I was wondering today as always journallig on  some different things around what things look like when we strip everything back. So it’s a little bit like we wear outfits to clothe our body. A lot of us wear our businesses to kind of clothe our identity and some things that I’ve been pondering on.

This is actually somewhat vulnerable and a bit weird… What happens if we strip it all back?

What happens if you don’t have a business?

What happens if you don’t have that job?

What happens if you don’t have the husband or the family or the kids or the trappings of success?

It was an interesting pondering for me, because I guess the thing that I’ve been thinking about is this: if you took my business away… there is so much of my identity tied up in it – which is not necessarily think a bad thing but it is kind of interesting.

One of the things that it made me think about is this: If we take the business out of the equation and if I can no longer say “I’m a visibility expert”, or  “Hey, I help people with their online marketing” or “I’m a business coach” or “A business mentor”…. If we take all of that stuff out what is it that I’m left with?

I had this moment where I was like, oh my God! I don’t want to be ‘just a mum’. I don’t want to be ‘just a wife’. I don’t want to be known as ‘just a daughter’ or just a ‘stay at home mum’ or just a “insert, whatever kind of just a thing that you want to put in here”…

I took it a step further and really had to sit down and think about, “Who am I without the nice clothes? Who am I without the bags? Who am I without the business?” It doesn’t mean that I have all my self-worth locked up in the ‘stuff’, but I LOVE it all and it’s important to me in the scheme of how I like to feel and dress.

One of the things that I really realized today specifically, is if we take the business out of ‘the equation’, I didn’t really have any other reason / occasion other than maybe an occasional date night or going out on a weekend to kind of get dressed up. *gasp*.

I don’t have any reason or any real occasion to like wear my nice things, you know, not that it’s about, it’s not just all the nice things, but it’s really nice to have a reason or a purpose. But owning that stuff and the big thing that came up for me was, well, if you take out the reason for having it being business, if I took that out, then why do we even need it?

Now, it may sound superficial.

It may sound materialistic.

Whatever.

This isn’t REALLY about that. This is more about stripping everything back realising WHY you’re doing what you’re doing and WHO you’re doing it for. For reals.

It made me then consider that even though we don’t actually really need all the trappings, sometimes it’s nice to have a ‘reason’ for having them.

We don’t need the nice clothes. We don’t need the fancy bags. We don’t need the fancy red sole shoes or the designer shoes for any other reason that you WANT them. Or you don’t. Having a business is a really great reason to own all of those because you can just kind of wear them because you want to or because it’s great for positioning or you can wear them for photo shoots and you can do all this, that and the other, which I love. I love the fact that there is a reason for it.

It’s a bit like when I was in corporate, I would buy nice suits -always pet pantsuits. I’d buy nice shoes, I’d buy nice bags. I always had that image to uphold. Whereas it kind of made me consider that if I didn’t ‘have’ to show up on camera every day, if I didn’t have to have photo shoots, then you know what, what would I do?

What the heck would I do with the endless days if I didn’t have my business to keep me ‘busy’?

I got to thinking about what I’d do on a daily basis. I’d clean my house. Great check that box! I love a nice client house. I love the smell of the house being nice and clean – and judge me or not – I love the smell of the cleaning product smells.

I’d take the kids to school and pick them up from school.

I’d go to the gym and then what?

What ELSE would I actually do?

What would my purpose be? And that became really quite scary to consider actually.

This is where the sucker punch kicked in though…..

If I was to go out with Dom for dinner for his work and he introduces me and they say, “Oh, so what are you doing Nicola?” At the moment there is a whole sense of pride and ego tied up my response that I would say now:  “I’m an online visibility expert, I help people with their online marketing and their social media so that they can get more clients and make more money”.

Whereas if I take that title out, I’d say what? I was stumped. What would I say I did if I didn’t have this business or a job that I felt was my version of successful?

This question, by the way of “What do you do” is a really fucked up question to ask anyone! It really has people only being able to answer with what their occupation is versus WHO they ARE…

Working with this question though and in the way I was working thorugh it, taking out the business identity and the career identity… What options would I have in how to answer? “I’m a stay at home Mum?” or “I’m Dom’s wife” #vomit. Not that either of these things are bad. Stop judging me! I know that this GREAT for some people. I know that for some people, this is the most fulfilling role of their lives and that is outstanding. And honestly, there are times I wish that I could be that person and be totally happy with that. But it’s not how I’m wired. Different strokes and all that.

I’ve always had a sense of pride around what I “do” and this is what’s caused the ponderings….

Interestingly, my mother-in-law is recovering from heart surgery at the moment, and my daughter and I went to visit her in hospital. My oldest daughter has got herself a job and she’s currently working as a cleaner, which is great for her. My mother-in-law said to her while we were there, “What are you doing with yourself at the moment?” and she replied, “I’m still cleaning”  . My MIL said, “wow, okay”. My response was “It’s really great for Tiana actually”.  It is true! This is the perfect job for my daughter at the moment. She’s making really great money and she doesn’t have to deal with the public, which suits her down to the ground! She finds people interaction tiring and exhausting from a work perspective. She doesn’t tolerate bullshit, (don’t know where she gets that from) and finds it hard to deal with the ‘customer is always right’ kind of stuff. My mother MIL’s response was “The only way is up”…. It was a well intentioned response… it caused me to ponder on it, though.

The lightbulb moment for ME was this: Someone’s value – someone’s intrinsic value – isn’t based on their job or their business or their title or all the way that they choose to live their life and live there with their thing. And I think something else that it made me consider and, and something else that all this whole thought process may be think about is why am I, why do I feel like I have to prove something to someone and I don’t even know who the hell that is.

My thing is that I do not want to be just a mum. I don’t want to be a Susie homemaker. I don’t want to be the, you know, the lunch lady. I don’t want to be just someone who has this “normal job”. And if that’s what somebody wants, then that is great. More power to them and we each have a role to fulfill and do on this planet.

But it really made me remember this:

I don’t want the normal kind of life. I don’t want to just be a wife. I don’t want to just be a daughter. I don’t want to just be a taxi driver. I don’t want to just be a whatever. I want a life that is extraordinary. I want a life that is filled with adventure and challenges, I suppose, as hard as that can be to deal with along the way.

I want challenges that I can overcome. Obviously that build strength.

I want a life where I get to inspire and motivate people, really at its core.

That’s really what I want.

So the reason for sharing all of this with you is to have you think about and to have you consider who are you without the job title?

Who are you without your business?

Are you someone who may be like, man, I need to now go and do some work on it?

Who’s trying to prove to somebody, maybe yourself, maybe somebody outside of you.

Maybe someone from your ancient fricking history that you show “Hey motherfucker, you were wrong… and you know what? You shouldn’t have let me go. You shouldn’t have said those things. Look, here’s me proving to you that I’m more than …. “ whatever it was that they said about you.

Maybe it’s a bit of ‘fuck you for underestimating me’…

But really, at the end of the day, they probably don’t even remember the stuff that you do and it wouldn’t matter what you do one way or the other.

Work out if you’re trying to prove something or not….

And who are you outside of all of this?

Work that out and THAT is the ‘secret’ to creating the next level of you, which of course flows into the next steps in your business or career.

Bottom line, though, you’re a badass.

Time to own that shit.