I had two separate conversations recently with a couple of really good friends. Different days, different women, different dreams. But both hitting the same wall.
Each of them had a clear, compelling vision for a business they wanted to start. Not a product you could touch or ship, but service-based ventures they were deeply passionate about. And here’s what struck me hard: the amount of thought they’d already put in. The clarity. The specificity of events and timelines they’d laid out to the end vision was so well-formed that I cut into their dialogue at one point and flat-out asked: “Umm… this is so well thought out, why are you not doing this now?” I probably slipped a motivating “bitch” in there a time or two, but that’s between you and me.
Two professional, capable, insanely bright women and their answers, predictably, circled around money and time. But I kept digging, because clearly that wasn’t the full story.
Looking at my one friend, who I had a longer conversation with, she had a mental checklist of things she didn’t have, such as industry contacts, certain technical skills, a partner to bounce ideas off of, and on and on. What she’d convinced herself needed to be in place before she could take any initial steps overwhelmed her. Her vision of the end state was so clear it was as if she was trying to launch from mile 100 instead of mile 1.
Sitting in my car, we talked it out. Actually, she talked, and I listened because sometimes the clarity (good or bad) shows up in random conversation. As she carried on, I became more blown away. Her plan was all there. Not perfect, but what plan ever is? It was logical, and many parts were reachable. I know her lifestyle and commitments pretty well, and I knew a lot of it was within her ability to do. She just needed to start smaller. Much smaller.
By the end of our impromptu talk, I was even more excited about it all and she too shocked herself, not realizing how much she already had figured out. I told her to go inside, open up the Notes app on her phone, and talk it out again exactly as she’d just done to me… just slower. Those apps can be finicky. Or use a voice memo. Use video. Anything, but just capture the momentum somewhere other than her head. This wasn’t something she was just toying with. It was too specific for that. Yet it didn’t need to be in the “putting-a-business-plan-together” stage, either.
For her, the biggest block wasn’t really time or money. It was plain old, nasty old fear. Specifically, the fear of doing it all alone. Starting something so big, on top of all her current commitments and it all falling on her.
And I get it. Boy, do I get it. It had me looking at my own shit, questioning myself. Going solo is terrifying. Sure, you only have to answer to you, but that also means every decision, every success, every misstep is yours to carry. But if we rethink it just a little, maybe you don’t need to build the whole thing solo to start solo.
Remember: We’re not starting over. We’re starting sideways.
Take the parts you can do without a partner (or dazzling team) and begin there. Figure out the points when you most definitely need to bring someone in. And who are they? What’s their needed skill set? And if they don’t, or can’t, show up, then what? Then we tweak the plan and adjust the vision, because there’s never just one way to do the thing. Bit by bit, you’ll build it out. You know the saying, ‘how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.’
So, if you’re sitting on an idea you can’t let go of and telling yourself it’s the money or the time, I challenge you to look closer. Maybe what’s missing isn’t a resource. Maybe it’s a much-needed conversation with someone who knows nothing of your vision but sees another way for you to at least start. Now, my friend is also in her Gen X Big Age era, so had her big, detailed dream been to join the Bolshoi, I would’ve been like, girl, yeah you can dance… but, umm, no. Calm down. I’m not cosigning foolishness. She left with a determined vibe and what looked suspiciously like an action plan, even if she didn’t call it that.
So before any of us go wandering off into the land of “maybe someday,” what if we…
- Voice it out. Talk through your idea and then record/document it. Don’t forget that second part.
- Start with what’s solo-friendly. What’s one piece of your idea you can do on your own this week?
- Ask the real question. If it wasn’t money or time holding you back… what would it be? Sit with that. That’s your real work.
