Showing Up When It’s Hard – Finding Your Launch Energy

Good morning. Happy Monday. I feel like I'm already scrambling on this Monday morning. It's always tougher, like a Monday after the holiday weekend to bounce back. Like, I did not want to get up this morning, but I'm thankful because what I needed to is to be here. I needed to get myself out of bed. I needed to get dressed. I needed to get moving. Sometimes when I work from home, I tend to be a little bit more slower to react or a little bit lazier, a little— move a little bit slower in the mornings. But when I've got to get up and get to the warehouse, like, it's really good for me. And it was, it was good today because I've been feeling a little bit of heaviness over the weekend. Um, let me pull up my screen here. I've been feeling a little bit of heaviness over the weekend, and I want to know if you guys have been feeling that too. And sometimes things like this happen, um, when you're in the middle of a launch, and it can almost cripple you, um, when things— when heaviness happens right before you get ready to launch. Um, so I want to talk about it today because when— and what I'm talking about is there's, there's a couple instances going on, and there's really more than that if you think about it happening all over the world, but I live in Texas, so it's, it's very, um, in your face right now what's happening in South Texas, South Central Texas. It is not close to me. Texas is a very large state. It is 5 hours south of me. The flooding of the Guadalupe River is about 5 hours south, um, of me. But it— and I don't know what it's like for people in other parts of the country or the world, but it's just in my face. It's on every channel that I turn on. It's all over my Facebook feed. There's not a way to get around it. And it's been causing me to feel super heavy and almost didn't want to go live today. I thought, what am I going to talk about today? Like, a lot of people lost their lives over the holiday weekend for something that was just catastrophic and, and devastating. And you didn't— there was just no time to react because it happened while everyone was sleeping. And they couldn't predict it. It wasn't like the flash flood warnings didn't even happen until 1:00 AM. Well, most people are asleep at 1:00 AM, so there was just no time to react to this. And then I see Tropical Storm Chantal is just dumped a whole bunch of water over on the East Coast. And so people on the East Coast are now dealing with all of that. And someone who's had their house flooded over and over and over again, like, I understand what flooding is like, and it's devastating. I've never experienced it to the level that the people in South Central Texas right now are experiencing it, but it just brings back the memories of my house flooding over and over again, and there was nothing I could do about it. And then it's heavy, right? It's— can we just say it's heavy? And when it's close to home, when it's close to you, you feel heavy about it, and you feel like, I can't show up today and talk about launching and selling stuff and all these things. Like, there's a lot of tragedy happening and it feels off, right? It feels off to show up and say, oh, let's talk about launching in a couple of weeks. But we have to, we have to. And it took me back this morning. I was getting ready and I was thinking about March of 2020. I was getting ready to launch Launch Your Box for the very first time. I had put months of work into this, building my audience, running ads, everything was set for my launch. And the week before the launch, there was a huge announcement that our country had to shelter in place. And I didn't know what that meant. And I didn't know what that meant for me. And I had to shut down my brick and mortar store. I had to close those doors. There was all these feelings of uncertainty. I thought, well, I can't show up now. And sell this entrepreneurial dream of launching your subscription box when we just were sheltering in place for the first time in our lives? Like, it was something that was, that was just really— we didn't know. There was so much uncertainty. Like, what does this even mean? And I made the decision then that I needed to press forward because everything was set. People were ready. And I did. And I launched Launch Your Box for the very first time in March of 2020, and I got 104 members. And that started Launch Your Box. And I have zero regrets. And through the pandemic, I was able to help so many entrepreneurs launch their subscription box when they had lost their jobs. And so I think for us today, if you're feeling that— I'm such a feeler, like I am such a feeler— that if you're feeling the heaviness today, I want you to know that it's okay to feel that way. And I want you to know that we don't have to be fake positive in this moment, right? We don't have to be fake positive, but we do have to press forward. We have to keep going. We have to keep showing up. We have to keep on our path because things like this can happen any time in our lives. Things like this can happen anywhere at any time. And there's nothing you can do to be prepared for something like this. But what we have to do is to keep moving forward and we have to show up just like today, imperfectly. I'm telling you how I'm feeling. I'm feeling very heavy today. I have to show up honestly. I have to show up consistently. I had every reason not to go live today but I have to keep showing up and I'm going to encourage you guys to keep showing up too and I want you to show up with energy and it doesn't have to be fake positive energy. It doesn't have to be bouncing off the wall energy. It has to be enough energy to say, I hold belief in what I do. Even