changing our grip - the value of being ourselves part III

See Part I and Part II

Sometimes we talk a good talk about change and growth, but when it comes to our makings we think what we wanted to do yesterday is what we want to do today and what we will want to do tomorrow.

(We have a full moon in Scorpio next week - I am going to do a big post on this for Monday - there is much Plutonian energy with this one and since Pluto is the planet of karma ie our beliefs that create our reality - if we can release our emotional grip on what we are so afraid of losing we can get a huge emotional growth from this period. We can work on "our stuff" now or our stuff will work on us.)

I saw Russell Simmons (yes, the hip-hop business magnate and gazillionaire) speak a couple years ago. On the surface it was about growing a fashion business (specifically a t-shirt brand, I think), but what it was really about was growing a business to sell and by "sell" I mean "sell the business" not sell your t-shirt, although obviously we would have to sell a whole lot of t-shirts before our t-shirt brand was sell-able.

The goal though was clearly to sell the business (ie the brand) at some point. It seemed like it was a foregone conclusion that this would be our goal, too.

This whole "growing a business to sell it" kind of made my heart ache. I could see all the pitfalls with this way of thinking - unsustainable growth, the kind of corner cutting and number crunching that results in poverty wages, damage to the planet, do whatever it takes to make this work stress and unbalance - the more is more is more thinking that is so unsustainable and so damaging and truly not the way the energy at play in the world now is leading us.

(now I am not saying this is what he was saying - this is just what I was hearing)

Obviously there isn't anything wrong with selling our business or our brand (one day I will no doubt be sick to death of all this and accepting a fair trade of a lifetime supply of avocados and milk-bones) - it would be better than a slow, painful death after all. 

It was having this goal at the beginning that bothered me. 

It's not that I thought we should all be building generational businesses - although I do have a fondness (sniffle) for them, in a small town diner kind of way, but I was an artist after all, this was my creative baby, how could anyone ever love her like I do?

Flash ahead two years and I run across some clips from this same talk and I get something totally different from it now.

(it's amazing how much smarter Russell has become ... ha!)

Probably one of the truest things in life is that we just don't know what we don't know. 

There is real value in separating ourselves from our businesses and brands.

emily mcdowell - joan of arc quote

This doesn't mean we won't continue to work from our hearts - knowing when to tighten our grip, when to loosen up, when to switch grips

(I'm starting to feel like one of the Williams sisters, hopefully my biceps are listening)

and when to let go like we are holding a hot potato takes courage and inner work. This stuff will never come from our head.

My friend with the music store is exhausted. Most of us are. Life has sped up and we were all born from energy that moved at a slower pace. We need to trust ourselves with this stuff.

We truly were born to do this.

I realized with my second listen that had I embraced the "building a business to sell" thinking even a little bit I would have been much more likely to have built a business that could get along without me more often. I would take things a little less personally. I would have asked for help when I needed it. It would be easier to change my grip.

Of course if I had fully embraced this thinking I would not have built anything truly real because it would not have been built from the energy I came here to use - I would have been too busy playing for an audience.

(creativity and children both fall into the 5th house of our astrology chart and birthing creative babies that keep us up all night or crying babies that do the same thing produce equally strong emotional attachments and this is a good and necessary thing ... until it isn't anymore)

We have a full moon in Scorpio in a few days - the period of this full moon and the days after will be a powerful time to release some of the emotional attachment we have with our businesses. Scorpio is our fixed (unchanging) water (emotions) sign - he really likes to hold on to emotional experiences as long as possible - ruled by Pluto if we are clinging to the wrong stuff this can be devastating. Scorpio will be in Saturn so not taking any crap - we either loosen our grip or life forces open our fingers (this is the culmination of November's new moon in Scorpio).

NEXT UP PART IV - owning our impact - the value of being ourselves (so what might the music store do next and what does it have to do with Russell Simmons and what does it have to do with our business)