When I was in my early 20’s fresh out of university I had a strong sense that that conventional workforce wasn’t a place for me. It felt so rigid, inhuman even, a form of paid slavery that doesn’t respect the nature of the human being. But there weren’t many alternative options.
I spent so many nights lying awake in my bed wishing for some kind of miracle. An answer to my question: how could bring my love to the world? How could I get paid for bringing the gifts I, as an individual with a specific coding of life experiences and karma unique to each of us, have to offer?
Living in the Gothic quarter of Barcelona in a boatshed-turned-illegal apartment with 4 others at the time, we were subsisting off bags of discounted vegetables from our local Chinese grocery store, hopes, dreams and a belief that love is all that mattered.
One day, walking beside my best friend, tired of feeling so limited, like I had to trade all my precious time for money doing things I didn’t believe in, just to live a life of modest affluence I remember lamenting to her. I wish I could create a job where I would get paid for being myself.
But I didn’t know where to begin. I was afraid that I had nothing of real value to offer and fearful that I would be viewed as a fraud. I believed that anything I could come up with would be judged as too unconventional and not beneficial enough. I shut myself down before I even began.
Years passed and I found ways to make money that conceded a certain degree of freedom. I found my love for writing and I started sharing stories. First, in monthly group emails to my burgeoning friends’ list from my continuous travels that I sent via my Hotmail account. Later, in a blog. Finally, it turned into a business. Work I do, which is an extension of who I am, that I get paid for.
There are a few things that helped me close the gap from wishing to living this notion. 5 ways to bring your love to the world.
1. Choose your purpose.
There a lot of misconception around what purpose really is. A lot of people think that one day it’s just going to fall into your lap, this sense of knowing around what you are supposed to do with your life. I was one of those people. Now I know that purpose is really the way that you embody your values.
2. Know what your unique gifts are.
Your gifts are practical, tangible things that you do in your everyday life that you might not realise that other people don’t do or can’t do or that it doesn’t occur to them. Gifts remain the same. Job titles change. The things that you are passionate about are the very things that are going to lead you to your dream life.
3. Decide how you can help others.
We get waaaay too complicated and overthink this part and completely lose the sense of how simply sharing ourselves in a real, relatable way is often all that others need from us to continue on their journey. Take your gifts, and start sharing them in the simplest way you can. That’s how you help others.
4. Value yourself.
You can make it all up as you go along and still be a raging success. It’s time that we normalised valuing everything we do and realising that when we live out our gifts and bring our unique principles of love into the world we deserve to be remunerated for it in an abundant way.
5. Keep going.
You just have to put one foot in front of the other without limiting or trying to control where it leads you. Life will carry you to unexpected places and heights that you will have never conceived of for yourself. Just because you can’t see how yet doesn’t mean it’s not true.
10 years ago when I was still trying to make my way in the world and figure out what my value-add was and how I could help I looked to the spiritual and personal development and psychology worlds to guide me but there wasn’t any tangible advice on ‘how to be yourself and make money from it‘. I vowed to myself that when I figure it out I would share it in a practical and understandable way.
Once again, I have partnered with my brilliant friend Claire Baker (author and menstrual health coach extraordinaire) to create a step by step structure on how we do two things:
- Build and grow a heartled business: The Heartful Biz.
- Create and sell your gifts in digital format: Your Own Online Course.
Starting today, until May 31st we have 3 options available to you:
Any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. I want to help you, too, bring your love to the world.