Sep 28, 2018
Welcome to this first ever muse on the Introvert Biz Growth podcast, the show where I talk to introverts who grow their business and make a difference.
I’m Sarah Santacroce, your host. If you’re new here, then I want you to know that this is not the usual format of my regular episodes.
I post a new show every other Friday, and it’s always a conversation with a fellow introverted entrepreneur who uses his or her introverted superpowers to make a difference.
These shows are edited by Tim, my professional podcast editors who also creates amazing shownotes pages.
But as of today, I want to play with something new.
I call them Muse episodes. As in ‘to muse’.
I’d like to muse about ‘The Gentle Business Revolution’. I just reserved that domain name and couldn’t believe it was available!!
So in these short episodes I’d like to share what comes up for me when I think about this term ‘Gentle Business Revolution’ and how I see us introverts really create a new way of doing business.
This format is raw. No editing. No intro music. No bells and whistles.
So is the content. Full transparency. Vulnerability. No hidden
agenda.
Open agenda instead; As I already said, I reserved the url
thegentlebusinessrevolution.com and plan to build a community of
like minded introverts who want to do business the gentle way.
So as I build this I’m sharing with you what comes to mind during the process.
These short muses can be inspired from my conversations on this podcasts, from content I’m working on, from experiences I’ve lived, from stories I hear in my mastermind group etc etc.
I share them to make you think, to inspire you, to break the rules, and yes, when the community is ready to invite you to join us.
Today I muse about the word ‘Gentle’ and what it means for me.
I guess to me the opposite of gentle is tough. Expressions that come up for me are ‘she’s a tough business woman’ and ‘business is tough’. Or ‘it’s business, not personal’ or ‘it’s just business’.
All of them have nothing to do with being gentle.
I see it as my mission to prove that one can be successful in business by being gentle, not tough. By being personal, not ‘just business’.
One of my subscribers recently sent me this sentence
throughout the years, my experience of you has been that of a benign presence.
I said I was going to be totally transparent so I admit that I had to look up the word benign. To me it was only related to medicine. But when I saw the explanation on Wikipedia I got it.
gentle and kind.
Yes, that’s who I want to be in business. Gentle and kind. Not tough. Gentle, kind and fair.
But this is now.
A couple of years ago I went through something that I refer to now as my 'overgiving' burnout. I felt angry at people who just wanted to 'pick my brain' all the time, and not pay me. I had been giving sooo much and was exhausted...
I was done being 'Sarah, your friendly girl next door', I was going to be tough.
Looking back, it did help me to level up and put up more boundaries, but I also realized that it didn't feel good to always be a bitch. I still wanted to be the 'friendly girl next door' but the 'confident friendly girl who makes her own rules'.
As my friend Catherine so wisely said: I think when we make a shift after a realization, there's a tendency for our internal pendulum to swing farther to the opposite of what we've been/what we've not liked. Perhaps only then the easing towards to a solid place of balance between the two extremes is possible.
Yes. So true. I had to work through my anger, experience being tough in order to feel that this was not my true nature and come back to being who I really am.
The world is ready for the Gentle Business Revolution!
That’s it for this first muse episode. I hope you enjoyed my rambles.
Thanks for listening !
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Warmly
Sarah