For better or for worse, social media has turned us all into investigative non-trustworthy skeptics.

WOW. How’s that for a personality trait? What Enneagram is that!??! By the way I have NO IDEA what mine is but that’s for a different email.

• You see a family pic that is too good to be true and you know deep down….it probably is.
• You hear course creators nattering on and on about making a million dollars with zero audience and zero launch and zero stress and you’re like BULL TO THE $HIT.
• You hear a founder story on a podcast and the journey is  ALL RAINBOWS, UNICORNS AND SKINNY MARGARITAS. Nope. Just nope.

Nothing good…like really good…is ever easy. If it were…we’d ALL be doing it.

Your path to where you want to go in life will require work, sacrifice, putting your health first, saying no to things that get in the way, longer hours, earlier mornings, weekend time at your desk, etc.. It’s all just part of the process despite you seeing all these travel influencers in the Amalfi Coast “making millions in passive income.”

Your audience deserves a better story. They deserve a realistic story.

I wish more founders leaned into the setbacks and the struggle because that is the story that is far more helpful and has far more impact than any success metric.

Yes, I want to hear about your success, but please please tell me all the failures that you tried before and how you were able to rise up. THAT is my motivational kryptonite.

Those are the moments I cling to when I am in my lowest of lows in this ride and I want to give up. 

• I think back and recall my friend who got pushed out of a company that she started and then had to stay silent for more than a year and not re-enter her space of genius. That was a hard year for her.
  
• I think back to my other brilliant friend who endured child loss at his wife’s birth and went into a deep depression for years. But turned that into his WHY for all that he does in his successful business and for how he views people…he never judges because you just never know what’s happening.
  
• I think back to a woman I follow on Instagram whose daughter suffered a traumatic brain injury and her life is irrevocably changed….and yet she pours out the inner workings of her soul to us and it puts all of life into perspective. 

What was a problem? The setback?  The Crisis? The recovery? Where did you end up?

Stories in your favorite books follow structure. The same structure that you can apply to your own business stories.