World Building for Magpies & Misfits

“Don’t you think waffles are just pancakes with syrup traps?”

That's the subject line of an email I got last week from a client.

It made me guffaw.

So deliciously silly, and unexpectedly wonderful!

One of the best parts of my coaching practice is the surprising, sometimes "weird" exchanges with clients during the course of our work together.

Ah, the beautiful gift of human-ing with my clients and their surprising layers.

It stands in such stark contrast to how I've traditionally approached my own nuance. You’d think by my 40s I’d have embraced all of my exiled parts, right?

Wrong. I’m getting there, sure, but I’m still a WIP.

Two weeks ago, I wrapped up an engagement with a pair of my fave clients. During our final wrap up call, I asked what initially made them decide to work with me.

"It was your website," they intimated. "It was like Willy Wonka for business. This quirky little world that we just wanted to be a part of."

I laughed, genuinely getting a kick out of this characterization. My reaction was worlds apart from how I would have received those words when I first launched Build with Brie.

You see, being called “quirky” has historically been my professional kryptonite.

The word has always felt… coded.

In fact, when people in Corporate America would characterize me as such, it would generate this internal tension: I would feel noticed and reduced at the same time.

It seemed to serve as both a compliment and warning.

Being called “quirky” quickly came to represent my deepest fear about corporate America: that there was a cost of being different.

I feared that I wouldn’t gain access to the same shiny toys all the other successful corporate kids did by being myself.

To claim those quirks, yes, would be to claim my humanity: my instincts and the parts of myself that didn't always color inside the lines. But, it also meant accepting that it would likely cap my movement up that damn ladder that I was attempting to climb.

Letting my full quirky freak flag fly, then?

Felt like professional flipping suicide.

So, I, like a lot of corporate professionals, flattened myself in service of “making it”.

Now, I’m fifteen months into this portfolio career thing, and it is super clear the same rules DO NOT apply to small business.

Small business requires radical acceptance, because, well, small business is a business of trust. And trust, not conformity, is what makes other humans want to buy things from you. Or to work with you, particularly on really hard things (like career transformation!).

So why do we resist radical acceptance then when it sounds so liberating?

When we strike out on our own, we don’t have those same shitty bosses trying to shrink us to make themselves feel more comfortable. Shouldn’t it be way easier to just say…. YOLO? Take it or leave it?

Therein lies the second lesson that I've come to understand in giving this portfolio career thing a shot: these professional systems we consciously uncouple from, their belief systems still haunt our present-day business decisions like phantom limbs. Yes, we've left the building but we have yet to evict the beliefs.

If we are not careful, these beliefs whisper to us when we’re making decisions, shaping the baby business we are in the midst of architecting.

The make us chase acceptance from EVERY client that prospects us.

Because….. we don’t know where the next dollar to pay ourselves is going to come from, right?

So, we shape shift again in an attempt to get ahead.

We make ourselves… vanilla….

And we catch ourselves doing this, slowly unraveling, and think….

It’s important to catch this limiting belief creeping in when you are first starting out, because it is not OF YOU.

It’s sneaky AF, and a thief of business joy.

The sooner that you accept that your job ISN’T to appeal to everyone…

The sooner you allow your differences to shine through…

The sooner you let yourself be fully seen…

You CAN and WILL be found by the people that find your fullness interesting!

The magic—and the tension of letting that limiting belief from corporate go—is that you, nor I, have ever, ever, EVER held just one identity.

For me, radical acceptance looks like…

…bringing product management frameworks together with a deep reverence for cultivating intuition and my client’s inner wisdom. It's publishing an essay that questions capitalism, then hopping on the phone to help a client optimize their sales funnel.

Some people's brains will short-circuit at these contradictions. Maybe they’ll even call them “quirky”.

But those people aren't my people anyway.

I now give myself permission to be THAT person.

So my question for you today is, what parts of yourself need reclamation in this process of reinventing your business or changing directions in your career?

Those edges that the corporate world may have shamed away?

That's where working with you gets really interesting! And fun!

P.S. - I just printed out that waffle email from my client.

It’s my daily reminder to to lap up alllllllll… the weirdness and the layers.

Here's to inviting more of YOU into your own business.

To showing up fully for yourself first so that you can show up fully for others.

Because the world doesn't need another perfectly polished consultant or freelancer.

It needs YOU—syrup traps and all.

P.P.S - Curious what your business looks like when you stop apologizing for your edges? I'll help you find out. book a discovery call to learn about my coaching program and let's unleash your particular brand of weird into the world.

That’s it for this edition of Brie Bites! Stay tuned for the next one. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s newsletter. Share your opinions in the comments!