This is keeping you from the decision that will move the needle the most [and you don’t even realize it].

After some internal questioning guided by my Leadership Coach and some prompting from a little Twitter chat with Chris Do and Mo Ismail of The Futur, I realized passionate entrepreneurs fall into this trap no matter how much money they make.

If you consider yourself as any of the following, you’ll probably realize that this is a cycle you’ve been keeping yourself in as well to the detriment of your business: multipassionate, creative, solopreneur, or personal brand.

*Disclaimer: if this isn’t true for you, then it doesn’t apply to you. You're ultimately the expert of your own experience; I’m simply sharing an overall anecdotal lesson that many can relate to and benefit from. There may very well be a different [mental health and/or trauma-related] reason for why you’re in a similar situation, and that’s not what this message is addressing today.

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Timestamps:

3:54 Downside of online solopreneurship

4:20 The danger of personal brands for multipassionates/creatives

6:00 What I had wrong about “human first business”

9:12 Don’t make business moves just because they feel good

10:00 The hard truth about your business: it doesn’t exist to fulfill you (shoutout capitalism for this one)

11:12 The reason we get so stuck in the middle of decisions, niches, services, and brand identities

11:54 Can it be a bad thing to do what you want in your business?

12:07 Is it your LIFE that needs changing, not your business…?

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Audio Transcription (although I highly recommend listening if able):

What's up? Welcome to live streams of consciousness, This is not planned, this is not a podcast, this is not really a series…It might be a series, I don't know, but I'm just going to be talking about something that I think is incredibly valuable, and it's going to bring value to you professionally and personally. So you're in for a real treat today, whether you are a five, six or seven figure entrepreneur. This is something that you can relate to, that will impact you, that will help you.

So listen up. OK, come- come at me with a little bit of humility today. We have something to learn from everyone. There is something in this for you to learn. So I'm going to try to keep it as quick and direct as possible. But you know me, I like to go deep. I'm a little long winded. So you've been warned. All right. So this is something, like I said, which is incredibly relevant for people, no matter what income range you're at. And the key is, I'm going to start with the question:

Is your business built around fulfilling you?

Or is your business built around stewardship?

One of my core values in business is stewardship, and it's really religiously rooted for me, not for everyone, but for me. It's rooted in the idea that everything I have is a gift from God, and I want to steward it well, meaning I'm going to plant and harvest so that I can reap something that is beneficial, not just for me, not just for my pockets, but for the greater good and for God's glory. And that's not necessarily the case for everyone that values stewardship, because stewardship just means taking care of something well. But I think stewardship is an essential key in business. And here's why. I was listening to a Twitter space, which is basically just an updated Clubhouse room with Chris Do from the future, you know him. I know him, love him. And one of his students, Mo. Mo has been in business for a couple of years. Has made several hundreds of thousands of dollars, 20K followers on Instagram. He's, he's on the ups, right? But Mo was having a problem that's ultimately rooted in the same problem I was having a couple of months ago before working with my coach. Shout out Sarah McCabe.

What I realized as Mo was talking, was that what he was saying was actually very similar to what I was experiencing. And I'll lay out a little bit of context for you very quickly. Mo has been making a lot of his money through his services, providing video content, social services to other entrepreneurs. But he sold a course. He enjoyed it. Of course we do right. We all like the idea of a course. We all like the idea of passive income and more freedom and less one on one time, but still making money, still serving people, still monetizing our expertise. So Mo was thinking about should he shift his business model to be fully based around the course because he said that he could fully do that. He is fully confident that that could drive just as much revenue as a service based business. Well, as Mo was talking what I realized and what Chris Do realized, and I think what we are all going to realize today in this little talk is that Mo was really trying to make a decision out of what would personally fulfill him. He thought, “well, I like this course idea for lots of reasons, it feels really compelling to me. I feel called to it. I want to do it.”

And what Chris really made evident and what my coach made evident for me, is that sometimes as business owners, we want to make decisions that fulfill us, but they don't necessarily fulfill our business is mission, purpose and vision. They don't necessarily fulfill our client's needs and they really aren't a good way, a good form of stewarding our businesses.

