My Biggest Learnings, Failures & Wins from 6 Years in Business
This week I am celebrating SIX YEARS in business…
Six whole freakin’ years!
Who knows where that time has gone, seriously? On the one hand, it has flown by and then on the other, a lot has happened in that time.
And today I want to share with you some reflections on my biggest learnings, failures and wins of the last six years in business. Because I have learnt a lot, there have definitely been some “failures” and also, very gratefully, lots of wins.
So let’s kick off first with my biggest learnings…
My Biggest Learnings from 6 Years in Business
I won’t lie, this was hard to distill down. There are SO many things I’ve learnt in the last 6 years. Not just about what it takes to build and grow a business, but also about myself.
I am a big believer that starting and building your own business is one of the biggest personal development journeys you’ll ever go on!
Outside of becoming a mum, there is literally nothing I’ve ever done that has pushed me more out of my comfort zone than the things I’ve done to build my business over the last six years. It has literally brought up every limiting belief I’ve ever had and shone a big fat light on them.
So distilling the learnings down to just a few worth mentioning here was no easy feat. But I’ve done it! I have 3 (just 3!) learnings to share with you.
1. Follow your intuition
Sounds cliche, I know, and for you, a spiritual biz owner who is likely VERY intuitive – it’s almost a no brainer.
But if I’ve learnt anything about intuitives after working with them for 6 years (and growing up with a psychic medium for a mum) – I know that being intuitive doesn’t always mean you’ll actually listen to your intuition.
It’s for the exact reason that you’re intuitive, that you believe you’ll be able to find a way around it. It’s like: “I intuitively know that thing, and because I know it, I’m going to try to change it.”
No, just listen to your goddamn intuition. Ha!
Now the reason this is the first learning I want to share with you is because my entire business journey has been shaped by this.
If you’re familiar with my business story, you’ll know that the business I started six years ago looks VERY different now.
When I started my business I was working as a reiki healer and making the most delicious reiki-infused healing candles inspired by my love for and connection to all things Goddess.
Goddess spirituality is my jam. So when I made my first Goddess candle, I felt called to create a Goddess workshop alongside it. I partnered with my mum, Suzy Cherub, to bring it to life and from there everything else unfolded.
I trained as an NLP practitioner and coach.
I created more Goddess candles and hosted more Goddess workshops with Mum.
And the women that were coming through our workshops…they were wanting more.
I started offering spiritual life coaching and then, down the track, spiritual business coaching. Because some of the women who were coming through the workshops and my coaching program found themselves on their own path into heart-led entrepreneurship and wanted my support to get them there.
And now I’m here. Coaching incredible spiritual women to share their magic with the world and build and grow their businesses.
If I hadn’t followed my intuition, who knows where I’d be. It would have been so easy, each step of the way, to talk myself out of the next step.
Did it make a whole lot of sense to create a Goddess workshop alongside a candle? Not really, no.
Did I get funny looks when I told people that I was a candle maker AND a spiritual life coach? 100% I did.
Did it feel scary and stretchy AF to move into business coaching? Yes, of course.
But our intuition often doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. And following our intuition can often push us outside our comfort zone…
But following those breadcrumbs and allowing your story and journey to unfold in beautiful and unexpected ways – that’s a gift. And really, that is what building an aligned, sustainable business looks like.
Following your intuition, even when it doesn’t make sense. Especially when it doesn’t make sense.
2. Don’t do it alone
I know I talk about this one all the time – so long time listeners, sorry not sorry. But this is such a big part of my business journey so I can’t not include it.
Because the fact is, I tried to go it alone for too long.
If there is one thing I could go back and do differently, it would be to invest in support earlier than I did.
Sure, I had a few one off business coaching sessions in my first 3 and a half years in biz, but the first big investment I made in support 3 and a half years in was the catalyst for so much growth. My little business, that had been cruising along for 3 and a half years, finally uplevelled when I invested in a coach and mastermind experience.
And it wasn’t just about having a coach, but also being part of a mastermind meant that I was surrounded by other incredible women who were at a similar stage in business to me.
