What to do When Life Calls

life callingI’m still riding the high from Money 2.0 2013.  Honestly, it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in my life.   It was such a high.  And then I came home to a low.

On the second morning of the event I spoke about how we experience two different callings:  the calling into our greatness and when life calls.   We get called into our greatness every day:  to step up, to put ourselves out there, to follow up, to get clients, and to make an impact on the world.   It drives us forward as entrepreneurs.  It helps us talk ourselves off the ledge in those moments of fear and desperation.

But there is another type of calling – it is when life calls. Life callings are crises that pull you away from your business and into your life.   Life calls when a child gets sick.  Life calls when a parent needs help.  Life calls when the roof caves in or the car breaks down.  Life calls when a friend needs you to stay with her at the hospital.

What we all know for sure is that life will call.

The thing is that for most of us, the life callings and the call into greatness happen at the same time.  We are pulled in two different directions.  And we must learn to manage both callings even though at times we feel like we are being pulled apart at the seams.

For me, life called me into my greatness at Money 2.0.  Standing on that stage and transforming the way 200 people think about money was possibly the greatest gift I have been given so far in my business.

I rode that high for exactly four days.

Today life called.  My mom went into the hospital today.  She’s been sick for a while with chronic asthma and other ailments and they needed to give her more oxygen.   She took a turn for the worse, and I’m not sure she’s going to take a turn for the better anytime soon.

I found myself wracked with guilt about whether I’ve been a good daughter.  Could I have done more for her?  I wondered whether the call for greatness was too much.  Could I have been more, done more?  Then I realized that the best I can do is fully support her with love right now.

I booked a plane ticket to go home this weekend to support my dad and take care of my mom as best as I can.   It makes me angry to see her struggle and suffer, knowing that I can’t solve this problem.  People pay me thousands of dollars to have me help fix their businesses – and yet I can’t make her pain go away.

In the midst of it all I know that our job here on the planet is to be with it all – the joy of the greatness and the call of reality.  And that job of being with it all without resistance is harder than any marketing activity or sales call.    

I write to you fellow entrepreneurs to salute you.  I know each one of you deals with  the life callings.  I know each one of you feels your own call into greatness.

I suspect that we could not have one without the other.

And somewhere deep inside I know that we as entrepreneurs continue to grow and keep growing from every single part of it.

And for that I’m forever grateful.

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