And so let me put it like this the online space is great. There have been lots of really beneficial paradigm shifts, opportunities, movements etc that have come from the online coaching space. But what I think is a huge drawback and you know, if you asked me a year ago, I probably wouldn't have said this was a drawback. I would have said it was a benefit, but I'm changing my opinion because normalize changing your opinion after you learn new things. I'm changing my opinion because I realized 90% of the quote unquote successful businesses we see in the online coaching space are personal brands.

And while there's a ton of power in a personal brand, and while I have a personal brand…It's kind of a slippery slope, because as a multi passionate, as a creative, it is incredibly easy to be tempted to put everything that you love under the umbrella of your personal brand. And I honestly think that's kind of why personal brands exist because they allow us to really step into our sauce and combine all the things we love. And I've even coached clients to do that before.

But the drawback of that, the slippery slope that I mentioned, is that it really quickly leads to us just doing whatever we want because we want to do it. And I know you might be saying, “Well, that's why I'm in entrepreneurship, that's why I own a business, because I want to do whatever I want to do. I don't want to have to listen to what somebody else is telling me to do. I don't want to be controlled or influenced by other people's opinions or what they say I should do.”

And while it's true to an extent, when you have a business with a vision that you truly, truly believe in, like you can see almost as clear as day as if it were in front of you, you know what this is going to be. You know the impact you wanted to make on people's lives when you have a business with a vision that clear.

You can no longer just do whatever you want to do, right?

It can't just be about what you want to do anymore.

It can't just be about what feels best for you.

It can't just be about the shiny object that feels fun or feels interesting.

Or if you're bored with your business, you want to switch it up.

And I had to learn that the hard way because you know me, I'm very much an advocate for being human first, for being more than my biz,

for really prioritizing your humanity in business.

However, prioritizing humanity in business—

and this is what I think the online space has yet to realize— is not the same as prioritizing

your personality and what you personally want all the time.

Because I am a multi passionate and as multi passionate as they come. You know this.

But what I learned after doing some deep work with my coach is that my business, at least my branding business, doesn't exist to entertain all of my whims and interests.

Now, if I were a personal brand to Shyne Webster, that could be the case and that's what I originally started out as. That was the case.

But now I've realized that I have a 4K, HD crystal clear vision for what I want to do through branding specifically.

And so now I'm prioritizing my business, my studio, over my personal brand because that vision is so clear and I'm going to remove and strip away

some of the things that Shyne loves and that fits Shyne’s personal brand. I'm stripping some of those away from the business because they dilute

the business's mission, purpose and vision.

And if you really, really want your business to be the go

to, for one thing. It can't exist in multiple markets…

Like I said, personal brands, that's different.

If you have a personal brand and you do creative direction, music producing illustration and public speaking, that's fine.

You as a person can be seen as a go to for that mix.

But again, if your business is is striving to be seen as the go to be big, the Big Dog in, let's say, marketing for X, Y and Z with X Y and Z approach.

You can't also be doing like travel blogging,

because then you're in both worlds.

And if you're truly in both worlds, you can never truly be the go to, the most known big dog in one world. Right?

If you're talking to everyone, you're talking to no one.

And that's the case for business and humans.

As humans, we are multifaceted by nature and we can be both.

And and that's the beauty of personal brands.

But if you have a business specifically, it has to be crystal clear,

and that doesn't mean you can't have a multidisciplinary business.

It just means your business at the end of the day exists to fill a need to solve a problem.

And if you are doing too many of those, it really dilutes you and diminishes your ability to do one well, and to steward a single vision well.

If you really, really are passionate about several different lines of work and your vision for them is crystal clear and they are all equally viable and profitable, then start separate businesses. Be a serial entrepreneur, do it all and do it all well. But. Don't just try and experiment with every little thing under the Sun that makes you excited in your business just because you can, just because it feels good, just because you want to. Because that's not stewarding that business well, that's using that business, your business for your own personal gain, your own personal ambitions, your own personal desires. But it's not truly doing what's best for the business. Not if the data doesn't support it. Not if it doesn't further contribute to that vision, to that purpose, to that ideal client.

