In my dreams, I’m not ever in a fancy hotel or a swanky luxury location. I’m certainly not in a formal dress and heels. Never in my real dreams did I dream of wealth the way it is sold to me. Never in my dreams am I a manager of a staff and team. Never in my dreams did I want to build something and sell it for millions.
Never.
In my dreams, I’m in old boot-cut jeans and cowboy boots, and a soft white T-shirt. My hair is wild, or perhaps in a hat. My smile is wide and there is light in my eyes. I might have a flannel tied at my waist if the Texas air is cool. The ground beneath my feet is dirt or grass…a rescue dog or three at my side. Willie Nelson is on the radio and my paid-for 8-year-old F-150 is my ride.
In my dreams I’m in the Texas hill country with scrappy cedars, Texas wildflowers, and big blue skies….the stars at night… well, you know how the song goes.
And the pool. There’s the pool. And my man, and laughter at the dumbest things.
In my dreams more is not better, and luxury cars and homes, high fees, and global impact never show up. In my dreams, I never am rescuing the world. I’m simply living in it, paying attention to the details because I’m going slow, writing prose, and poems, and watching birds in my backyard.
In my dreams, more is not better….and interestingly just like is already on my business tagline, in my dreams BETTER is better.
Perhaps, a sorta best selling and inspiring book or two, more than enough business doing what I love with people I know deeply and well. Sharing my heart, showing my work. Sharing, out loud, shit that most people don’t dare to say. Sharing softness and sovereignty from the inside out.
Slinging paint, reading books, and journaling the gazillion thoughts in my head. Drinking way too much Diet Coke and red wine, and consuming way too few greens.
Holding my own heart in profound care and SELF-leadership, and guiding others in the same skills of internal care, emotional leadership, and generative creativity…. Slow-growth-cultivation is rare and deep.
In my real dreams, there aren’t too many people. There aren’t thousands, even hundreds. A handful at any given time… there is no scale or 7-figure-year-after-year plan.
My clients aren’t the most notorious, successful, or most famous…but they are grounded, holy-human, with an urge to create and cultivate and connect deeply instead of performing.
11 years and one week ago I left the go-big-or-go-home dreams the company had for me- to set out on my own.
And I’ll be dammed if part of me continually gets hooked in the play so many others are making.
7 figures, and CEO, and change-maker, impact, and whatever else.
I’ve woven in and out, trying on different versions of me carrying the world’s definition of my success, holding myself in painful comparison to my peers because somewhere along the way that bled into my bones with the allure of belonging. So many moments parts of me have believed the more more more capitalistic lie.
That play is glamourous and alluring and in no way wrong for those that it is right for.
But have you ever tried to plant hydrangeas in the rocky sandy soil of central Texas?
They can’t thrive.
I’m a wildflower…
For 49 years I tried to outgrow my Native Soul by doing anything and everything except completely surrender to the native soil I am here to grow in.
I am a wildflower, meant to grow and thrive in a climate of her very own.
Last month, in the first four days of May, I wrote more business than I have in any single year. On top of what I’d already made in the first 4 months of the year. That money will come and go and months from now it won’t matter. Money comes and goes.
Last month, I also helped my mom and dad sell their home of 53 years… the home of my birth and youth, and a million memories for our family.
With both skill and care, I helped my parents navigate the toughest emotional decisions and to pick a new place in which neither of them ever dreamed of living.
I held my own heart and theirs with grace, and calm, hopeful, but unattached. What I’m more proud of than the cash, is the care and connection I was able to give my parents. And we aren’t done yet. Let the packing up of all those years begin.
When I told one of my coaches I was spending the rest of the year loving on my family and the clients I have… he said I was settling.
At first, I was pissed. I certainly didn’t feel seen… but he’s right.
I am SETTLED.
It is SETTLED.
Not in the limiting belief way, but in the deeply settled in the sovereignty of my own soul and knowing. I AM SETTLED.
I am here, leaving the “freeway and fast lane” for the last time.
I’m settled in my soul and taking the scenic route of a hill country road, planted in this native soil, the soil of being casual, deep coaching conversations, art, dogs, family, and swimming….. right here in this small plot of central Texas land with my paid-for old truck, my right-sized roster of clients, and my man.
I’m the wealthiest woman I know.
PS. I fired the coach.
