There Is Data There...

My Journey from Confusion to Clarity and Discovering Purpose-Driven Entrepreneurship

There is data in every experience if we take the time to analyze it.

Rejection is data.

Failure is data.

Moments of re-direction are data points in our lives and in our work.

I am writing this because I'm not the only entrepreneur trying to figure things out and make their business more sustainable.

I am not the only one who is frustrated.

The past six months have been some of the most enlightening of my life; a sequence of make or break moments have led me here.

Struggle can be a blessing but we have to be willing to see the lesson, learn the lesson, embrace the teaching, and apply the learning in order to get the most out of the experience.

I have discovered over the years that in order to get to the root of a problem, you have to start at the beginning. I didn't realize how much my past was impacting my present.

I was in pursuit of a promise that was mine at one time but was no longer resonating: to build a billion dollar consulting firm. It sounds like a cool to goal to have but it was more ego-driven that purpose-driven.

I became so fixated on the final picture and lost sight of the joy that comesthrough the process of painting (creating, being, doing, exploring).

2024 was an interesting year that taught me some important lessons.

This particular lesson was one that life had been trying to teach me for a while, but I wasn't interested in learning it because of the work that it would take to resolve the issues and course correct.

It's funny how sometimes being honest with ourselves is one of the hardest things to do because it requires us to submit to an idea or circumstance that is often out of our control and not at all what we had planned.

I had been unclear for years about what BluLight Consulting did and the ideal client the firm was focused on serving. In my mind, my WHO consisted of anyone who was willing to work with me.

I am laughing to myself now, as I am typing this and thinking about all the experiences that led me to find the answer that unlocked the blockages for me.

It wasn't something that anyone could do for me, the firm had to make sense and resonate with me first and then it would resonate with the people it was supposed to resonate with once we became more clear.

I was torturing myself and getting in my own way by trying to appeal to everyone, which made no sense because I didn't even want to do some of the work in the first place but I couldn't afford to turn down any opportunities that came my way either.

I felt like I had to take a shot at everything.

Over the past two years, I have been asking myself the same three questions when it came to my business: "When did this stop being fun for me, when did I fall out of love with building BluLight Consulting, and why did everything keep falling apart?"

I tried working on my offers to make them more clear and created some new products in an attempt to gain some traction.

Some products worked and others didn't.

What I didn't know then that I know now is that there was DATA in each of those experiences and I wasn't analyzing the data to determine which strategy would be best for me to turn things around.

Eventually each of my new product/service offers lost steam and felt disconnected from my overall workflow and brand.

I was back at square one and each time I had a little less wind in my sails.

I found myself mixing and matching products and services to meet client's service needs, and most times, this meant I was developing custom proposals for prospective clients. It was time consuming and when the deals didn't go through, I was devastated.

This cycle continued for two years with a few small wins sprinkled in here and there.

It was one hell of an experience.

I can only describe it as trying to put a puzzle together without ever sitting down to organize the pieces and put a proper strategy in place.

I was constantly thinking about how to put the pieces together, but not doing the work to actually put the pieces together. It's no wonder, the puzzle never came together- until it did.

How did it come together?

I hit a wall.

I hit a financial wall.

I hit an emotional wall.

I hit a spiritual wall.

I had reached a point that was beyond exhaustion, and I wasn't sure where to go from where I was at that time.

It would take getting sick at the end of last year, (almost three weeks of doing absolutely nothing), and a handful of critical conversations for me to discover what I call Purpose-Driven Entrepreneurship.

This isn't a concept that I take credit for creating; I am using it to describe how I shifted from doing whatever work came my way to focusing more on doing the work I LOVE doing and not engaging at all in work that I don't love.

Eventually, I reached a point where I felt inspired to examine BluLight Consulting and re-imagine the firm.

I decided that I would start with something relatively simple: our website.

The website wasn't clear in a lot of ways and it didn't give people a sense of what we did or could potentially do for them, at first glance.

There was also a disconnect between our products, services, and our process. The website was visually appealing but it wasn't as functional as it could have been.

It wasn't as visually appealing as it could have been either, but you couldn't tell me that at the time!

