The Final, Scary Leap: Saying It Out Loud
There is nothing left to say, but to say it out loud. As I hinted at in last week’s post, this is the point where you make the change. You’ve given yourself permission, you’ve contemplated the bigger problem, you’ve planned, you’ve crafted – but the change doesn’t happen until you give it life. It is all theoretical until you nudge your baby bird out of the nest and let it fly. You have the final, scary leap.
Here I am, nudging my idea that I’ve been incubating three months out into the world.
You may remember from previous posts that I had a handful of core motivating reasons for making a change in my business model: moving to one-to-many to reduce appointment anxiety, not being in a perpetual launch cycle, simplifying the business, so it made sense and left room for living. These have been the guiding principles of this project, the benchmarks I checked things against along the way. After I figured out who I want to help, and what their bigger problem was, these also became benchmarks to make sure that what I was making was valuable to them and me. But, here I am, putting off the inevitable – it’s time to say it out loud.
It’s called The Trail. It is a programme to get you trusting yourself enough to run your business from the soul outwards – and, crucially, to enjoy the whole process.
Back in April, as I started working with my Immersion group programme, I picked up a vibe. A vibe that everyone was feeling pretty highly strung about their businesses. Not in a bad way, not in a genuinely obvious way; it was just a feeling that there was so much worry and pressure whipped up around their businesses that there was no room left for joy. I noticed this; I think because I recognised it. I realized that need to strive towards something; I knew the pressure to hit the right benchmarks, I understood the uncertainty about what the next right thing was. I recognised the lack of joy.
I recognised it because it was the fire I had been walking through for the previous year. I had felt restless and uncertain, knowing that the reality of my life wasn’t matching up with my dreams of self-employment, knowing deep down that it was supposed to feel better than this. Outside of that group, in my podcast conversations, in the Stories I watched, and in the questions I was asked. I saw this same feeling replicated over and over—people running businesses, even successful businesses, but feeling worried, uncertain, and trapped.
What I have learned through my own experience and working with others is that self-trust leads to easefulness. All of which leads to joy. The break in that chain happens right at the start with the trust – if you don’t truly trust and cherish your inner knowledge, then joy is temporary. I spent the first half of 2019 in the ruthless pursuit of joy, attempting to inject it into my life in the form of sketching (which I did once), exercise (which I gave up), reading (didn’t stick to), baking (don’t think I even started). I was trying to add the joy without the trust, without consulting myself about what might be joyful. Because I didn’t have the confidence, my work was a slog, I second-guessed everything, and therefore it was not joyful either.
And as I keep saying, over and over – what’s the point if you’re not enjoying it?
So this is where the idea for The Trail originated. On a basic level, I wanted people to feel easeful and joyful in the day to day of running their business – and the way I could help them was to build their self-trust. As I began to develop this idea, I could see there were three red threads: knowledge to build confidence, alignment, and recognition of values, and consistently exercising trust. These three threads, plaited together, would create a strong rope of joy.
I had a concept. But what would it look like in reality? There were a few sticking points here. One is that this isn’t something where I can promise a two-week transformation – it is undoing a lifetime of conditioning. Two is that this is an individual process, and people will have different needs when it comes to knowledge, alignment, and trust. Three, I know that people often feel they need to learn more before they can do what they want. I didn’t want to facilitate that (you don’t need to learn more, you need the self-trust to see that you already have everything you need!) Four, no one has any time – this couldn’t be another thing on the to-do list stressing you out.
The Trail is, therefore, an annual programme, allowing space and time to do this work profoundly and provide the accountability to help new habits stick. The core of The Trail is our community, where individual problems and needs will be answered personally by me with suggestions of where to go next, and where you can buddy up with accountability partners. The Trail is also very much not about learning as much as you can, but just what you need – my existing courses and Kits are at your disposal, but most of The Trail material is designed to help pull yourself back into alignment and practice self-trust in your business. Lastly, The Trail is not overwhelming. There will be new resources released each month, some which may take a couple of days to complete, others a couple of hours. I have designed The Trail so that when you’re busy and have a few hours a week, you’re still getting value and making progress, but also that when you have lots of time, there is plenty for you to dive into.
Most of all, my intention for The Trail is to slot into your life and give you what you’ve been craving. It’s not another thing on the list but fills the holes in your business. It provides a structure for you to set intentions and be held in doing goal-centred work, it gives you knowledge and suggestions of what to do when you’re wobbling and provides ways to course-correct a tiny bit every day. In the community, it provides a sounding board for you to share what you’re thinking, get support when you feel lost, and get the reassurance that it’s not just you who’s experiencing this. It’s friends who get it that you can check in with and the commitment to bring more joy into your business.
Why’s it called The Trail? As the adage goes, the journey is the destination. The most important result you get in your business is how you experience it. There is no ‘there’ you can get to where someone offers up the Most Correct Business award; no goal you can reach where you’ve officially made it. There is only the path beneath your feet and whether you feel good being on it. Business isn’t about learning all the things and having all the answers – it’s about enjoying your damn life.
Let’s go back to my benchmarks and see how this hits them. The Trail is one-to-many, and while I will be regularly checking in and answering queries in there, there isn’t the same appointment anxiety. I am also developing a more advanced mastermind-style programme for a small group to launch in 2021, another one-to-many.
The Trail is my primary programme now, and the only place where you get my support. My courses, Basecamp and Campfire, and my Kits will still be available to buy without investing in The Trail, but they are reconfigured as purely self-led experiences without an additional community and support – the bonus being you can get them and work through whenever you want. This means, therefore, that I’m not in a perpetual launch cycle launching course after course after course – doors to The Trail will open and close quarterly; otherwise, everything else is always available.
And this also checks my “simplifying” box. Rather than an expanding menu of Kits and courses, there is now an either/or choice. The course menu still exists for those who want something specific. Yet, for those who want an in-depth experience, who want accountability, who wish to spend less time deciding what to do and more time doing – there is now one obvious choice.
So that’s the story – longer than I expected, but I hope that the context here helps you understand how you might tweak your business model or create a new product. You can read The Trail sales page and what’s included here, and doors will be opening next week – make sure you’re on my email list to get the first access as spaces are limited.
