So if you're like me, at times you feel alone in the world even surrounded by people, you feel like you’re not enough, you feel guilty for always thinking there has to be a better way, you feel like you’re spinning out of control with your thoughts and if you could just learn to be like everyone else you could be happy. You have all of these ideas, but have no idea what to do next. You’ve always known there was something better out there for you but never knew where to start.

At work you battle in a world that is supposed to be an equal playing field but most of us quickly learn that it just isn’t, and that’s ok. You can choose to stay and fight it which takes so much of your precious energy, or back away and take your talent somewhere else. Somewhere you can make a difference without wasting your time trying to prove you are something you actually aren’t and don’t want to be.

Throw kids into the mix and a whole new set of battles kick in. You feel bad when you aren’t working, when your kids are sick and they need you more, you feel guilty when you’re working more than you should and everything else is being neglected. You just don’t have enough hours in a day.

You are not alone! You and I are entrepreneurs at heart and we want to do it a different way.

We are women who want to achieve, we always give, we take care of everyone around us, we are not selfish, and yet we feel selfish for always wanting more.

How about having a life where we have lots of quality time with our kids, with organizing our homes and schedules and family time and prepping healthy foods (whether this is delegated or not doesn’t matter, we orchestrate it, we create it).

What about if we can build a business that takes us to the top of a community of people we actually like, and it gives us the freedom to become the leaders we want to be while representing something that is good and healthy for us and our families therefore easy to share with others around us who want that too.

Why is this 'unrealistic'? It's not.

My name is Mara Riopel and I am an entrepreneur. It wasn’t until I heard a youtube video about the entrepreneurial personality type that I actually got it. I am a hunter! Not like a killing kind, but the kind who is always on the hunt for the next best thing, or the next big idea. I’ve always been full of ideas and then been told that I need to ‘just focus’ on one thing, but that makes me feel paralyzed, depressed and takes away all of my momentum. In the video Alex Charfen talks about momentum and how it affects us entrepreneurs of the world. We have to be in forward motion which gives us energy and more momentum creating something or learning or improving ourselves or our businesses otherwise we are moving backwards which kills us emotionally, physically and chemically. We have to learn, we have to build, we have to share! I am that person, are you?

I always felt guilty for wanting more. I questioned the way most people lived and worked around me and always wondered why they kept doing it that way since it didn’t make them happy. I did it too for over 10 years and became very ‘successful’ by their standards, but I was never satisfied. Having a high stress job in an environment where I felt I needed to pretend to be someone I wasn’t, working with people I usually didn’t like, and then barely having time off to enjoy myself even though I had lots of cash to do fun stuff. That is not what I want.

I want it all. I am proud to say it. I want my health (which was never a priority for me in corporate life) and I want wealth. Wealth to me is not just money. I’ve always known I would have money eventually. I’m a smart girl with lots of drive so I wasn’t scared of that. I think that’s the fear that keeps most people spinning in the wheel. Wealth to me is being happy AND having time and the money to do what I actually like doing, being around other people like me, creating things, making a difference, building a business but doing good with what I am representing.

What do you want? What do you want to build?

Starting a business is super scary. There’s a lot on the line. Pride, ego, reputation….. but most of that stuff is only the perception you have around it. Trust me, once you walk away from the corporate world, nobody even notices. You think it is a big deal but it isn’t. You can get through it. You might feel like you’ve made a mistake 100 times and think about going back but decide to keep going because there is a real chance, even if it seems like a small chance, that you have what it takes to go out into the world, and make an amazing life for yourself. You know you are an entrepreneur inside, deep down. You will help others because that’s who you are and you will change someone else’s life. Somewhere along the way someone changed yours even if it was only a little bit. Pay it forward. Let that be enough to push you. You can do it. You know it’s out there, go get it!

Best,

~m

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