This past Saturday was Small Business Saturday and I will be honest it felt very strange not to have a business to share on social media.  For the past 6 years I have worked pretty tirelessly at running my own business and off and on for the 4-5 years prior to that!!   Most of those years have been spent in direct sales with some selling of handmade items and private health coaching mixed in.

And I have loved it all.

Shaklee was a fantastic company to work with, still to this day some of the most caring people I know.  I never met anyone within this company that I didn’t genuinely like.  I learned so much about the importance of a knowing your ingredients, living a chemical-free lifestyle and leaving a light footprint on the environment through the initiatives of this company.  I learned about building a legacy business, that allowed for generations within a family to work together to create a dream lifestyle for themselves.  I saw it first hand and I knew that it was what I wanted.  It was an extremely difficult decision to close my business 31/2 years ago, but I knew it was the right move to make.

Plexus was an equally fantastic company to work with.  The products positively impacted my health more than anything else I had ever tried.  The people were fun.  The company was fun and so, so very generous.  I experienced a tremendous amount of personal growth while I was with this company, as that is where they shine.    It was an equally difficult decision to leave this company and the relationships within it, but again, I knew the decision was right.

WildTree was my most recent direct sales experience and again I gained so much from my short time with them.  I learned how to lead with service in business as that is where they shine.  I met so many wonderful people in my community by helping them get healthy meals to their table.  I had never done a “party planning” style business and I can say that it got me out of my comfort zone in a really great way.  Again, it was difficult to leave, but I knew it was the right decision for me.

So where does that all leave me now?  To be honest I am still answering that question for myself.  I know that it has been a dream in my heart, since I was 19 years old, to build my own company with a residual style income that allows me to be fully present for my family AND impact those God has put around me through my business.  I will not compromise on choosing between the two.  I am an entrepreneur through and through, beginning with teaching the neighborhood kids trampoline lessons at 6 years old I have pretty much always had a business of some sort. I believe in the value of owning and supporting a small business.  I’m passionate about education and community. I have no problem going against the crowd or blazing a new trail.  But I also know that I am also very burnt out on the way Direct Sales is typically done.

In terms of what the future holds for me in my work, I know exactly what I want and what I don’t want…..a lot of failing forward will help you define that. 🙂  I am thankful for all of the times I have succeeded BIG, like earning free trips to the white sandy Ft. Meyers beach for a week for my whole family and an EPIC trip to Washington D.C. for all of us.  I earned another trip to Florida and passes to Disney and took my husband for the first time in his life!  I have learned so much about what I am capable of from those successes, but I learned more from the failures and the months when my numbers didn’t meet my goals and giving myself permission to QUIT when I knew God was calling me out of a season.  I am a fiercely loyal person by nature so quitting is hard, hard, hard for me.  But I will also say that there has been sooooo much fruit in laying down what I want in any area of my life, not just business, and trusting God enough to let Him take the lead.

So here’s where I am right now at this exact moment.  Resting in Him…..piling up all of the dreams in my heart, all of the plans and all of the experiences He has taken me through in my life and laying them at his feet and resting in the knowledge that He has a good, good plan to knit them all together.  He has said “Rest” (otherwise read as stop trying to figure it all out) and He has spoken very clearly that my achiever personality WILL NOT be the thing that accomplishes these dreams in my heart.  He will be the one to do it.

And this verse….I just can’t read it enough…

“Put God in charge of your work, then what you have planned will take place.” ~ Proverbs 16:9

For now I am focusing on supporting my oh so awesome husband in his new job (with lots of travel!!!!), keeping a great rhythm in our new schooling approach, serving in my girls AHG troop, managing adoptions that are still coming in through our Adopt A Harvey Family Website, and helping a few friends incorporate essential oils into their homes!

I get messages daily from people asking what company I am working with now, so I hope this helps answer that and explain some details.

And for real….no worries, if you can’t keep up with my life, even I can’t sometimes ;).

XOXO,

Maggie