As I move forward in my life, I often think back to my past. I find that the past controls more of my present and future than I ever really realized.
The more I study and learn about the brain, heart coherence, and healing past emotional wounds, the more I call out and work through the tender pains of my past.
Sometimes there are things we forget, simply because it wasn't very important for our unconscious mind to hold on to. For other times, the subconscious protects us and hides those terrifying moments from us.
I am learning to dive deeper to find those memories that are hard to recall. They help me to overcome the barriers that hold me back in my life right now.
Since becoming an entrepreneur, I encounter learning moments and old memories to overcome just about every day. This constant inner work is helpful and sometimes exhausting... even never ending! I definitely have days when I shout, "Please, can it just be easy today!"
I spent my life believing I was a worker. I collected my first paycheck at age 16. My first job was in the neighboring town 15 miles away at Dairy Queen. I actually worked there for a year and a half, which was a long time for a fast food business. I drove myself when I had a car... and took the bus when my car accidents left me with a car in the shop.
I had other jobs during my teenage years. In college, I had a work study job for the University's athletic department. It allowed me to work so I could pay for college. I loved that job.
By the time I graduated from college, I had secured an accountant position in a local accounting firm. I was earning a decent paycheck and was doing the work I had set out to do based on the degree I earned.
For the next 16 years, I worked to earn a paycheck for various companies. I never even thought about working for myself. My parents had never done that. I hadn't opened my mind to think that way and see that possibility.
So imagine my surprise when I started digging into my past to remember (and realize) all of the entrepreneurial skills I gained during my adolescent years.
During middle school and high school, I had to fundraise for everything I wanted to attend. For example, I played competitive soccer. To attend out-of-state tournaments, my team and I had to fundraise. I can now recall baking cookies at school for sporting needs. I had to sell wrapping paper, lollipops, See's Candies, and candy grams for school fundraisers, so I could attend a school trip to New York and attend the National Young Leaders Conference in Washington DC.
Because my parents worked at grocery stores, they would dump me in front of the store to sell these items. And when I think about those many times, I hated it. But I did it anyway. Because I thought I had to.
Then I got to thinking about when I was even younger than all of that, when I was the tender ages 7-10. During those years, I sold snow cones and lemonade at a stand on a street corner. Me and various kids on my street decided to start competing newspapers. Both sets of newspapers were "sold" to neighbors up and down our street.
Newspapers. How creative was that?
Wow. I had entrepreneurial skills as a young child and I totally forgot about all of that.
Why did I spend all of my life working for others when I was capable of paving my own way as an entrepreneur? Probably because I was raised to get a job (outside of the grocery markets). I was told to go to college and to get a job. End of story.
So fast forward to a weekend last month. My 9 year-old daughter, Tayla, and her friend came up with the idea to produce various bead design creations. These are the tiny beads you place together to create an animal, item, or anything, and then you iron to melt the beads together. They began emitting really creative ideas that even the guide book didn't have - popsicles with a bite out of it, a chicken bone, a hamburger, a huge lollipop with a ribbon around the stick... They were creative.
On the Sunday morning, my husband comes in the room and snickers that the girls want to sell their designs. Apparently they wanted to sell them on the street. When daddy said we don't get a lot of traffic, they thought about going door-to-door, but then decided the park was a great venue.
I said "good for them", and my husband stated "Who is going to buy those?"
So off to the park I went with the girls because daddy saw it as a waste. He made it clear he believed they wouldn't sell a thing. They played for a while and then were ready to set up shop. They begin to feel a bit nervous. They set up their mini-suitcase on a bench near the front walkway.
No one really walked by.
They asked what they should do. I suggested that they could walk around. They could either talk to parents who had purses, or they could start with showing kids who could then ask their parents for money.
The girls made their way over to a married couple. I was out of earshot and really just minded my own business. I was there to deliver them and assist if necessary, but this was their idea, their gig, and I wanted them to see it through.
They came back really excited. "Hey, we got $5!" They sold 2 designs and were able to keep the change.
They made other sells where they were given excess money above their selling price. They also received what they asked for. They also received nos, but they kept walking around the park, showing their goods and asking for the sells.
By the time we left, the girls had earned $14.50! They were so excited and so proud. I was proud too.
My husband was proud and really surprised.
I told him that this is why we must always continue to remain neutral, to be curious and to ask questions, but to never tell someone that something is impossible.
The truth is everyone of us has had a dream at some point. And at some point, someone told us it would fail. So we learned to stop going after our dreams.
I am so grateful that the girls continued to visualize their dream and they followed through with it. My daughter was fearless. She really loved doing the selling, whereas her friend was a little more embarrassed and nervous.
When I think about the abilities my daughter already has I get really excited. Not only has she sold Fall coasters, banana nut bread loaves, and other items at her school over the past couple of years, she has also sold bags of popcorn on a street corner with a friend. She has the passion and desire for entrepreneurship. It is now my duty as her parent to foster that gift - to encourage her when she loses faith and even the drive.
Maybe if I had found things I had loved selling - and wasn't forced to do it in a way that I hated - I could have helped myself today in my business. I could have already known what works for me and what doesn't. I would have known that it is not okay to push for the sake of pushing. I would have known to do things MY way instead of following someone else's way or listening to their ideas.
My intuition knows what is best for me and I am finally listening to it more and more. I am also finally calling out my past and challenging the old stories I believed as truth. Can you relate?
What would it take for you to free yourself from living how everybody else wants you to live so you could simply do it YOUR way and BE you?
It's very healing to release the pains of my past so that I may rediscover the truth of who I am. It also helps me to step even more fully into my role as an entrepreneur; guiding others to find their own alignment from the inside out.
It is SO liberating to find me all over again.
I sincerely wish that you too may find YOU and the gifts and talents that have been hidden inside of you for way too long.