It was sprinkling outside, wet from raining yesterday and the perfect time to pull a few weeds, trim a few bushes. I don’t know about you, but I LOVE the rain!
Fall is such a beautiful time of year. 😍
Trees turning red, orange, and yellow. Just breathtaking.
As I’m trimming up bushes, I notice one flowering plant has a couple flowers on it. Everything else is dying and dead. All the other flowers are dead. It’s dead all around but these two little guys decided it was their time to bloom, and you know what…it struck me.
If those flowers would have bloomed with all their other little friends, I wouldn’t have noticed them. They would have been just one in a couple dozen. 💯
But I noticed them.
I appreciated them.
Why?
Because it’s supposed to be dying and they are not.
👉 Maybe you feel like that in YOUR life.
Maybe you feel like you’re blooming late. You’re not fast enough. Can’t keep up. Not growing at the same rate as everyone else.
There’s hope! 💎
I started blogging 11 years ago. I wasn’t growing the same stats as my peers. They were 6 months and 1 year ahead of me and man, I just wasn’t near them. They seemed to have it all. Just growing so rapidly and I couldn’t figure it out. Why wasn’t *I* growing as fast? Why weren’t MY stats like that? What was I doing wrong?
A few years ago, I threw my hands up in the air and stopped having the focus of what everyone else wanted me to do and I just started doing what I wanted. I’m not saying I didn’t serve others or that I didn’t care, don’t get me wrong. I’m saying that I stopped teaching areas that *I* didn’t care for. Areas that I didn’t WANT to teach. And about a year after that restful time, I started up my Shopify store.
The rest is history. Now I make good money and have well surpassed most of my peers in income. I know that because many of them come to ME for help. Secretly. Privately. And I help them. 🥰
My point is, I was the “sleeper” for so long. I wasn’t blooming when it was time. It took longer for me. But I truly believe that if you are like me, and you take longer, it’s actually a good thing!
I flew higher. I reached higher plateau’s. I’ve reached way more and I do it all as a single woman. I don’t HAVE help like most ladies do. A husband to work and earn the money so I don’t have to stress about it. A good-sized team helping me blog.
I have to work, run several empires, take care of the kids, tend to my home, serve for Christ, the list goes on and on.
Maybe I grew slower.
Maybe I wasn’t as fast as others.
Maybe I’m still not. 😮
But I started LOWER than my peers!!! And I’ve come to have things they haven’t (I’m not working my brains out over here for one; I built an autopilot system). I’ve experienced things they haven’t. I’ve flown higher than many and I started out at the bottom: homeless. Now I have my dream life.
I bloomed when *I* was ready, not when someone else TOLD ME TO! 🎉
Do you get that?
Because it’s REAL IMPORTANT!
👉 You don’t HAVE to grow when you’re supposed to. Maybe you’re STARTING lower than your peers like I did and that’s why you don’t grow as fast as them. You don’t HAVE TO!!!
You don’t have to grow when they tell you to. When you feel like you SHOULD.
Everyone is at a different part in their journey. I grow slower, but I grow deeper. I invest in you guys like you wouldn’t believe. It’s my heart and my soul.
You can’t put a time frame on blogging. You can’t put a timetable on when you’ll make lots of money on Shopify. Throw the timetable out. Just focus on what 👉 YOU 👈 do best. Focus on growing in a way that is honorable to God, first and foremost, and that is according to your ethics.
In the last 11 years, I’ve seen a lot of companies fizz out because their ethics weren’t right.
Having solid ethics may MEAN GROWING SLOWER! That’s okay!!!!!
God will honor you as you seek to put HIM first in your business, in your personal life, at home with your kids, everywhere. He will honor that. I’ve reached the heights I have because I’ve put God first. I WILL…NOT…SELL…OUT!
I get emails sometimes from strangers saying to take God off my blog. I know my blog may be more popular if I did, but you know what…I can’t. God IS my passion. And if I lose audience members because of it, then so be it. 💯💯💯💯
If I run my blog and make everyone ELSE happy but I’M miserable, what kind of life is that?
And you see that in blogging too. Some bloggers are famous and just really doing amazing and they’re all happy and shiny, but when the camera goes off, when the lights are down, and it’s just them, they are miserable. How do I know? Because they come to me too!
I coached a lady who is famous, who said her whole business is a sham. She has all these stats but they are fake. Her newsletter has over 100,000 people on it but her open rate is 0.3%!!!!! Crazy, right?! I logged in and saw it. With my own eyes! Her income, while the revenue is brag-worthy, she doesn’t PROFIT a dime, because she’s spinning her wheels paying 20+ employees!
That’s not the kind of life I wanted and listen, if you do, no problem, okay! 💖 Everyone has the right to go after the life they want, but I didn’t want that and that’s okay too.
As a business owner, if you want something different, you have to play the game different. You may even seem smaller to others, but behind the scenes you’re happy, well taken care of, making GOOD money, living your dream.
👉 It’s not ABOUT the front of the camera, it’s about the backend of it!!!!!! 😮👏💯🎉
Maybe your dream is being miserable. I don’t know. If it is, more power to you. But if it’s not, I would encourage you to think in a different way. Because how you BEEN thinking hasn’t helped you so far.
Don’t WORRY about how fast you’re growing. If it takes you 5 years to get to where you want to be instead of 1 year, so WHAT!!!!!!!!!!! At least you got there!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 👈🎁💎🙌
God is so good. I’m absolutely STUNNED at how much He has given me as a single mom. I just wanted off the street! I was homeless! Look where I came from!!!
But you know what, I’M HERE, and I didn’t sell out to GET HERE!!!!!!!!!! 💯
I sleep well at night knowing I didn’t compromise my integrity to make the money I only dreamed of. While other people are out there trying to trick Google and steal SEO from other bloggers, tripwiring people into buying whatever, I’m over here, honoring God, doing what He’s asked me to do. No tricks. No trips. No stealing. No lying. No faking. Just honor.
What kind of business owner do YOU want to be? Because my friend you DO get to decide. Every day is a choice. YOU get that choice. YOU decide where you want to go and what you want to do, and most importantly HOW you want to get there!
Today I’m gonna sit outside, enjoy my flowers, and know that I worked hard for this, and I didn’t lose myself or sell out in order to get it. God GAVE it to me. Praise God! 🙌🙏👏