Show Notes
Do orgasm and pleasure excite you? Find out why it’s a practice I have to be intentional about. I am in the trenches with you and there are a lot of things that I haven’t “mastered” as yet but it doesn’t stop me from creating pleasure around everything that I do. Come with me on a journey as I strip away all the shit that no longer serves me and makes me happy.
Do you agree that whenever something feels so good to us the more we want to do that one thing over and over again? This is why pleasure creates predictability and the more we are consistent in practicing this, the easier it becomes to implement into our businesses. And if you are one of those people who have a hard time following through with things, don’t worry. The good news is, you’re NOT broken. I have all you need to know on how to run your business with pleasure being at the forefront.
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Let me just be totally honest with you, as much as I talk about orgasms and pleasure, it’s actually a practice I have to be intentional about. No surprise, there’s a lot of baggage that I’m still sorting out around pleasure, especially my own. I mean, sometimes I feel guilty doing things that make me feel good because of the way I was brought up. No shame on my parents, it just is what it is and when I was pursuing things for myself, I was often called selfish or self-centered. It really hit home one day when I finally saw Crazy Rich Asians for the first time and promise, no spoilers, if you haven’t seen it go watch it. But anyway, one of the characters said to another main character, who was explaining how even though she was Chinese, she was pursuing her passions of being a teacher or a professor and doing all the things that she wanted to set out for. And the mother who was traditional responded, “Oh, pursuing one’s passion are we? How American” and oh my gosh, so many memories just came flooding back of me growing up in a bicultural situation where both cultures valued opposite things. The reason why I’m telling you all of this is because I’m in the trenches with you too. I’m constantly doing the work to be intentional about stripping away the shit that does not serve me and my business. Even though I’m talking about this stuff, and educating you about it, please don’t ever assume I’ve mastered it because I haven’t. So despite this baggage, let’s still talk about why building a profitable business starts with pleasure.
What I want for you is not only a business that makes money but a business that profits. You hear so many people wanting to teach you how to make money. Yes, I want this for you too but I also want you to have as high of profits as possible because profit shows that your business is healthy. So when you make a profit, it means that you’re making more than it costs your business to run. And it tells me that 1. you’re not only making good decisions but 2. that your business operations (that back end that’s running your business), are well lubricated and playing well together to support your business vision. If you’re not profitable when you’re small, do you really think that things or you will miraculously change when your business blows up? Most likely not, which is why we’re talking about this now so that you can begin to build a profitable business that starts with pleasure from the ground up early. When you start becoming aware of baking pleasure into every aspect of your business, it causes you to get intentional about the decisions you make and the actions you take. The more you focus on the things that feel pleasurable, the less you’ll feel like you’re lacking of anything because instead of comparing yourself to someone else, you’re excited to stay in your own lane and do your thing. The more you focus on things that feel pleasurable, the less you spin your wheels and go nowhere. You’re not trying to do all the things because you heard that maybeTikTok was the place to be, or that you must do webinars, or that if you’re not selling an E-course you’re leaving valuable money on the table.
These things all may be true but if it doesn’t feel good to you, you’ll never do it with heart and excitement and you’ll most likely abandon these endeavors and good intentions, leaving yet another project half-baked. It’s going to lead to a lot of self-doubts, imposter syndrome, and feelings of inadequacy. Like, why is it that I can never finish anything? Or Why am I always starting these things? And I’m just a terrible person who can’t follow through. The mind trash and the inner gremlins are strong with this one. And when things don’t feel good, you’re going to drag your feet, and it’s going to be an uphill battle that’s just exhausting. When you start more things than you finish, your business goes nowhere. Just saying these words out loud, brings up so much anxiety, frustration, and stress. I don’t want any of this for you, I want you to feel all sorts of good. Like I’m talking full body, tingling good when you’re pursuing an idea that just lights you up. For me personally, when I come up with an idea or somebody brings to me an idea that’s really good, I just know. My entire body just trembles, I get these goosebumps, then I begin snotting everywhere- like my nose just starts running. I’ve learned over the years that it’s my cue that when my nose starts to run, that I better be running full throttle at this idea to see it through. Even though it may be a bad one down the line, I just have to see it through. When you’re operating your business from a place of pleasure, you get these gut yes or no answers really quickly which help you weed through the noise and do what’s best for you and your business. The more you enjoy what you do, the more you’re likely to do it over and over again, and the easier it feels. Now I’m not talking “E A S Y“, yes it actually will feel easy, but I’m talking about ease, “E A S E“, and then adding a little “-Y” to it, you just get shit done. And I’m willing to bet money that when you focus on what feels good and doing business in a way that lights you up, you show up more powerfully and confidently.
