I’m going to share an experience with you that made me feel normal.

In the past, I used to struggle with severe bloating. I could eat lentils for example and for the next 24 hours look like I was 4 months’ pregnant. This made me feel embarrassed and ashamed and I thought there was something wrong with me.

However, when I started to research it I found that many well-known influencers in the health, fitness and beauty spaces were all sharing similar problems. This made me feel normal. I realised that of course they were talking about it, because otherwise how would they be able to help others?

What I find in business, particularly with entrepreneurs, is most of them don’t want to share their struggles. I only know a couple of people who are prepared to do this. One of them was my former mentor who openly shared that twice he had lost a million dollars. At the time I had made some bad business decisions and was myself a quarter of a million dollars in debt. However, talking to him made me feel normal and his support helped me immensely.

There are other things in this industry that not enough people want to talk about. For example, as business owners we get people to sign contracts with the best of intentions. Although we feel like we’re doing the right thing, sometimes the clients don’t feel that way and before you know it they’re taking you to Fair Trade. Yes this is embarrassing so we try to find what we’ve done wrong, when in fact nobody has done anything wrong.

It’s usually just a difference of opinion and when I went through this 18 months ago in my fitness business I was listening to Dan Pena at the time. He said that if you’re in business and you don’t expect or aren’t prepared to go down a route of litigation, then you should get out of business.

This was a real “wow” moment for me and again made me feel normal.

To think that big companies and high flyers could be dealing with this stuff because they’d made mistakes was unusually comforting. What I really learned is that entrepreneurs are human too and not only is it OK to admit when you’re struggling, but it’s important because otherwise how is the average client going to relate to you?

Just like health coaches admitting to bloating and offering a solution, the same goes for business coaches who are helping their clients navigate the business world. Experiencing struggle qualifies them to offer solutions that are going to work.

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