now what? (let’s have some real talk)
that’s what i was asking myself.
here’s the quick backstory: back in january, brendan (my fiance’) and i were at a ranch in new mexico scoping it out as a possible wedding venue. given that was about 15 degrees out, it wasn’t peak season for visitors. so much so that the tens of thousands of acres there were only occupied by us, one other duo, and the staff.
on our last night, we dined with the two other visitors and quickly hit it off. shortly thereafter, i got an email inviting me to speak to their global community of about 30,000 entrepreneurs whose businesses each make a minimum of $10 million annually to qualify for their group.
it was an unexpected and very pleasant surprise! we spent weeks going through their leadership to decide on a topic that was unique and timely. with their calendar as full as it was, they scheduled me for mid-july.
come june, i realized that our topic was no longer relevant. my gut was telling me to change it. so, i shared what i thought was a compelling set of reasons why it was in everyone’s best interest for us to do so.
they disagreed.
i then had to decide: go on as scheduled, creating a unique presentation for a group that felt untily and therefore not very value-rich for the audience, was no longer aligned with my offerings, and was unpaid.
or, honor my instinct and walk, likely shutting the door behind me on the opportunity to connect with their impressive audience.
as you may have guessed from the subject line of this email, i walked away.
i’d never done that before because i’m someone of my word. sometimes to a fault. but in that moment, i knew that i had to honor my inner voice, even if no one else would understand it.
and even though there is no perfect tied-up-in-a-bow happy ending about some incredible opportunity that showed up hours later to take its place, that’s not the point.
the point is this:
no matter what others think or what data suggests, you have to trust yourself.
when we act from a place of fear that we’ll miss out, not be invited back, that word will get out and we’ll be ostracized, or so on… that lack mindset permeates and we attract more of it.
when we honor ourselves and walk away from something to move towards where we are called (even if we don’t know where it’s leading yet), we’re moving with purpose and a spirit of abundance. and similarly, we begin to attract more of that to ourselves, too.
here’s my wish for you today: that you tap into the voi-ce inside of you (which might show up as a physical sensation, voice, song lyric, email, vision, or otherwise), and say ‘yes’ to it. each time you do, you’ll strengthen that muscle, making it easier and easier to identify and activate it in the future.
if you need some guidance on saying ‘no’, check out this article where i break down the spot-on, you-should-use-it framework brene’ brown gave me when she told me ‘no’. or, this one, where we navigate how to be told ‘no’ and accept it gracefully.
