Numbers, nuggets and a spot of controversy-aka a peek inside my first six-figure year
Psst… this is an email I wrote to my list in 2019. I’ve plonked it here for you to see because I’m going to write a version of this at the end of every financial year, and I think it might be cool to see how things change as my biz evolves.
It was the end of our financial year here in Aus last Sunday, and it was the first time I cracked the 6 figure mark in my biz.
WAIT! DON’T GOOOO -
This is *not* a braggy-bragfest about how I use 24k gold toilet paper to wipe my bum, sleep in sheets spun by thoroughbred silk worms, and have an army of man servants to do my bidding. (Manfred works alone...)
It’s just me, riffing on my experience and offering up some thought nuggets, which may or may not be useful — wherever you are in your biz.
Let the nuggeting begin…
The path to 6 figures isn’t always a slow and steady climb.
IN MY CASE, IT WAS A SNOWBALL.
Here’s what I mean…
March 2018 was the first month I banked $8k
August 2018 was the first month I banked $18k
February 2019 was the first time I banked $25k
And last month was the first time I cracked the $30k mark ($33,346 to be exact)
Which really, truly blows my strange little mind. Partly because I used to make $64K a year as a highly qualified therapist AND part-time academic, and partly because the rate of growth is improbably large and fast. To think I used to get excited about a 3% annual raise…
*CHUCKLES AT PAST SELF*
But there are a couple of things I want to point out before we move along.
First of all, hitting each of these milestones didn’t mean that was my new normal. In fact, after each of them, my revenue dipped back down a little the following month. For example, I banked $6597 in April 2018, $13,669 in September 2018, and this month (unless that Tuesday night lotto ticket finally comes through) I’ll be banking $16,200.
Secondly, these numbers are all revenue, and as a business of one, I’m not very good at remembering that. I still tend to think of it all as my pay cheque, which — obviously — isn’t true. My expenses are *just* over 30%, and the numbers above are all pre-tax.
So yeah… still earning a fair ol’ whack, but it’s not all money for ponies.
"WELL IN THAT CASE…" *EXITS GRACEFULLY*
I can attribute this snowball to a handful of things…
ALWAYS showing up authentically (trust me: it’s such an attractive quality in any human being… even if you have a love of fart jokes and a surprisingly mannish cackle)
Being generous with my knowledge (if people can’t get a good handle on what you know and why that’s valuable, how will they invest in you?)
Chasing down the work that lights me up
Introducing a couple of smaller, productised services to fill the natural downtime in my projects (a shift I made in January, after two projects in a row fell through, and I was left twiddling my thumbs, staring at a massive hole in my business model)
Creating the conditions I need to do my best work (which, for me, is one project at a time, a 2 hour break in the middle of the day — unless I’m doing a day rate, but then I finish up a couple of hours earlier — and, with the odd exception, no work on weekends. This way, my brain’s sharp, my mind’s fresh, and I have ample time to create and refine)
Now, for me at least, this last one is HUGE. And I want to talk about it. Because obviously one way to make more money is to simply do more work. But that never really appealed…
Not because I want to be one of those unicorny-humans who works 2 hours a week from a hammock in Costa Rica (if I’m in a hammock somewhere tropical, I want to be on HOLIDAAAAY… and then I want to come back and get to work, because my brain gets itchy if it idles for too long), but because:
I see no point in having a stack of mulah if earning it means you have no quality of life
… if you spend more time in front of a screen than with the people who mean something to you
… if you wake up every morning and have to push yourself — hard — to get it all done
… if you can’t be PRESENT in your world
To me, that’s no life at all.
And I need to be honest here…
In April this year, I lived in that space for a few weeks. It was horrible. I was trying to juggle creating and teaching a course alongside of client work, and it just wasn’t working.
So it hasn’t been all rainbows and glitter farts this past 12 months. But, when shit’s hit the fan I’ve done something about it. Quickly —
Something else I’m certain has been key in this big ol’ snowball of a year.
HERE’S A CONTROVERSIAL THOUGHT NUGGET FOR YOU...
For me, part of getting to this level has been about (and I really, REALLY hate to say this) becoming more masculine in the way I show up in the world.
Yeah. Yuck.
I hate that I need to step into that energy to claim what I want; and that the world taught me that as someone with a vagina, I should be meeker, pliable, and more polite in the first place. It’s a very unsatisfying sandwich, whichever way you slice it. But, sadly, that’s still the way the world works, and I figure the best I can do is elbow my way in there and create some sort of change.
Of course, I’m still very much me —
I’m just a little harder around the edges, a little slower to apologise, and a little more likely to stand my ground.
Aside from the conflicting feelings I have about that little chestnut, there are some days where I feel insanely proud of myself. Of having the balls to test things and put myself out there in progressively bigger ways and (most importantly) continually, mindfully shaping my business in a way that feeds me.
BUT THE DAYS I FEEL ALL LIT UP AND ALIVE AND WONDERFUL HAVE ONE FAR MORE SPECIFIC THING IN COMMON…
They’re the days where I feel like I’m doing the right work.
Where I’ve got the best clients. Where I’m making genuine impact.
And you know what? That’s exactly the way I think it should be.
Because if you chase that feeling and that work (and *not* the dollars), you put yourself in the most glorious cycle.
You wake up EXCITED to start the day. You’re hugely motivated to do your best work. You’re curious. And focused. And continually looking for ways to improve...
So you get great results...
Which means the right clients love you, and refer you, and talk about you in the places they hang out...
So more wonderful clients come through the door, your calendar gets booked up, and you find (sometimes quite suddenly) that you’ve earned the freedom to get really intentional with your business — with the projects you want to do, with the ways you want to share your expertise, with the holidays you want to take, and things you want to create...
And you wake up EXCITED to start the day. (*ooo full circle* )
That, to me, is the real metric of success.
THE 6 FIGURE STATUS IS SIMPLY A BYPRODUCT, AND — ON ITS OWN — NOT A MEANINGFUL INDICATION OF ANYTHING.
And with that, I’m all nuggeted out.