Whitney A. White May 31, 2021 Most people have limiting beliefs around income. Letting go of these beliefs allows abundance to flow into your life, often beyond your wildest dreams. One of the most common limiting beliefs is that you are locked into a 9-to-5 job because it offers you financial security, regardless of how connected it is to your passion. The question is: At what cost? When I coach my clients on the four pillars of success (talent, income, relationships, and enjoyment), income is intrinsically linked to passion. When your life is not fueled by passion, it will affect your success, happiness, and ultimately, your self-value.
My client Lee Crockett has an MBA and a corporate background yet describes herself as a serial entrepreneur. When she applied to work with me as a coaching client, she noted that she had always been interested in entrepreneurship. She would see a need and start a business or want to start one. “I can barely remember all the businesses I started,” she told me. Crockett experienced many failures, which—when I started working with her—we used as an opportunity to examine what wasn’t working. Turns out, she wasn’t letting her passion guide her. A “good” idea is not enough to start and sustain a successful business (and life).
Together, we uncovered what she truly cared about, what she wanted to do with her life, and what gifts and talents she could bring to the table. Crockett’s experience working in corporate America as one of the few women, and often the only woman of color in a male-dominated industry, had been a struggle—one she ultimately overcame by creating a system that led to multiple promotions and tripling her salary. It was this experience that led her to her passion: helping other women achieve the promotions and successes they deserved.
Using this all-too-common and painful experience of being passed over for promotions in favor of men with less experience or less-than-stellar performance reviews ignited Crockett’s passion. She created Lee Crockett Consulting. She notes, “It lights me up inside. It’s a topic I could talk about all day long.”
This is a complete shift from where she was when we first met. At that point, she had already realized that getting ahead was not about just putting your head down and working hard. It was a game, and you had to know how to play the game. This realization led her to create a system that resulted in subsequent promotions, but ultimately, she wasn’t happy. She didn’t know how to turn her system into an actual business. Like many women, she was stressed. She was pulled in a variety of directions supporting other people and had nothing left for herself or her dreams. When we spoke, I could see her vision, but we needed to equip her with a step-by-step road map to bring her passion to life in the form of her business.
Six months later, Crockett and her business are thriving. When asked to describe the biggest difference, she says, “It’s because I’m doing something that I believe in and I changed the way I was going about my life.”
Sometimes we spend our lives chasing after something that we think we need, but we don’t achieve true success and happiness because it’s not fed by our passion. We may harbor beliefs that we have to let those dreams go to be financially secure, but connecting with your passion is the first step to achieving big gains personally, professionally, and financially.
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