Faaaaaahhhhhhck.
That’s my general feeling about business right now. And, I put it right up front to weed out those of you who are too sensitive to be part of my Eyes Wide Open community and don’t actually want to hear what’s real.
[If you don’t like it, you can still benefit from my work through people I have trained as Personal Family Lawyers, Family Business Lawyers, Creative Business Lawyers, or Money Map Masters, most of whom would never use a “bad word” right up front in an email like this.]
I’m done pussy-footing around trying to make everyone happy.
I’m building businesses to support people who want to live life and do business awake, aware and on their terms, with their eyes wide open.
I’m putting in a HUGE amount of effort to make the work I’ve created accessible to people without requiring the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of dollars of investment I’ve made along the way to learn how to do the things I teach.
I once invested $25,000 for a DAY of coaching with Lisa Sasevich on how to structure my business model.
I once invested $100,000 for a year long mastermind with Ali Brown. Out of that mastermind came my willingness to teach my LIFT System so you can be smart about the legal, insurance, financial and tax parts of your business.
Would I have created that system if I hadn’t made that investment? No.
As I was making these investments, I promised myself I would make my programs accessible to more people than just those who could afford $25,000 and $100,000 investments in their business.
It’s right about now, when I’ve circled back for a 4th time in the life cycle of these businesses to build the next level systems necessary for scale that I begin to wonder — have I chosen the wrong business model?
What the heck have I gotten myself into?
Currently, I sit behind my computer for 12 hours a day writing copy for sales funnels, reviewing opt-in sequences, creating autoresponders, talking to my team members, coaching my team members to make it through the conflicts, firing people, hiring people, writing job descriptions, creating organizational charts.
Training sales teams.
Considering new governance models.
Should we implement holacracy or keep the traditional hierarchy based governance structures in place?
Daily, I wonder if I should just say fuck it and stay a high-end coach, delivering expensive one-to-one services and going seriously deep with private clients.
I know how to do that, and I do it well.
As I am re-building the systems for both companies, I am working with two private clients and woah, the work is deep.
Both of these clients came to me to discover their own foundation of Enough, and who they are and how they be in the world from the spaciousness of Enough. They both happen to be navigating divorce settlements.
In one situation, I am supporting the entire multi-generational family dynamic, working with the young adult children, and the elder parents in addition to my client.
I LOVE the work.
And, I know it’s not yet time for me to do it full time.
I am compelled to build the systems in New Law Business Model and Eyes Wide Open for them to serve at scale.
All the components have been created.
The only thing in the way is my own ability to stay focused, keep my eye on the ultimate vision, and keep saying yes.
The resistance is alive and well.
I want to write my book. I want to post on Facebook. I want to be done with this part already. My mind tells me I should have done this years ago and tries to convince me I won’t be able to do it.
I know it’s a lie.
I know I can.
At least, I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.
If I had known what I was getting myself into with the Star Creator Archetype path would I have chosen another way?
I can’t say yet. I’m not at the end. I’ll have to let you know.
For now, I am in it.
I am doing the work that I’ve discovered only I can do.
Each time I have tried to hire this work out to others, an interim CEO in one case, marketing funnel automation specialists twice (to the tune of $40,000), a promised Chief of Staff … what I discovered is that this part requires me.
If you could just hire it out, everyone with money would have successful, sustainable, make a difference businesses.
But it’s not as easy as that.
It requires determination, focus, grit, persistence, willingness, learning, growth, evolution.
I’m in.
And I’m going to do a better job of communicating and sharing from here.
I’ve been hiding out a bit.
Because I wasn’t sure I could keep going and frankly didn’t want to share from my uncertainty.
But when I got this message from Facebook yesterday, from 4 years ago, literally the month before I filed bankruptcy, I remembered ….
I chose this. I want this. I don’t HAVE to do this, I want to do it.
And I can share my uncertainty. It’s okay. Valuable and helpful even because you are probably uncertain about whether you can do it too (whatever your “it” is.)
Where I got trapped back in my last iteration of “success” that ultimately led to my giving it all up was that I stopped sharing vulnerably.
I listened to the voices that said “you can’t do that, you can’t say that, you can’t write that, you’ll hurt the business.”
So I fired everyone, let it all go and traveled around in my RV, lived on the farm, and said whatever I wanted for a couple of years. Remember the Whole Truth Show? I loved that show! I loved speaking my truth.
But I missed the businesses.
I missed knowing that when I am being all of myself, and speaking at events, and writing what’s in my mind and heart and soul and people are inspired that they can easily flow into business structures of support that can help their learning, growth and evolution.
I want the both/and.
I want to be a free spirit with business systems to support my freedom.
Ali and Alexis, integrated.
And to have that, I need to put in the effort and focus to truly build the next level scalable systems that work to support it.
So I am.
What are you building that’s forcing you to face all of your resistance, all your old patterns, all your places that you just want to play small?
Are you compromising your life just because it seems easier to do that than to stretch?
It’s time to stop doing that. I’m stopping with you.
Love beyond,
Ali
PS — On July 7, I’m hosting my first live training in 6 months, specifically for those of you who want to stop compromising and start building your life and income awake, aware and on your terms — with clarity about what you are doing and what you really want so you can choose the “how” strategically and wisely, instead of just throwing money at problems like I’ve done so many times in the past OR being stuck in your head wondering what your next steps should be. Sign up here.
Pre-Money Map, I would push myself way harder than was really sustainable to make sales, to be “successful” by someone else’s definition and to keep up with the launch whizzes who are part of my peer group.
When you are in business for yourself, you get to choose what gets done and what doesn’t.
The Money Map is a system designed by 
The next two modules led me into greater awareness of what real resources are currently available to me, and how I can best put them to use for my business, based on my ‘Entrepreneurial Archetype’. It was very enheartening to unearth the many ways in which my immediate environment is already aligned to support my life and my work in the world. The diverse, pioneering path that Ali has taken in her life and career has cultivated her ability to mentor other visionary entrepreneurs with creativity, innovation and resourcefulness. As I worked through these modules, I felt empowered to begin creating my website, promotional materials and branding. Of the eight entrepreneurial archetypes, I aligned with ‘Sage Guide’, and was better able to understand how to grow my business in a way that supports me in doing what I do best. 
About Prema Gaia:
It’s so alluring.
