Sustainability in Business: A Different Approach (Without the Hustle)
Before I start this podcast, I’m trying something new y’all. I know that we all have different ways we choose to consume content. This podcast Brave, BOLD & Badass, will now simultaneously be a video you can watch on my Utube channel.
Like all the places you can find me, I’m on Youtube at @kgracehowes.
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You can now watch podcast episodes on my Youtube channel.
TODAY'S EPISODE: Entrepreneurship Without the Hustle
Okay, let’s get to this week’s episode.
The Falsehood of Hustle Culture
The falsehood we women were told when we first entered the world of business (and that some still believe today) is that there’s one “way” to do things and that way is to constantly hustle.
Know up front that I am not knocking the hustle culture. You do you.
But, it’s been drilled into anyone who starts a business that, in order to survive in business, it is a 24/7 game of constant pushing, striving and using aggressive marketing tactics.
Because you gotta get in the head of your customers. They don’t know what they want. You’ve gotta tell them. You’ve got to push them to buy your service or product.
The worst part of all of this mental machination is we’re told not to be ourselves as we work to build and grow our business or passion project, not to serve in the way we know how to do AND to make some bank while we’re at it.
Female energy not wanted, needed or cared about.
And to be sure, (although this podcast is not about money) there’s nothing wrong with making money y’all.
It’s the mindset, false narrative and expectations we attach to creating it in abundance for ourselves that skews things up for us, making it unreachable in our mindset state.
I am not a money coach but I know 2 really good ones I’ll leave their links so you can check them out.
So this falsehood that we have to step into a different persona we don’t even recognize ourselves in, that we need to be okay with this way of working in order to truly claim success, to create a successful business.
All crap. All crap.
And we’re told to believe that it’s either that or go back to collecting a paycheck working for someone else. Not saying working a 9-5 is wrong but if that’s not the path you want to be on you’re shite outta luck.
So the Truth About The Hustle
A question I’ve never been able to answer is:
Why is the hustling way of working, pushing ourselves till we’re exhausted physically, emotionally and spiritually, the only readily accepted way to be in business?
Why does it have to be a zero-sum game?
As if enjoying what we do and the business we’ve created can never be a part of the picture…or else you’re doing “it” wrong.
Does it always have to be an all-or-nothing scenario?
My work as a mindset coach for mid-life solopreneurs is to help women unlearn what they think is irrefutable, unchangeable facts about themselves while doing the deep to find out who they truly are at this stage in their life.
If I’m describing you, by doing this inner work you’re able to release yourself from any external shackles you or others have placed on yourself.
You’re able to fully grasp and express yourself in business in a way that serves who you are but, more importantly, who you are becoming.
Because the more you dig, the more you align yourself with the values, beliefs and principles that honour you, that help express the fullness of your essence, you’re able to then follow the clues you’ve been dropping all along that have now been unearthed.
Part of that unlearning is understanding that you’ve always had complete autonomy in decision-making, especially about what your business looks like and how you choose to operate in it.
And you’ll see that to get where and what you want, what you deserve, and to achieve all the brilliantly badass and larger-than-life goals you have for your business’ upward trajectory….daily hustling is not how you want to operate.
A fundamental way I’ve found to start the process of moving away from this hustle mindset is to establish a sense of FLOW.
For clarity, FLOW, as I ascribe for these purposes, is a way of existing and staying present to what is, allowing your present to inform your future.
When you’re in FLOW, especially in business, you are constantly reflecting back to yourself what you need to do to stay present, so that you show up more potently and effectively as the CEO of your business, a woman who can claim her power and be in self-care at the same time.
FLOW, aligned FLOW and hustle conditioning and thought processes cannot co-exist simultaneously.
For me in my biz, FLOW is a state of being and is also one where I don’t bend or contort myself to fit anyone else’s expectations.
And I gotta tell you, it’s also where ease is a larger part of the picture these days. I am no longer willing, nor are my clients, to rush any process or project just to get the numbers right.
Another one where hustle and ease don’t mesh.
And because ease is about giving free rein, it’s amazing how we then more readily allow for more spaciousness, more openness about all the things that affect us.
And, when there is nothing standing in your way…even you or your errant thoughts, more possibility finds its way to you in the form of collaborations + new ways of working AND resting.
Kathleen Saelens, an Embodied Sovereignty Coach, describes this way of working as…
“a gradual process of increased clarity and things falling into place, bit by bit”.
