There are so many moments in business, especially when you’re newer, when you don’t feel completely confident. When the emotional content of what’s going on really throws you for a loop.
And, when clients of ours confront that, they often feel like they can’t then follow through with what’s needed, because they don’t feel in alignment. They feel are turned around and strange in their bellies, or wherever.
I am so familiar with that feeling.
Here’s a simply spiritual truth: Alignment is where you are.
It’s an easy concept that can be very challenging to embrace and live, because it requires a vulnerability that is rarely given space in our current culture.
If you’re lacking confidence, your alignment, the place where you are strongest, is when you embrace being not confident.
If you’re scared or nervous, your strongest ground to stand on, is being scared or nervous.
This is NOT about pushing through. This is NOT about faking confidence, or hiding your fear. It’s about standing where you are.
Maybe you need to talk to a potential client, and you’re nervous and uncertain.
Here’s the painful, ineffective way to do it:
Pretend you’re not nervous or uncertain, and push through with a lot of bravado. You then come across to the other person as stiff, or fake, or disconnected.
They leave.
Here’s the more effective, real way to do it:
You embrace the truth: you’re uncertain. You’re scared. What is the fear about? What is the uncertainty about?
Maybe the uncertainty is whether you can help them? Maybe the fear is feeling unclear about whether they need your help?
Maybe you embrace that, and speak it. “I realize as we’re meeting, that I’m uncertain what you’re needing and whether I can help you. It’s really important to me that if you invest money and time in my services, that they actually help you. Do you mind if I ask you a bunch of questions about your situation, so I can get clear, so we both can get clear?”
Truth carries power.
When we hear that phrase, most often the image is someone standing strong with a clear voice of truth and the armies surrounding them crumble.
But that is just one image.
We rarely see the image of the uncertain, nervous, scared person embracing the truth of where they are, and speaking it, and asking for what they need to remedy the uncertainty.
I have a saying that my clients probably get sick of hearing: 95% of marketing and sales, and business, problems can be solved with the truth.
Very often what I mean is a scenario exactly like this.
What happens if you embrace the truth of where you are, if you come into alignment with the ground you are actually standing on, emotionally, spiritually, business-wise?
What kind of strength and power and clarity is available to you there? What path opens?
How steady do you feel taking the next step when you don’t have to pretend you’re somewhere else?
It’s so much easier to dance and have fun in business when your feet are directly under where you are.
Ready to dance?
With appreciation,
Mark Silver, M. Div.
Heart of Business, Inc.
Every act of business can be an act of love.
P.S. Small group coaching
For a long time I’ve had a single small group coaching, a group of six amazing, heart-centered business owners, who are evolving their businesses with heart and practical steps, making more money, making them more stable., and easier to run.
It’s a delight.
It’s been in my heart to open a second group, which I’m doing!
The basics are: two 90 minute live calls per month, private online group for weekly feedback and deepening, spiritual teaching and support every call in addition to individual attention. It’s a lot of support, and people make a lot of progress.
If you’re interested, you can read about it here. Fill out the form on this page, and we’ll talk and see if you’re a fit.
