Speaker #0I'm wondering if anyone else has had a wobbly week? You know the kind of week where you just feel like you're strapped to a roller coaster and one minute you're elated and full of energy and belief and everything is just kind of coming together in the way that you hoped that it would and then the next you're kind of in this downward spiral questioning what on earth you were thinking feeling like you're just kind of you're naive like um you know, you're making it up as you go along and that everyone is going to see through you. It's a real journey to go through those highs and lows, but it's absolutely an inevitable part of building something meaningful. By the end of it, I was a bit of a mess and I had to sit down and give myself a bit of a good talking to. And today I'm going to share with you what happened And when I finally stopped. looking for an exit. I'm about, I'm actually, can't believe this, I'm actually only two and a bit weeks into building the very earliest, earliest, earliest stages of building my new venture. It feels like so much longer, so much has happened in that time. But last week was a particular roller coaster of a week. And I really experienced the kind of highs and lows of those early stages, which can actually be pretty destabilizing and exhausting. And I know from clients that a lot of them have been going through a very similar thing. So that's why I wanted to talk this week about what I have been going through in my wobbles. Share my wobbles with you that's what I'm here for And, yeah, it's, I mean, it even reached a point where I'd, you know, I'd had actually a really good day, a lot of energy and momentum. And then, you know, at three o'clock, it's like I have to down tools, rush into the kitchen, grab some snacks, put my coat on, run out and go and get my kids from school. And I was about halfway to school when I just literally stopped in the street like I'd hit a wall and just said to myself out loud, what the fuck am I doing? And I was just hit by this kind of force of, Alyssa, this is like, this is ridiculous. Look at you. You're like running late on the school run, you know, with snacks stuffed in your pockets and like no plan for what's for dinner. And somehow you think that you're going to be able to build this highly ambitious new venture. And, you know, and it was, I also had a meet two meetings last week that showed up this contrast at one point i met with a regenerative farmer which was amazing um he runs a local community supported agriculture scheme and i went to meet him on the farm and i found him in amongst the leaks and we sat down on the soil and we were peeling the leaks together and i was you know chatting about what his experience is like running that farm what the kind of challenges are and like any ideas that he had around, you know, how he could go further with his concept or how he might be able to scale that and how other people could learn from it. And I came away from that meeting just feeling like, yes, this is it. Like, these are the kind of conversations I want to be having, like, this is exactly where I need to be. And then the next day, I met with a former investment banker who had kindly given me some of his time so that I could kind of map out the beginnings of my idea with him and he was he was really straightforward and really direct in his feedback which is exactly what I needed it was really well meaning but I also kind of came out of that meeting feeling a little bit like I'd been punched in the face there was kind of a lot of truth behind what he was saying a lot of it I didn't really want to hear it really kind of questioned for me to the extent to which I could hold on to the core concept of what I was building, like how much I was going to compromise, like how cynical I was going to have to be to make this all come together. And that was kind of right at the week. And I just finished the week thinking this just so much, I still haven't thought through so many unanswered questions. And every time my idea gets a little bit more developed, there's a new layer of complexity that emerges, which is exactly how it should be. But it feels you really kind of confronting every time that happens. And I have this desire to just have it all neatly packaged up and feel this kind of total confidence in the whole thing. And I'm so far off that point. Of course I am. I'm only two weeks in, but that's how I want to feel. And, you know, and the deeper I go into it, the more I realize there's so much that I have to work out. And I keep coming up at these points of thinking, does it even make sense? Like. Is there actually like a kernel of possibility here that I can build from? And by the end of the week, I was just feeling, yeah, a bit overwhelmed by it all. And so I started to do what I see people around me and my clients doing all the time and started sort of looking sideways and thinking, you know, maybe I need to just spend a little bit more effort on... you know, making sure that my coaching practice is really stable and doing more marketing for that and perhaps doing a bit more outreach that and making that more of a priority. Or perhaps I need to think about a completely different kind of income stream. And, you know, maybe I need to go back to some of the things that I, you know, that I did at my company that I know that I'm really, really good at, that I can charge a lot for, you know, and maybe once I've got like those things really solid, then I can start thinking. about this business and I could feel my energy all sort of starting to dissipate into different directions and it kind of all came together last night when I had a few hours to myself and sat myself down and gave myself a really good talking to and I realized like it came down to a fundamental question of do I want to build this thing? Do I want to pursue this venture? And the answer was yes. The answer was yes, I'm in. I am absolutely in. I want to do this. I am going to do this. And as I thought that, this kind of smile just spread through my whole body, my whole energy shifted because I think I actually really needed to know that for myself, that this really is what I want. But it couldn't just be words. Words... isn't enough. It needed to be a total commitment. That