13: Mirror of Entrepreneurship

Starting a business felt daunting to me. But making bold moves and embarking on new adventures is often how I roll. So I was up for the challenge. I find it fun to try new things and stretch myself. If I had known what I was getting myself into, though, I’m not really sure that I would have signed up for entrepreneurship, at least not in the way that I started down this path.

I wanted to be a coach and consultant. It’s what came easily to me and what I enjoyed. In fact, it’s what I had already been doing with workforce development programs and organizations in the midst of major transition. I had just never called the work a business. I also hadn’t advertised what I could do. Contracts had come to me without even looking for them. Entrepreneurship felt different and scary, but not out of reach. I was familiar with uncertainty.

My career path had always been nonlinear and it had also been without a corporate resume. My work had primarily been in higher education or with nonprofits. When I read bios of International Coaching Federation (ICF) coaches, I saw “success” markers I didn’t have and “leadership” titles I hadn’t held. And yet, I knew that I could do the work. I was already doing it and seeing the impact of work I was involved in through LinkedIn posts, direct comments, and feedback I had collected at the end of a contract. But I still felt out of my league.

Not knowing where to start, credentials seemed worth pursuing to “prove” my credibility. So I started on a path to become an ICF-certified coach. On the side, I had studied massage therapy for fun. And this led me to explore Somatic Experiencing®, a three-year training that teaches nervous-system flexibility in an experiential way. I was following threads of curiosity without a strategic plan for what I was actually going to do with these body-focused skills. The only thing I knew was that I wasn’t interested in spending my days as a massage therapist giving a traditional massage.

Though I loved exploring anatomy, structure, function, and movement, I found massage itself to be somewhat monotonous. Working with individuals and organizations in the midst of abrupt change was more interesting. But as an unofficial athlete for most of my adult life, cultural explorer, and language instructor, the work I was doing felt flat when it excluded body awareness, perception, and expression.

So, on the path I went and my curious mind loved it. I was exposed to a variety of modalities, philosophies, and frameworks all at the same time. It was exciting and illuminating to be in such a deep season of learning mindset work, trauma work, and bodywork. Having worked across many disciplines, roles, and cultures, I found myself in a fun exploration of integration.

And then, life introduced some unexpected and destabilizing experiences, taking me on an emotional and psychological journey. I encountered financial stress, relationship stress, and entered existential territory. And what was most surprising was that I had experienced this kind of overwhelm before. I had unexpectedly returned to the US after living in Indonesia for three years. I had also experienced a time when I found myself in a hospital room instead of a marathon course I had trained for, unable to return to work for over a month.

With all the life experience and training I had, I never anticipated that I could reach such a low. And the low seemed to keep getting lower and even more confusing. I had the tools, understanding, and mindset to keep moving and not let the destabilization pull me out of my enjoyment of life. Yet, nothing seemed to work.

I didn’t think entrepreneurship could become this hard. Most of my career had already existed outside the traditional full-time structure and didn’t come with a regular paycheck. I was used to iterating in real time, finding opportunities, doing good work, and connecting with people along the way. What’s ironic is that in pursuit of professional trainings for credibility and even programs for business building, I discovered the “dark side” of the coaching and wellness industry. Or, perhaps, the most unexamined part of myself.

The marketing approach that tells you what your “problem” is and what “the solution” is, was constantly showing up in my feeds and conversations. It began to feel like an invitation to pay someone to convince me to believe a story they made up about me. And sometimes the story felt so disconnected from what was true for me and my life experience that it seemed more about the practitioner or program than about me. I also noticed that many coaches and programs were for other coaches. The industry I was stepping into started to feel like multi-level marketing and it was not resonating with me. Is this what I was offering clients?

I had experienced so much goodness in coaching, particularly when working with organizations. It can create opportunities for people to feel witnessed in a way that can lead to changes in perception, actions taken, and creative flow. What I started to notice and experience was coaching that centered around teachings or beliefs from the coach, making the “coaching” feel like something very different. Was I being discerning or missing something? What I think is most true is that coaching can be helpful in certain seasons and sometimes it’s not that season. Or the coach and client might not be a good fit. And sometimes I think consulting is more appropriate (or is what the coaching relationship actually is). It could also be that the more direct path to what a client is seeking is sleep, physical activity, time in nature, or connecting with life itself and the people in it. Ubiquitous coaching offers and transformational events became overwhelming. Coaching lost its spark and started to become confusing.

I remember once being invited to the next level of a program and another time being invited to buy a package of additional coaching for an “even greater” experience. These offers felt belittling, as if what I did or learned wasn’t enough. Why was I still getting the same marketing all over again? I kept asking myself what I was getting wrong. It seemed I wasn’t getting something right because my business simply wasn’t growing in the way I desired, even after all the practical and inner work I had been doing (and continued to do). Who and what could I trust? I was making up lots of stories trying to figure it all out.

This existential season of entrepreneurship was rough. I had never felt so alone and lonely. And my personal life couldn’t even distract me. Instability had replaced nearly every area of life that had felt stable. It wasn’t until I met someone who not only taught me new skills, but also demonstrated business building in a relational way, even believing in me enough to pay me for a session, that something started to shift. I began moving out of this spiral of doubt I had been in, for longer than I had preferred to acknowledge, towards my own knowing. I started to trust myself again.

