I Can’t Get It Up for 6-Figure Months
I caught myself recently saying “I can’t get it up for 6-figure months”…
…not in the “I only get out of bed for $10,000” kind of way, but in the “I have been to that mountaintop and know the illusion” kind of way.
I was pondering why I’ve never felt hooked by the lure of hustling toward that 6-figure marker of success that has gotten so trendy in entrepreneurship, especially fem-business land, and then I remembered that I used to see 6-figure weeks in my 20s.
23 and 24 to be exact. Not even a fully formed brain. We could summon six-figures in a couple days, simply because we wanted to.
I once traveled the country with six figures shoved under my tour bus mattress because I couldn’t be bothered to find a bank to deposit it in while hurtling between cities, and because there was so much money flowing in it honestly didn’t seem like a big deal at the time.
I’ve sat in meetings with folks casually talking about writing me a check for a million dollars.
I have seen crazy money. I have lived the life of wild, high intensity opportunity. It doesn’t hold a glamour over me any longer. And ironically that was the freedom I was seeking way back then, that I thought I could get to through more money and more success.
I know the energetics of success and money intimately for having had, then lost, then reclaimed in a new way.
I know that success is NEVER formulaic. Never. Which is why you are always a little dissatisfied when you purchase someones sure-fire success plan or course. Success comes in a couple of flavors: hard-won or synchronistically gifted. When it’s hard-won they’ll lie to you about 95% of the ingredients that went into it (because hard-won is a long trail and we forget the nuances of the path along the way). Synchronistically gifted is an incredible and addictive experience: divinely aligned, right place right time, alchemical explosion. Maybe even karmic. It’s an exhilarating ride but its not meant to last. Kind of like psychedelics: you get shown the possibility, but eventually you crash back down to sober and then your job is to build the bridge back to the glory you got a hint of (aka hard-won). The trope of the rising and falling star is this: a karmic explosion, but if the person isn’t prepared to do some building when the initial pop starts to wear off, its a gnarly crash and burn.
I’ve lived all of this. It’s worlds and tales I’ve mostly tried not to talk about for the last ten years, but perhaps a part of me is finally ready to syncretize.
Because in the ten+ years of studying & working in the fields of Energy and Consciousness I have been unintentionally studying my own first-life in this life. I have been examining the rise and fall of my first identity as artist; actor, director, writer, producer, creator. All creation is energetic, and in some ways I might say that I lived a first-pass at energetic alchemist through my 20s and my freak success as an artist. Or perhaps I am living my second pass as an artist through my current identity of Energy Worker.
What I know for sure is that I can’t get it up for 6-figure months. At least not in the way the current conversation is going.
When you build from the pursuit of the numbers (dollars, audience members, sales) the energetics under the creation are ALWAYS only ever oriented toward the upward drive of numbers. More and more numbers. And you’ll lie to yourself about that as you get deeper and deeper into it. ESPECIALLY if you consider yourself conscious and spiritual. The smarter you are, the easier it is to slip into some sneaky lies:
“I HAVE to pursue these numbers because that’s how I know I am helping enough people!”
”I HAVE to hit this income goal because that is how people will know I am legitimate and qualified!”
Anything that becomes a single-factor pursuit is fertile ground for viruses of dishonesty and slippery integrity. Like mono cropping. “We HAVE to cover the entire midwest in corn fields!"… you really don’t.
You’ll lie about the distance between what you REALLY want to be creating and what you THINK will get you to the next numbers threshold. You’ll lie to yourself about the repressed expression that you believe would ruin your upward trajectory. You’ll lie to yourself and others about your “Why”.
Numbers-only growth is a cancer… it destroys all emergent creation in it’s path in pursuit of that single, empty goal.
In 2013, after having been “let go” from the multi-million dollar international sensation that I helped build, I was deep in a healing and repairing phase. My relationship with energy work and spiritual practice started here, though sneakily. I was still very committed to my work in the arts, but was adrift around where I would be going next. I had the light bulb idea to self-produce and direct my own production. Honestly insane and ridiculous considering what I was coming out of. Kickstarter, huge cast- the works. But here was the kicker: we were going to work off of multiple markers of success.
How happy and inspired is the cast, crew, and producing team? How much creative fulfillment and expression does everyone feel? How are we able to MOVE the audience, not just entertain them? How respected do people feel for their time (aka are they getting paid well and fair and on time)?
That production won me recognition in Chicago, but more importantly it seeded a new template of successful producing and entrepreneurship: numbers can not be the only threshold of success.
Every one LOVES to read a line like that and NOBODY wants to live it because it demands moving in radically different ways, ignoring the comparison game, getting so HONEST and naked with money and resource that there is no room for illusion left, and living patiently and deeply in a field of multi-dimensional intentionality. We love to say we are here for the New Business Paradigm™ but can’t stand if our income ebbs and flows month to month (like… the seasons?). We love to say we are running conscious businesses but we refuse to give up a quick hit of number satisfaction in exchange for long term health and alignment.
About a year ago I had a very internet-famous and popular marketing and business guru put an email in my inbox telling me she could teach me how to “hack” my clients “brain chemicals” in order to make more sales. A couple of months ago she was promoting her “ethical marketing”.
When we are still in the golden handcuffs of numbers-only evaluation we will lie to ourselves and others about the integrity of our offers. Numbers-only pursuit is a hungry ghost.
I will forever be grateful for the wild, karmic success-rocket that I rode in my 20s, so that I could get the glamour of those ways of building and creating out of my system. Ironically, ten years later I have a business that is well-primed to grow into very similar numbers (over time) but with so much soul and integrity behind it, zero urgency, spaciousness to pause when I need to re-evaluate, and room to let my soul’s evolution lead… what every great artist is in pursuit of anyway.
Some of my non-number success metrics I am working with currently:
How “locked in” do I feel in any given session, circle or training? I call it being in the pocket.
How much time each week do I have to pursue other creative or study-related explorations (without putting a fixed agenda on them)?
How efficiently is money and resource being used in both my life and my business?
How at ease do I feel going to sleep each night, and how excited to start the day to I feel waking up?
How connected to Spirit do I feel inside the very mundane functions of the business? This often feels like a joy that is almost grief… like a deep and ancient soul-relief that I get to weave magic into even the most linear and mundane corners of my life and operations.
If something in this lit something up for you, you’ll want to check out my Energetic Alignment for Business work, OR join us weekly in the VITAL BLUEPRINTS energy sessions.
Big love… do it different.
Julia