It Takes a Village to Grow Your Business

 

Whether it’s your friends, your family, or a mastermind network of other small business owners, it’s important to surround yourself with a community of supportive people who can both keep your head in the game when times are tough and celebrate with you in times of triumph.

 

I’m fortunate enough to have an amazing village of my own. Heading up my village is my husband, who has encouraged and supported me from the day we met. Also in my village, I count my friends and family members, plus my many mentors and the colleagues I’ve formed into a loose mastermind network, my clients, and the amazing people who help me make my business dreams happen with their enormous skills and talent.

 

But there’s one person who was there for me from the beginning, one person who believed in me and encouraged me, long before I met my husband, long before I really even knew what I would be able to accomplish down the road: my mother. My relationship with my mom wasn’t always perfect. We were similar enough that it often led to silly bickering, as it often does with mothers and daughters. And we were different enough that from time to time, she’d get concerned about my unconventional nature and wish I’d just settle down, get a normal job, get married, and have babies. But at the heart of it all was a strong bond between us, something I’ve never really shared with another soul.

 

My mom was steadfast in her support of my endeavors. She’d encourage me and tell me I could do anything I put my mind to, even when she didn’t really know what the heck it was that I was putting my mind to. When I found cubicle life too confining, she advised me to keep trying. When I got carpal tunnel syndrome, she and I had many long discussions about my future and what I should do. And at the end of all those conversations, she was the one who gave me the money to go back for more training so I could hang out my shingle in my first “real” business as a coach.

 

She would send me emails telling me she’d read articles I mailed her and postings on my web site and saying she thought I was “a super writer!!!!!!” (She was always generous with the exclamation points.)

 

My mom’s belief in me was so unfailing that even today, I keep a folder in my email system that’s labeled “*Mom” and inside are four of my favorite emails from her, telling me that she believed in me, that one day I would be a huge success, that amazing things were just around the corner.

 

I wish everyone had a support network like that. I wish everyone had emails like that to look at now and then and remind themselves that someone thinks they’re incredible.