Happy Holidays, An Announcement, and Sometimes...It's Good to Fail

I'm Lisa 👋 Welcome to this week's edition of Stream of Consciousness!

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Hey 👋

Wanted to drop a note to wish you a happy holiday!

I also felt compelled to share a little bit about some changes happening on my side.

I’ve been wanting to sit down and do a “Recap of the Year” before the year actually ended for…well, years. And I don’t just mean a rushed checklist of goals and whether I hit them or not.

I think a huge piece of what has been missing in my life is having actual HONEST conversations with myself.

I have spent a lot of time being angry and upset and sad and frustrated about life circumstances I have found myself in. The truth is, some of them weren’t my fault. But it’s also true that it’s my responsibility to do something about it.

Sometimes we get so busy or are pulled in directions without even being aware of where we’re focusing, why we are focusing there, and how it makes us feel. I want to do everything in my power to stop living on autopilot and start living on…Lisa Pilot.

So, I sat down in a coffee shop with just a notebook and answered these questions with brutal honesty:

1. What am I proud of myself for this year?

2. What hurt me this year?

3. What do I want to do a better job at?

4. [The big kahuna] What gave me energy this year and what took my energy away?

Without going into detail that would be more suited to a novel vs. a newsletter, I realized I am feeling incredibly conflicted. I am dealing with a lot of hard things and am having to make a lot of difficult decisions that require tradeoffs between basic human needs. Is it fair? No. Does it make me pissed? Absof-ing-lutely. But…is it my responsibility to do something about it? Yes.

One of these hard decisions has been choosing to close the doors on Conscious Product Development (or at least parts of it).

While I wrote about this briefly in a LinkedIn post a few days ago, I wanted to elaborate a little bit because to be honest, saying no and stopping things that have some momentum is really hard.

When I started Conscious, I had a few desired outcomes:

1. Create a business that is 100% aligned with my values.

2. Create a business that attracts those with similar values (read: $0 marketing for the right kind of customer or partner, plus it’s just way more fun).

3. Create a business that both leverages my existing skills and enables me to constantly learn.

4. [The big kahuna] Create a business that enables me to survive while dealing with significant life setbacks and challenges (through the literal survival lens and also through the lenses of flexibility, income, and energy…more on this below).

5. Run a business as a solopreneur and make it work (I knew this would give me control and be a baked-in way to avoid a lot of the toxic work situations I have been in the past, plus if I could make it work it would increase my confidence and belief in myself).

Some of my coaching clients reading this will already know all about #4 - this one definitely fell into the “impossible tradeoffs to decide between” bucket.

I’ve written a lot about my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, shared some posts about my experiences at the Mayo Clinic/finding out I had 2 very rare tumours, and talked about some of my lived experiences in dealing with anxiety and PTSD.

But I haven’t written a lot about how these impacted me while starting and running a business.

I also haven’t found many people in the same boat, so it’s been incredibly isolating.

Because I live in Canada, most people assume that health care is universally covered. But that’s actually not true. It’s only covered sometimes. If you have “meat and potatoes” types of issues. But if your issues are more carrots, or gravy, or even a garnish, chances are you will not have coverage.

I am one of 3 million Canadians living with a rare disorder who has to figure out how to make ends meet - being my own advocate, finding the right specialists to help me, getting access to treatment, and funding a massive amount of expenses that the government does not cover.

A lot of people my age are starting side hustles to improve their wealth. For me, my side hustle is to live.

This often means having to make seemingly impossible decisions.

“Do I rest to take care of myself physically and mental health and safety, or do I work on X to improve my financial security?”

“Do I put myself through X amount of travel and exhaustion to get closer to finding answers that could help me, or do I stay put and try to keep things stable?”

“Do I do the things my soul wants to do or do I do the things I know make more practical sense based on the constraints I’m dealing with right now?”

Most of the guides I have up on Gumroad were put together at a coffee shop at the Mayo Clinic in between scary appointments and biopsies. On one day, I worked on my guide in the morning, got called in for a minor surgery because there was a last minute opening, and took a Lime scooter over to the hospital asap.

I have done a lot of coaching calls from hotel rooms in Rochester and Jacksonville or at odd hours and on weekends around appointments.

I created a course in a month while dealing with long-Covid and weird complications like dislocating 4 ribs because I was coughing so much and an inflamed pancreas.

While having an honest conversation with myself, one of the things that occurred to me is that I don’t want to keep making decisions from a scarcity mindset.

I want to be more intentional with my focus and expand my decision making to factor in things that are beyond my current circumstances and constraints.

Sometimes that means stopping vs. forging ahead. Sometimes it means morphing and adapting vs. keeping things status quo.

Yes, sometimes your hand feels forced.

But..

There’s always a way.

There’s always a way to find empowerment.

There’s always a way to trust your gut and wade into the unknown knowing it feels more aligned.

There’s always a way to solve a problem that may feel impossible.

Another part of my honest conversation is that I want to make a more conscious effort to do a better job managing my energy.

As an empath and incredibly sensitive person (this is something I never fully acknowledged until recently, which explains a lot), this has been a monumental challenge that I am committed to investing in - not just on my own, but with support.

All of this has been circling the drain over the past few weeks and there are a few things I know for sure:

1. If I start another business, I do not want it to come from a scarcity mindset. It needs to come from a place of abundance.

2. I love writing and want to keep this newsletter going.

3. I am EXTREMELY grateful for all of the people Conscious has enabled me to connect with. That’s been the biggest win of all. Thank you! YOU are part of this!

So what does all of this mean?

In the short-term, I’ll be removing all of my products and courses at the end of this year (so in like…1 week from today).

As part of this, I am offering a 50% discount on everything for the next 7 days.

You can use the code DEC2024 for 50% off:

1. Personal Positioning for Aspiring Product Managers [COURSE]

2. The Product Manager’s Career Guide [PDF GUIDE]

3. Stitch: The Best Resources for Product Managers [PDF GUIDE]

After that, I’ll be removing them forever.

As for the long term? I am currently focused on rest and creating more space to think about that.

Endings can be really tough…but they can also be the exact thing you need to create space for good things.

Thank you for supporting me, for following along, for emailing me, and sharing your thoughts and ideas 🙏

If this edition resonates, please drop me a note and let me know! I love hearing from you and it makes me feel less like a robot typing away behind a glass wall.

Soulwork 💜

• ✨ I’ve been really into watching Eva zu Beck’s adventure videos lately and really love this one - it’s her honest reflection of the mistakes she made in a year.

Thanks for Reading!

I love connecting with y’all who read this. What do you like about this newsletter? What would you like to see more of? Let me know.

Have a great New Year!

-Lisa ✨

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