So let’s talk about some examples of what it looks like to operate your business from a place of pleasure, using examples from yours truly. I want to take this time to say that coming down the pipeline in the future, I’ll be bringing on guests so that they can share how they design and run their businesses to feel orgasmic to them, their team, and their clients, so that you get inspiration from not only me but like a slew of other business owners who are just showing up in a way that feels so good. Okay, back to the examples. So let’s start off with one where everyone has opinions on including myself, and that is your weekly schedule. I’ve no doubt you’ve read a blog article, or a Facebook post, or whatever it is that you read, where you hear so much opinion around how you should structure your day or your week. Whether that’s time blocking, or that you must dedicate three days a week to marketing and business development, or that you’re only successful if you get up at 5 am. Okay, all of this may be true, but it won’t matter if it’s not true for you. So this is my opinion and I’m gonna sound like a broken record this entire episode but I really want to make sure that you understand where I’m coming from. These all may be true, but if it doesn’t feel good to you, it’s not gonna stick, it’s not gonna work and you’re gonna feel so much resistance doing it. Trust me when I say this, I have clients on the whole spectrum, from clients who have to only work on things for 10 minutes because they have adult ADHD and need to have short-term activities, to people or even myself who need like entire days just to dive deep into our work. So when it comes to your weekly schedule, do what feels right for you. If you’re that 10 minutes kind of person, don’t feel guilty when people shame you for not spending long amounts of time doing something. Or if 10 minutes is not enough, try 30 minutes, the Pomodoro technique works wonders as well. It even works for me, though I like to spend a lot of time doing deep dive work. It just depends on what the task is. The point is, I know what feels good to me. I actually want to give a big shout-out here to Gallup because they’ve really helped me understand from taking their Clifton Strengths Assessment, I know it as the Strength Finders Assessment, where you answer a whole bunch of questions and then you get back your top 34 strengths. And the reason why I’m talking about them, (no they’re not sponsoring or doing any of that stuff), is because it was really eye-opening in helping me find what was pleasurable in my work and business, in addition to the stuff that I already found out on my own so this was just the cherry on top. For example, I couldn’t come up with this on my own if I tried. I was close, but they totally had the words for this and I finally understood why I never succeeded in my business, like selling memberships or E-courses, even though this was what all the Guru’s said, if I wasn’t doing an e-course I was leaving money on the table, I would never have passive income, X-Y-Z. Sure their opinions are correct but if it doesn’t make sense with how I work, it’s never going to execute fully. It’s just another project that we didn’t finish.
For me, my number one strength, according to Gallup, is relator. It means that I not only have this craving for deep connections and relationships with people but that I have this ability to create a deep connection with people rather quickly. It’s just always how I’ve been. So how that translates to my business is that, at the end of the day, I’m such a “quality over quantity person”, an “inch wide mile deep” person, and selling e-courses to me just felt so transactional. It felt really off and gross, and making money didn’t feel good at all. I ended up not showing up or selling it well. Now, I admit that I have made my fair share of mistakes like maybe I could have offset my e-course with some sort of community where I was building relationships, so I get it. I’ve probably made tons of mistakes but I’m just trying to use myself as an example to help you figure out what it is that will work for you. For me, working one on one with clients right now feels really good. I get to cultivate that deep relationship that I need while making a huge impact on my clients’ operations. And because I absolutely love what I do and in my groove, I have begun to love selling my services because I know what a big impact it would make. I will admit, I used to hate selling because it felt so sleazy and I just realized that I wasn’t operating from a place of pleasure and also service. My number two strength, according to Gallup, is focused. Going back to what I said earlier about being a person that loves to get deep into my work, this is why if focus is my number two strength, I have to honor it because that’s just what I naturally do. So for my schedule, in order to operate from a place of pleasure, I have to give myself ample space to really get into the zone and flow. I’ve learned to manage my schedule because in the past, and I didn’t know this at first, but in the past, I would feel so frustrated and even resentful when I would start to get into my work and then have to stop 15 to 20 minutes later because I had to leave for an appointment or had to get ready for a client meeting, or I just basically had to stop my work.
