Hello Reader,

I turn 50 tomorrow.

Here are some lessons I've learned from my business building journey that I hope will be useful to you.

1. Allow your journey to evolve.

I used to shame myself for having shiny object syndrome. I thought it meant I was fickle and couldn't commit.

Now I know it's just a process of evolution as you discover more and more about yourself. It's an ongoing learning process of growth and refinement that keeps getting better and better.

There's no need to shame yourself for living your life the way you want to, in a way that feels right to you and makes you feel good.

2. Pay attention to how you talk to yourself.

Most of us have very negative self-talk. My go-to phrase whenever I feel I 'should' do something is, 'You better...if not...'.

It's the common phrase I heard growing up. Guilt was my dominant feeling and although it wasn't helpful, it felt so comfortable, like coming home to your warm familiar blanket. I've now replaced it with 'I prefer this', or 'What do I want to do now?'.

Be aware of how you talk to yourself. You create your reality by how you talk to yourself.

3. Enjoy the process, even the unpleasant ones.

It's common for us to resist and push away what we don't like. It's literally hardwired in our biology to fight, flee or freeze as a survival tactic.

A more helpful and easier way to live is to accept what is, and what you can't change. Pushing, resisting, fighting it is futile. It only wastes precious time and energy, burning you out in the process.

Learn to let go and accept what you can't change. See it as an opportunity to learn what you must to get the outcome you want, then focus on what you need to do differently.

4. Trust yourself - everything will be ok, you're more powerful and capable than you give yourself credit for.

The biggest disservice mainstream education has done to us and our kids is destroy our confidence, self-belief, and trust in ourselves. It continues in adulthood in the working world.

Everyone is obsessed with telling you the mistake you made, the target you didn't meet and all the things you did wrong. Learning from mistakes is important, but we often do it at the expense of discounting any gain, improvement, or things we did right.

Our minds are 3x more likely to remember all the bad and negative than the good. So we need to take 3x the effort to see and celebrate the successes and wins. Do it especially with your kids!

5. It's all about your dominant thoughts and feelings.

When I was younger, I thought success meant pushing, hustling, grinding and striving. That's what we were taught to do if you wanted results. It was always 'just one more'. There's merit to the 'just one more' mentality, but not when it's at the expense of your mental health or leads to exhaustion and burnout.

Now, I take more inspired action (i.e. action without resistance, action I can't wait to take). I listen to my body, and that enables me to thrive while making progress. I understand that to go further, I need to know when to push and when to let go. By doing this, it actually helps me go faster.

It's all about the energy with which you do things. What are your dominant thoughts and feelings? They create your physical world. Know when to push, pull and release so you can get what you want with more ease, flow and fun!

6. A successful life = feeling free and happy all the days of your life.

I used to measure success with how much money I made and how fancy my work and job title was. It was a way to validate my worth as a human being. I still love the finer things in life, there's nothing wrong with that. But I now define success as living a happy and free life, without any fears and insecurities because I know in my bones that no matter what happens, I can figure it out and make things work.

Living this way ironically helps me make more money and allows me to enjoy the good life.

Final thoughts

Life is often paradoxical. The more you relax into it, the easier everything you want flows and enters your life. The more tightly you cling on to the things you feel you can't 'afford' to lose, the more what you want eludes you.

As I embark on this next chapter of my life, I'm feeling excited.

Age is but a number and there are many goals I'd love to achieve in the coming decade.

If you're still here, thank you for reading to the end. I appreciate you for being on my list and reading my emails.

Let me know which lesson resonated with you, or what's a lesson you've learned?

I'd love to hear more about it.

Have a wonderful week and October!

Sharon