Welcome to the very first episode of It’s Not Business, It’s Personal.
I’m Tricia, your friendly sensitive and creative small business coach, and I am so ready to jump in!
This podcast is something I’ve talked about doing for a really long time, but it didn’t really fall into place until this last month.
That’s the interesting thing about business, right?
We don’t get to decide when these things happen, it’s just our job to be open to the opportunities and aligned enough inside ourselves that we’re headed in the right direction and we say yes to the right opportunities.
And I’m so glad it didn’t happen before because it wouldn’t be even close to what I was hoping it would be.
So thank you so much for joining me and being on this journey with me.
This first episode is all about courage.
I decided to start with the concept of bravery, or courage, for a few reasons:
I believe that courage is one of the most important skills that you need to develop as a small business owner. I don’t believe that it’s a trait that you’re born with, I believe that courage is a skill you build up. It’s like a muscle you have to work out. And as small business owners, especially sensitive and creative small business owners, we might have to do just a little more exercising to bulk up that muscle.
Because this is my first podcast episode ever, I basically needed to build this in as a personal pep talk. (Just being honest over here!)
Because this year I made some live changing decisions for myself. I had to live through some really hard shit (we’ll get to that in future episodes) and I’m realizing...I am brave. I can talk about this because I did it. And I’m doing it. And I want to help you do it too.
So to get things rolling, here’s a piece I wrote. These pieces of writing, poems, spoken word, whatever you’d like to call them, are going to be a regular occurrence through the podcast, especially on these shorter episodes.
I feel like the best way to connect with sensitive creatives is to make something that’s sensitive and creative.
So here we go. This piece is very aptly called...
Brave
by Tricia Chinnici
True bravery isn’t doing
a huge thing once
(although that is also brave).
It’s doing the small, hard things
choosing something different
getting uncomfortable
over
and over
and over.
Being brave is creating something
even when you feel bad at it.
Then making another one
and another one
bad and good
good and bad
over
and over
and over.
That audacity to keep going.
And keep creating.
Being brave is talking about your project
even if it’s not finished and will never be perfect.
It’s talking about it again
in even bigger rooms.
It’s saying, “this is who I am”
and “this is what I can do”
over
and over
and over.
That trust that the right people
will be listening.
But being brave isn’t just about doing
it’s about undoing.
Being brave is moving on
from the thing you said you’d do
or the person you said you’d be
or the life you said you’d live
when it’s no longer working for you.
When you’ve stopped being able to dream.
When you ask yourself
“who am I?” and “what do I want?”
and you can no longer answer.
It’s finding that answer again.
It is brave to choose not to suffer
It is brave to choose to disappoint others
It is brave to choose you
It is brave to choose new
one small decision at a time
over
and over
and over.
It gets easier.
I promise.
And one day you’ll look up
at this life you chose
this life that you can’t believe you’re getting to live
this life that you created for yourself
bit by bit
piece by piece little decision by little decision
over
and over
and over
And you'll think, “Wow.
I’m brave."
That piece means a lot to me because I have never thought of myself as brave person. I’m a highly sensitive person, so I’m a people pleaser. I can be easily intimated. I’m a perfectionist, which means I’m a classic over-thinker. I’m very hesitant with things, especially at the beginning. I like to feel things out before I move into them.
Which made me feel like I wasn't brave.
I would love to know if this is something that you’ve struggled with too.
But this year I discovered that I’m very brave. And that I’ve always been brave in certain ways.
I think it’s BRAVE to approach the world as a sensitive person.
Others don’t understand how much we take in and we feel and we process. Just surviving as a sensitive kid is insanely brave.
But I’ve never felt brave.
And I think that’s important to point out.
Even at my bravest, I haven’t felt brave. I’ve felt scared. And anxious. And I did it anyway because I knew in my gut in was good for me.
I looked up one day and decided that I deserved more, and went after it.
Something I’m working on with my 4 year old daughter is the idea of
good scared vs. bad scared.
Bad scared feels like dread.
It feels like unease.
It feels like anxiety.
It feels like “Not this. I may not know what exactly, but not this.”
Good scared feels like nervous.
It feels like excitement but with a side of self doubt.
It feels like, “This is new and different and might make me uncomfortable.”
It feels like, “They might not like it, but I sure do.”
And that last one, for me, is usually the difference. When I’m good scared, usually the scared part is coming from the fear of disappointing other people…and let me tell you…it’s a trap.
Because you will never please all the people. And if you magically do, the person you end up disappointing the most is yourself.
So this week I want to encourage you to quit putting invisible locks on your life and to exercise your courage muscle.
ACTION ITEM
Your action item this week (I’m going to give you an action item with every episode so that it’s not just in theory, you’re actually putting this in practice) is to:
Take a decision that you’ve been putting off making, and while I’m not going to say, “you need to make a huge decision this week!” I am going to ask you to meditate on it, and to journal about it.
What is the scary decision that you’re facing right now? It could be something as small as whether or not to redesign your logo or something as big as upending your whole life.
You may be doing something, or like I said in the poem before, you may be undoing something.
Feel out the decision in your body.
And then decide, do I feel good scared or bad scared?
That’s it. You just worked out your courage muscle! That self awareness will get easier and easier as you practice.
I hope this gives you a lot to think about for the next few days!
Thank you so much for joining me this week! I can’t even tell you how much it means to me that you’re here.
I’d love to connect with you even more, so please find me on Instagram.
And if you loved this episode, it would mean so much to me if you wrote a review and shared about it! New podcasts get ranked higher with more listens and reviews, so if you are able to spare 3 minutes it would absolutely mean the world to me.
Have a beautiful week, my kindred spirit.