a little more about my business coach Nona Jordan

a photo because oh my goodness look at all those shades of blue . lake superior

Since we started working together almost a year ago, I have mentioned my business coach Nona Jordan a few times here on the blog. Simply put, working with her has pushed me to own that I really am making it happen over here when it comes to running my business and growing it beyond what I imagined while working from home and taking care of Ellie.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that Nona has pushed me to own that I am a warrior when it comes to all the roles I play in my life.

One big piece of this has been talking about money. (Oh how I did not want to talk about money.) Through our conversations, I moved from saying, “Well, I have this little creative business…” to sitting at my computer after adding up all the money that came into my business in 2011 (which was the first year my income came solely from my own business and not in addition to my “before Ellie arrived” full-time editing job or any freelance editing) and saying, “Every cent that came into my bank account was from someone who believed that what I am sharing with the world was worthy of being part of their story.”

Wow.

And here is where it gets even crazier.

I was excited to pay taxes.

Nona has taught me to see taxes as evidence that my business is growing. And owning that felt freeing because paying taxes didn’t come from a place of fear but instead from a place of believing in myself and what I have to share with the world through my work. So I was actually smiling when I wrote the check. I was also smiling because it was a bit less than my guesstimating math had thought it would be. Still, seeing taxes as evidence of my business' growth was an entirely new way of thinking for me. (It feels like I am rewriting my money story over here.)

And she has taught me that a piece of all of this is having clear conversations with people in my life when it comes to money and boundaries about money or the role I will play in collaborations etc. Two pieces of this have been:

1)  Noticing the areas of my life where I have “fuzzy boundaries” and calling me out on it.

AND

2) Asking me my favorite question “Liz, whose yoga mat are you standing on?” when I start saying the reasons why I don’t want to make an idea a reality or not charge as much as I think something is worth and so on. This question is her gentle but firm way of reminding me to let go of the “Who do you think you are?” gremlins that plague me sometimes and let other people take care of their feelings and assumptions.

Big stuff. Good stuff.

In a couple of weeks, Nona will be guiding a small group of women through her incredible program “Get Right with Money.” It is all about knowing you are worthy, investigating your mindset around money, and one of my favorite tools she has taught me, “to know what you truly want financially and learn how to get there.” She is also incorporating some tools around having bare conversations in this curriculum, and shares her first-hand experience with one of her own conversations in this incredibly honest blog post.

She is a good egg, this one. And she is someone I think you should have on your radar if you are thinking about or already running your own business. Learn more about Nona’s Get Right with Money program and her one-on-one coaching services over on her site.