Learning how to trust yourself (again)

Who’s experienced a wobble lately??

If you say no, I don’t believe you ?? The WORLD is wobbling. And so, we must wobble with it.

It’s funny though. At times we are blind to our wobbling. We’re soooo deep in it, we don’t even realise the wobble was there until it’s over.

This has been me for the last 2 years. A wobble that wasn’t perceptible. I quit my job 2 years ago nearly to the day in pursuit of something different. I didn’t know what at the time. I had no real plan.

Starting anything new is wobbly in and of itself. But it can feel especially wobbly if you don’t have a plan. And I know many people are now experiencing a similar type of wobble given the mass layoffs happening in tech. One day you have a strong foundation for what the next few years of your life will look like. The next - you have no plan. You begin to lose trust in yourself.

As I entered into this wobble of mine, the questioning of trust myself manifested as me only being willing to undertake low risk “experiments” related to my career, such as…?

1/ I created workshop proposals in Canva using their $12.99/month subscription in an hour or two.?

2/ I created a solo podcast with episodes under 10 minutes to require no editing & easy scheduling.

3/ I created a Bias to Action journal using Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing in a few hours, and gave Amazon a 30% cut rather than paying to print them ahead of time.

The list goes on and on. I experimented a lot over the last two years! Even crazier (now looking back on it) … I was proud of myself for always experimenting. For taking the smallest possible action towards my dreams, to see what I learned from it.

And yet what I’ve come to realise, is that experimentation serves a purpose. But it is not the only way to grow. In fact, your growth will be stunted if all you do is experiment.

I have experimentation embedded deep into my bones from my days working at Uber. Experimentation was king (okay, queen ??). We tested everything we did, to learn whether it worked or not. All in honor of only keeping ideas that were proven to be net positive to the business.?

But what I can’t believe I missed … is that we didn’t test things that took the business “from 0 to 1”. These were the big, bold bets that would obviously catapult us from where we were to where we wanted to be. Things like, uberX (vs uberBLACK). Or uberPOOL (vs uberX). Or uberEATS (vs Uber Rides).?

Now, some of these were WILD successes (uberX). Some were slow burning failures (uberPOOL). And some were strategic network successes, yet didn’t explode onto the scene (uberEATS).?

In being new to the entrepreneurial world, I have been unwilling to take big, bold risks. And being entrepreneurial fundamentally requires taking big, bold risks!?

And so here I am, arriving to this understanding 2 years after I started doing a series of safe little experiments. And this isn’t a story of me being frustrated with myself. In fact - it’s a story of connecting the dots.

Because what I realised what I have been doing over the last 2 years, is building my resilience. In Oprah’s book “What Happened to You?”, she and Dr. Perry discuss the framework of …

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Leave the safe

Explore the new

Return to the safe

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… which is a set of guidelines for exploring difficult or scary experiences. Which fundamentally, any sort of change can be! And choosing to start my own business was scary. Choosing to innovate (and more ideally, disrupt!) within an industry, alongside creating my own business was frightening. I couldn’t just jump off the deep end on day 1.

But I am here now. On the edge of a cliff - ready to jump. Well actually, it’s more like the top of a hill. Because I needed to climb up it. Day by day, week by week. Taking not the steepest nor fastest way up to the top, but the path that was trodden. Because it’s the path that felt safe.

And now that I’m here, on top of the hill - I can see what lies beyond. It’s the land of doing less. It’s letting money find me. It’s a land full of lighter touches, longer term visions. It’s a land where I never feel like I’m trading my time for money. It’s a land where I say yes to things that feel like play, trusting that abundance in many forms will be what I receive in return.?

To be clear, it’s not a land of doing things for free, or doing nothing at all. It’s the land where financial return is decoupled from my time investment. It’s the land of innocent curiosity & play. And I’m starting to dip my toes in in tangible ways.?

?? I’m actively pursuing angel investments, sharing my money with no expectation of a financial return.?

?? I’m mentoring younger men and women, sharing my time with no expectation of monetary compensation.

?? I’m investing in publishing a book, sharing my wisdom with no expectation of the world to purchase it.

?? I’m building a community of people living life in the slow(er) lane, sharing my passion with no expectation that it takes off like wildfire.

So for all of you who are in a moment where you’ve lost trust with yourself… give yourself grace. Leave the safe when you feel your nervous system can handle it. Take the biggest step into the new as you can muster up the bravery for. Learn something from it. And then return to the safe to recharge your energetic batteries.?

It’s going to be an uphill climb, yes. But there is a peak - and you’ll know when you reach the top of it. That feeling of success can’t be beat. Because you have changed. And nobody can take that away from you. In fact, it’s something that will stay with you for the rest of your life. And that transformation is exactly where we need in moments where the world is wobbling.

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