🎙 59. The IDEAL (and how-to) of Self-Employment, Entrepreneurship & Building a Business

the spiritual 9-5 podcast transcript

episode 58. how to be you when you aren’t sure who that is

🎧 Listen on Spotify
🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts
🎧 Listen on Google Podcasts

Episode Published on January 16, 2024

transcript:

Intro music 🎶

Welcome to the Spiritual 9-5 podcast where the vibe is to be kind and to stay in your work.

We are here to support you in your day to day, to help you see and know yourself a little bit deeper, and to inspire you to show up in what you are here to do whether that be your 9-5 or entrepreneurship or art or philanthropy or watching netflix on your couch or a combination of all of those.

I’m your host, Marie Groover. I’m the founder of two businesses that are here to bring the soul back into the office. And I am so excited to bring you this episode, today.

If you haven’t, please leave the show a 5 star rating(spotify linked, but all platform ratings welcome!). And if this episode resonates, consider saving it and sharing it with someone you think it would resonate with too.

end intro music 🎶

__

episode

One of my former professors said to me recently, “one thing I admire about you is that you’ve found a way to combine your personality, your interests, and a way to make money on your own.”

He followed that with, “You’ve done interesting things with your life.”

I was (and am) so flattered and so honored to hear this from someone that I deeply admire and respect, and from someone who was so formative in my own thinking and development.

We were talking about creating a business and what it means to be entrepreneurial vs. a business owner or an investor.

What struck me was how many of us, somewhat secretly, desire to work for ourselves and to feel like we are not really working at all, but also to be fully financially supported – is this the new collective dream?

Since starting my own business, so many people have confessed to me that they, too, want to start their own business or in some way work for themselves.

BTW, after reading Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber last year, I think I have a deeper understanding of why that might be – but we can save that for another episode – or you can tune into Episode 51 for a taste. It’s called You Don’t Have to Be Good & Your Success is not Conditional.

Back to the ideal of working for ourselves. IDEAL.

Now, entrepreneurship is definitely not for everyone. AND, I also kind of think that entrepreneurship could be for everyone. Running a business, in my experience and opinion, is a spiritual awakening because it requires us to take radical responsibility for ourselves, for our experiences, for our outcomes, for our fears, for our desires and our dreams.

Running a business is such a catalyst for personal development and growth, if we accept that invitation, if we allow it. And, I kinda think that part of the human experience is awakening to our full potential and capabilities and desires and growth edges.

When you are a business owner, you realize that nobody is coming to save you and that your success is both in your hands and in your way of being, of collaborating, of receiving of and with the world.

And it can be debilitating, and it can be scary, and you will most definitely find your growth edges, again, if you allow yourself to.

But. And, it doesn’t have to be this huge or scary thing. Starting or running a business doesn’t have to be a massive or even well-thought out endeavor. It doesn’t have to require a lot of upfront capital. It doesn’t have to even be fully envisioned.

OO people are not going to like this, but I’m going to say it – you don’t even need a clear idea or a rough business plan, or any business plan.

It can be as simple as choosing to show up differently in the world around you. It can be as simple as your willingness to experiment. And it can be as simple as choosing to ask people for money in exchange for a product or service.

But the kicker and the key and the thing that requires the most courage is.. The thing that probably stops many of us in our tracks is… that you have to show up. You have to be willing to be seen, period, full stop.

If you secretly want to start your own business, I invite you to consider this:

When I started TCP, I didn’t have a business plan. I had a very incoherent idea. I had a desire to integrate all parts of myself publicly, as a form of service to the world. I had a desire to help others integrate all parts of themselves. And I wanted to work in the opposition, in the tension of seeming dualities. The space between the words corporate and psychic. The space between type-A and artist. The space between who we think we should be, who we have made ourselves to be and our hidden desires, or the parts of us that we don’t think fit in with the rest.

I didn’t have a business plan. I had a couple of ideas of some services I could provide, based on the skills and experience and qualifications that I held. And I had a question – what would happen if?

And it was a genuine question. I didn’t know the answer to what would happen if I showed up in this new way? Or to the question, what if I went all in on this idea? I didn’t even know what it meant to go all in.

I just knew that I had to find out what could be possible, if I allowed myself to play and to show up in the unknown and to be devoted to my cause.

I just knew that it was worthwhile to remain open – without pretending to be psychic, AKA without pretending to think that I KNEW what the results would be if I did this thing, if I started this business.

And so for me, it wasn’t a full fledged idea, with a full fledged plan of execution. It was a bit like throwing spaghetti at the wall, not just to see what stuck, but to see what felt good to me – to get more and more clear on what it was that I was doing. It was experimental, and most importantly it was one step at a time.

