Mindset Over Matter

𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘣𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘥𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘩, not by your success or failures.

-Elizabeth Gilbert

Being a small biz owner is not for the faint of heart. 

Starting from nothing, having zero clients, launching yourself into the unknown, taking big risks, dumping a ton of money into trainings, showing up vulnerably, continuing education, all the while with no guarantee of success, yes this path is not for everyone. 

This week had some tough moments. From solo puppy parenting and juggling a lot with my business, I needed to drop in and get some Vedic wisdom ( aka a spiritual pep talk with my Jyotisha) to remind me what my purpose is, why I am here, and quiet the white noise in my mind. And that it did. 

Simultaneously I am reading a book right now called Touching The Void, its a true story of two climbers and their journey up the west face of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. 

When Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, reached the top of a 21,000-foot peak in the Andes Simpson slipped and plunged off the vertical face of an ice ledge, breaking his leg. 

In the hours that followed, darkness fell and a blizzard raged as Yates tried to lower his friend to safety. Finally, Yates was forced to cut the rope, moments before he would have been pulled to his own death. 

What followed for Simpson is incomprehensible, he had to traverse an endless expanse of frozen glacier that could at any moment crack open beneath him, where he would spiral down into a bottomless crevasse. 

Once he was off the glacier, he then had to stumble through impossibly jagged terrain of boulders, all of which he does with a broken leg, a face totally blistered from the sun, with frostbitten fingers and toes, no food or water, no sunglasses (snowblind), covered in his own excrement, convinced his friend left him for dead, and base camp could be packing up to leave him behind.  

All the while he is trying to use his ice ax as a crutch which doesnt work, so he winds up slipping and falling and banging his mangled legs on rocks every step he takes, hollering in pain all the way down. Wow.

The parallel I am drawing between this vivid story and being a small business owner is mindset. 

It was Simpson's mindset that got him down the mountain. He decided, he was going to live, and while it might seem obvious, that yes, we all want to live, I think that to really succeed in doing a business infused with purpose and service, we really have to be committed. 

You have to plow past your fears, the subconscious voices of you should give up, and keep leaping into the unknown. No matter what. 

Some moments my mind can waver, but I will remember Joe and the tenacity he had under such grave conditions. We can do anything we put our minds and hearts to, and when its infused with love and service, I feel as if I am standing still in a field of flowers, just taking in the beauty of being alive with purpose.