What my life looks like during “open cart”
I’m writing you from the recent past, as per usual.
Travel back in time with me to Thursday last. We’re in presale for The School of Consent-Based Business. It’s a 3-day flash promo. I’d love to pick up ten right-fit students.
We’re at six, I think. The second sales email went out a few minutes ago. I don’t check sales obsessively. My phone doesn’t ding every time someone purchases, like it used to in the old days. In order to save me from myself, it’s not even logged into Stripe. The verification code is linked to Sandra’s phone, so I have to think twice about doing “just a quick check.” It’s been three years now, and zero quick checks.
The School of Consent-Based Business is one of many offers that drive revenue in my business, so I’m not relying on it to be my everything. That helps.
This morning I went for a long dog walk with my guy and his rottweiler, plus my mom’s doodle who I’m dogsitting for the month. After that I went to Service Canada to renew my driver’s license and health card. It’s tick season, so I came home for a hot shower and tick inspection before landing at my desk around 10:30am.
There are two mantras I repeat to myself over and over during these moments in business where I am most likely to start questioning everything and looking up the starting salary at Costco.
The first is, “I trust where life is leading me.”
This is an inversion of another mantra I hold dear, which I got from Raj Sisodia, author of Conscious Capitalism: Beware the folly of cherished outcomes. We don’t always know if our projects will catch fire or fizzle out. Sometimes things fizzle out and it feels like failure, but it creates space for something else that’s even more important.
It’s taken me ten years to learn how to keep my feet under me while promoting something new, to know my non-negotiables and remember the ways that I’m safe no matter what’s happening in my business.
The work of maintaining your sense of safety and tending to your heart and body during promotions is, in fact, an important consent-based practice.
It’s when people get caught in fear and panic that they resort to pressure tactics, piling on last-minute bonuses, making huge promises they can’t deliver on, doing backdoor deals, desperately working long into the night instead of going to bed early and letting the wisdom of the dream-state pour through.
The worst crimes of my girlboss days were committed when I was the most scared.
So I’m doing this essential self-tending so that I don’t slip into the old ways of pushing, overdoing and cajoling. And alongside that, I also show up at my desk and put in a full day’s work. I follow through on the things I said I would do, the emails I committed to write and the special bonuses I committed to creating.
There can be a fine line between tending to myself, and running away from my desk because it’s hard and I’d rather be frolicking on my paddleboard enjoying the sunshine.
Today, I'm walking that line with ease.
No idea what tomorrow will be like.
~ Tarzan
Tarzan Kalryzian [she/they]
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P.S. The School of Consent-Based Business opens back up officially on June 18, when you’ll be able to see the full curriculum outline, plus experience consent-based marketing IRL at our upcoming open house. The program begins July 2.
Sing With Me (Tomorrow in Niagara!)
