Carolyn Elliot died last week.
For those that don’t know, she wrote a book called Existential Kink.
There is confusion and controversy in some of the spiritual self-healing circles, because she killed herself. And yet her work has impacted so many, in revolutionary and profound ways.
The book found it’s way into my hands only a few months ago. In short, it’s the idea that if we are creators of our reality, every single thing that exists in it, whether we like it or not, is something that we desire on some level of our conscious or subconscious psyche.
I’ve already written about this in previous stacks, but why it’s so present for me right now, is because I have a big fat ‘no one wants me’ name tag, and I finally realised that that might just be my greatest power.
I’ve been back in LA 2 weeks and there is a fire under my ass like no other.
I’ve never had such clarity on what I’m building. I am in major marketing / business development mode. I’m having meetings, I’m being of service, I’m following the breadcrumb trail. Things have never been more flowy and I have never been less attached to outcomes.
The Kinn wants to do a business partnership with their 30,000 audience of conscious business builders because they also see the fractional hiring model as the future. Cool.
I had a meeting with the founder of a welltech business that is blowing up, who needs to hire people, and it lit me on fire, and it lit him on fire. Also very cool.
And in all of this, it’s not like I don’t care, but I don’t care.
I’m not in the results business, and I need to be reminded of that daily.
So right now I am showing up to meetings and calls, and letting good things flow, and I don’t know which of them are going to land and that’s ok.
Because that BIG deal I was so excited about a few weeks ago, that I really cared about and I really wanted…. turned out dead as a dodo.
As a recruiter, I’ve been doing business development for 14 years. And it’s always been reluctant. There’s always been this resistance to coming across as “salesy” or needing to have an outcome, and I have resisted it like the plague for 14 years.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still done outreach. I have wrestled with the alligator, and had so many stories about it and have worked through SO much around this over the years.
Yes yes. I’m offering value. I know.
90% of my recruiting business has come through referrals, and my biggest client last year (I was doing some internal recruiting for a media company in Santa Monica) came in through the founder replying to this Substack.
So all of that has felt REALLY good. But when it comes to doing outreach, to reconnect with people THAT I KNOW, to find out what they’re working on, to share what I am working on, and then seeing if there is any way those two might overlap (WHICH IS SOMETHING I KNOW IS SO VALUABLE AND I AM GOOD AT), no matter how much work I have done in this department, it still feels like pulling teeth.
I’m a 4/6 Projector, and learning that opportunities for me will come from my network and that it’s my job to be visible, has been a game changer.
So some days flow, but some days I’m like, where do I start?! I have built a huge network over these years, and obviously some folks are a lot warmer than others.
And as I’m in this flavour of overwhelm this morning, I know I gotta get right in my head. I gotta get right with god.
So I sit for a few, and start breathing, and then intuitively this breath starts to move through me, and there is grief coming up. And I see myself as my 9 year old self at Norman Court school with an Annie afro, where I had probably my most challenging childhood years…. bullied, no friends, going home every day crying…
This isn’t the sob story version. But as that grief is coming up, I’m like Ohhhhhh, this makes sense. Then Carolyn Elliot’s words drop in, and even more, ohhhhh this makes sense.
This big fat wound of ‘no one wants me’ started there. And I have carried it damnnn well basically ever since.
OOOOOFFF no wonder this business outreach is hard, I am literally operating from the 9 year old version of me that had no friends and no one wanted, as the teenager who got fat and no boy was interested in, as the 20 something who went into the world of business and life making it her sole attempt to be liked.
Yeah, no wonder this is hard.
So I remember the practice. And I breathe into it, and I feel those feelings, and FUCK that was some sad shit.
But you know what?
If I came to earth to experience the full spectrum of life. If THAT was the human experiment, and it was my job to experience that feeling of ‘no one wants me’, MY GOD I HAVE NAILED THAT JOB.
I know that isn’t my present reality. I am so loved and supported by friends and family in my today reality. But that wound runs deep. And it comes up in love and money again and again and again.
So whereas before my work and practice would be to find all the ways I AM wanted, and ultimately be the one choosing myself, what wanted to come through today was different.
What if I wore my big fat “No one wants me” name tag with pride? What if it was my badge of honour? What if it really that was my biggest power?
So I breathe more into that feeling. Into that sensation. And energy moves through my body, I feel it viscerally. And it no longer makes me sad about that childhood or wounding, but I’m like fucccckkkkkk I know how to own this shit. My god it feels good.
THAT is the essence of Existential Kink.
Finding pleasure in our deepest wounds. Literally finding the kink in them.
And the pressure that has relieved this morning MY GOD!
I want to race to get rejected. The business that ghosted me a few weeks ago, let’s follow up and get a no reply again and get the turn on from that hit of ‘no one wants me!’
Now suddenly business development and marketing is this kinky game.
If I was being visible and doing outreach before and my business wasn’t growing, I saw it as a reflection of my own inadequacies, of my own not enough-ness.
AND NOW?!!
Doors blasted wide open. THAT’S MY POWER PLAY!!! No one replies? No one wants me? HELLL YEAHHH. That feels good. That’s on my name tag.
This is my BADGE OF HONOUR. And I can’t tell you how good that feels.
We’ve heard the idea that for every 100 nos, there’s a yes waiting for you. Guys I used to work with embodied that. They didn’t see the NO as the personal rejection as I did, they were now just 1 step closer to the YES.
The NO was just as much a success for them as the YES.
And what I’m realising now, is that this is just my version of that.
Growing this business I believe in so much, has become a game out of the childhood wounds and stories that felt like they have plagued me for years.
Now it’s my game to see just how many people don’t want me.
Does this sound pretty f*cked up? Maybe.
Do I care?
I am building this business as a game. I am dating as a game. Because love and money are basically the same thing you know.
Dancing in the underworld of my demons, bringing them into the light and calling them mine.
For YOUR clarity in ignoring this Substack, and any attempt of mine to ask for referrals and grow my business and earn you money, I help 2 businesses 2 ways:
Companies who are in a growth spurt and need to hire 3-10ish people stat, I come in as an internal recruiter at a fraction of the cost of using an agency or hiring someone full time.
Mission-driven companies who want to hire fractional talent. i.e. I just placed a fractional COO at Spout Water : no upfront recruiting fees, flexible for what the business actually needs, and no long term commitments. This is the future of hiring which is why I’m obsessed with it right now.
So there’s my clarity.
There’s my badge of honour.
This is the game I am playing right now.
To be so totally unwanted by the world, and SO free in that feeling.
What a weirdo.—Holly Gottlieb (Founder, Whole Collective)
Whole Collective help values-driven founders grow their businesses. If you're a founder or business leader who needs to grow your business but aren’t down for upfront recruiting fees and are much more interested in relationships built on trust, let’s talk.
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