IS IT TIME TO BE "IRRESPONSIBLE" FOR THE SAKE OF GOOD BUSINESS?
Article by Ling Wong
Photo Credit: Dasha & Mari
Magazine: Issue #18
I just spent 6 days cycling/hiking in Zion National Park/Byrce Canyon – and it was absolutely amazing. As I checked this trip off my bucket list (which also includes climbing Mount Kili and chasing penguins in Antarctica), I got nostalgic about the days when I bumped around the world with a backpack and my Nikon FM2 (that uses film… remember those?)
Back in the days, my guts would simply say “I am going!” and off I went to Europe, Tibet, Scandinavia, Iceland, the Patagonia, Silk Road, the Eastern Bloc… you name it.
That was before the age of hyper-connectiveness… which means I actually had to “wing it” if something was not booked in advance. The most rewarding adventures often came with some level of following my guts and improvising as I went. “Where do I want to be next?” – and the “lack” of “planning” allowed possibilities to pour through.
Yeah, “booked in advance” - Somewhere along the way, “Planning” has become a “Virtue”…Somewhere along the way, we were told to buckle down, get a job and “be responsible.” Somewhere along the way, we shot down spontaneity communicated to us by our guts through feelings like thrill, elation, and butterflies in the stomach. Somewhere along the way, being “successful” got equated with “being in control” and “having a plan.” Somewhere along the way, we stopped listening to our GUTS and stifled our natural-born rights to LIVE brightly, loudly, unapologetically because we have to “grow up.”
There is so much creativity hidden in our natural instinct but we are pushing it down by denying our desire for exploration, adventure and spontaneity because others tell us “that’s how it’s done.”
Where In Your Business Are You Holding Back Your Creativity and Individuality By “Being Responsible”?
Of course, we are not asking you to gamble your house and lose your pants. Having the awareness that this hidden desire in us can help us HAVE MORE OF US in our business can ignite the FIRE and guide us to express our creativity and individuality – which will open up possibilities and potentialities that we didn’t know exist within us.
Are you implementing “proven” processes, blueprints and systems cookie-cutter style without asking – what do I WANT my business to do FOR ME?
Have you fallen into the comparison trap, “modeling” after everyone in your field and ended up with Frankenstein-marketing-copy that sounds just like everyone else… but nothing like YOU?
Have you had ideas that really pulled you but got shot down by some business coach because it doesn’t fit into his/her “paradigm” of how things are done… before you had the chance to explore all the angles and see how YOU, as you, can make it work for your business?
Reinventing the wheel is not smart, but letting the wheel determine how you roll sounds kind of ass backward too. Let’s play with these couple of questions:
What would you do and who would you BE if generating revenue
is NOT the top priority for the next 3 months?
What do you need to know in order to feel safe enough to jump?
Part of us need to feel safe before we DARE, and that’s totally cool. We all have different criteria in order to feel safe, before we can let free that wild part of us. Do not beat yourself up for needing more (or something different) to feel safe than “everyone else.”
Acknowledge what you need – because all parts of you need to be heard, if you want to have all of YOU in your business.
But make sure whatever you need to feel comfortable so you can dive into the deep end comes from YOU, not from other people’s standards of what “being responsible”, “being in business”, “being a success” should look like.
