It's The Worst Way To Fail

And has nothing to do with external factors

But has everything to do with you and your mindset…

As many of you know, I started working full-time again this fall

Full transparency, it has not been easy for me to make the transition

From 2018-2022 I worked from home, 3 years full-time and 1 year freelance

Which meant going to the office (3 days a week) was difficult to adjust and adapt to

That said, I joined the company for reason and believed in what we were doing

I also realized that my timing for going out alone was a bit pre-mature

There were only 5 companies in Portugal commercializing

And one of them was my previous employer

Another was my current employer

I didn’t have many options

I thought I failed…

New Opportunities

No, I didn’t go bankrupt

In fact, I didn’t even go into my savings

For 12 months, I made more than I was spending

That in itself was a win, but I had to do it a different way

By working with clients that were not part of my desired target market

I did some writing for a consulting firm, and advised a cannabis tech company

Both services being things I did not plan on offering as a cannabis advisor

That said, they were both things that brought in revenue and paid bills

Without them, I would have had to go back to being an employee

Not by choice either, it would have been forced upon me

Assuming I didn’t want to move back to Michigan

And live in my parents’ basement again

Which was not an option fam

So, I took the clients…

Blindsided

You never see it coming

But that’s how it’s meant to be

Or it wouldn’t have the impact you want…

Unfortunately, it shows up whenever the hell it wants

For me, it didn’t show up until I started creating content every day

Most times in the form or written posts on LinkedIn and my personal blog

Yeah, the one you are reading right now that doesn’t talk about cannabis much

Why?

Because when I started writing, I naturally had other things to talk about

One of the main ones being my personal development journey

Something I started 5 years ago after leaving the states

But I didn’t know what to do with this new info

It had nothing to do with my advising

And wasn’t a service of mine

I was confused…

Know Your Worth

I totally missed this

And had zero self-awareness

Wondering through life as a puppet of sorts

Believing that my work defined me and made me, me

And that I had to be one dimensional with no ability to explore

But then I had a crazy idea…

I thought, why can’t I do both? Why can’t I work in the industry I love

But also build my own community online and share my stories and knowledge

This would then allow me to keep writing about the topics that I enjoy

While having a great opportunity within the cannabis industry

So, that’s exactly what I decided to do with a prospect

One I was not able to land as a client of mine

But who offered me a full-time position

The result?

I found a middle ground…

The Lesson

Failure is subjective

And we beat ourselves up a lot

Did my advising business go amazingly well?...

No, it didn’t. I failed at some things, but also succeeded in others

And I learned a hell of a lot about what I was capable of as an individual

In fact, it was definitely a top 5 breakthrough experience for me in my life thus far

Now, I’m no longer afraid of going out on my own again and failing miserably

If I looked at my business as a total failure, then I probably would be

But it wasn’t a total failure at all, even if I told myself it was

Just because I decided to “go back to work” again

I was focusing on all the wrong things

Instead of on what I created

Which was the best

Of both…