I learned that around the 20 to 25-minute mark is when I really start to get into the flow. I also learned to just leave work alone that requires me to get deep, only when I have blocks of time available to me. So I’m really intentional about blocking out my schedule to make sure that I have time to work this way. Despite me needing to create that block of time for me to work and get really deep, I’m actually completing more projects than ever before and those projects are turning into dollars for the business. So the ROI is there. And how focus also shows up in how I run my business from a place of pleasure, is actually back to my offerings. So yes, I talk about only offering one on one right now but it doesn’t mean that an e-course or a group coaching program isn’t in the future. I’m holding off on it because I want to be intentional in what I do and I just want to see my one on one work through and make that into a well-oiled machine that I can predictably serve my clients with. And focus allows me that permission to do so, I don’t have to do everything under the sun at once. I thrive when I can just focus on one thing at a time. I think the best thing that I did for my business was that I stripped away all the offers that I had. I had so many mini e-courses and when I realized that I could just focus on one thing, my one offer, my business just took off, even though I only am offering one thing in my business.
Okay, the last but almost just as important example that I have to share with you from my business, is my brand. Business Laid Bare isn’t operations agency, but somehow I was able to bake sex, BDSM, and kink into it in a way that feels so good to not only me and my team, but my clients love it too. Part of the journey and part of the exercise of me sitting down and getting real with myself, was how do I want to show up? And I kept writing: I am kinky, and I am not apologizing for it, over and over again. And I just knew that I had to figure out how to incorporate something that’s so integral into my life and into my business, and holy fuck, was it scary! Nobody’s really doing that, right? Who do you know that’s an operations agency that does systems & processes, all things about your back of house stuff, and have it be integrated with kink and BDSM, and how the way that I work with my clients from the first phase of the assessment all the way to the aftercare, is exactly how you would do pick up play if you’re at a BDSM dungeon party when done right? I would have never been able to put this together unless I got really, really honest with myself. As scary as I thought coming out kinky would be, it’s actually been so amazing. People have been so receptive of my brand because I think it shows just how genuine I am about it. There’s nothing inauthentic, I’m not forcing it, I’m just being true to myself and it’s really polarizing. It’s really easy for me to see who my people are and who aren’t. So it’s part of doing the work and I love that I can show up this way in my business and not have to hide any part of myself because this is something that I’ve always done growing up. I always hid a big part of my life, whether it be sexual abuse, or wanting to explore kink, it’s like now I can just be fully out, loud and proud about it.
In 2019, I actually drew a line in the sand. I was working so hard in my business and not going anywhere, nor making any money for that matter. So I knew something had to change but I just wasn’t sure what. And then at some point, I got really honest with myself and just decided to examine everything in my business and write down everything that didn’t feel good, no matter how tiny of a thing that was to as big as who I was even serving or what I was even serving my clients. It didn’t matter, I tore my business apart, and I rebuilt it from the ground up, including my offers. I want this pleasurable, productive, and profitable business for you. Because I don’t want you to take as long as I did, and have it feel as painful as what I went through. Okay, you may be a masochist, sure, but I don’t think you want to incorporate S&M into your business because you just want it to feel really good and to make you the money that you know it can make you so that you can have that true freedom that being your own business owner affords you, right?
So my biggest takeaway for you is this. Just be really honest about how you design your business. Carve out 30 minutes to an hour to take stock of what doesn’t feel pleasurable to you. There’s no right or wrong answer. Actually, there is a right answer. And it’s what you want. And sometimes it’s a hard conversation to have with yourself because once you’ve stripped down all the things that do not bring you pleasure, you may not even know what does because you’re not used to thinking about what feels good for yourself, like me. Or you may realize that you want to serve clients in a different way than you’re supposed to in your industry, or in your niche, or in what you offer because it’s never been done before or that it’s too out there. I say go for it! And before I say what I’m going to say next, I want to let you know that these are feelings and thoughts that I’ve gone through more than I want to admit. So when I say this, just know that I’m here with you. Okay, here it goes. If on the off chance that you’re afraid to get raw and honest with yourself is because you’re worried that if the thing or things you thought would bring you immense pleasure actually doesn’t, and that’s preventing you from taking action and really getting honest with yourself. Well the only answer here now is that you don’t know until you try, right? And if your hypothesis is wrong, you keep pursuing and even if it is wrong, I can guarantee that you’ll be happy you tried. You’re worthy of all the things that bring you pleasure. It may not get easier, but you get better, and you can handle whatever comes your way.