Having peers and biz besties who just get it, is so powerful! Some of my best friends, supporters and cheerleaders – I met through that mastermind 3 years ago.
It’s one of the reasons why the Spiritual Business Mistressmind is designed the way it is – combining 1:1 coaching AND group coaching. Because I know the power of having BOTH.
Having support on ALL sides is absolutely game changing. You don’t have to do it alone!
3. Don’t take business too seriously
This is a big one! Because it can be so easy to take business wayyyy too seriously. Especially when it means SO much to you.
When you care about the work that you do, when your work is so intrinsically tied to your soul purpose and your mission here on earth…it feels BIG. It feels serious. It feels important.
And it IS important. But I also know what it’s like to feel the pressure of that.
Feeling like… “If this doesn’t work, then I’m not fulfilling my purpose. If this doesn’t work, like, fuck, I’m a failure.”
If there’s anything I’ve learnt over the last 6 years it’s that when you take things too seriously, you become your own worst enemy. Everything becomes personal. You make everything mean something about you. And you hold on way too tightly.
I’m a BIG fan of holding things lightly. Holding your purpose lightly. Holding your business lightly. Holding your launch lightly. It’s something I remind myself of ALL the time.
When we take things too seriously. When we hold on too tight. When we make everything personally mean something about us. We strangle the energy. We don’t let the energy that needs to flow through us flow through us. And it holds us back from building the businesses we want to build.
And I mean, I didn’t start my own business to be serious. I started my own business to be my own boss, to share my magic in the biggest way possible and create a life for myself and my family that I love.
So don’t take your business too seriously. Hold it lightly. And have some fun.
And now because its my podcast and I can do what I want even though I said I’d distilled it down to 3 learnings, I also want to share some quick fire learnings that I won’t expand on mat all here but that I feel are worth mentioning:
Be intentional in everything you do.
You’re the CEO, sometimes you’ve gotta put your big girl pants on and have the difficult conversation and do the hard thing.
You CAN do hard things.
You can do hard things, but business still gets to feel easeful.
Stop procrastinating and make a decision.
Your authenticity is the most magnetic thing about you.
Being authentic doesn’t mean you have to share EVERYTHING online.
Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should.
I’m sure there’s more, but I’ll leave it there for now. Hit me up on instagram DMs at @bec.cuzzillo and tell me which of those most resonated for you.
My Biggest Failures from 6 Years in Business
Alright, let’s chat about my biggest failures now…this is going to be fun!
The first thing I want to say straight off the bat is that I very gratefully don’t really feel like I’ve had any HUGE, massive failures in my 6 years in business.
I’ve already shared that if I could change one thing it’d be to invest in a business coach earlier than I did. And there’s obviously been times when I’ve taken my business too seriously and it’s made things a lot harder for myself and a lot less enjoyable, and times when I’ve taken things personally when I really shouldn’t have.
But like BIG failures where things have totally gone pear shaped or a launch has completely flopped – so far, I’ve come through fairly unscathed. Touch wood.
What I can share with you is that while I haven’t had a launch completely flop, I have had launches that have felt REALLY hard, where I had no sign ups for the first 10 days and felt like pulling the pin, more than once.
But the ONE story that I really want to share with you here is about the time I launched an offer on one day and then took it down the next. This was a BIG lesson for me in following your intuition and being authentic.
This happened right after I had Noah, so 2 and a half years ago now. If you were in my Facebook Group back then, you might remember this. Because I only launched this offer to my Facebook Group.
From memory, it was a 3-card intuitive reading delivered via email. So it wasn’t a big, expensive offering, but I had still put the work in – created some content, taken some beautiful photos, popped it up on the website and then shared it in my Facebook group.
And as soon as I hit publish on that post, I remember the feeling of contraction in my body. It was like this visceral feeling of “oh shit, what have I done, this is not aligned at all”.
Now I had a few people purchase readings that day and I did deliver on those readings. Because it wasn’t about NOT being able to deliver on those readings. I knew I could. But I knew as soon as I’d put it up that I had to take it down. It just wasn’t me. It wasn’t aligned. It wasn’t authentic. It wasn’t getting me closer to my vision.
