How to Launch a New Venture, Keep Paying Your Bills and Stay Sane

Lessons from the miry clay

On 24 October, just two weeks ago, I launched a new social enterprise called the Academy of Systemic Renewal. It was marked by six hours of filming our introductory course before a live audience.

I have been working on the course and the business plan for two years, not including the six years of doctoral research that set the groundwork.

On the day of the launch, I wanted to go the whole hog. We had three cameras, a fantastic camera crew, lighting, hair and makeup and a professional MC. It had come too far to keep it small, and I wasn’t playing small anymore.

On the day of the launch my friend, Craig, one of the champions who stayed for the whole day, asked me if I had been reading from a teleprompter throughout the sessions. “No!” I laughed, “I just know the content really well.” I had reworked the course content before nearly 100 people in the years leading up to the launch. It was in my bones, and it was well-cooked.

For those of you that have a dream to build a new idea, program or venture, but wonder how to make time when you still have school fees to pay, you don’t have excess capital to splash around, a loved one is struggling with health issues, or you’ve watched too many colleagues try to become consultants and fail, here is what I have learned along the way …

There are four disciplines. I built the Academy by practising them myself, and they work.

Discipline #One –

If You Don’t Want to Sound Like Just Another Broken Record on Repeat, Take a Retreat

I deeply believe that we all have something unique to offer the world. If you are entrepreneurial by nature, or a dreamer, a fighter, a survivor … then the world needs to hear your voice. But the truth is, you will never produce anything beautiful or unique of you don’t pull away from your environment to reflect.

I don’t mean going away with the girls or bunkering down for an intensive weekend of writing with a colleague. I mean sitting on a mountain, or a beach or a deck chair and listening to what is happening inside of you. That is your gold – in there, in that painful, precious place.

Systemic Renewal was born because I spent significant time (three years) in a cave, and because I disciplined myself to spend daily, weekly and monthly time periods paying attention to my inner-world, and my God. People tried to rush me. Many advised me of ways I could monetise my ‘product’ and start getting it into the world. But no. It had to be authentic. It had to be the right time. I had to be sure what my motives were, and I had to live the story before I tried to sell it to anyone else.

Sorry to be blunt but take a retreat – a guided one if possible. I don’t mean a yoga retreat (do that if it floats your boat). I mean go somewhere, with someone who can guide you into the crucible inside of you that will lead to your fulfillment and the genuine blessing only you can bring to others.

Discipline #Two –

Let the Right People Speak into Your Life

On the day of the launch, I led the audience through six hours of content without any backup - no other voice, just me. It took me a long time to learn that it is my content, and I am enough. I don’t need buffers, and I don’t need a male or more reputable counterpart to cushion me.

But the one-woman-show that was taking place, in truth, was the work of a large team of people who have given me counsel and support along the way. These were invisible; surrounding me like the saints in the stained-glass-windows. Nothing is ever a one-woman-show in reality. It always takes a team of people for anything new to happen.

Invisibly beside me were the coaches and sponsors who have guided and challenged me – Jitto, David, Justine, Mimi, Louise.

There has been professional help. My supervisor Cecilia, my therapist Laura and my intercessors and friends – Tom, Nikki, John, Craig, Dan, Steph, Xiao Li, Luke, Jose, Julia, Kirsten, Josh, Brooklyn, Rod, Amanda, Mark. These would be just names to you, but they have been critical to me. Without them I would still be avoiding the limelight.

Everybody needs a big team.

Discipline #Three –

Write Your Vision 552 Times, and Then Write it Again

I have learned that you have to be okay with things taking longer than you would prefer them to. Work a job you don’t love on the side to pay the bills. Perhaps you can work a job you do enjoy, even though it isn’t what you want to be doing in ten years from now. Cut back on spending to carve out time to create, and don’t think you have to do it all at once. Reject the silver-bullet big investment that comes with the wrong strings attached. Be prepared to believe in what you are doing long before anyone else will.

I am an articulate person and a writer, and yet it has still taken me hundreds of iterations to get the right language around what my new process is and who it is for. The versions of the course that I started with four years ago, which I thought were pretty good at the time, seem crude to me now. The creative process is, in part, about the mountaintop inspirations we have, but these are always paired with the boring, mundane work of practising, repeating, rewriting … again, again, again. The daily grind is the creative process.

Accept it. Make time for it and find ways to celebrate the little wins along the way that nobody will see come to fruition for months or even years.

Discipline #Four –

Aim for One Part Content Development, One Part Teambuilding, One Part Marketing

I think one of the toughest parts of starting a business as a sole trader from the ground up, is the overload of work to do, without a team or any paid staff (yet). This means everything is on you at first, so you’d better start liking your own company. There is always pressure to improve your marketing strategy, create interesting socials and scroll to see if anyone liked your last blog.

I have learned that as important as marketing is, it is a trap to let it drain over 50% of the work week. In Systemic Renewal we learn to build strategy across three layers of a system: its beliefs (the individual heart), its human processes (organisational norms) and its productivity (the ultimate measure of success). I structure my week to work equal parts at these three layers. This means that marketing the product and following up on potential new clients gets, at most, a third of my time. I make sure I spend a third of my time on the content (my heart work) and a third on building structure and recruiting the right help (the business plan).

I think our tendency is to focus our time on the easier of the three, whichever that is for us at any given moment in time. I have learned to eat my vegetables, drink some water, and then treat myself to some dessert.  

Each year, I will be hosting a retreat for change leaders at the Caux Palace in Switzerland and hosting two Fellowships in Systemic Renewal. You can stay up to date with all of our offerings by simply signing up to our newsletter: https://www.systemicrenewal.com/contact