If you're just making a decision because you want to, it's time for either another business or a personal brand, in addition. And if not, let me put it like this:

Your business doesn't exist to fulfill you, period. And that's a little bit of a charged statement, so I need you to bear with me, let me explain.

Capitalism, especially in the US, has made our identity so ingrained in work and profession that we think our work, our careers, our businesses exist to fulfill us. Not true.

While I do think your work should be something you enjoy and are passionate about because it makes the experience more enriching, more personally rewarding.

The sole purpose of it isn't to fulfill you, it’s to pay you. It's so you can have a check.

And of course, you want to build a business that you are passionate about that you genuinely feel is your purpose or one of your purposes. But here's the thing you can't confuse that with it being your purest, whole only source of fulfillment.

Your life should fulfill you outside of just your business. Hear me correctly. Your business should totally fulfill you to a degree. It should make you happy,but it should not be the source of all of your fulfillment. And the reason we get so stuck in the middle and in this limbo of

should I do this,

should I do that, should I add this?

Should I add that?

How do I do it all?

The reason we get stuck in that space is because we are looking for fulfillment from our business. We think our brand should incorporate every single thing that will make us happy so that we can be a happy human. And that's quite frankly problematic. And it indicates something else. It indicates that your life isn't fulfilling. It indicates that you need to tweak some things in your life so that you can first be fulfilled by your life.

Because here's the thing. If you're always making decisions in your business based off of, well, this will fulfill me. This is what I want. You're only stewarding yourself and your desires. You're not stewarding your business at that point. And if you feel like the work you're doing in your current business, like the one thing is so stifling and so unfulfilling that you just have to add all the other things or try all these new things or try these different offers. If you feel like that and you can't live without that, then that one indicates that the work you're doing is probably not the right line of work, because otherwise you wouldn't feel that it was so bad that you had to do anything but that. And two. If you need your business to be so fulfilling all the time to your every personal desire.

It's a sign that you're not getting fulfillment in your life, and that's where the real issue is. Right. Because you could find fulfillment through hobbies, through relationships, through interest or faith. And those things, if you have all of those fulfillment, you will feel whole and happy almost regardless of what happens in your business, and you will no longer be relying on your business to meet your every desire and whim.

So if you truly have a strong vision for your business. And you really specifically want to be the go to for something and you have a really strong philosophy. Don't water it down just because you as a person have different interests. That's been the biggest lesson for me to learn, and it's been a key catalyst in shifting my business and growing it and building momentum.

And now I'm in my bag because before I was trying to do everything like, how can I offer all these different services that I want to do as a person? But guess what? That's not the case anymore. Now I'm focused on how can I build this studio, this brand building studio that exists to, you know, turn small businesses into rebel, disruptive industry leading brands that are irreplaceable through strategy, through design and through whatever. How can I hone in on that? Maximize that and make it to the top, I want to be a 10% of my entire industry. That's the goal I have for my branding studio. If I want to get there, I can't just willy nilly decide to add on this other career path or add on this different niece, right, because I'll never get there if I keep adding things on or changing based on my personality. So I have to make the big girl decision to separate myself. Let the business be what it needs to be, and if I You know, in a year, I feel really, really strongly that there is a huge calling placed on me for a different type of work, then I'll start a second business.

That's what I'm going to have to do. I'm not going to change or water down this one thing because I have a new thing. Because then that's a disservice to that business and to those clients. It can't just be about what I want to do. So that's a little food for thought.

Stewarding in your business. And asking yourself, When you're making decisions, Are they because you need to find fulfillment in your life, but you're looking for it in your business? Or are they truly what's best for the growth of your business and the fulfillment of your mission and purpose?

That was just a quick gem.

I'm going to continue to drop some gems in this format. Hopefully, they'll be a little shorter.

But if you find this enriching, please, please, please let me know if this added value to your life or business in any way. Please let me know.

This has been a huge shift for me, and it is for Mo as well in the Futur Twitter space. And I think it will be huge for you too.

So hold on to it. Thanks.