And as I started trusting myself, I noticed that in coaching, and even in the somatic community, meaning could get assigned to patterns and body posture in ways that did not match my lived experience. Some of this was even counter to what I had learned in the massage world. I wondered if I had niched myself to the point of no longer feeling connected to myself. So, I took a break from the coaching world completely.

I leaned into bodywork and discovered that massage can be extremely fascinating and fun. I started honing my craft, deepening my curiosities, and finding that the work I was doing with clients was having a more profound impact than I knew was possible. Integrating what I had learned from body reading and working with fascia opened a whole new world for me. The suspension of meaning-making had always been much more interesting to me.

This season helped me recognize that I do not have to lose myself or fit into a mold of what my business or approach should look like. I spent a lot of energy trying to reconcile methods and approaches that didn’t feel aligned for me. It may have been more useful to acknowledge the variety of ways that people coach, learn, and grow. But my sense is that I’m now building a clearer business. I’m even coaching again, just in a way that feels more resonant. The goal is for my role as coach to be increasingly unnecessary. So I’m approaching it in the way I try to do most things: as a creative act. What I have learned in trainings is useful and I integrate it into what I do, but I’m much more interested in keeping what I do practical, iterating in real time, and inviting those I work with into experiments. It’s playful and pressure-relieving. It feels more aligned with staying curious, suspending meaning-making, and supporting agency. And I’m loving it all so much more.

I have found my way back to myself and entrepreneurship has become fun again. I see the good in what I’m offering. And people keep expressing that they feel lighter, connected, and clearer after our sessions, whether I’m coaching, consulting, or giving a massage. So, I want to keep contributing, learning, and inviting self-connection.

I’m grateful for what three years of building a business has taught me and what I get to create in the world. I know there will be more seasons that feel more unpleasant than I want to face, but it doesn’t have to mean that I’ve done something wrong or that there is a block to clear. It can be an opportunity to create differently or let myself be more of who I am. Thank you, entrepreneurship, for inviting me to experience life differently in ways I wouldn’t have expected. I’m glad to be in a season that feels a bit more stable, playful, lighter, and more me.

And thank you to those demonstrating creative acts in business and life.

Here’s a shoutout to Zach Carlsen, a colleague who shares a practical example of his own when it comes to business building in one of his blog posts: Money and the Nervous System.

Here’s a video I recently stumbled across while looking for content for a class I’m teaching that, to me, also disrupts the idea that a particular way of being is inherently suboptimal: Stop fighting your anxiety and start using it.

And lastly, here’s an interview I also used in a class that beautifully describes the connection between feeling, presence, and creating as a way of being: Rick Rubin on the Creative Act.

Oh, and one more that I cannot resist. It’s one of my favorite videos demonstrating creativity, love, play, and intention: Inside Jon Batiste & Suleika Jaouad’s Soul-Filled Brooklyn Home.

Acknowledgements:

To Soma Lingua clients: Thank you for trusting me as your practitioner and collaborator in the moments you’ve desired to feel more ease, relaxation, and self-connection. It has been fun to work with you. And knowing that there are so many practitioners, and that you’ve chosen to work with me, means a lot.

Joan: I’m incredibly grateful to you for your care, mentorship, and support with case consultations. Your support during the final stretch of my journey to become an SEP^TM was invaluable. I still remember how impactful your words were back in Singapore when you helped me recognize that I was in a state of overwhelm that I couldn’t even see. It was such an eye-opening moment. I am so grateful.

Tricia: I enjoy our conversations. I love that we can talk about life, business building, dreams, disappointments, joys, and whatever is real in our lives. I’m grateful for your friendship, authenticity, and support. And thank you for always encouraging me to keep going. May we be able to laugh about the rough patches more and more.

Lola and Jennifer: Thank you for seeing me, cheering me on, celebrating my efforts, reminding me of my humanity, and modeling love instead of judgement. You have helped me see myself more clearly and to own my work and my power more honestly. I’m truly grateful.

To my colleagues, mentors, and practitioners: I am incredibly grateful for our conversations and for your willingness to say what might be hard to hear. I’m grateful that we can laugh as we enjoy the ups and downs of business building and the ways that we experience life. And I’m glad that we get to work together in meaningful ways. Through your care, skills, attunement, and partnership, my life feels richer, lighter and more beautiful

Snehesh: Thank you for helping me recognize that I do not need to claim responsibility for every little thing in life. I never would have thought that cracking your mug all those years ago would help me recognize that I do not need to fix everything all the time or find a lesson for each moment. The mug was cracked. I even wanted to fix that grammar from passive to active, which is now funny looking back. You constantly give me opportunities to reframe and see from a different lens, opening my eyes to completely new ways of seeing. I am deeply grateful.

To my family: Thank you for modeling and instilling a mindset to see beauty, possibility, opportunity, and the value of human connection. I’m grateful for the ways music, play, complexity, and fortitude have fueled our conversations and interactions. I feel lucky to have such supportive, inspiring, and loving relationships in our immediate circle. And I’m grateful to be part of a family line that has not let invisible ceilings, hardships, or failures derail their dreams. It is such a gift to get to experience your raw talents, skills, perspectives, and feelings. Thank you for living and laughing with me.