That’s how I choose to live my life and by default how I show up in biz. And it’s what I want for you as well.
Working in this intuitive way allows space for new ideas to be generated and acted on in a way that is not only good for your bottom line but for the people you choose to serve.
Being in FLOW is a way for you as a woman to access your divine, feminine badassery, an innate power that you’ve always possessed, in case you didn’t know.
In business it means being able to define how you work, your productive style, so to speak, in a way that meets your needs mental, physical AND energetic capacity as you go through your week.
It’s funny how so many of us think that the constant striving and pushing and the aggressive nature of hustle is what brings in abundance.
But then realize that when we drop that way of existing in business, how all of this brilliance and excellence can exist outside of the hustle culture.
As women in business, we don’t have to go after everything in a hard, fiercely determined no-holds-barred way.
We can be both strong AND flexible.
We can be firm leaders AND still have compassion.
We can be present in both our feminine while also freely accessing our masculine energies.
A prerequisite to getting to and staying in FLOW is taking the time to learn about both parts of your energy states.
Typical feminine gender energies include being non-linear, creative, intuitive, nurturing and empathic.
Typical masculine gender energies include being linear, structured, protective, logical and yes, hard. We don’t need both sets of gender-specific energies acting within us for every situation.
But by becoming more aware of what’s happening around you (and within you) you can attune yourself to access what you need, yet still act in a way that is NOT antithetical to your own nature or way of being.
It’s finding out what enhances your strengths and serves your needs both in business and personally.
It means honouring your values, those internal driving forces that guide the thoughts you think, the decisions you make and the actions you take.
Honouring your values in business can look like:
▸ Holding fast to your boundaries.
▸ Knowing when you need to regroup or rest.
▸ Compassion in moments of failure.
▸ Celebrating even your micro successes.
▸ Adhering to the values that matter most to you.
Core values are very much a part of how we operate on a daily basis that the majority of people are not consciously aware of.
As you’re reading, if you’re not sure about the concept of values I’ll give you a few examples.
Fairness. Commitment. Respect. Creativity. Equality. Curiosity. Adventure. To be sure, what I listed makes up a very,very small list.
More importantly though and what I want you to know is that honouring your values, specifically in business is key to your success.
When you honour your values it looks like:
…respecting the way your brain operates, with no self-derision or self-judgment coming in to cloud your view.
…being able to hold firm with internal and external boundaries,
…understanding your capacity both energetically and mentally,
…showing up in your business and serving your audience consciously, ethically and authentically you.
A Place To Start
So I want to give you a place to start.
It begins by answering these next questions that will clue you in to see if you’re still in a hustle state or have moved off that train.
What trade-offs are you making in pursuit of business success? If you are compromising your integrity to get the sale, that’s a clue that you are devaluing or overriding your internal boundaries.
What personal values are you more regularly disregarding and not standing firm in to make sure you hit that financial marker, things that, if you take a minute to really think about it, are not of you but more about what everyone else is claiming for them?
In what ways are you allowing external forces to dictate what and how you do business? ….be they from people you look up to or biz strategies and “norms” you’ve always followed because that’s the way biz is done.
In her book Burning Woman, Lucy H. Pearce wrote:
Once we start to work with Feminine power … we learn to become aware of these various patterns and their impact on us and work more consciously with, rather than against, or in spite of them. We learn to trust the flow.
And for frame of reference, the book Burning Woman explores:
1. Burning from within: a woman’s power—how to build it, engage it and not be destroyed by it.
2. Burning from without: the role of shame, and honour in the time-worn ways the dominant culture uses fire to control the Feminine.
Sustainability in business is a way of working that needs to be defined by you and you alone.
Whether you choose to go the hustle route it must be a conscious choice for you, one that you get to define that still contains boundaries for how you operate and the impact you want to make.
Hustle marketing, sales and operating don’t have to happen.
Hustling to achieve your goals and ignoring any discomfort it brings up—energetically, ethically, physically or mentally— goes against who you are and the values you hold dear.
How you chose to sustain yourself in business gets to look the way you and your business need it to look.
After all, your business is you and the people you serve.
And if the ones who are coming to you for your support, service or product, if they are ANYTHING like you, they won’t respond to any part of hustle culture.
Be all you. NO ONE, no other person can bring your flavour of badass to the table.
Alrighty then, till next time,
Be Brave.
Be Bold.
Stay Badass.
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