Written by: Tarryn Reeves, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
I often get asked: How do I create more freedom in my life and business, AND make more money?
I am passionate about supporting emerging and established female entrepreneurs to overcome overwhelm, exhaustion, self-sabotage, and endless work with no results all while creating profitable businesses that bring them the freedom to do and create a life that they want on their terms.
I know all about this reinvention because I’ve experienced this overwhelm in my own life. I spent a lot of my early adulthood trying to fit it and please other people.
On the inside, I was so deeply unhappy.
How did I get there? I let other people and society dictate to me the way that I should be and how I should live my life.
I wasn’t making choices the way that I wanted to make them; I was making choices based on how I thought society or other people wanted me to act and be.
Six weeks after my daughter was born I sat down at my computer and I started my business.
I thought: What skills do I have that I could monetize on that somebody else could benefit from?
From there, I started out as a virtual assistant and people started referring me to their connections.
I grew quickly, and that’s when I thought I could actually turn it into a proper business.
I taught myself how to build a website because I didn’t have the cash flow at the time.
At one point, I was working all hours of the day and night. My daughter wasn’t sleeping, my husband was working away a lot, and I had built this kind of cage for myself.
I found myself working way more hours than I ever had before, but getting paid way less.
I had a young daughter to look after and I was again, feeling that squeeze. I was feeling like
I was trapped and I thought “No no no, we’re not going here again. How can I create that next level of freedom without sacrificing what I’ve already built?”
So I scaled the business into a virtual assistance agency, and brought on a couple of subcontractors to help alleviate my workload.
I trained them up to deliver the type of service and high quality that my clients had come to expect from me. I built systems and procedures into my business, and I continued to hire on a couple of VAs as I went along.
All of a sudden, I had all this extra free time to work on my business.
All it takes is a little bit of courage and putting one foot in front of the other, to achieve whatever you set your mind to.
From here, I thought: Well, what’s the next level of freedom I can create for myself?
That’s what it looks like to me: the freedom to choose to go on holiday whenever I want, or the freedom to buy that book if I choose to buy that book, that type of freedom of choice.
I realized that I had naturally been coaching a lot of my clients, it just comes very naturally to me, to see the big picture and bring it down into a 3D implementable strategy and reality.
I just put it out there, thinking: What’s the worst that can happen? Someone’s going to say no? Then, that’s not the end of the world, because I had nothing to lose from that perspective.
Lo and behold, my soul clients came to me.
I got really clear on my messaging, clear on who I was and what I stood for, and clear on how I could help people.
I promise you right now, save yourself the grief and get really clear on who you want to work with, and do not be scared to turn away the people who do not feel like they are a right fit for you.
There’s absolutely no point in creating a business that you hate or creating a life that doesn’t fulfill you, that feels like a grind every day.
Society says: If you’re a woman, you must do this, this, this, this and this…
I refuse to believe that that’s true.
Growing up people told me I was quite naive.
They’d say, “Tarryn, you can’t work every day in a job that you love; life is all about waking up, going to work, going to sleep, doing it five days a week, having two days off on the weekend, and then you die.”
I remember thinking that that was the most depressing thing I had ever heard. Ever.
You and I, we will refuse to believe in that mentality.
All it takes is that one brave step, and you just keep taking one more brave step until you get to where you need to go, and the rest will fall into place.
Tarryn Reeves, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Tarryn Reeves is the CEO and founder of Four Eagles Publishing, The Publishing House Concierge and Zimpasha – a creative marketing agency.
She is a USA Today best-selling author, Book Coach, Publisher and entrepreneur whose work has been featured in Los Angeles Times, World News Network, Thrive Global and more.
Tarryn works with high-level entrepreneurs to create best-selling books that grow businesses with ease. She also serves entrepreneurs looking to get more visibility and monetise their online traffic through her creative marketing agency.
Together with her team of experts, she serves a global client base. She resides in Australia with her husband and daughter. When she isn’t delivering first-class service to her clients she is scouring the local book shares to add to her collection and pottering in her garden.