A friend of mine tells a story about finding the courage to leave his job and go full-time with his own business.
Billy was making multiple six figures working on Wall Street. While he had plenty of money, he hated his job and dreamed of leaving to pursue his side hustles, but felt stuck and afraid to leave.
Then one day when he was walking down Fifth Avenue, he had a realization:
“I can always make money as long as I’m willing to help people.”
Billy saw opportunities to help people everywhere, and he was always happy to do it. This realization set him free, and he quit his job the next day.
When Billy shared this story with me years ago, I saw how simple creating money was: it was helping people get something they wanted.
I love helping people. That should be easy! (And it was.)
Helping others probably comes naturally for you, too, since the coaches and changemakers in my community tend to be givers, healers and servants of humanity.
But here’s the thing I’ve really been seeing lately:
While helping people is the simple ingredient necessary to create money, you also have to ask for money.
How much time do you want to spend giving and not being paid for it?
Now, as anyone who serves from the heart knows – the reward of serving comes from the act itself.
But…
…it should not come at the cost of not meeting your own needs.
I think it’s too easy for us helpers and givers to focus on the service, and forget to take care of ourselves.
There are a few ways this shows up with people in my community. Maybe this is you?
- Pouring all your energy into serving others to the point of overwork, exhaustion and burnout.
- Helping others first and feeling resentful because your projects and desires are always at the bottom of the list.
- Having so many volunteer or non-paying projects, even joyful ones, that you’re not paying attention to the activities that pay the bills.
This is a wake up call for me and you.
You can’t change the world if you can’t pay the bills.
We need to learn to play the game of money if we want to change the world in beautiful ways. That means making sure our needs are met through the work we do, which includes asking for and receiving money.
If you can’t pay your bills, put food on the table, and care for your bodily needs, your service to others will be diminished.
The alternative is discovering that heartfelt service IS the path to paid, a joyful, generous and rewarding path at that. Money is a tool you can use to change the world in beautiful ways, and creating it through your business can be a profound act of love and devotion.
If you’d like to create money and impact in ways that feel authentic, aligned and joyful for you, come work and play with us in the IMPACT membership.
You’ll watch your resistance to charging money dissolve as you discover that caring for yourself is caring for the world. Then your impact will grow from the abundant overflow of being you doing what you love.
https://www.theawakenedbusiness.com/impactinvite
Yours in love and play,
Steph
