Money Mind
Coming into entrepreneurship after a lifetime of corporate business has thrown me into a tailspin time and again, over these past couple of years. No doubt every single article, podcast and blog post is right: this work can be just as arduous as it is creative, liberating and lucrative.
Lucrative...right.
I’ve never seen myself as someone who comes from a mindset of scarcity. I am forever thankful for the comforts I had growing up, and for the life I have now with my own family. Gratitude comes up almost daily in my journal writings and I must sound like a broken record thanking Spirit for the people in my life and the opportunities I’m afforded. And still, money comes up for me all the time -- mostly as a patronizing fear-mongering voice reminding me that my worth comes from money; that making money defines my value.
And let me tell you, this is not the most helpful mindset for setting out to change the world through joyful, connective experiential learning! In face, the two forces butt heads all the time.
Creative Spirit: Look what we made! It’s beautiful and if it touches just one person, we’ve done our job here.
Money Mind: Yeah, yeah. But how much are we going to charge for it?
Creative Spirit: Uh, I don’t know. Can’t we just share it and see if it lands with people in my community?
Money Mind: Lands? This sh*t? This is nothing until it’s packaged, marketed perfectly and then sold like crazy. Kid, we’ve gotten nowhere, since you started this gig.
And on and on, with the banter and the judgement. Until I’m found cowering behind my computer screen trying to package and market and sell instead of relentlessly creating -- which is what every bit of my spirit is willing me to do. The joy is gone. The fear sets in. And it’s an echo of inquiries about my self worth and the purpose behind this “thing” I call, Enlivened Studios.
An episode like this happened just this past Monday in fact, and I was pretty shattered. Confused. What the hell am I doing, anyway?
Until I went back to my toolbox, where I keep my Creative Purpose declaration, my “Why” statement and the 2020 Vision I’d written up for my work. And guess what? Money was nowhere to be found. Not a whisper about it! In fact, every word I’ve used to proclaim my value to the universe is shrouded in abundance, not scarcity.
Words like:
Connection
Heart-centered
Collective aliveness
Support others
Story, play
Enliven
Fulfilled
Nope, not a peep about income or profit. Nothing here about marketability or the “perfect” service model that sells, sells, sells.
It’s a practice, shifting from scarcity to abundance, and it’s something I never thought I’d struggle with. The practice is the continuous returning to center, back to my True North. Back to the words I have written on sticky notes, journal pages and in docs stored all over my computer. It’s. All. Right. There.
So, Mr. Money Mind, while I appreciate your concerns about my financial wellbeing, I think I’ll be fine without you. At least for now. I have workshops to try and a community to serve. I have my value to value. If I need you, I know where to find you.
But for now, I’m good on my own.
Do you have a Creative Purpose statement? What about your “Why” -- do you have a sense of that too? If yes, I’d love to connect and share! If not, maybe we can chat and sculpt them together for you and your own work. After all, creativity and growth don’t happen in a vacuum. And there’s so much more energy and expression when we’re together! So reach out if you want to explore.