is really what needed to shift for me. I needed to stop looking around, looking for those exits and go all in. And I know that as a founder, like this is not my first time doing this. I know how much commitment it takes. I know that your belief has to be. incredibly strong it has to serve you every single day and yet I was putting more energy into kind of contingency plans and different revenue streams and like what did my my backup options look like and it had to stop that's what I realized I needed to not give myself reasons to back out, not... be in such a vulnerable position that somebody else's questioning or rationale could affect me so deeply. You know I thought back to the first time I was a founder like when I was in my mid-20s and people would offer advice that I had really no interest in about how I should structure my agency and they really didn't believe that it was viable to build an agency that purely focused on climate tech and people would say things to me like you know you you're going to have to diversify, you're going to have to take corporate contracts if you want to make this happen. And the advice just kind of washed off me because I just, that was not my vision. I didn't believe it. And I was completely committed to the agency that I was building. And I needed to find some of that kind of unswerving belief in this new venture. And it's something that I have seen. in myself as a founder but also in the hundreds of founders that I've worked with. They don't look around, they just look straight ahead and that doesn't mean that they're not open to feedback and advice and that their ideas don't evolve and adapt sometimes very, very dramatically and that they don't need to test and question and to iterate. Of course, all of that is part of the process of building something. that works, that's resilient, that has value. But the belief really has to be unwavering. And fundamentally, it's belief in yourself and in your identity as the founder of that venture, of the owner of that idea. Looking around just dissipates energy. And for me, anyway, it's time for that to stop. After I made this decision, I... took a walk and I remembered some advice that was shared with me when I first started acting school. In fact it was a set text when I went to drama school. It was a book by David Mamet called True or False. I can't remember, it's basically advice to actors. And one of the things that he says in this book, which is very uncompromising, is if you can do something else, go and do it. And I think that advice was pretty much kind of reiterated as well when I began at drama school. And I've always hated it. I don't agree with it at all because there were lots of other things that I could have done other than going to drama school. You know, I had good grades behind me. I had offers to go to university. I wanted to be. an actor. I'd wanted it since I was about six years old. You know, that is what I was going to do. That was my choice. That was what I committed to. It wasn't about whether there were other options. I knew that there were, but this is what I chose. I chose to be an actor and I lived that identity and that commitment every day up until the point that I made a different decision when I was 25 and And I chose to become a founder and to build my own company. And I believed in that company and I lived in that identity and I committed to it every single day. And the company is now 16 years old. It's no longer, you know, it's no longer my baby to carry. Somebody else does that. But I still continue to believe in it to this day. And now, today, building this new venture. I make the same commitment. I commit to seeing it all the way through to being the founder of that venture, to owning that idea and to bringing that vision to life. And of course, I know that there will be challenges and setbacks and maybe even healthy doses of despair, but I will not waver. That is my commitment to myself. And that is the level of commitment that I believe is required from anyone who is building something novel or meaningful or hard, you need to make that commitment to yourself. So I can tell you that I'm going into this new week with a very different kind of energy. And I think it's because I have let myself fully step into that identity. So I'm no longer thinking, what else should I be thinking about? you know what else should I be putting my energy into? Should I just spend some time you know doing a bit of strategic work over here as a sort of backup? No I'm focused I know what my priorities are and when little decisions come up like there was a funny example was whether I should subscribe to a particular newsletter that has a lot of very relevant information to what I'm building I found myself thinking oh yeah but it's you know it's like 60 euros a month you know do I really want to make that kind of investment. And a voice in my head very clearly was like, like, Alyssa, you are the founder of this venture. Are you seriously questioning whether you're going to spend 60 euros on this subscription? No, you know, you need to make that commitment. You know, you need to do this. So I hope that you have enjoyed this little insight, this little journal entry on what is going on for me in my process of building a new venture. And if you would like to follow along the journey, I invite you to subscribe to my emails where I will share each week a little direct extract from what is going on for me and some suggestions on how you can apply those learnings to your own journey of transforming your career or building your own business. And I would love to hear about your transformation your challenges, what it is that you're working on and the commitments that you're making to yourself, you can always reach me at Alyssa, A-L-I-S-A at regenerativeworklife.com. Thank you so much for listening and I'll be back here next week. If this episode of From Corporate to Calling was helpful or inspiring, follow the show so you don't miss an episode. And if you know someone who's questioning their career, send them this podcast. Lifelines are meant to be shared. Remember, you don't have to tolerate burnout or misalignment. You can redirect your skills into meaningful work that brings back life to you and to the world around you.
