It's All Here - the news you've been waiting for

TL;DR - Entrepreneurship's an emotionally whack journey. Our website's been refreshed. We have a new program - Giving Feedback with CARE. There's a new FREE downloadable resource on the site "A Simple Guide for Emotionally Exhausted Leaders." And you can now buy Ariana (that's me) a Tea to support my writing, and the fulfillment of my vision to bring high value, accessible professional development to mission driven leaders.

The Juicy Stuff

My grandfather at the Batsto blacksmith shed

About 6 years into running my business, I started to feel deep shame about pivoting.

"They're going to know you're a failure and a fraud." This voice in my head echoed like a hissing basilisk. 

It was a misdirected warning in reaction to my hopes being dashed when I was running well past empty. A deeply ingrained fear of inadequacy that took advantage of my then fragile mental health. A story I was telling myself that created resistance to the very grit I needed to embrace.

It's funny how our brains do that to us. They convince us to avoid the very thing we need to thrive out of fear we will succumb to an untimely demise. If we're unlucky, our instincts for self-preservation actually foreshadow the very thing we are striving to escape.

Keep Trying

Just the other week, I was reading Lex Roman's newsletter, Revenue Rulebreaker, where she shared a conversation with journalist and entrepreneur Andy Dernhardt.

In it, Andy explained his success saying,"I just kept trying things for 25 years."

It was so refreshing to read. And reminded me of what Jerry Thurber shared in A Misfit Entrepreneur's Guide, “You’re going to get knocked down a lot. You’ve just got to get up one more time than the times you’ve been knocked down.”

It turns out entrepreneurship, leadership, parenting, and life in general is a matter of evolving to meet the demands and needs of the moment we inhabit. Of enduring setbacks then rebounding.

The Inevitable

There's a myth many of us hold in our minds-eye when we embark on a new venture (or about life in general). We will figure it out - how to make money, how to operate a business, how to market, how to sale, how to parent - and then be done. Check it off the list. Move on.

Perhaps, that's how life was not long ago. My grandparents pulled themselves out of poverty while raising a family. My grandmother was a bookkeeper, my grandfather a blacksmith. Careers that consistently provided for their family with little turbulence.

Their work remained steadfast throughout their careers. Mostly. My grandfather, instead of fashioning parts for navy ships (a job that kept him away from the frontlines during WWII), became a display in a living museum showing kids how things used to be made. This, however, was a post-retirement, part time gig.

But in reality, my grandparents lives were anything but static. They came of age during the great depression. They experienced harsh setbacks and drastic changes throughout their lives. And they met the shifts in life and work with grace. What I see as constant (the same job their entire career), certainly didn't feel that way to them.

That's because, cliche's hold some truth, change is inevitable.

Reframing Fear into Strength

This fear of being seen as an incompetent failure that's permeated my psyche couldn't be anymore misdirected. Yet, it's an all too common a fear many of us struggle with (I have conversations with clients and colleagues about it frequently). And I see it as an outcome of the fixed mindset that insidiously permeates our culture.

The notion that we can have it all figured out, something I've felt burdened to achieve, assumes an endpoint. It presumes that our abilities are defined by our innate talents and there's nothing more we can do.

With a fixed mindset running the program, it makes sense to see pivoting, adapting, changing, evolving as failure. And see failure as some tragic end to our stories shrouded by shame. 

It turns out, my ability to read the horizon for what's to come and adapt to meet the changes of the market is a strength, not a weakness (especially when I remain steadfast to my values while doing so).

What's more, it's indicative of a growth mindset. Something I value, in theory, and am continually working to embrace in practice. What's more, I'm NOT alone in this - we're all figuring things out as we go.

A New Dawn

In the last few years, the sunset on parts of my business that sustained me. Changes in the marketplace. Reduced investment in technology. An influx of people leaving corporate America to do their own thing. Have all contributed to what's become a seismic shift.

Last year I began the process of pursuing government contracts - you're looking at an SBA certified woman-owned small business here. Then another disruption happened there earlier this year.

Hope is an endurance sport.

Taking stock, I saw the needs and opportunities before me. The alignment between my unique gifts and the missing piece of the puzzle.

People don't want more information. Professionals don't want to be lectured at anymore. They want spaces to learn through conversation. Opportunities to process and integrate new ideas, practices and tools into their work.

They want to feel connected. Seen. Validate. Uplifted.

Especially, mission driven leaders. The helpers. The ones everyone else turns to. Helping professionals are poised to address needs that are growing in scope and number. The demands are mounting, in a system that's already overworked, taxed, exhausted and depleted.

And we need helpers. We need each other. We need spaces to become the leaders we aspire to be so we can sustain the purpose that gets us out of bed every morning. Our refreshed website and new FREE downloadable resource speaks to this.

My Heart Beats for This

In the last few months, I've been experimenting with a new position for Rosabella Consulting. I successfully piloted a Trauma-Informed Leadership Development Framework, a Performance Feedback Program and a Trauma-Informed Assertiveness Training for Librarians. The response has been encouraging. "I want more things like this please" is what I hear.

The premise is to offer high-value, accessible professional development opportunities for mission-driven leaders to master the "soft" skills (Seth Godin calls them Real Skills) necessary for our collective success. And the 14 years preceding me in business where I honed my proprietary co-creating experiences process, hosted EntrepreNerds book discussion groups, facilitated masterminds, and led trainings has poised me to do just that.

The first program I'm building out is called Giving Feedback with CARE. A Participant in the pilot said, "It's changed the way I've given feedback...The conversation felt smoother, more collaborative, and way less stressful.”

From there, I'll be rolling out more programs, all poised to develop the skills mission-driven leaders need to enable their teams and organizations to thrive.

Evolving with the times

You'll also notice, I'm experimenting with a method of revenue generation that's gaining traction for creators like me - the opportunity for supporters to Buy me a Tea. For 13 years, my blog has been a labor of love - offering value without renumeration because that's what I was told to do way back when. 

But now, creator

s across platforms are raising financial support from individual contributors who believe in their work.

So, why not ask!

Buying Me a Tea not only supports my writing here, it sustains my efforts to fulfill my vision to provide high-value, accessible professional development for mission-driven leaders that provide invaluable services in our communities. It says, "I believe in what you're doing, Ariana. Keep going!"

If there's one thing that hasn't changed in my 14 years in business it's that things often take longer to build than we'd like. And a little bit of support, like buying me a tea, goes a long way. As my Grandmother (our namesake) said her whole life, "I just need to persevere" one cup at a time!

If you’ve found value in what I wrote here and you want to support me in continuing to create, guide, write, and make space for deeper transformation, I invite you to buy me a tea.

Buy Me A Tea