My dear friends, I could claim to be the best brand manager in the world, but when I check my bank account, I see that’s not the case at all.
My talent, knowledge, curiosity, and energy allow me to undertake amazing projects to create and uplift brands, but why don’t I earn more? Why do I settle for less? Why are there months when I earn nothing at all?
These questions have kept my mind busy throughout 2016. Instead of looking for the answers myself, I called Hakan Arabacıoğlu, my life coach, and told him that I wanted to heal this problem. So, what was the result? After the first week, there began an amazing flow of clients. This was a miraculous development that led to a rather nice daily income. I’ll tell you what we did.
Healing needs honesty
When I mention healing, you probably think my life coach healed me through some kind of prayer or other method (e.g., hypnosis, meditation, karmic cleansing, etc.). All these are completely irrelevant. People who make claims like “I’ll clean away your negativity” or “I’ll heal your past lives” do not interest me at all. Everybody heals themselves. With Hakan, I worked through communication methods based on questions and answers. What matters here is to be honest with yourself, so you can pinpoint the issues you’re stuck on. Afterwards, you can create what you dream of through behavioral changes. This was basically our method.
Returning to the topic of earning a good income, over the past year, I undertook some exclusive projects for some very successful institutions and leaders, but most of them never came back to me. Hakan’s first question was “Did you call them back?” I had actually felt embarrassed to call them back, because I didn’t want to disturb them. But why should they feel disturbed?
During our conversations, it became clear how hurt I was by the rejections throughout my career. To avoid being hurt again, to not feel miserable, I was practically running away from my work life without even realizing it. I was waiting for clients to get back to me, but my subconscious was sending a “stop” message to them.
Basically, I was afraid of rejection…
Actually, I was terrified of being rejected, of hearing the word “no.” I therefore could not call them. This fear even worked against me as I prepared my proposals, yet I was not aware of it at all. Hakan suggested that I should call everyone I had sent a proposal to and inquire as to why they didn’t get back to me. Believe me when I say that I would have preferred him to tell me to kill myself…
Anyway, I set about calmly calling them one by one. They mentioned reasons I had never considered. For example, one client had fallen ill, while another was waiting for October before presenting my proposal to a new management team. No one said my proposals were unsuitable or too expensive.
My self-confidence in following up on my proposals impressed people as well. Before this, I had been thinking on their behalf. I now appreciate that I won’t get hurt when I act on something, and my work will not always disappoint me. Following these calls, a women’s clothing brand soon signed with me. This client wasn’t present in any distribution channels yet, so her clothes weren’t on sale anywhere. However, the founder had the dream of getting her clothes in Galeries Lafayette. I said, “Easy,” and she was shocked. After just four days, I got her brand into one of the world’s largest, most famous, luxurious retail chains, Galeries Lafayette. Once I was feeling good, everything began to flow and my valued friends helped me out. I also realized that once I had the courage to fulfill my own dreams, I also helped others to fulfill theirs. My considerable fee also got paid in cash.
My clients are not my children
Of course, once you decide to heal yourself regarding a topic, all the information about you starts pouring in. A very close friend and business associate of mine said to me, “Ayşegül, these brands you create work very well, and business leaders worship you. I don’t understand why they don’t keep working with you.” I started thinking about this. That evening, during our conversation, I realized how I see my clients as my children. I treasure them, and I feel proud of their successes. I work with them to give them their own wings to fly, so after a while, they feel they don’t need me as much anymore. When they don’t call me, I miss them so much.
I then realized how this sort of relationship was disrupting my balance, as well as that of my clients. I also figured out that because of a fear of them leaving me, my subconscious was ruining things right from the start and deterring new clients. I had to respect life’s balance and my own balance, because only then is life a joy. My work would then probably affect other parts of my life as well. If I can get a new brand into Lafayette by working just four days in a month, be accepted, and perform minor miracles, who knows what might happen in the coming days…
I’ll let you know how it goes.
