How to Create Success ??

Trusting inspiration and your audience

In business, it’s always important to listen to what the customer wants. As a creator, what matters most is the inspiration that comes through, the essence of truth that needs to be birthed into reality without consideration of the audience.

Herein lies a great tension.

Or so I thought…

When I reflect back on my greatest accomplishments, these were the result of simply creating something, following the flow of inspiration and energy that came in a big WHOOSH! and putting it out there.

When I was 18, I wrote a play late one night after getting home from my boyfriend’s house. It was my first experience of deep, passionate love and I needed to make sense of it somehow. This sense-making came out in the form of my inner dialogue interspersed with his questions. I recreated the moments as I stared at him, frozen, in awe of his beauty, afraid that I would break the spell of the magical bubble we were living in.

I had nothing else written so I submitted it as my term project for my drama class. Our teacher then had us enter our plays in a playwriting contest at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. I won.

The result of winning that competition and having my play produced by a professional theatre was that I began to crave more validation. I wrote other plays, but from the place of wanting to win people over and prove how talented I was. It didn’t work.

Fast forward 18 years…

When I decided to leave my VC job and become a coach, one particular idea would not leave me alone. I needed to create a transformational coaching program for women leaders that would combine deep heart-centred connection with personal and professional transformation. We would hold retreats in beautiful places. It would become a deep sisterhood. It would be extraordinary and healing and catapult all of us—myself included—into a powerful new way of being in the world.

I didn’t create that program because I wanted to prove myself as a coach, or because I believed myself to be some wise guru, or because I wanted to make lots of money. I created it because something told me I had to. And as weird and frankly terrifying as it was to go out and invite women to join a six-month coaching program I had never run before, I did. And it was as beautiful and healing and transformational as I could have imagined.

I have had many ideas since then that haven’t worked out. I now recognize that those ideas largely failed because they were driven by that same desire to “make it work”—to prove that I could, to take the next right step on my path, based more on what other coaches were doing than on what felt right for me.

As with my founder clients, there has been a lot of trial and error in building my coaching business. There are so many opinions about the “right” way to do things. It can be hard to stay clear on your path in the midst of market shifts and financial pressure and being human. I’ve had my own moments of losing myself—I am human after all—and then, usually with the support of my inner circle, I’ve found my way back to my centre.

As I stepped into this year and felt into what I need to bring to the world, the Heart program continued to jump up and down and wave its arms at me. This will be the third time I bring together a group of ambitious, caring, impact-driven women for a beautiful and transformational six-month journey into self, into our power, into sisterhood and connection and what’s possible when you stop overthinking things, creating drama in your life, and you claim the path of the heart.

I’ve had people tell me that I should position Heart as a “leadership development” program for ambitious business women who want to get to the next level in their careers. And it is that. Every person who joins our Shine+ programs becomes a more powerful leader. Most of them either start new businesses, change jobs or get promotions, they make more money, and lead themselves and others more effectively. But what really what makes my heart sing is that the women who come through this particular program tend to speak about the transformation in how they see themselves, how they carry themselves through the world, how much more in love they are with life, how many of their limiting beliefs and how much of their emotional baggage they leave behind. They learn to connect with their purpose and creative passion, and discern what’s truly important to them, creating aligned success on their own terms rather than continuing to walk the “traditional” path of making more money, having a stable career and not rocking the boat too much.

And that is why I know I need to run this program again this year.

Applications are open. I’m inviting in conversations with women who are ready to live with more joy and less compromise, more confidence and clarity and connection.

There are only ten spots. Applicants will be accepted on a rolling basis, so the sooner you get yours in, the more likely you are to be part of this group, part of this sisterhood.

If it's not your moment (or you're not a woman) but feel excited about this transformative experience, I'm offering $1000 to anyone who refers?a woman who is accepted into the program. It's my way of saying thank you for bringing incredible women into this community and helping them to show up powerful for themselves.?I cannot wait to witness the transformation this year’s program brings.

A final reminder: whether you're a founder or an employee, remember that you can trust yourself. When you find your way back to listening to the whispers or even shouts that inspiration bring, you'll discover that it's rare there isn't an audience for what you create. Trust that what you're bringing to the world will be valuable. Yes, listen to what your audience or customers want, as this will often bring inspiration that will help you fly. But when you only listen to your customers, or worry about what they want, it can get really hard to find your creative flow. Connect with the flow. It'll take you to beautiful places.