Hi! I’m Summer.
The summer of 2017 rolled around.
I was 7 months pregnant with my 3rd child, and I convinced my husband to take care of our older two while I jetted off to to attend a 2 day workshop that my mentor was hosting.
I’d gotten up at 3:15am that morning to catch my flight to FL and Uber it over to the hotel conference room just as introductions were being spilled.
Riding on my caffeine high, the adrenaline rush of the morning of travel, and the excitement of being on a solo-trip by myself (sans-kids), I was ready to soak it all in.
My mentor announced that we’d get started by doing a visualization exercise where we’d be “floating up into a cloud” and visiting ourselves 10 years into the future. Luckily I was already loopy enough from my early morning that it didn’t phase me a bit.
(Don’t lose me here. I’m not one who is much for “woo-woo” stuff. This was TOTALLY outside of my comfort zone. But I consider myself open-minded and willing to try.)
As a sunk into the exercise and visualized who I saw myself as in the future both in my personal life and in my business, a few things became extremely clear …
I’m not going to teach Pinterest marketing forever.
Something has to change in my daily environment. (more on this in a minute)
I'm not meant to run my business like “everyone” else. (time to zag, when other zig)
I’d developed my entire platform as a “Pinterest expert” and my future self had pretty much just told me to burn it all down.
Talk about ripping the Band-Aid OFF.
Whew ...
And to top it off. I was was tired.
I felt like my personal life was falling apart
... and my business was largely to blame for it.
I couldn’t keep up with our house. The clutter, and the laundry, and the “stuff” was starting to take over and I didn’t feel like I had time to work on it the way I wanted to.
Every naptime, and pre-dawn morning, and evening on the couch was spent on my laptop.
I was drowning under the weight of it.
I wanted to work ON my business.
But I also wanted to have time to work on our family photo album, to bake rice krispie treats with my daughter, and to decorate the dining room walls (which had been waiting patiently for at least 5 years now).
I kept telling myself ... oh, you’ll have time eventually.
But then as our second child joined our family and a third was on the horizon, and I saw my daughter creep closer and closer to school age, I realized I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my family or the motherhood that I wanted any longer.
So I made a plan.
I stopped the webinars.
I stopped the weekly blogging.
I stopped posting on Instagram.
I outsourced my other social media.
I quit making more “freebies”.
I stopped creating multiple courses and offers.
I said no to 1:1 client calls and consults.
And I got really clear on exactly WHO I wanted to serve, exactly WHAT outcome I wanted to provide them, and exactly HOW I was going to do that.
AND I made sure that it all lined up with what I actually enjoyed doing AND how I wanted to show up for my family.
It was around this time that I was introduced to The Strategy of Preeminence by Jay Abraham.
Something finally clicked as I listened to him speak.
I realized it was time to stop looking for “money making opportunities” and start looking at how I was going to help change other people’s reality, while doing the same for my own.
I was done trying to fall in love with my products and offers.
And instead I was ready to fall in love with my “prospects” (as Jay calls them).
Or as I prefer to say, I was ready to fall in love with my audience.
My squad.
My people.
Instead of thinking “What do I have to offer, and what do I need to say, to get people to buy?"
… I switched my thinking to:
-->What do I have to give?
-->What big benefit and life-changing outcome will I help my people achieve?
I decided that everything that I did in my business was going to express to my audience:
“You matter. Your well being, your success, and your life is important to me.”
No more looking at people like a number on an email list.
My goal wasn’t to improve what they were already doing (‘cause obviously that wasn’t working out too well if they were searching for solutions) …
My goal was to give them a NEW way.
Like I said … ZAG when the others are ZIGGING.
I knew I wasn’t alone in this desire to create a simple little business that allowed me to Live More and Work Less.
I knew there were others out there like me.
People that were done with ...
the countdown timers
the intense marketing emails
the stressful sales calls
and the thought process that you had to do it all to be successful online
People that didn’t want ...
the huge team of employees
or the high-pressure launches
or the 60+ hour work weeks
or being tied to their laptop ever hour of the day
People, like me, that just wanted a simple little business that allowed them to follow their passion, serve an audience, matter to them, and create a profitable and sustainable business in the process ….
While having the freedom to live (and love!) their life at the same time.
I knew it didn’t have to be as complicated as everyone was making it.
So I set down to work to figure out a different way.
