Erica Tucci

Birthing a business is like birthing a baby. You go through the gestation period as you begin to manifest your idea. You seek out the resources you will need to help create your image and announce it to the world: your marketing and PR strategists to help you formulate your branding, marketing, and publicity messages and plans, your web and graphic designers to create your visual image, your copywriter to wrap words around your image. You may hire a coach to provide direction as you journey down the entrepreneurial path…and there’s the accountant sort to keep your expenses aligned with your budget.  Of course, you may initially wear some, if not all of these hats yourself depending on how much is in your financial kitty to fund your creative endeavor.  This is the stage in which excitement reigns freely. You feel you are on a maternal high as you feel your embryonic idea turn into a fetal reality.

And then the labor pains start. It’s time to give birth to your creation. You work diligently creating the perfect image, the perfect message, the best programs, the best promotional tactics. And then there are the finances for your business you need to account for. And whether you’re managing all the resources you have assisting you or if you’re doing much if not all of this yourself, the labor pains may be somewhat severe as you juggle the many responsibilities or the roles you may be playing.

I am currently going through my own labor with my fledgling business. Not only am I working 40 hours a week on my entrepreneurial adventure, but I have a corporate management job to include in the mix also. Just as an aside, I never went through labor with my two children since I had c-sections with both, so I never was blessed with the experience of a natural birth. Guess it’s my time now!

I was talking to a dear friend about my exhaustion and my concern of whether I could make it through this rigorous phase with which I was struggling. I absolutely loved her response! She equated it to myths and legends in which heroes and heroines were faced with seemingly impossible tasks and how they were confronted with similar overwhelming feelings of the inability to continue. And yet, through their perseverance and surrender to their inner guidance, they carried forth on their journey and were triumphant.

For those of us who are in the throes of launching our own businesses, we are women who are bringing forth our beauty and creativity from deep within our sacred feminine souls, and in this light, we continue to move forward, letting nothing deter us from our path. As we work diligently on the tasks that we know we must complete, we also know to follow our inner guidance as this is the inspiration that will help provide us with the direction we need to fulfill our journey.

And just imagine how glorious it is when you finally deliver! Yes, you may be exhausted from the rigors of the “laborious” process you just went through, but now you can enjoy the fruits of your “labor.” And if you think about it, your journey has really only just begun.  You have breathed life into your creation and now you get to delight in nurturing and caring for it, just like a mother would lovingly care for her child. How magnificent it is to be a woman empowered by the divinity within and to express this radiance through the fulfillment of your passions, your desires…your business.