Your business needs your soul. Like a partner. Like a child. Like the very breath from your chest needs the air it breathes.
Honest soul is not simple though. It’s not inspirational memes or platitudes. Or one-line idioms.
It’s sacrifice.
It’s the simple question[s] of:
What are you willing to give [and give up] of yourself?
What are you willing to let go of that you love?
What are you willing to sacrifice to achieve your goals?
I know this isn’t what most people want to think about on the road to six figures and world travel, but it’s the thing that needs to be understood when you want to start or grow a business.
Because to have what you want you have to give things up.
You have to let go of preconceived biases.
You have to challenge yourself.
You have to sacrifice your fear.
Your sleep.
Your pain.
Your goals.
[Yes. You have to be willing to give up things you thought you were supposed to hold on to.]
Your time.
Your happiness.
[Don’t worry, you’ll get most of it back.]
But most of all you have to sacrifice your ideas about what your business is supposed to be in service of what your business NEEDS to be.
It’s not about target marketing to make more money. It’s about asking yourself what the people you want to serve really need from you and how you can best provide it. And it’s about not shying away from the truest answer to that question.
So often, it’s not what you think. And it’s not what you want it to be.
It means choosing services that serve. Not just what you want to offer.
It means choosing the brand design that resonates with who you want to serve. Not the one that you like best. Your best work doesn’t stop with you.
It means shaping a vision around the deepest version of why you do what you do and whom you do it for, and calling those people to you in a way that lifts them up, instead of simply telling people what you think they need.
It’s the clear and simple idea that the best offerings are shaped from the outside in not the inside out.
It means you have to sacrifice what you want to give them what they need.
That’s the soul of sacrifice.