PSA to all Entrepreneurs, Business Owners + Service Providers: It’s Time to Feed Your Soul First

For as long as I can remember, I have dreamed of being able to work for myself. 

I come from a family of entrepreneurs, starting with my grandma, who after immigrating from Haiti began our family business, a bakery that is still after almost 50 years, successfully growing and flourishing in Jamaica, Queens. 

Having something of my own was always more than just about money. But ownership and opportunity. Ownership of my time, my energy, and the opportunity to extend what I have built to my family and to have it be an anchor through all the twists and turns that life may bring. 

It wasn’t long into my 9-5 career that I began to realize that putting my dream on the back burner wouldn’t be possible for too long. 

But even with all the experiences that I had witnessed through other business owners my whole life, I never would have imagined how the journey would unravel for me. 

And how deeply spiritual it would become. 

When you watch creators on Youtube and Instagram talk about building their businesses, scaling to 7 or 8 figures through courses and masterminds, you never hear them talk about the soul side of their businesses. 

It’s all about metrics, external markers of success, business models and accolades but what about how they feel when they wake up in the morning or the thoughts that keep them up at night? 

I once fell into the trap of believing that all my anxiety, doubts, and fears about entrepreneurship would disappear once I hit my income goals and could finally support myself the way I always dreamed. 

But what I realized, was that nothing — no amount of money, or clients, would ever be worth the price of my soul. 

And that none of us should be so willing to sell ourselves to the point of burnout, exhaustion and feeling defeated by un-fulfillment on a daily basis just to meet a business goal or prove ourselves the world. 

Of course, the success of your business is important, but at the end of the day that success cannot be truly measured by anything other than what you deem success to mean to you personally and how you actually feel at the start and completion of your work day.

I’ve struggled so often with feeling like what I was doing wasn’t enough. 

Not enough content. Not enough marketing. Not enough clients. 

But whenever I stopped to get to the root of that feeling, it was coming from how I was neglecting my spirit at some point in my creation process. 

It was coming from doing things that I didn’t feel called to do, because people were paying for it. Or taking on more than I was energetically able to, because I felt like I had to. 

In our society we are taught to tell our inner guidance system no, especially if it means that it will get us ahead in some capacity. 

We suppress our intuitive hunches, when they are going against what our family, friends or mentors are telling us would make more sense logically. 

But I, cannot stress this enough — you didn’t decide to take complete ownership over your life to follow any model or listen to any outside voice before your own. 

I’ve learned the hard way (many, many times) how destructive that habit is to my well-being and the well-being of my business. 

In the past few months, I’ve connected with so many of you that are receiving callings, to take the leap into entrepreneurship, shift your business model, or even walk away from your business that have expressed also feeling this grief in so many different ways. 

It’s an important and necessary conversation that I feel so strongly about continuing to share through my work, one that I cover extensively in my e-book, and a core pillar of my coaching services for business owners. 

Learning how to feed your spirit first is something that feels counterintuitive sometimes because of the toxic hustle culture that our society promotes, but I can promise, it is one of the best things you can do for yourself in the long run. 

Money is a currency that operates off of your energy. If your energy isn’t right, how will the money feel good to receive and multiply? 

If your soul isn’t fed, how will you continue to grow and share your uniqueness with the world in a way that only YOU can? 

It’s time to hit reverse, feed you first, and everything from the inside and out, will follow suit.