(Roomies) Crawling First
This past month has been one of my favorite months since launching Make Room almost two years ago. There were over 10 calls between Roomies this past month and it was so fun to see this community continue to grow and support one another!
Thank you to all of you who have reached out to ask more about last month's announcement and intentions that I share with you all before almost anyone else! Excited to share more this month below.
But first, how can I be helpful to you? What is receiving a lot of your energy right now? Is there some way that you are stuck? Is there something you are working on privately that you just need someone else to discuss it with? I'd love to hear from you!
Book a spot for this month's office hours next week!
And for all of you whom I got to speak with last month, book more time so you can tell me what has happened since!
Now for my update since last month...
As I shared last month, as of 10/1/23, I have given myself 12 months to explore launching a new company. I laid out the nonnegotiable that would all have to be true in order for me to pull the trigger and actually jump all in on the insanity that is building something from nothing but an idea to a life-altering adventure.
As I started to lay out some of the ideas that I wanted to use this year to explore, one came out way ahead in its ability to meet the standard of my nonnegotiables. And as I started to toy with how I would tackle building in that world, I realized how distracted I was by my current world.
My ability to hold two thoughts at the same time wasn't as sharp as I felt it had been previously. I was having a tough time managing my world as an executive coach and then also as a potentially soon-to-be founder again.
And then I realized - I was able to hold two things previously because I was never the founder of one of them in the past. I was always the cofounder. Someone else was the idea person and I was the executor, the hustler, the get-it-doner. This quest, if I do embark on it, is going to be sourced from my innermost being and is going to take more of me than I've ever given to anything.
And that's when I started to wonder if I still have what it takes to do that kind of work. Or was that a period in my life that had passed me by?
But the good news is that I have given myself a year to figure that out. Aside from you and a few close friends and family, I am Andy the Executive Coach and always will be.
When I started to sort out all of the ways that this challenge was presenting itself in my scheduling, my coaching, my advising, and my brainstorming and journaling, I realized that I had to figure out which parts of this hurricane of information and ideas were in my control and what needed to just be left alone until it was ready to be captured.
My coaching business has been one of the most successful things I've ever built. In the past two years, I've notched some pretty amazing numbers and feel confident saying it has been one of the fastest-growing coaching practices in NYC. But, a lot has happened quickly and the systems and growth processes have been held together with bubble gum and duct tape.
So the first thing I did to give myself the space, to Make Room, was to do the accounting and get as detailed as possible about the boring parts of the business. In doing so, I realized it was time to formalize some of those things and launch them under a new brand - not Andy Ellwood dot com.
So later this week, I am launching my new Leadership Studio called Crux Point. It was already bigger than me, but now it is structured to actually hold the space for the work that is to come. I am going to open 4 new spots on my coaching roster as a result of this work - the first time I've opened my roster in over a year.
Securing this work into this new structure is already giving me the headspace to begin working more intently on what the new company might be one day WHILE making sure that I have the choice as to when I jump into something new or if I build it along side of Crux Point.
I have jumped head-first into exciting projects before only to find that I didn't have my house in order and that came back to haunt me later.
I have this shot and I am going to take it. But first I needed to make sure I could give it my attention when it was time to and not wonder if I left the iron on.
If you have any advice for managing multiple priorities, I'd love to hear them!
Excited for the journey ahead. Hope to talk to you soon!
Andy
