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My Story Part 5: The Birth of The Monarch Company
November 12th, 2012 by Katie Morton
When I was working at Discovery Communications for the Planet Green network, Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek gave a copy of his book to my colleague, Treehugger.com Founder Graham Hill. Graham, whom I observed was already living the 4-Hour Workweek lifestyle like a champ, gave the book to my boss. Lucky for me, my boss wasn’t interested and she passed the book on to me.
I was just thinking today that this particular copy of this book, considering where it came from and how it made its way into my hands, must be sprinkled with fairy dust. Once I read the book, I couldn’t get the message out of my head. For the uninitiated, the general message is that we can all work very little, we can make a good living, and we can have the freedom to spend our time as we wish. But there were several missing pieces to the puzzle before I could act on the excellent advice in that book.
First of all, I didn’t have the balls to ditch a high-paying corporate job and strike out on my own. Second, I didn’t have a business idea, or a “muse” as Ferriss puts it. Third, I didn’t have the energy and the motivation to drive myself towards an uncertain future and highfalutin dreams.
My first issue was solved for me when I received a boot to my backside and was relieved of my job, no balls required. Bully for me! Now all I needed was a muse and some motivation.
I found my muse when I took the steps called “North Star Mapmaking” outlined in Martha Beck’s book, Steering by Starlight. Beck walks the reader through a series of steps to shed anxiety and envision a future filled with great relationships, meaningful work and fulfilling adventures.
I’d found my muse: my vision for meaningful work involves helping people break out of their self-imposed prisons: whether it’s to help them find work they are passionate about, to shed limiting beliefs, or to be free from bad habits and compulsive behaviors like drinking too much alcohol or overeating. I will offer online classes, but ultimately my dream is to bring groups of women together for vacation retreats. At these retreats, we will shed unhelpful limiting beliefs, become inspired and uplifted by new views and perspectives, and we will exercise our creativity with art projects that help us enhance and fortify our new-found wisdom. And of course, we will have a fabulous time, eat wonderful healthy food, and make lifelong friends.
Now that my second problem was solved, I needed to solve my third issue: energy and motivation. After I was laid off from my job, I still felt driven to apply to traditional corporate jobs — it was in my DNA, I felt. I had so many limiting beliefs around the issue that it took me 8 months and a huge job offer (which I turned down) before I did the work to bust through this mental prison I’d created for myself.
As luck would have it, the material that I needed to create for my retreats worked so well on myself that I find myself continually motivated to do whatever it takes to make my dreams become reality! Woo!
I want nothing more than to share what I’ve learned and applied in my own life with others who want more self confidence, more freedom, more inner calm and satisfaction, and a life that fires them up and makes them leap out of bed in the morning!
Related Posts:
My Story Part 1: A Devastating Job Loss
My Story Part 2: The Painful Process of Trading My Corporate Identity for a Life of Freedom
My Story Part 3: How I Lost Myself and Regained Control
My Story Part 4: What I’m Giving up to Leave the Rat Race
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