This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.

Dear Sara,

I feel that despite having gone over the scenario of what the f went wrong, not making my first career in yoga a success, despite being talented, skilled, schooled and experienced in every and any area that would be relevant for such a thing;
The rockhard bottom of it managed to knock the breath right out of me, regardless.

I woke up this Saturday with a two decade long hangover, thinking:
“My God, I really never stood a chance. No one does.”

Plus I identified there was an extra complicating factor, which I managed to overlook as well, but I’ll get to that later.

First:
Why does no one teaching yoga in the Netherlands stand a chance making a living out of it?

This is because teaching yoga is at a toxic crossroad of:

1. lack of recognition of all Dutch professionals who work independently in general, as being entrepreneurs or having a business.
Because the number one executive task for an independent is to create revenue, not to execute their profession.
Their measure of success is a financial one, and in no way entangles the professional accountability of a payroll job professional.

2. me, as a woman, in the women dominated profession of teaching yoga, being in the corner of women who work as independents.
A subcategory in the aforementioned already tricky category of being an independent in general.
We’re now in the corner where we’re barely paid, rarely paid, and an obligation to be nice to everyone. Recognition does not go further than that either you apparently have a hobby to the level that you can ask money for it.
Or, that you have an opportunity to be of service, which is code for that you should never overcharge and be grateful with whatever pennies you get.
Your real reward is in the good you bring into this world.

3.This is the new one: The taboo we have on really BEING someone.
I discovered a long time ago, that for a female independent professional in the Netherlands, it is very difficult to step into their identity of BEING an entrepreneur.
But what I did not see that this is part of a larger, and less gender specific, taboo, where your head gets chopped off the moment you ARE/ identify as,  something.
This is seen as hugely threatening.
Everyone is passive aggressively forced into being some toothless tiger version of themselves, where any OWNING of STRENGTH, IDENTITY, and characteristics, is immediately punished.

To compare: This also means that in the Netherlands anyone owning their sexuality, whatever that sexuality is, or owning their gender, again regardless of whatever that gender is;
Is going to have a really hard time.
The problem in the Netherlands is not lack of tolerance to WHAT you are;
It is that you ARE!
That you have the actual audacity to BE something.

“I am” is where the problem lies.
Not what comes after it.

And then, yes, being a woman in a service-provider profession makes it even more frowned upon to stand in your I AM power;
But that the problem where I live (and maybe in other countries too?), definitely lies in claiming identity as a whole.
Any, identity.

Recapping, all that time, I really thought that the root cause of unprofitable professions was IN THE NATURE OF THEIR PROFESSION!
That when someone is an artist, or a yoga teacher, or a musician, it is something in the very nature of their work, that makes it difficult to make a living.
Nothing which a good dose of marketing, branding, packaging, and stepping on those sales, would not fix!
Or so I naively assumed.

Because now, I understand independents not making any money has absolutely nothing to do with any nature of any work.

It has to do with how uncomfortable society is, if that person commercially sells that work!

Mind blown, Sara. Mind blown.

As a woman, the box you’re dealt with and are supposed to stay in, is so unbelievably small and so terribly plain, that even our casket will be a more spacious and colorful experience.
Pity we’ll be dead by then.

The closest I have been to fitting into that box was around the turn of the century when I worked an office job and was in my longterm relationship.
A time I was so inauthentic to who I am, it’s a miracle my heart did not stop beating out of protest.

So the above is an exploration and an explanation why even at the most no-frills level of entrepreneurship, I was setup to fail. Together with all the other independents, in particular the female ones.
Well at least I now have a better view of the headwinds I can expect in my second career in yoga, and that everything I experienced the past couple of weeks, was just the beginning.

And a sign, I’m actually doing the right thing this time!
That headwinds mean you have not fallen into the same trap this second time around, because deep holes in the ground are always windfree.

So there was that.
Finding the root cause of why we’re all going to fail as independents, unless we buckle up, ready to take on any storm coming our way!
Of which there will be many.

But then, to make matters worse, I discovered something which was more personal than just “being” (identifying) as an entrepreneur, in a society that does not want us to succeed.
And this is;
That I am an artist.

That although I believe as an entrepreneur my job is to build a successful business;
As an artist, my job is a different one.

And that this makes the money streams of the business unpredictable.
On one hand, it gives you the competitive advantage, because  artist-entrepreneurs, by the very nature of who they are, create more beautiful, enticing and compelling products and services.
They know how to pack that up, and make that thing look pretty!

But.
Also.

Unlike most entrepreneurs, an artist is someone with A MESSAGE. And one susceptible to change!
Where a regular business can work very well, staying at surface level, the artist has to not hold back on the deeper values backing up what it is they do.
To them staying at surface level playing nice feels like that grey, crampy box closing in.

To an artist, making generic, liked by everybody art feels like death.

It is why Disney became a business, yet Andy Warhol stayed art. He even made the commerce part of the art.

At the fork in the road between being a business or being an artist, I will never choose being a business.

And after finally and fully understanding how to navigate that business road,  and what to expect and to bring in order to conquer it, it just sucks knowing I’ll never be able to set foot on it!