is the polite thing to do, I suppose. And honestly, we know we will be fine eventually, so why expose our weaknesses if we don’t have to.
But at this moment, I had a puking buddy. And while it didn’t take away the pit in my stomach, I didn’t feel alone.
This work that we do – creating the American dream – it’s not easy. It’s unknown territory and it’s a lot of work. We are the workforce rebels who decided that being an employee isn’t how we roll. We have chosen to be among the 5% of the population who actually goes this route.
So, let’s answer the question.
Why do we do this to our families?
We do it because we are bold. We are strong and we are visionaries. We are badasses who buck the system and create bigger and better. We felt the nudge and we stepped up in honor of ourselves.
We are not “doing it to our family”, we are doing it for ourselves.
I dare you today to ask for help. I dare you to admit your failure to another strong lady. Let someone know that you need them and they need you.
Take off your RBF and give a smile to the RBF beside you. She’s probably pushing down some heavy stuff right now.
You are doing big things and it’s going to get hairy, but you are not alone.
If you don’t have anyone that you are comfortable admitting failure to or if you need an RBF to smile at, pick me! Send me an email and let me know what you struggle with. We can swap a story or I can give you a quick pick-me-up. Your choice.
Good things ahead, my friend!
Ready. SET. Go.
If you are interested in taking this work a step further, my SET program is exactly what you need. Schedule a time for a consult call to learn more.