Hi Reader

Last month, I turned 37 and my online coaching business turned 1. I spent the past few weeks in deeper rest & reflection. While a lot of what surfaced is either still crystallizing or is sacred to me, I do have a few nuggets I’m excited to pass on. I’m so curious if you can relate to them.

Three themes rose to the top when I considered what really happened in this last year of “Joey starts a business”?
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Here are the Top 3 themes of my Freshman Year in Entrepreneurship:

1. Become Your Emerging Self
2. Build Relationships
3. Run a Test Kitchen

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Becoming

By far, the most transformational experience last year was who I became through the process. This path reconnected me to so many layers of myself: my creative self, my spiritual self, my child self, my fun-loving self, my resilient self, my fighter self, my inventor self…

This year also challenged me to keep my priorities aligned at every turn. Whenever I chose to have my business be an outflow of my marriage, motherhood, healing, relationships, and adventuring, everything felt so much easier and more sustainable.

Beyond any metrics of material success, I feel rooted in the rightness of this path ushering me to become who I choose my future self to be. I am embracing the unfinished process of becoming, pausing to notice how miraculous it feels to heal, grow, change, and document the process. I'm more comfortable than ever to allow my imperfect Emerging Self to be the guide. There’s priceless peace in this deep self-knowing & self-acceptance.
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Relationship Building

While I dabbled in quite a few courses & and played around with other people’s strategies (what I called my DIY MBA era), the foundation of my growth last year lies in me doing what I always do: building lasting community.

Just like in my classroom days, I focused on welcoming everyone at the door and asking for feedback to better inform the space & curriculum I was facilitating (i.e., sending welcome messages to each new follower and inviting folks into real DM conversations).

I also leaned heavy into collaborations with new connections AND invited my offline community to come on this journey with me–sharing stories on my podcast, creating masterclasses, making a documentary with me, or swapping services to expand each other’s life & work.

Social capital IS CAPITAL and I held onto this truth. Along the way I picked up new REAL friendships with people who were once just strangers online. (Oh, and I gained new clients too.) Being human together is dope. Beyond revenue or metrics, these human relationships are priceless.
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TEST KITCHEN

The best thing I did last year for my mind, my nervous system, and my output was to embrace experimentation. Using a kitchen analogy, this meant bringing my ingredient knowledge (my years of expertise, education, self-study) and taste (intuition, lived experience, desires) together into a low-stakes space of “What if?” + action + feedback + refinement.

I’m so grateful to my 1:1 clients, my loyal audience members, and amazing humans in my inner circles for being the taste-testers and focus groups as I refined my recipes.

This past year showed me: 1) People want what I’m teaching, 2) What I’m teaching is helpful/transformative, 3) How I’m teaching it seems to work (tweaks & expanded accessibility always happening), and 4) I’m happy when I'm teaching this (this is what I want to be doing).

That clarity is, once again, priceless.

YEAR 1 GUIDES YEAR 2...

If Year 1 was a year of becoming, relationship-building, and testing, then Year 2 feels like it’s a year of putting learning into action & sowing more seeds.

To crystallize the essence of what Year 1 taught me and have it guide my path for Year 2, I mused on three guiding questions:
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꩜ 1. What happens when more people receive the help/teaching/goodness coming out of my Test Kitchen & Emerging Self?

**The answer to this question forms my MISSION.**

꩜ 2. What is the most important thing that my learners need now?

**The answer to this question forms my FOCUS.**

꩜ 3. What prepares them to receive the lesson? How can I facilitate the learning in a way that is accessible, transformative, and enjoyable?

**The answer to this question forms my DESIGN.**

These questions made it easy to see the roadmap for this year’s building (and gave a pretty solid sense of Years 3-4 too). Now, all I need to do is focus on creating one stepping stone at a time.
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𖦹 My answer to Question 1 guides everything I do and keeps me from wandering astray: My work helps my people (heart-centered introverts, empaths, mavericks, people who don’t fit into “the box”) know themselves so unshakably that nobody can imprison them with false narratives, and helps them trust their voice & self-expression so deeply that they share their important wisdom with complete ease, joy, and creativity.

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𖦹 My answer for Question 2 came from looking at the transformations of my 1:1 clients. I quickly saw what was happening for them in the foundational stage of my complete framework was pretty incredible: It was not only giving them quick relief and significant shifts, it was also laying the groundwork for all of the deeper work to emerge more effortlessly from that point. I knew I needed to make this initial stage of transformation more accessible to more people.

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𖦹 To find the answer to Question 3, I went to my audience. In some IG story polls and DM conversations, I gathered that folks wanted options to participate in live community learning but also have access to replay material. People seemed ready to go beyond a 1-day or 1-hour masterclass and receive more integrated learning. With this information, I put my curriculum-design skills to work and cooked up what I hope is just the right food as medicine for my learners.

I’ll share with you what I cooked up tomorrow (hint: it’s a 6-week learning experience).

I decided that I want everyone who reads my emails, blogs, or posts to be able to have access to the lessons I’m building this course around. After all, my ultimate mission is for my best teachings to get into the hands of everyone who needs it.

So, I’m writing a 6-email series that mirrors the learning in my course. Each email in the series contains a lesson, illustrating story, and some pretty powerful prompts & exercises. The first of these emails goes out tomorrow and then one every 3-4 days after that. Here’s a sneak peek:

1. YOU ALREADY ARE A STORYTELLER. YOUR VOICE IS YOUR BIRTHRIGHT
2. YOUR BODY IS THE CHANNEL. AND THERE’S A WAY THROUGH EVERY BLOCK.
3. YOU CAN TRUST YOURSELF (EVEN IF YOU CAN’T TRUST YOUR MEMORY).
4. YOUR VOICE IS NOT ONE THING; IT’S MANY. (CODE-SWITCHING IS INTELLIGENT COMMUNICATION.)
5. LIBERATED SELF-EXPRESSION FLOWS FROM POWERFUL MEANING-MAKING.
6. STORY (RE)GENERATES COMMUNITY.

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If you’re curious about what these lessons hold, make sure you keep an eye out for my upcoming emails!

If getting 2 emails per week for the next 4 weeks sounds overwhelming to you, you can click here to skip this email lesson series but stay on my email list to receive future occasional emails with stories, prompts, and announcements.

I'm so excited to share this work with you. I believe in it so much and I can't wait to see what it does within this budding community. I'll tell you more tomorrow.