I’ve been a little quieter than usual the last few days in your inbox, I know. But some things I’ve been thinking about, that I wanted to share with you.

*The Gary Vee $1.80 strategy. In case you didn’t know, Instagram is my Achilles heel and I have a total love / hate relationship with it. I hate that it’s saturated, full of bots, and that every time I post something some creepy dude in Syria comments or follows (ditto some creepy guy in Canada), and I find it soul destroying to do menial things like press the BLOCK button.

HOWEVER I love it because I’m a visual person, I love that I can find so many artists and communities on there, I love that functionality that it has to share a message in so many ways.

ALSO do not love that to gather a big community I have to create a ‘cohesive feed’ when my life is anything but cohesive. HMMMM.

SURE I can outsource it.. but you know, actually, I LOVE community, and I love interacting with people, and I love seeing other women in business doing their thing! Community matters to me more and more recently!

So that’s what I’ve been thinking about, and then I came across the Gary Vee $1.80 strategy which made so much sense to me! And yes, I tried it, I wanted to play around with it and see what happened and interestingly what happened was not that I got a ton of interaction and likes – I did, but like all things, they didn’t last –

But how I felt about instagram changed for that time as a result. I felt energised and excited and CONNECTED and for me I really had to go figure out whether it was because I was hinging my ego on the results, or whether it was because I actually felt like I had the platform figured out with that strategy.

I’m still journaling on that. I’ll let you know. And I haven’t yet decided whether or not to continue with that strategy, simply because it’s so time-depleting.

Following Gary Vee, who says well, you have to work in this way, in the way everyone else ISN’T prepared to work if you want to make it.

And yet that’s so out of alignment with who I am as a mother, as a wholehearted entrepreneuer. I believe there’s a million ways to make it, and slaving over instagram at 5am does not particularly light me up EVEN IF it means I get the results and desired outcome in the long term.

HOWEVER!

The results and outcome DOES light me up. So I guess I’ll be finding other ways to continue growing,

which has been on my mind a lot of late – how can I ensure I keep growing and reaching my goals, how can I never stagnate, how can I keep moving forward? How can I set intentions on business growth and impact for the LONG term? 

I guess that has come along with moving back to Cyprus and being rooted again, and having a home, and that’s another thing I realised –

I kind of fell for that ‘ I need to have a mercedes and bali trips to be a good coach’ bullshit, and back to Gary Vee, I watched one of his videos today where he said he lived in a rented apartment until his mid thirties while he saved and saved and saved to ultimately invest in companies that went on to make millions, and he simply has no attachment to stuff other than the stuff like the Jets merchandise which he is happy buying from a garage sale.

I love that. It appeals to my founder investor heart, to the part of me that wants to support other companies doing good, in a MUCH bigger way than I am now. It appeals to the part of me that threw away everything precious in our commitment to move overseas and travel, even most of my clothes, to travel. It appeals to the part of my heart that wants to fill our new home with things that are only heart-things, not possession things.

And then

Of course

As always

I go back to…

The heart things.

Because that’s what matters most.

Not the job, the label, the strategy, the growth, any of it.

Just the heart things. 

What do I want to do every day?

Just sit here, and write to you.

Like this.

Because sometimes when there is so much noise

So much chaos

So much advice

So much strategy

So much guidance on how to live a better life or better business

Sometimes the best way to do those things better

Is simply to

Strip it back to what matters,

And do that first, always, and forever.

And that’s what building for the long term is

Asking what’s that one thing you love, that this is about, that you could do forever,

Regardless of strategy, followings, or any of it?

Finding and holding on to the heart things,

Regardless.

From my heart to yours.

xo