I’m kinda bad at business.

My website is continually out of date. There’s never any pressure to work with me. You don’t have to “buy now”. I don’t do transformations. I don’t even want to change you. I suck at elevator pitches. I don’t have a script to follow on sales calls or, well, “sales” calls. I’ve never paid for an ad. I actually have a scholarship to work with me. I say no to working with people.

I don’t care if I have 1000 followers or 1 million, 10 people on my email list or thousands, a 5 figure profit or 7 figure profit… my writing and my coaching & freelance business will always be personal.

I work with people, always the human first.

I believe that if you put people first, the profit will follow. If you put profit first, it’ll come, but it won’t last.

And my business has always been a reflection of me as a human too. It’s evolved as I’ve evolved.

The work I do can only go as far as I’ve gone myself.

To be honest; my business happened unintentionally. After starting to share my story anonymously under a pseudonym on Instagram before my 8th surgery in March 2015 it naturally evolved into several different iterations of a coaching business as I learned more and wanted to help others.

I did the personal development work.

I started with the shame I felt around my scars, then my body in general, then myself as a woman.

I moved on to feeling the emptiness within and how I kept searching for external validation to make me feel like enough.

I changed relationships, claimed pleasure as my birthright, experienced sexual freedom, and started speaking my truth, and relationships changed me.

But then I couldn’t help but wonder how I got here in the first place and how my clients felt the same when I thought I was the only one… How did I feel so ashamed, broken, unlovable, and never enough?

“There’s more to it,” said the whisper within.

And then I looked at the bigger picture.

I started to see oppression that affected me; specifically patriarchy and capitalism.

But I never looked at racism. And it was easy for me not to; I benefited from it with privilege.

As I started seeing systemic racism and white privilege more fully recently I felt deeply uncomfortable. But I committed after my last surgery to always go “there”. So I’m going there.

We can’t have full personal power without addressing social power dynamics too.

As a part of one oppressed group, I can relate to racism because of how I didn’t feel free in my body, in bed, in the boardroom. And that’s not to say I know the experiences of Black people, but it is to say I empathize. And I care.

Shame, privilege, oppression, unexpressed truths, unequal power dynamics separate us. Until we feel free we can’t truly show up as all of us, everywhere. Until we’re all liberated, we’re all limited. Love needs liberation and liberation needs evolution.

That’s why I commit not only to personal development but the bigger picture; dismantling systems of oppression and progressing social justice with the work I do personally, my work with clients, and my work as a business.

Now, I haven’t studied history. I’m not a politician. I don’t have all the words and terminology down. I’m learning — a lot goes on behind the scenes.

But I’ve always been in this business for people, so you better believe I’m here for human right issues too.

That’s why I strive to run my business with value AND work on allying (as a verb).

The work I do will be a force for good.

There are 3 principles that guide my business currently — ever-evolving, remember? — and are sticky notes on my computer screen;

1. Let the truth live outside of your body.

2. Be honest about your hunger otherwise you’ll never feel full.

3. There’s no such thing as one-way liberation.

We need to openly, and uncomfortably, unpack stories and systems that dictate the way we live if there’s any hope of living free.

This long-term deep work will beat short-term shallow work any day… it ain’t easy, but it’s worth it.

So instead of worrying about how “I might get it wrong” — because we inevitably will — instead ask, “What could I do right?”

Because I’m excited about creating a world where our children’s lives are better than our own.

Deanne