How I'm Savoring My Entrepreneurial Path
Birthdays always nudge me into a reflective space. I’m not big on birthday celebrations, but I’m big on celebrating life! Part of how I do that is with intentionality and ease as major aspects of what i hold sacred in my own life and my leadership of it/me.
Today puts me four years shy of 50, and if it’s in the plans for me to get there, I intend to be versed in a slow and happy inner life, reflected in my outer choices and spaces. I’ve started practicing that life a few years ago, and the practice grounds cover every aspect of me, including how I earn money as an entrepreneur.
I shared a note about the classes I’ve been slowly walking through, alongside about a dozen people real-time, and another dozen asynchronously.
The original contents of these classes lived as a (paid) course in my online unschool. Like all of my work, that course was a direct result of a deeply personal experience I had over several months.
It had been a couple years since we withdrew our daughters from public school, and we were just at the hella-recent realization level that we needed to shed the idea of doing (a better version of ) school at home.
Through their attention to and progress with language-learning, choreography, cooking, and emotional intelligence, it was becoming stoopid obvious that the girls were learning in so many ways, and much of that sat outside what we were deliberately teaching them.
This course was about crafting a powerful, easy-access personal manifesto to support yourself during that fast-paced unlearning phase of life where you start questioning shit you didn’t even consider questioning before.
That stage where a long-held, or unquestioned belief of yours crumbles as a result of something you recently experienced, and now, you’re open to…something else. Craving it. Feeling as if you’re already walking toward it, whatever TF “it” may be.
I revisited the course details because the end of 2022 found me in another one of those fast-paced unlearning life portals, this time as a result of how those years of unschooling shaped me. It’s what brought me here to create this newsletter and public book-writing space.
Akilah "River Safiah" Richards
I was also revisiting the course because I work for myself, and my money flow comes directly from what I put out into the world to invite value exchange with other people.
One huge difference between the version of me that created that first course in 2014 and this me is savorism. I’m slower, on purpose, and I stopped trying to fit myself into the typical marketing ideas of funnels and psychological tricks of the trade.
I outgrew that as I grew into myself, and have been making a living and designing a delicious life without all of that. Millions? Nope. But enough to continue to trust what I do and who receives it? Hell to the yeh!
Here’s what changed in my approach to course-creation for this particular offering:
- Doing it over as many weeks as I can, instead of trying to get it done fast (it ended up being 12 weeks)
Not doing it as a paid course with new people but instead working more expansively with the people who are here now; savoring those relationships instead of focusing mainly on bringing in more people
Using the old video from the 2014 version of this instead of “needing” to make all new ones. Using that history as part of my personal archive digging as I invite folks into their own.
Creating easy-to-make resources to share some of the old things in new ways. Like this audio version of the “I Wanted” chant that was in the original course and related book.
This approach has allowed me to do this work without a level of stress that I used to assume was just part of all. Several new patrons came in just for these classes! Some will probably leave at the end of November when these classes end, but not all of them will. And more importantly, I get to work in ways that are aligned with all the layers that my life involves now!
As I continue to honor my mind and body’s shifts from schoolish to sovereign to savorism, I’m gon’ feel these feelings, trust these moves, and practice walking my talk.
Here’s a short clip from my audio journal—voiced it while I was in the thick of sorting through value vibrations (as my friend Teri calls them) instead of focusing on more (money, patrons, gigs, etc.). May it serve you well.
Plenty love,
Akilah (River Safiah)
p.s.
If you’re curious about Personal Manifesto Path Class, here’s the What/Why video I created for it.
