There comes a time in your entrepreneurial journey where you begin to question everything around you. If your journey is anything like mine, you’ll start with a bi-monthly existential crisis. But unlike before, this one will devolve to consume your business and brand entirely, a three-prong attack on your mental wellness so-to-speak.

You begin to question anything and everything you’ve consumed up until that moment, theories you believed, concepts you trusted, ideas you’ve utilized. 

The result? A comprehensive audit of your life, from people, to practices, and principles, and even to purpose. And however-long the journey takes – for each person it’s different – we all come to different iterations of the same conclusion:

There’s no one formula to the success of your business. There’s no magic bullet.

You can do all of the research in the world, play all the probabilities, draft all the scenarios…but at some point you’re just going to have to leap. Because at the end of the day, your business is yours to build.

And while you may have heard these words on a podcast, watched it unfold on Shark Tank, or read it in a self-help book, it won’t mean anything until you experience it yourself.

My Personal Journey

Sarah Ashman, the inimitable Creative Director, Business, and Brand Strategist – now Creative Catalyst – was the first to explain the journey of shedding to me. 

I reached out to her at the tail end of 2019, perplexed, puzzled, and pissed at my current state. On that very first call, Sarah saw right through my witty banter and self-deprecating sense of humor. After that 90-minute session, I knew I had to work with her again.

I first joined MirrorBrand™ in 2020. I say first, because I went through it twice…some of us like to learn the hard way. Quite honestly, I had no idea what was coming.

She explained the experience to come as something like that of a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly. You know, the whole:

Clearly, I was still deflecting. Only now, in retrospect, I realize she was guiding me in the process of shedding what wasn’t mine.

I was in complete denial, skeptical beyond reproach. In my eyes, I’d just left corporate, so I was obviously already breaking free from the confines of capitalism. Right?

Wrong. Even though I’d physically left the corporate space, I was still very much consumed by it. 

Sarah was the first person to make me feel seen, heard, and understood. Guiding me through her deeply reflective and introspective process of removing – or shedding – each layer, she led me back to my core.

She knew – years before I did – that we shared a similar gift. And as we continued working together, I finally began to understand the power of this gift: Making others feel seen, heard, and understood, too. Now, will I ever have the visual prowess and creative direction that Sarah has? Absolutely not. She is one of one. But, so am I. And I guide business owners back to their core by way of words.

It was under her tutelage that I had the audacity to shift my entire business model from copywriting to messaging and positioning – from service provider to coach. She empowered me to explore my own je-ne-sais-quoi – and so I did.