How to redefine the word “selfish” to support your entrepreneurial dreams

Use it to blow up your side hustle into a full-fledged business

Feeling selfish is something that a lot of high-achievers struggle with.

We judge ourselves as being selfish for having big dreams, for spending money investing in ourselves or on our desires, for putting time into our businesses instead of spending more time with our kids (fur or human), for making time to do things for ourselves, just for fun…

Female entrepreneurs are even more prone to this as we’re typically conditioned to put others first, and most of us are starting our businesses because we’re helpers by nature; we want to make a difference, so we easily fit into this role.

Often, clients came to me because they’ve woken up to realize they’ve been living what OTHER people expected of them rather than the one that’s in line with what THEY actually want.

Sometimes it’s an opinionated spouse whose opinion has gradually become the default around which they organize their lives. Other times it’s the role their parents, family or friends want them to play, the person they want them to be, have relied on them to be, and have come to expect.

And it happens, at some point in our lives, to most of us, especially when we’re sensitive and have a tendency toward people-pleasing.

My husband was comfortable with my 9–5-like steady income from my previous business (an online marketing agency), and being risk-averse, he felt nervous about me exploring starting something new and less predictable.

But I knew it was time to go to the next level of my life and business by finding my Zone of Genius and creating a business around that.

So when we come to a point where we recognize what’s been happening, and how it’s holding us back, that’s the moment we become powerful, because we can make a different choice.

It might be a layoff, or a divorce, or sickness, or a death (for me it was losing my daughter Maeve), or simply waking up one day and recognizing you aren’t excited about or enjoying your own life and work anymore, and you want something more/different.

Selfish: Negative or Positive

The word “selfish” largely carries a negative connotation, right?

But then we hear about the importance of self-care, about putting our own oxygen mask on first, and it can feel really confusing!

“If I do that, I’m selfish!,” we think, and selfish = bad….right?

Or does it?

I decided to geek out and look at the roots of the word “selfish.”

According to Google, the word self is over 1000 years old and can mean “a person’s nature, character” or “a person or thing referred to with respect to complete individuality.”

Sounds good, right? Like “being yourself?”

Well, what about “-ish?” It can mean “belonging to,” “after the manner of,” “having the characteristics of,” “like,” “near or about.”

Now tell me, which of those is bad?

“Of the nature or character of self”
“Belonging to self”
“After the manner of self”
“Having the characteristics of self”
“Like self”
“Near or about self”

Which of those sounds WRONG to you?

To me, they sound pretty positive!

Consider how the usage of “selfish” could be RE-defined as being true to yourself, being your true self, being the person you were made to be!

And if that new definition is true, then anything that feels “selfish” is actually a GREAT thing to give attention and credence to, because it’s helping you show up more as the fullest expression of who you were created to be!

Putting it into practice

What are some ways that being “selfish” — with our redefined, positive connotation of it (according to the root words) could help you grow your business (and cash flow) more quickly and with less stress?

I recently heard serial entrepreneur Allison Maslen share, “If you hire an assistant within the first 6 months of your business, you’ll reach 7 figures in half the time.”

Now it doesn’t actually matter how long you’ve been in business (don’t despair if it’s been longer than 6 months, you’re not doomed!), but what about hiring someone for literally 1 hour a week to do the thing you hate most, like:

Keep your inbox/calendar organized
Send out a newsletter or blog
Update your social media
Handle that one thing you know you really NEED to do, but that you procrastinate on every single day/week
Do something techy that terrifies or annoys you
Create graphics or lay out documents

I knowwww the resistance of spending money when you’re just getting started and you want everything to go to back in your pocket!

But literally someone spending 1 hour a week doing something that drains you could cost you very little and free up a whole lotta mind space & energy to create, to be visible, to follow up with potential clients, and to focus on money-making tasks.

And it would allow you to behave more “selfishly” (as we define it, more “of the nature and character of self”) in your business, and do more of what you’re best at, that only you can do.

I can tell you that having help to do the things I don’t need or want to be doing felt weird at first, like “Who am I to have a team?,” but now it is a huge relief and it helps me support my clients better as well as have more room to help more clients because my role is clearly defined; I know my strengths, and I stick to those rather than trying to incrementally improve my weaknesses and slow down my business growth in the process.

“When I take care of myself, my business flourishes.”

One of my clients shared this with me recently as we were deconstructing the “secrets” behind her biggest month ever.

The truth was, it had seemed effortless, and most high-achievers are pretty uncomfortable with that!

Why? Because we can’t decipher — and then replicate — the exact strategic steps we took to get there.

Or can we?

You see, she chose herself first. She was “selfish” in the sense that she ran her business according to how she knew she could show up best — she took care of her body (instead of burning herself out working 80 hours a week because “there’s always more to do,”) created quality content for her visibility, stayed consistent, and trusted herself and the process.

The result? Pay-in-full, dream clients. A sales process that felt not sleazy, but EASY, energizing, and even fun!

So if it feels hard for you initially to take care of yourself simply because you’re worth it, while you’re working on allowing yourself to integrate that belief that being “selfish” actually just means being more of who you are (instead of it taking anything away from someone else), consider taking care of yourself in order to grow your business!

Yes, it takes courage, it means doing something different, it means making a decision for yourself even in the face of your fears about what others might think of you.

But when you make that DECISION, and you cut off other options, the world around you — your network, your contacts, your loved ones — takes notice and responds to you differently.

Next Steps

Tell me— where do you find yourself holding back from doing something for yourself or your business because to do anything else would be “selfish?” What would happen if you decided that “selfish” was a GOOD thing and gave yourself permission to do it, to become more who you really are?

To learn even more about how you can replace your income and say bye-bye to your 9–5 for good, you can download the first chapter of my best-selling book, The Income Replacement Formula: 7 Simple Steps to Doing What You Love & Making 6 Figures From Anywhere for FREE by clicking here.