A few days ago I was having a very interesting chat with a friend of mine. My friend is a brilliant, successful business person and we started chatting about what I am doing now and more importantly what I am doing next. We seemed to drift between the days we both first started our companies and how it felt at the time. I remember when I started JFTP, how excited and massively motivated I was, there was a tingly feeling in my tummy that I remember so clearly. It was that intense inspirational feeling that I had, which led me through the years of early start up all the way through to dragons den. Looking back I don’t think I had that “feeling” in my tummy after the den, it deflated shortly after I had aired in August 24th 2014. I started to lose the excitement I had for the business I had passionately believed in. I guess no matter what is said and done, hindsight is a wonderful thing.
My friend was also on dragons den and he was one of the very few people to go on and build a brilliantly successful company. When he asked me what I was doing, I kept saying, I had a tonne of ideas, but none of them gave me “that feeling”. I am ready to start and grow another business, I have learnt a lot during my downtime. There a few things that still haunt me, but I think they will die down with time. I have never been one to hide, I know I have much more to give, than to just spend the rest of my years hiding in the shadows.
What was interesting is that my friend told me “that feeling will come, it might just be at a different stage of your business” what he was saying is that, the “feeling” might arrive later on down the line. Is that possible? It really started me thinking. How will I know which idea to pick, if I can’t rely on my instincts? Picking yourself up from the floor is one thing, having the gumption (love that word) to move forward is another, deciding which Idea to follow, well that can be a minefield. We all love to use the new buzz words around aligning ourselves with our purpose, listening to the spiritual teachers popping up and watching the digital world explode in terms of life coaching.
But I am a little old school, it must be the 4th decade. I am a huge believer in trusting my gut and I have heavily relied on that tingly feeling. So I have sat for 7 months and I have waited, I have written pages and pages of plans, funnels, marketing strategies, community plans. I dipped my toe into the world of music and helped my hubby set up his record shop and built a highly engaged community in a few short months. Just to see if “I still had it” Isn’t it funny what you test yourself with 🙂 but none of those things created the “feeling”in my tummy. Its just “stuff” I know how to do because of the 6 1/2 years I spent building my amazing company.
Maybe I just have to give it a go and pick an idea and see if the inspirational, creative feeling will rear its lovely little head once again.
I would love to hear your views, did you experience “that feeling” when you started doing the work you loved?