when the world feels heavy, I hold belief that what I provide in my subscription box will lighten someone's day, will help someone feel good, will solve a problem, will encourage someone. I have to believe that. Enough to keep showing up. And I know it feels weird because there's nothing in my subscription box that's going to solve the world's problems or it's going to fix anyone's issues. But we also have to realize that a big portion of our country is not dealing with this. It's not dealing with the heaviness. Sometimes when it's in our backyard, it feels like every Everything around us revolves around that, and we have to continue to move forward without it, okay? We just have to believe in what we do, and what we do helps people. My cute monogram box doesn't solve the world's problems, doesn't fix anything that has happened over the weekend for all these families that are devastated. But you know what? When that turquoise box lands on someone else's door? It brings a smile to their face. It's a moment of joy in their life. And I have to believe that in order for me to keep showing up. You have to believe that for your own business in order for you to keep showing up. It might feel weird. It might feel uncertain. It might feel slower than normal. And that's okay. But this is where real momentum is built. And this is what I see from entrepreneurs over and over again. Is that we stop, we stop and we restart and we stop and we restart and we can't keep stopping and restarting because we're losing all the momentum in between. One of the most powerful things you can do right now is post, post a feel-good. I just told you my entire feed is about the Texas floodings. Right now. What I, what I would love to see in my feed is some positive things, some different things, some fun things. So what you can do is post. You can send an email and you don't even need to acknowledge what's happening because it's in everyone's feed everywhere, right? I need something different to focus on. I need something different to read about. I need something different to look at in my feed. So you can acknowledge it, but you don't need to. We need to provide something different for our audience, because I guarantee if you live near— and I don't know what it's like on other parts of the country right now— but if you live near any of this that's happening, it is constantly in your feed. So what can you post today to lighten things up for our audience? What can you send an email about today to lighten things up? I think about what I'm wearing today. I can send a style email today. Grab this t-shirt, grab these earrings, look at this cute bag, talk about how I styled it really simply today with some sandals and jeans. We just have to be calm and we have to give our audiences something else to look at. And so that's what I'm going to challenge you with this week. As we go into launch, we get into what's this messy middle. We have this really big excitement. Last week we're excited, we're getting our launch started, we're doing this. And then things happen, right? And now we're in this messy, awkward middle of, I don't know what to do. Should I press forward or should I pull back? This is when we have to press forward. This is when good entrepreneurs don't pull back. We press forward. And we don't have to do it in a slimy way. We don't have to do it in a salesy way. We can do it in a feel-good way, because I believe that what I sell makes people happy in some way. It makes people feel good about themselves. If you have a box that brings joy, if you have a box that brings connection, maybe you have a box that allows you to escape from your daily activities. People need that now more than ever. They need it in their feeds more than ever. And, and showing up might not feel right for you right now, but that's why you have to do it in your way. What feels good for you today? Post a story. Post a story. Make somebody smile today. Do a static post, do a reel, send an email, go live, because we have to keep connecting and we have to keep showing up because we're in this middle of our launch right now. We're in the middle of prepping for our launch. All of you that are launching with me, we're in the middle of that. And so we can't go silent because we're going to lose the momentum that we started last week. So I need you to find a way to keep moving forward today, to bring a smile to someone's face. Maybe that's a fun meme on your page. Maybe that's an inspirational quote. Maybe that's a freebie inspirational quote. Maybe that's a product in your store that has some meaning that would help, you know, our audience right now. I love this. From Pamela. She says, we don't need to solve world problems, we can just influence our immediate communities to provide positive vibes. That's what we can do. So tomorrow we kick off week 2 of Let's Launch Together, and I'm going to be here and I'm going to be showing up and I'm going to be teaching you, and we're going to continue on tomorrow inside LauncherBox. But what you can do now and what you can plan for this week is really connect with your audience and how can you bring some sort of light to them in their feeds? How can you bring some sort of light to them in their inboxes? And maybe it's not about selling this week, but about creating positivity, sharing your why, showing up in a different way. But we have to keep showing up. All right. Even when it feels heavy, I encourage you just to do that today. Make the reel, make the post, don't pull back, keep pressing forward. All right. I'll see you tomorrow inside Launch Your Box for week 2 of Let's Launch Together. I'm really excited about the momentum you guys are making. All right. Have a good rest of your day.