Pretending everything is ok is not a good way to grow.
The modern world asks us to lie. To ourselves and to each other. As children we are socialized to repress our instincts and needs. To be polite. To be nice. To take what is given. To be the right size for whatever room we walk into.
As adults we are taught to be “better than”. To take up space. Fake-it-till-you-make-it. Create the market before you have even made (or done) the thing…
And so, when clients come to me, the thing they want is barely ever what they really need. We are nervous to admit this stuff to anyone, even ourselves. It’s not easy to be honest about what we are really thinking about.
It’s scary to show what we really don’t know.
But lying makes bad business. We have all seen it a million times. Not only are the people who are lying icky, but the business itself becomes rotten from the core. The only way to make something good, that’s real – is to BE something good, thats real. And this takes courage.
I had a client recently who came to me for website optimization. In our first session we spoke at length about how she came up with the idea for the business. She shared the trials and heartwarming parts of her journey with me. And her mission of support in her services was absolutely clear.
But then when we started talking about how the work worked, I began to realize that she had never really done it before. I work with clients at all stages of business: from idea, to refinement, to selling or creating spin-offs. So, it’s not uncommon for people to come with a new business idea that they need to flesh out to make work. But I am surprised at how many people need this – to think through the inner-working of their work together. And I recently released why…
We are taught to be shiny, no matter what.
In the fake it till you make it model, we are told to only share the shiny parts of ourselves, our ideas, our lives. And since it’s perfectly normal in today’s market to start creating buzz for something that doesn’t even exist yet, we start developing and sharing about something as though its already there. But I can see this from a long way off. After 15+ years of small business development, this is easy to spot:
Give me someone speaking in high theory and I’ll show you someone who has never done it.
To talk about how things actually work is to be vulnerable. For a solopreneur it means talking about interpersonal reactions, practical expertise and about being honest enough to say what they really want out of the business.
To build a solid business, we need to tell the truth because this work, undone, plagues the future of any business. Figuring out how things work is something we just can’t do alone. We need reflection, accountability and the space to find the creative solutions that provide new forms of working and building things.
Holding space for this transformative truth is why I do (and love) what I do.