Have you ever attended a business conference for the wrong business?
This recently happened to me. Or, at least I think it did.
Let me explain.
The Business
A little over 18 months ago, I launched Sparrow Financial Solutions LLC. It’s a digital bookkeeping & financial coaching services company. I chose to start it because, well, why not? My professional background is in finance & accounting. I don’t mind the work. I enjoy numbers, spreadsheets, data and finances. I can get really fired up about helping people win with their finances, whether personal or business. And it’s a lot less subjective of a service than, say, photography. Which, by the way, is the other – currently on the back burner because I don’t really know what to do with it – business I own.
Anyway, a few months ago, I was gifted a ticket to attend the Business Boutique Conference that took place in October. I wasn’t able to be there in person but knew they were offering a Livestream option so I gratefully accepted the ticket.
The Conference
Leading up to the first session on Thursday evening, I was not very excited about the conference. In fact, I kept forgetting it was even happening! It was a very busy week that had just come on the heels of a previously busy two weeks and was heading into yet another already busy weekend without the conference. I didn’t feel like I really had the time for this conference and yet I was grateful for the ticket I had been given. I was also curious about the content of the sessions. I’m also a fan of the Ramsey Solutions brand, in general, and, more specifically, Christy Wright. So I made the time and settled in for the first session on that Thursday evening.
At the end of that session, I knew it was going to be a good conference and that I needed to make every effort to attend the rest of the sessions and connect with others as well as I could.
I also knew something else.
I was there for the wrong business.
The Wrong Business
My purpose for attending BB was to get encouragement, inspiration and tools for growing my bookkeeping & financial coaching business. You know the one I mentioned above that I just launched last year? But as I finished the first night’s sessions, I realized I wasn’t thinking of that business when hearing the speakers. I was thinking of a different one. You may be assuming that, instead, I was thinking of the photography business.
And you would be…
wrong (sorry!).
I was a little surprised – and more than a little frustrated! – that what I was thinking of was neither my current or previously-current business. What I kept filtering all of the great encouragement, inspiration and practical business tools to was the “business” that doesn’t even exist yet. The one that hasn’t ever gotten off the ground.
I hesitate to even call it a business.
It’s more of a dream. Something that I want to be true. Something that I’ve been desiring and praying for guidance on for many years now. Something that I’ve pursued off and on, in spurts and fits. Something for which I’d attended other conferences and completed courses. Something that I’ve tried to do well, with consistency and intentionality, time and time again. Something that I can’t seem to shake but that also just doesn’t seem to fit (yet?).
And something that continues to be only a dream because I can’t seem to identify the foundational, core, building block for it.
The Message
What is the yet-to-be-identified block you ask?
Simple. It’s the message.
The point. The purpose. What it’s all about.
And what is this elusive dream I speak of? The one that has yet to gain any traction because I can’t identify its core message?
Again, it’s simple.
It’s this blog. And the bigger “communicator” dream that’s attached to it.
I have a dream to be an author/blogger/speaker.
But I have no idea what my message is.
Seriously.
No. Idea.
I’ve been trying to figure that out now for over a decade. When I got home from the Race, I felt like I had a book in me. Not about the Race, really, but about something. Something I could give to instead of take from the world. Something that might help others and impact their lives for the better. Something bigger than me but that also included me.
Something that mattered.
And that feeling hasn’t changed. It hasn’t left. It hasn’t diminished. It’s not always at the forefront of my mind but it has never left it either.
I still feel as if I have something to say.
I just don’t know what it is yet.
And, if I’m being honest, I’m afraid I never will know it. I keep hoping I’m wrong and that I’ll discover it one day. That one day the Lord will finally lift the veil and expose the message He’s put on my heart to share with the world. Not for my sake but for the sake of others. Not because I need to be seen or heard or understood but because they need to be seen and heard and understood. And because the Lord wants to remind them that they already are.
So, maybe it’s not so much that I have something to say but that I believe the Lord does. And, while He has already spoken it in His own book, perhaps He’s also willing to speak it through me in another one.
The Frustration
And that’s why I was frustrated.
Here I have a viable business that appears to be a better solution to 8-5 for me than photography did, that is already providing enough income for what we need now and that could potentially be an even better income source with some motivation and effort and intentionality so it can grow. And all I can think of at a business conference is, “how does XYZ apply to this yet-to-be-anything-dream?”
Don’t get me wrong. I took away some good stuff that I will apply to Sparrow. I am grateful that I have a current, viable business to apply the conference to now in order to help it succeed. I am also grateful that I am privileged enough to be able to “dream” in the way that I do. It’s a gift that not everyone gets to experience and one that hasn’t always been true even of my own life.
But, why? Why did I not first think of Sparrow at the conference? Why, instead, did I think of the dream that I’ve been spinning my wheels on for over a decade?
The Why
I know why.
Because it’s one of my deepest, truest desires. To write or speak or otherwise convey words that matter; a message that moves. Because I want to impact this world for good. To be a light and a conduit of hope, joy, peace, love, truth, and abundance. Not the source of it, mind you. That’s Jesus. Forever and always. But a conduit that can lead others to Him because of the flowers I grow, the songs I play, the images I create, the words I write or the message(s) I speak.
That’s the dream. To point others to the Source of all things good and true. And to show that it’s possible to experience the “abundant life” spoken of in Scripture even while living an ordinary one.
I don’t have to speak or write to thousands. I just want to speak or write to the one. The one that needs to hear whatever it is the Lord has for me to say. So I’m not giving up on it. I still may not be sure what to do with it or even what it’s about, but I’m not giving up. It’s too big of a dream for me. It may be stuck but it’s not dead.
