Recently we took almost two weeks off of social! It wasn’t planned at first. It was more or less a necessity to slow this bus down, take a breath, reconnect with each other, look ahead, re-evaluate, then one thing turned into another and BAM, we were deep diving into what we are now calling a business REBOOT, and man it has been literally life changing and a pivotal moment in time for us personally and for our biz. This reboot is now something we will be doing often, without guilt, without worry of social algorithm, because how we have come out on the other side is with a fierce CONVICTION to show up, to create, achieve and SERVE in our greatest strengths, and share a hell of a lot more of who we are, what our 23+ years as entrepreneurs has taught us, how it can help YOU, and to say all the things we need to say. Guys, we have A LOT to share with you.

We are going to be very honest here, and say that the last 2.5 years since starting Trailblazher magazine and launching our Business Membership have been an intensely rewarding ride, with incredible ups and downs, and a level of workload that finally caught up with us. We’ve been juggling way too many things in our business, growing and throwing ourselves into creating and serving our community, bootstrapping our way, one foot in front of the other, constantly trying to steal a moment to sit down with each other and #1 – breath, and #2 – check in. CHECK IN. We had gotten so far behind the scenes creating our offerings, working IN our business, that we finally had to crawl out of the shadows to see this light again to work ON our business. We were exhausted. That’s an understatement. Our magazine requires mass amounts of our time and creative energy, and damn those three months come so quick in between issues, we had hopped onto this cycle of extreme ‘workhorse’ mentality that we’ve known we had to elevate our thinking and create a new dynamic for how we show up in our business, and *ahem* really look at our mindset and beliefs….

How it started… two weekends ago we decided it was time to give our home studio a ‘refresh’, meaning move some furniture around, deep clean, you know – give it some fresh energy – a fresh start so to say. Well, this little refresh turned into a complete rehaul. Purging, rearranging, touching every single book, paper, project to find its new home in our renewed studio space. We have to say, it looks and FEELS incredible. So there we were, a new physical space…. Which opened up the conversation to talk about our mental space and business health…..

It was the Monday after our weekend studio revamp, and we’re sitting across the table from one another, giggling at the thought of tuning out the world for a week, letting go of our social media for a short time, to gift ourselves this TIME. (Time has been a major theme in our lives the past 2.5 years, we have sacrificed a lot of ourselves, our capacity and commitments to put in the time to grow Trailblazher where it proudly sits today, but we’re at the point where we need to get out from behind our business to be able to LEAD it. Seriously guys, our business has been running US.

This is where the power of questions can be instrumental in leading you down the right path. We dove into questions like “How are you really doing? What feels frustrating right now? Is where we are where we imagined we would be? What is your wildest dream for our business’s future? What are we ready to let go of and hand off to make room for growth? And we went on and on and on…. Sparks starting flying, we were connected, in sync, our energy was coming back to us, we were INSPIRED but most importantly we were EMPOWERED. We could see how many of our beliefs were no longer serving us, we were reminded of our power when we come together, our creativity and innovation become an entity so much bigger than us that must be harnessed and used wisely. We literally came back to the drawing board and looked ahead in 5 years, 10 years, mapped our content plans and pillars, dug deep into each of our 5%’s – our zones of genius that only we can perform for our biz, looked at the other 95% and said – “IT’S TIME TO LET GO!”. You guys, we felt freedom again. How often do we all hear – “To get a big idea off the ground you need to put in the hours, work your a** off, make sacrifices etc.”, and you absolutely do, and we absolutely have, and we are now ready for the next stage of growth.

For you – if this sounds like something you need to do for you and your business, please, please, please do it. Gift yourself a reboot. Slow down. Be intentional. Be honest with yourself. Get in touch with what you know to be true and see where it takes you. We promise you you’ll never regret the clarity, conviction and confidence that will be re-awakened within you. If this thought lights a fire in your belly, you may gain a ton from our business retreat and gathering end of April. More info here.

Sincerely,

Jan and Erin