I decided that I was going to approach this project from a creative space, where I didn't focus on writing copy that sold the firm, but rather copy that expressed the firm's views, principles, and offers in a way that was authentic, simple, and creative.

I started by re-writing some of the copy while still maintaining the layout and flow of the original website.

The result...It didn't move me.

I needed to start from scratch and build something new.

I decided to apply our process with a new twist, a simple twist, to simplify the site as much as possible.

I ORGANIZED my thoughts and vision around BluLight Consulting, what the firm did and the ideal clients the firm serves. I drilled down into our WHY and thought about the mission, vision, and purpose of the firm as it related to having impact on the world around me.

The next step in our process is typically to SYNTHESIZE but in this case, I felt that it was more important to SIMPLIFY, so I made it a point to review each page of BluLight Consulting's current website at the time, and simplified the copy so that it was clear, authentic, and creative, maintaining the theme for the new website.

The final step in our process is to OPTIMIZE. I had spent two years developing products, services, and processes that seemed disconnected at one time. All of those things started to come together in a beautiful way!

Before I knew it, I had built and launched the new website.

A couple of weeks before that, I was considering shutting down the firm and trying my hand at being a male stripper! I think it's safe to say, we're all glad that didn't happen! 😂

Starting from scratch can be a blessing because it puts us in a position to be open and creative again. It allows us to experiment and create things in a way that reveals that the box we're all taught to think outside of doesn't actually exist.

I sat down and wrote down each service/product on a legal pad.

It was a long list.

I began to sort them by work I wanted to do because I loved it and work that I didn't want to do anymore because it was too taxing or didn't bring me joy.

By the time I was done, I had a shorter list and it was one that I was excited about.

I knew that I wanted the Spark Call to be the starting point since everything starts with a spark of inspiration and momentum is built (or lost) from there.

After the Spark Call, clients would have two options for engagement:

(1) For short-term engagement, we could continue our work together in a Jam Session, Work Session, or Vision Planning Session.

(2) Long-term engagements and ongoing strategic support require a BluLight Club Membership, with Skin In The Game, Consult-on-Demand, and Consultant-on-Call.

This would be the first level of engagement.

I had a few standalone products and decided to review and repurpose them which is how I came up with Make-It-Make-Sense and The Brain Dump Tool. These vehicles help clients turn their thoughts into things that positively impact the world by giving them a start and working with them to create momentum.

Make-It-Make-Sense is a process within itself. It starts with a Spark Call and is broken into four segments that can be done singularly or collectively to produce our client's desired outcome. I've found that it works really well for product and service development work.

I created The Brain Dump Tool to give users a way to take not only their idea but all the key factors to make it happen or get started, out of their head and and down on 'paper', sending the information straight into their email inbox, in a form that they can revisit later when they are ready to take action.

I decided that Project Development and Management would be reserved for BluLight Club members ONLY and those would have to be projects I REALLY wanted to work on, since my focus was to no longer engage in work that I didn't absolutely LOVE.

I finally had a framework that fit around what I loved doing instead of what I could do.

Before I knew it, the website started to come together and it was making sense. I found my rhythm and built the new site page-by-page, re-using some elements from the old website where it didn't make sense to re-invent the wheel.

I rebuilt The Brain Dump Tool and tested it.

It took about two weeks or so but I finally got the new website done and launched it.

Once it made sense to me, I started to see it making more sense to others and now I am started to regain traction, booking Spark Calls and building some great relationships with both new and existing partners!

I am fortunate that I was able to take so much from my experiences and hope that it blesses others and helps to inspire them to keep going, even when it's all seems to be falling apart—especially when it's all seems to be falling apart.

There is so much important information in the experience if we are willing to surrender, take a step back, and look at the situation from a bird's-eye-view.

I was heartbroken when things kept falling apart.

I always felt like I was just short of hitting my stride and progressing to the next level.

I understand now that it was supposed to fall apart.

It was always a part of the plan.

If you're trying to build something and it falls apart, it was meant to be that way.

See the problem as an opportunity.

Be open to what the moment and the experience is teaching you!

Adjust accordingly and don't be afraid to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty!

There is so much power for you to discover through the process of doing the work.

You've come too far to give up now!

KEEP GOING!!!

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