10 minute read
Worthy Because I Am: A Story of Leaning into Self-Acceptance
Colour Conversations with Entrepreneurs from Around the World.
An Interview with Shannon Fraser
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By Dwayne Richards, CPA
Worthiness—Worthy Because I Am: A Story of Leaning into Self-Acceptance
Be your truest self. We are born as our truest self and then conditioned to not be.
When we become business owners we hide all these parts of ourselves. My message to entrepreneurs and business owners is step more into yourself, alignment with who you are. This will attract your soulmate clients, and it will attract abundance because you’re living in truth and our truth is abundant. When we have self-acceptance of who we are holistically and unconditional self-love for ourselves and our business, that’s when real success comes in.
And that’s when we start to feel that ease and joy for our business.
Why did you choose coral?
It was an easy choice for me when you asked me. Coral, it just came to me. I think for me, it came from self-acceptance and self-love of who I am, and what my gifts are. That has helped me make more money, make money in an easier way. The next step is actually having that acceptance that I am worthy and that I’m valuable. And then comes, “What am I going to do with this now?” Self-acceptance of my gifts, and what I am meant to do, and I’m worthy of it. Self-care and acceptance of my money was the final step. Knowing this helps me earn money, and I am able to be more loving with my money— getting my taxes done on time and paying my bills on time are two examples. I feel like within my business, my ability to make money and also what I do with my money, it all centers around unconditional self-love and acceptance.
What was one of your early beliefs about money?
I only came to realize this three years ago: earning money was hard work and if it wasn’t hard, then it wasn’t valuable.
Now I work with ease which is different then saying my work is easy. When things start to feel hard, I ask myself, “Is this still in alignment with me?” Sometimes, it’s a tech thing that I have to learn and it may not be easy but I get to it with ease.
Where did you learn about money?
I did not learn about money or finances. I actually remember in my thirties coming into financial craziness. I went to my parents for some help. I had a house and I was behind on the payments. I was in debt, and I was treading water trying to figure out how to get out. I went to my parents, and their response was, “We didn’t teach you to be like this.” At the time, I took it personally. It’s not to place blame on them by any means. They didn’t teach me about money. They didn’t teach me to squander away my money. At the same time they didn’t teach me how to be good with money either. My parents were quite secretive around money. It was rude to talk about money. It was rude to talk about bills. Money was something they did not talk about.
Not talking about money and not being purposeful in their teachings were the two things I learned about money from my parents.
“Money questions will be treated by cultured people in the same manner as sexual matters, with the same inconsistency, prudishness, and hypocrisy.” (Sigmund Freud, 1913)
David Krueger, Your New Money Story
How has your relationship with money changed?
Worthiness, I had a spiritual awakening. Before that, I was unaware. I’m not sure what it was, but through the work I’ve done on myself, spiritual work, I’m understanding how most of my life I have lived from a place of not feeling worthy. And how much that dictated even into my old story of making money, and it had to be hard. That is what I believed, whoever worked the hardest, and worked the longest was the most valued. That was how I would prove my worth, versus the new belief of just being inherently worthy because I am.
For me timing was everything. I was given different business opportunities. They kept falling into my lap, opportunities to grow. I was hopeful and I felt worthy. I started to make money. It was little things where somebody said, “Hey, I’d love for you to work with me on my program. I’m not sure how but I love all of your thoughts and ideas.” What changed was accepting that a person thought I could help them. I’m going to choose to believe them, rather than me coming up with a million reasons why I’m not the right fit and somebody else is better.
Change continued to happen the more I leaned into acceptance.
As I was doing the spiritual work, and the business opportunities came at the same time, I started to feel worthy. The first time that happened, because I was so aware, I was like, wow, okay, so I just kept pushing myself to make it happen on bigger and bigger scales. Each time it was uncomfortable, and I feel that is most important. There is a misconception that I felt worthy. To start, I was feeling 75 percent believing “I am worthy,” and 25 percent “I will believe it after I take action.” I remember the first time I got my first private client. It was our first session and for three hours before the first session I prepared. I don’t know even what that means. I meditated. I pulled some cards. I researched their social media — I’d already seen it, but I really researched it. I sat there and thought of questions they might ask me and things I could bring up to them. They showed up. They asked me things that had nothing to do with the three hours I had prepared for. I gave them my opinions and thoughts. They were blown away. They’re still my clients to this day. They’ve been my clients now for two years. That’s me with the action through believing in myself. I was trying to make that hard work for myself. And meanwhile, what they really wanted was me to just show up clear and available.
