Dearest ones,
I’ve been having THE MOST FUN working lately and wanted to send you a human update… You know that moment when Bella in Twilight asks for a “human moment” before vampire sex? This is my version of that, but with sales training and fewer broken bed frames.
For about a month, I’ve been spending all my spare hours (including after Kanai goes to bed and in between sessions) working on The Sales ScoreTM, an online, audio version of my signature sales training. The work already knows what it wants to be, and I’m following the breadcrumbs to reveal what it already is. (Very Michelangelo-carving-David-from-the-stone.) I thought I would use the raw audio from my last two retreats, which were absolute fire. (Here’s the 2-minute version of that training, which I am releasing today on YouTube.) As I worked with the material, I realized it wanted to be more polished, better, cleaner. So I started writing a script, and that put me right back in the center of my sales book project, which I’ve been working on for years. (Stay tuned – but they aren’t ready for this week!) The training and the book are turning into literal pieces of art.
Inside Sales Full Stop, the work is getting richer, deeper, cleaner. I’m doing more of what I love, less of what doesn’t work. Part of why I love sales is because it helps us become better facilitators, healers, humans. I’m reconnecting with my old work as an instructional coach for math teachers, where we talked all the time about teaching folks how to think. Not trivial. Maybe the best thing we can do. This group of clients is learning to name what kind of support they want and need, moment to moment. It’s radical to be a part of a community that is willing to take such risks in the realm of honesty and intimacy – they light me up. They’re also winning, which is really fun to watch.
I’ve also been having deep conversations with past clients where repair is needed. It is scary, confronting, healing. We talk about what didn’t work, where we were disappointed, hurt, dropped, what it felt like to end in the way we did. I’m increasing my capacity to hold myself and them in these conversations, and it’s changing how I show up in my work now. I’m less afraid, less defended, less righteous.
Over Labor Day, my family and I went to Joshua Tree. Most of the weekend was spent playing in a pool, and it gave me a metaphor for how I work: I’m the person in the pool who throws the kids the highest. Some kids keep their distance; it’s too scary. Others come close and say, “Throw me, but only this high. And you gotta catch me!” Some scream, “Higher! Higher!” All of that is what I’m here for. My work is risky, intimate, and terrifying. It brings up intense fear, protection, and a need for control. I’ve been studying this reaction, realizing that I have sometimes misread people’s terror as rejection.
Meanwhile, Kanai has started year two of preschool, Sri and I are adjusting, and talking about moving homes in LA (a whole project, emotionally). Plus, I’m finishing my first album, which I started in 2020. Listening party announcement coming soon! Holy shit balls.
And in the midst of all of that, I’ve been rather inconsistent about promoting THE HOW, my event this week. I want your help. It turns out that I only have two arms, not a hundred like some Indian deity, and I can’t do it all. Please come. Please tell people you love who have businesses. I am built to help. I am built to throw you high. Everyone coming will get their money’s worth.
I’m making great money.
I’m doing work I love.
I’m learning a ton.
I’m saying yes to the full range of feelings that arise in any intimate relationship, including those I have with clients.
I disappoint myself sometimes, because I committed to more than I could deliver on. This is something I may always do in my life, or maybe I’ll grow out of it at some point. I’m not holding my breath, and I’m also not giving up hope.
Because this is the truth: when we look at the whole picture, not just a cardboard cutout, the truth of leadership is human. Imperfect. I have limits. I can only do so much. I’m making art – it takes the time it takes.
Maybe I’d use my time differently if I’d known then what I know now. But I only know it because of how I spent my time. So, how hard should I be on myself?
I’m happy about getting older – it makes me more skeptical of being hard ever. At all. About anything. Amazing things are happening in my life every day. I’m turned on, on fire, successful – AND failing at something all the time. That’s what crushing it looks like.
Last week, my client asked me, “How can we break the purity matrix around wealth?” I think she was asking me to be more human, more vulnerable, more relatable – mostly because she’s using me to see more in herself, and she needs to see things she can recognize as true to her.
Please come to THE HOW.
Spread the word.
Watch my videos.
Binge and enjoy.
Celebrate yourself in your wholeness.
Make the art only you can make.