of Struggle and Success
One of the things that really struck me while in Dublin was the amount of statues around the city remembering the Great Potato Famine of 1845. The tragedy that followed the failure of Ireland’s potato crop, on which so much of the population depended, has left a lasting mark on the national consciousness. I found it interesting, considering the country has also enjoyed times of abundance and prosperity throughout its long history, reflected in the treasures held at the National Museum, or in the many grand castles dotting the Irish countryside.
All of this got me thinking about the cycles of feast and famine that so many of us entrepreneurs experience throughout our careers. With the women in our community, I see it happen most often in the 
first couple of years of starting a business, as it’s natural to begin from a place of famine—clients are scarce, money is scarce and it feels as though that may never change. Then, when you keep the faith, work through your learning curve and get your brand, message and pricing down, suddenly you hit the jackpot. Maybe you’re on a roll, having one successful discovery session after another with your ideal clients. Or maybe you do a major launch and end up with a big chunk of cash in your bank account in a way you’ve never seen before.
It’s wonderful, liberating and so much fun to show yourself what you’re really capable of, however, the sudden switch from famine to feast is something you might not be prepared for. And what I see a lot of women do at that point, is take their foot off the gas. I understand the impulse. When you’ve been just-scraping-by for years and finally you’ve created a little slack for yourself, of course you want to take some time to relax and celebrate what you’ve accomplished. The thing is, when you unplug for too long, you lose momentum, and you might have to work even harder to rev everything back up again. And when your money runs out before your next launch is in place, you might run into a bit of a cashflow dip…and that’s when you find yourself back in the famine.
While I’ve often seen this become a neurotic cycle for women early on in their entrepreneurial journeys, I’ve also seen famine happen unexpectedly to more established business owners, and I’ve even experienced it myself. The pattern there is a little different. Maybe you’ve been feasting for a long time, you’re a leader in your industry, and then all of a sudden no one is signing up and it’s as if the faucet has been turned off. At that point you start to think, wait a minute—why isn’t what I’ve always done working anymore?
Whether we’re new to business or have been at it for a while, typically our reaction to these drastic pendulum swings is the same. Our automatic response is often to blame ourselves. We wonder, what’s wrong with me? Why don’t people like me anymore? Did I just get lucky?
Today I want to encourage all of us to have more compassion for ourselves and remember that we’re not in this alone. After all it’s not only entrepreneurs with passion-based businesses like us who face these cycles of feast and famine. Think of our sisters in entertainment and fashion for instance. We all know how tough those industries can be—one day you’re in and the next day, you’re out. You can’t always control what’s happening around you, but what you can do is develop a strong sense of self with which to weather these famine periods and even learn to see them coming. Of course, life brings each of us our fair share of shocking events, but the important thing is not to self-criticize, play the victim or give up our power. Instead we have to keep the faith, learn from the experience and be willing to course-correct quickly.
If you’re at the beginning of your career and finding yourself in a feast or famine cycle, my message to you is HOLD ON and stay true to your dreams. As you continue to develop your business more and more, it will stabilize and you will learn how to create consistent cash flow year-round. You’ll figure out how to build automated sales funnels and passive income streams that will keep you afloat between launches, and you’ll become better at responding to a famine stretch as soon as it starts rather than waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Looking back on my own career, I’ve realized that anytime my business stabilized and then unexpectedly hit famine, it was because I wasn’t actively working to stay in tune. I wasn’t regularly checking in with God and asking, “What would you have me do next? How would you have me serve?” I wasn’t even trying to see around the corner and consider my next level of growth and expansion. Instead, I was just enjoying the fruits of my labor and going through the motions, assuming and expecting that the clients and the money would keep flowing in forever.
So often when something works for us, our tendency is to think we’ve figured it all out and now we can just keep doing it. I’ve learned however, that God is not our assistant. It’s not like we just set the course and then ask God to go implement what we’d like to see happen. The wiser, more powerful way to run our businesses—even when we’re at what feels like the top of our career success—is to be constantly pursuing evolution, greater service and greater impact. When we ask the right questions of the Universe, we do get the answers we need to keep growing rather than stagnating and slipping into famine.
It’s been several years now since I’ve faced a period of famine. I’ve become a bit more in tune, so I’ve often been able to get the message at the 11th hour, just in time. My dream for my future self however, is to develop a ritual of checking in even more frequently. Wise women throughout the ages have always been able to sense and see what’s coming next. That visionary power is precisely what it takes to create stability in any business, and by asking for Divine guidance, it’s something we all have the opportunity to cultivate within us.
