Is God’s plan for me really to have daily KPI metrics to reach out to people on LinkedIn and make sure I’m posting daily and engaging with the comments and new followers?
Is that really the plan?
I mean, ok if it is, but there are some times when I really do have to question it.
Right now is one of those times.
I have never been more willing to do what it takes to build this business.
But also never more willing to walk away.
I just spent a week in Ireland.
It was pissing with rain. 4 of those days I was in airplane mode (also lol how certain phrases come into being and you know exactly what I mean).
It was heavenly. It was perfect.
It was singing old Irish songs and standing in the pouring rain for 4 hours foraging seaweeds and plants and cooking them up on a campfire.
It was bursting into 4 part harmonies at any given moment and sitting round the stove well past midnight drinking tea.
It was stories of the soul. And praying at stone circles that have been here for 5,000 years and probably more.
It was all level of flow and magic that could possible exist and fairies and spirits and screaming into the mist.
I came back to my parents with the flu.
Mum has been taking care of me. She’s learning herbalism at 67. It makes me so happy. A new life at 67!
And now with my snotty nose and voice about 3 days away from being super sexy, I’m making a google sheet of my own KPIs, and editing the content, and reaching out to people on LinkedIn…..
And is this really what God wants me doing?
Is this really what I was put on this magical planet at this time of collective awakening to experience?
The reminder I took from Ireland, is that Glastonbury Holly is no separate from business builder Holly.
I got reminded that these songs I have been given, are truly a gift. This music in me and the medicine my voice holds, is exactly that. And medicine is to be shared.
Being a musician is what other people did. And I have shied away from it.
So I’ve been letting it sit on the back burner whilst I’ve been heads down trying to build this business.
And what I got to see, through chemical burns in the hot tub on the last night in Ireland when we stayed in a fancy hotel. And a dear friend called Tahra who is very magical indeed, but always tell the truth, and that makes me want to tell her FUCK YOU. and THANK YOU (which I do. Thank you Tahra)...
Anyway. Dear friends who tell the truth. Fuck em. And thank em…..
Through that all. I got to see that I have been leaving parts of me behind.
In a Voldemort kinda way. You know… splitting myself off into these 7 pieces (if you get that reference, welcome to Gryffindor!)
I thought if I just went major hard on this business for a minute, then I could address the music bit later. That I could put it on the sidelines.
And then once I’ve got the business bit set, then the music bit would fall into place, and then the life partner would arrive, and then I could do the family and dog and house piece too…. Then maybe I’ll be an adult.
Like everything happens sequentially.
But there’s so many pieces of myself that I’m denying in the process. Because I’m waiting for some place to arrive to. It’s splitting me up inside.
And so I feel…. split up inside.
I don’t know how to go ALL in on ALL the pieces of me.
Well Tahra would tell me I do. So I guess I’m remembering.
On the one hand I’m doing business development for fractional recruiting, but I’m simultaneously looking for internal recruiting gigs. And I’m simultaneously questioning if this is the path I’m really supposed to be on, because the nervous system piece feels so loud and so relevant right now.
And there’s a lot of thoughts and questions inside my head.
And I know that all these platforms are really here to just sell a service and I’m asking myself, am I really just selling recruiting services? Like, is that the thing I’m really supposed to be offering?
Ok, well I’ll give it a go. I have to pay rent somehow. So I’ll do my spreadsheet of KPIs, and ask myself what’s manageable? In addition to the deliverables of work, what will actually move the needle closer to where you want to be?
To every man I have ever loved there is a fuck you and thank you. And to one of them who’s voice I hear in me now, ‘just tell the truth’ he said.
Just tell the truth.
And this is mine.
That is every day I still question what I’m doing. And every time I reach that brink, some miracle comes in and tells me to keep going. And in my heart of hearts I know I’m going to be ok, and I didn’t know that before. And yes I want the freedom of having money, but I don’t really care about the status or the job title that used to come with that. And if that means doing a 9-5 job again, I’ll do that. And I really do believe there is a path through all of this that takes me on the most humbling journey but leads me to a sense of fulfillment and purpose and joy that feels holy.
And I know this because I have felt all these feelings at some point, since starting on this adventure.
I have felt the holiest of feelings of this great adventure of life. And they have arrived in ways I could have never engineered or anticipated.
And some days are just like this. Making KPI spreadsheets. And telling the truth.
One of my clients said he wanted to move forwards with a candidate but could we pick up next week because he’s on a silent retreat.
Another has delayed the process to a time unknown.
There’s no waiting.
I’m just ticking off one more thing on my KPI checklist.
Turns out, it was pretty cathartic.
—Holly Gottlieb (Founder, Whole Collective)
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