When I first started my business there were a few women whose businesses I completely idolized. They had everything I wanted – I wanted to start a group program, work with 1:1 clients, I wanted a digital product for passive income. And I wanted to travel and have adventures. I wanted to live the dream.

But in the first years of my business, it seemed like everything that I tried only yielded mediocre results and I couldn’t figure out why.

I’d try to fill a group program with 8 people but only 4 would sign up after months of effort.
I tried to get people to come to a live event – I wanted 15 people in the room – only 3 came.
I wanted to package up all of my recorded classes for people to buy them from my website. But I didn’t even know if people would want them. Fear made sure I never put them out there.

There’s something about living the dream that I learned the first time I took a trapeze class and the only other time I’ve heard it was from my business coach, Monica Shah.

Last weekend I took my second trapeze class. I sat through about 20 minutes of instruction and one thing jumped out at me as THE key to having fun in class that day (and having fun in my business.)

“This is not about flexibility. This is not about strength. This is about momentum and timing.”
“OMG. This is why it was so hard in the beginning to get clients,” I thought to myself.

I’d market and stop when I didn’t think anyone was listening. 
I’d blog and stop when I didn’t think anyone was reading. 
I’d go network and then not follow up with the people I’d met because I doubted that I was clear enough for them to want to work with me. 
I’d share some stuff on Facebook but then share nothing for long periods of time.

I gave people too much time to forget about me and would lose momentum.

When doing trapeze, there are a series of commands that the instructor gives while you are in the air, upside down. The instructor gives commands from the ground while watching you because it’s impossible for you to know for certain where you are and then do the right thing at the right time (hook your legs, take your hands off the bar, put your hands back on the bar, let go, etc.)

On top of not knowing where you are (how could you? It’s not like you do this everyday!) You are simultaneously filled with FEAR. You need the instructor’s help to get things to actually work and to have any fun.

The first time I did trapeze I remember my biggest lessons learned: when the instructions come, don’t wait, don’t hesitate, don’t think, don’t second guess, just MOVE. Leverage the momentum of your first swing, because that’s when you have the most you’ll get.

This was huge for me, because it’s easy for me to spend a lot of time in perfection paralysis. Being up that high and doing something I’d never done before generated enough fear for me that when instructions came, my brain was able to shut up.

And in business, having a mentor works the exact same way. My business has grown as quickly as it has because I’m good at following instructions in the moment I’m given them. I get better and better at moving when my coach says move all the time. She does this everyday, all day. And because she can see where I’m at in the bigger picture and I can’t because I’m in the picture itself, she can see when I’ve got the right amount of momentum to go to the next level.

This is the timing piece.

If you take your hands off the bar too early you’ll fall off the trapeze.
(This is like investing in a fancy website before you know who your market is.)

If you hook your legs too soon, gravity will work against you instead of with you.
 (Like launching a group program and it’s an uphill battle to get people to sign up.)

And if you let go too late, then you won’t have enough momentum to do a backflip dismount or catch and swing onto the next bar.
 (You can’t let fear get in the way of taking the next step in your business and expect that your business will stay the same or grow. It will actually shrink as you lose momentum.)

Momentum and timing are everything in a business.

I’d love to hear your story of how things became easier in your business when you had the right momentum and timing.

Leave me a note in the comments and let me know!

October 2013 Issue