When did you discover you could be “the business”?
I still wake up and can’t believe I get paid to be me. I would say I actually resisted it. So it was when I started to notice that I was resisting the opportunities that were in front of me.
I taught customer service for America’s top 1 percent of wealth—how to nurture relationships through these affluent businesses. As a corporate trainer I taught people about messaging and what to say to people and how to do things on the computer. When I left my corporate job I said I would never coach again, and I would never help people get rich again. I was over that life. I vowed I would only do things that made me happy. I didn’t know what that was. So I got a job at a chocolate store, and then a cheese store, and then a wine store. Every time in those businesses, because I’m just being me, I would offer to the owner some thoughts or suggestions. They would say, “That’s an amazing idea.” I kept feeding them ideas, and they loved them. The ideas would help the business grow, and then they would want me to manage the store. It found me. I was already doing it in my jobs.
I realized I could probably do this for a living rather than having it be my side hustle. I stayed open. I was in a transition in my life where I was looking to live my best life. I started to see these patterns every time I got what I considered to be a part-time, no responsibility job—within six months, the owners wanted to give me their business.
By the time I decided to work for myself and go all in and do this for a living, I was already doing it. I hadn’t really made the conscious decision. I was still holding on to some part-time jobs that weren’t serving me, per se. I was holding on to them out of fear. I made that decision to stop being afraid and go all in on just being me in 2019.
Fear of failure or I could be successful!
I never thought I was worthy enough to own the business. I never thought I could go buy a franchise and do it myself. For some weird reason that thought never crossed my head. That’s what other people do. I’m just here to work for other people.
Feeling worthy.
Why not me?
No reason!
Anchor your worthiness.
Write it on a post-it note and put it on your mirror.
What are the biggest challenges for your clients?
It’s funny, because I think our clients are reflections of us in some ways. There are two parts. It starts with feeling okay to be themselves in their business and how that manifests for different people. For some clients, that’s how they structure their business, how they set boundaries, and how they communicate with their clients. They’ve been doing it one way because that’s the way it’s supposed to be done, but it doesn’t feel right for them. I help them identify and accept what they actually want, and then put in place the structures that will support them and their business.
The second part is the messaging of their business. How are they attracting their clients? It comes from them being themselves and letting their true selves shine instead of trying to talk about what they’re supposed to talk about. That way they attract their soulmate clients. It’s the structure behind the scenes that will help serve them the best and then also, the messaging to their clients to attract their soulmate clients.
What do you love and what makes you happy?
I haven’t thought about this before. I think I find great joy and it does feel like a sharing of love when helping my clients feel heard and seen. It is a huge thing, because as entrepreneurs, it’s a lonely road, and we put on a brave face for our clients. We feel like we have to be on all the time and the pity party has to happen behind closed doors, especially for some of my clients who are super successful. And they feel guilty about feeling any other way than grateful for their business. You can be grateful for your business and still find some of your clients annoying. That’s okay, we live in a world of duality. One of the things I just love about my business so much that does bring me joy is creating that safe space for them to feel seen and heard as business owners, but then also, how that translates into their business. The love part of it for me is I’m not just helping this one business owner in their business, I’m actually helping a whole community. When my clients create an income for themselves, because they are nurturing, they take that money back and nurture their community. We’re spreading that love and money through more than just that one person. And that means a lot to me. It gets me excited and I am grateful when I fall asleep at night. I love watching my clients’ success, that brings me great joy. Specifically, when they come a little bit more into their own and they’re making the sales that they want and they’re attracting their dream clients and things are really falling into place with them. That brings me great joy.
