If it's WFY, kiss it goodbye!


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Curly Hair | Straight Talk

As my coaching business turns three, I also celebrate the one-year anniversary of Curly Hair | Straight Talk. I’m proud of this milestone because it means I kept a promise to myself: I have sent an issue on the first Tuesday of every month since last December.

It’s a commitment I nearly didn’t keep.

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO

Some issues took five to six hours from start to send. For months, I asked myself: Is there a more effective way to spend my time? Is there a better way to find the right clients?

Because I couldn’t answer those questions with certainty, more than once, I considered stopping. I became frustrated with my ambivalence, so I got curious and explored my repeated impulse to quit. That’s when I realized what was happening:

I was allowing myself to be distracted by unsolicited emails promising the secret sauce to driving results.
I was giving my attention to social media posts about programs that purportedly deliver seven-figure earnings.
I was feeling conflicted by some of the advice I was receiving even from people I know and trust.

While there were helpful bits, some of it felt wrong. Not empirically wrong but wrong for me (WFM).

I GOTTA BE ME

I’ve always had a clear sense of myself. I instinctively know when something does or doesn’t feel like ME, and I listen to that voice. Yet, when it came to marketing my practice, I wasn’t trusting myself.

I had this nagging thought: Maybe I can get better, faster results doing this a different way.

Here’s the problem: I like my way. I have fun creating every issue of CH | ST—thinking about the content, writing and designing it, and finding the right images to include.

Another problem? I don’t like a lot of the other ways. I don’t want to send unsolicited emails or post ads. I cringe every time someone promises me six or seven-figure earnings.

Sure, I want to earn a nice living, but money has never been my primary motivator, so how can I follow someone using money as the hook?

GO YOUR OWN WAY

In his book Dreaming in the 21st Century, Will Sharon wrote, "By the time we are in our late 20's we have denied a great deal of ourselves in the service of pursuing objectives that we have decided are important."

The truth is maybe I could get better, faster results doing this a different way, but I’m not willing to deny important parts of myself pursuing that objective. I’m not going to do something that feels WFM.