So the next day, I jumped into the group and went live to explain why I was taking the offer down. And, of course, I used it as a teachable moment…because your intuition is NEVER wrong and honouring your authenticity is more important than sticking with something just because you put it out into the world.
You’re allowed to change your mind. That was not the path for me and I know I had to put it out into the world to realise that.
Was it a true failure? I mean, maybe? I literally launched an offer and 5 minutes later took it down. But also, not really. I learnt A LOT in that moment about myself and my business.
And I mean, it makes a damn good story. Amirite?
My Biggest Wins from 6 Years in Business
Okay, let’s finish with my biggest wins from 6 years in business.
Now I could rattle off the numbers and talk about 5-figure launches and hitting 6-figures – which are, of course, huge wins and celebrations for me. Like, so huge! And it still blows my mind that this is my reality.
But honestly, my biggest wins are so much more than that!
One of my biggest wins is that I have built a business that supports me in life.
After Noah was born, my business actually grew, at a time when I was working wayyy less. And since then, my business has shifted and changed depending on what I’ve got going on.
For the first 18 months of his life, I had one day a week in my business, because my parents looked after Noah on that day. And then once he was in daycare, I had 3 days a week.
When we have another baby, it’ll shift and change again. And then when our kids are in school it’ll look different. And so on.
That’s a huge freakin’ win for me! That I have built a business that continues to grow and thrive and support me in whatever season of life I’m in.
I also can’t talk about wins without talking about the absolute joy and magic of working with my incredible clients. The fact that I get to walk alongside such incredible humans doing such incredible work in this world is such a dream.
I remember in the Closing Ceremony for the Mistressmind last year, a few of the women sat there and celebrated not giving up when business felt hard. They shared that one of the things they were MOST grateful for was having MY support to get them through those hard times. One of them even said something like, “if I didn’t have you Bec, I don’t think I could have kept going.”
And for me, THAT was the moment that my impact really hit home. I get emotional when I think about it. Because I hadn’t really given myself the opportunity to sit with the ripple effect of my work. We don’t often give ourselves that opportunity.
For that client – because she had trusted and invested in my support, she didn’t give up on her lightwork! And the best part is that she had come through those hard times and landed in a place that felt so much more aligned for her and she was attracting incredible clients because of it.
There are multiple wins here – NOT only do I get to work with incredible women doing incredible things each and every day…but I also get to see and feel the impact of that work. That’s incredibly satisfying.
Having come from the community sector in my past life, where you don’t often get to see the impact of your work (even though you know it’s happening!) – that is a huge win for me.
And I hope a reminder for you, to take a moment to really sit with the impact that you’re having. Take a moment right now and really feel into it
I know that you’re a big-hearted spiritual business owner with so much magic and medicine to share, you are literally out there changing lives. Take a moment to feel that and let it sink in. Because Ialso know, if you’re anything like me, you don’t do that nearly enough.
Finally, can we also just celebrate that I’ve been in business for SIX whole freakin’ years! I mean, that’s a pretty big win in and of itself, right?
I am by no means an overnight success story, my journey has been one of consistent, sustainable growth. And I actually really love that.
I am so proud of this business that I’ve built. And I am so excited for what the next 6 years and beyond holds for me.
So that’s it from me today…my biggest learnings, failures and wins from 6 years in business.
I want to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you to you!
If you’re here listening to this podcast, I am SO deeply grateful for you.
This podcast exists, my business exists because of you, my community. There would be no business without you. It is not lost on me that your support is what has gotten me to this point. So thank you, deeply.
I love you. I honour you. I bow to you.
Spiritual Business Mistressmind – Doors Open!
Now before I sign off, I want to remind you that early bird enrolment for the April 2022 round of the Spiritual Business Mistressmind closes this week!
The Mistressmind, if you’re not already aware, is an intimate 4 month mastermind coaching experience for women who are ready to build the business of your dreams, while staying grounded in your values, your spirituality and your soul purpose.
It combines 1:1 coaching with a group mastermind and sisterhood experience. This is where grounded, practical business strategy meets fully embodied feminine spirituality.
And I would LOVE to support you in this way! Head on over here to find out more, sign up or book a call with me.
