Business Phases: Traps in the Road
If you’re alive, you’ve come face-to-face with what Seth (channeled by Jane Roberts) calls ‘the assembly line style.’
This style of thinking (and consciousness) is responsible for the industrial revolution, where we transitioned from an agrarian society to one of factory workers. Where jobs became doing one thing, over and over, all day long.
And where, in true human fashion, we totally overshot the mark and cut ourselves off from many other parts of ourselves (that don’t function in an assembly-line style), who all bring their own form of intelligence.
While this style is not inherently bad, if we become consumed by it, we risk becoming husks of ourselves.
Bound by the constraints of *only* linear time and the illusion of safety outsourced to deeply fallible sources. Often resulting in living somewhere on the spectrum of apathy or trying to control the uncontrollable (#fun).
If you want to be an entrepreneur whose work is generative and whose success is life-giving, you must take up the great work of usurping yourself from being wholly controlled by the assembly line style and instead, welcome in the many other parts of you who together form something akin to The Order of the Phoenix.
Or, in layman’s terms, more of you.
“But Pilar, you don’t need to tell me this! I go to Burning Man! I’m free!”
Listen up, hippies: the assembly-line style will have you fervently searching for *that thing that always works* so that you can finally feel the sweet nectar of *the illusion of control* in your business.
And, just as importantly—a rejection of it will have you flouncing around, doing your spiritual practices, wholly disconnected from the reality of your business (and, reality itself)—wondering why the sweet sweet Universe is not rewarding you with consistent profits.
Bringing more of yourself to the table than your oscillation between the need to control and a rejection of it means intuition and intellect are revered, just the same. Reality as it is and reality as you know it *could* be, are collaborators. Faith and—action, even when it’s scary—are eternal lovers.
The bad news: each phase of business calls for a new set of awareness and actions.
The good news: each phase of business calls for a new set of awareness and actions.
Now that we’ve clarified—onto yee old traps in the road!
Phase 1️⃣ of business: just starting, starting over, or starting something new
Trap ⚠️ the trap of *too much*
The early phases of business are actually the simplest time.
Trust me, you will look back on this phase and think ever-so fondly of your young, gritty self and your life of little responsibility. Wheres't 2am creative deep dives and a calendar that would make your current self throw up, were totally normal.
Paradoxically, this time is when you're most prone to getting stuck in cycles of over-thinking, over-complicating, and all around—doing too many of the wrong things.
The antidote 🔧 focus on no more than 2-3 foundational, needle moving activities and do them long enough to get reliable data on them.
You do this by not ⤵
a) stopping before you've done something(s) for enough time to actually know what they're doing.
Stopping before you have any sort of metric means that all you know is you momentarily didn't like it and… stopped.
b) continuing to add things.
Adding too many things means you don't know what's doing what, depriving you of data and riddling you with confusion.
For example, you're new in your biz and you're doing low-priced 1:1 sessions, creating content for IG, and slowly building up an email list through IG.
These are all early-phase needle movers, and they're *enough.”
Stick with them, even in momentary phases of ~noT FeeLIng Like IT~ and resist the urge to add 349438 more things, and you will be led to the promised land of bountiful awareness of what your business is doing and what's needed for where it's asking to go next.
Phase 2️⃣ of business: inconsistent spurts of growth and momentum
Trap ⚠️ the trap of *trying to make everything make sense*
You've heard it a million times—simplify, distill, clarify! Be and do one thing, really well! Craft your perfectly packaged offering suite! And don't forget to tighten that butthole!
YET… this phase is actually the absolute worst time to try to force any of these things.
Instead, this is the absolute best and most pivotal time to be experimenting like a maniac. Trying to jump the gun into the land of pristine clarity and a perfectly buttoned elevator pitch will ultimately set you back in the long run.
The antidote 🔧 throw tomatoes at the wall and stop worrying about it making sense right now.
Because here's the secret: the thing you offer will never be just one thing. And you need to get that well before the world does. So that when you do, the world can delight in catching up to you.
Phase 3️⃣ of business: sustained profits—oscillating between stabilizing and scaling
Trap ⚠️ the trap of *getting lost in the weeds*
While this is the time when your company is most likely doing more than it ever has before, this is also the worst time to keep things solely business as usual and not give yourself ample time and space to reassess, reinvent, and innovate.
The antidote 🔧 recognize, you did *it,* and—*it,* never ends.
You're no longer needed on the ground the way you once were. (Or, if you are—time to change that.)
Now, you also get to be Steve Jobs taking acid. Jumping on the dragon's back of innovation. You know, that secret sauce that makes all visionaries tick ⚡️
Sounds like the beginning, eh?
In the end, you always meet the beginning.
Shall we continue?