It certainly wasn’t “all the reasons why this won’t work.” but it also wasn’t “all the reasons why it will.”

It was just, what’s the next right step for me? Not, trying to predict results. Not trying to forecast trends. Not being particularly precise or big-picture thoughtful. But just showing up, moment to moment, step by step.

And in all those moments and in all those steps I could have made a lot of predictions. I could have created and articulated all of the reasons why what I was doing wasn’t going to be successful or sustainable or fruitful or whatever.

But instead, I committed to the experiment. My offers were constantly shifting and changing, my pricing was constantly shifting and changing, my articulation of my work was constantly being re-imaged and yes, shifting and changing.

I was uncomfortable, a lot.

Shit – I am still uncomfortable, a lot.

And it’s been a wild-ass ride being an entrepreneur. But it also hasn’t been rocket science.

And the hardest part? It was committing and continuing to commit to being seen as a work in progress.

Because, that’s all we ever are. Whether we are business owners or not, btw. We, as human beings living and operating and collaborating and sharing this planet together, we are all only ever a work in progress and never a finished product.

Yet, we try so hard to depict ourselves as these shiny objects – complete, where all parts fit perfectly and make sense, where other people can quickly see and understand and trust us and relate to us.

But something I say a lot to my clients and probably a lot here is that the story never makes sense when we are in it.

And if you can get used to living in the unknown and being yourself through it, you have what it takes to be successful in anything that you do, most especially entrepreneurship.

It’s not starting a business that requires courage. It does require courage – the willingness to reshape your relationship with transactions and reciprocity and money – that requires courage and a level of accountability.

But what really takes courage and what really makes things fun, interesting, worthwhile – is in the sharing of yourself with the world.

We live in the season of capitalism – you can make money doing whatever you want, including being yourself.

AND, I would add – if you want to start a business, your safest bet, your least risky investment is NOT to open a sandwich shop in a high traffic location (unless you have an extraordinary passion for making sandwiches – in that case, I would say to open that sandwich shop).

If you want to start a business, your safest bet, your least risky investment: is you. I think the ultimate dream is to work for ourselves, to make money being ourselves, to create on behalf of ourselves and to operate in the intersection of where that then becomes a service to the world.

And, to me, that’s actually the easiest, least risky approach to making money especially if your business is service based.

I actually can’t speak to product-based businesses in this same way because I do understand COGS, cost of goods sold and I do understand much of what’s at play behind the scenes, from my time managing business in corporate–specifically in tech.

But, what I can say is that not all products need to have a huge overhead.

Most of business in general takes less than you think it does.

And most businesses have their shit way less together than you think they do.

And like us humans, businesses are run by people – and they are works in progress, too.

The thing is that when we shift out of being just a normal person to being a business owner or entrepreneur, we feel even more so that we can’t be a work in progress. We want to be clean and buttoned up and shiny, more than ever.

But it’s not our shininess that makes us relatable or makes people want to buy what we have to offer. It’s our human.

So, I stand by and offer you an invitation for 2024: take your dream of being a business owner off the shelf. Dust it off. Share it with someone, anyone, so that it is no longer a secret. And don’t share it as if it’s a question, share it as if it’s a reality. People love to shoot our dreams by telling us all the reasons why it won’t work.

But you don’t need all the reasons why it won’t work, or even all the reasons why it will.

You don’t need a business plan. You don’t need permission or approval. You don’t even need to be perfectly clear on your idea. All you need is yourself, and the next right step.

Which could be tuning back to episode 53: People Crave What You Dream of Building: Why Your Work Matters. – if your next step is to get inspired.

Or it could be working directly with me – to find where your intersection of personality, interests and making money is in the form of a business or an offering for the world. If so, reach out. I’m here to help. Supporting you is what I love. And it also happens to be one way that I make money. And I would love to help figure out how you can make something that you love a stream of income, too.

Fulfilling your secret desire to work for yourself, but not really be working at all – it doesn’t have to be a pipe dream.

__

outro music 🎶

Thank you so much for listening to the spiritual 9-5 podcast. I’m your host, Marie Groover and I am beyond honored that you are here. Please follow, save and rate the show. And if you can, share your favorite episode with a friend. It makes the world of a difference.

Connect with me on LinkedIn, I would love to hear from you what you think about the show or my work – so don’t be shy. And, I’m always here to connect and support you or your business through coaching, team building and leadership development.

And until next time, big love.

end outro music 🎶

episode close

___