I know a lot of people say that they were born as entrepreneurs and that they left their jobs to pursue their passion or their true calling, but I’m not one of them. Not even close.

The truth is that although I’ve always been very driven and outwardly successful, in my education, career, for most of my life that was a pretty picture I painted, not a reflection of my inner reality.

The truth is that I struggled HARD behind the scenes and I never fit in. Not even a little bit. I was bullied from elementary school to high school. I was sick all the time and had chronic infections, brutal migraines, and insomnia. In fact, I was on a pretty regular schedule of major burnouts every 10 years (age 15, 25 and 35) and minor burnouts every 2 years. Despite all this, my ambition, work ethic, and need for approval and validation allowed me to excel in University, skip my masters and go straight into a fully funded Ph.D. program, AND have a lot of pretty impressive jobs… all before I was 30.

But I was living a lie and lies will always fall apart. I was constantly plagued by self-doubt and anxiety.

And even though my transcripts and resume are impressive I quit my Ph.D. program after 2 years because I basically had a nervous breakdown. I've also been fired from 3 different jobs! The people I worked with in my corporate phase mostly hated me, even when I didn’t get fired because I was constantly rocking the boat and pushing the envelope. And let's be honest, in our vanilla society, disruptors are rarely valued, especially when they're fat feminists who are loud AF and are challenging everything you hold dear. But as ugly and miserable as that struggle was, I persisted. I got back up. Again. And again.

I learned from my ‘mistakes’ and all the rejection but not in the way you might expect. Instead, I didn’t tone myself down or try to be more likable… well, that’s a lie, I did try but that failed too. In short, I refused to go quietly into the night and conform to what the world told me I ‘should’ be. And that’s how I met entrepreneurship.

I wish I could say that it was this romantic love at first sight introduction, but the truth is we got off to a rocky start. I didn’t leave my job because I had the courage to change my life, I left on medical leave. Then I spent the next 4 uninspired years trying to make a go of it with in-the-box consulting work. I was eventually financially successful, but I had SERIOUSLY jerky clients. And then things got really bad. Lol. I went 9 months without a single client. My hubby supported us, but we nearly maxed out our credit and cashed in most of our savings. In this time of ‘failure’, however, I did something that the Universe had been waiting 38 years for me to do.

I stopped apologizing for who I was and stepped up to be the leader I was born to be.

It began, in earnest, when I met a life coach, named Glenda Lane. She told me something that blew my mind. Something I had never considered. She said, “You’re a Unicorn, thank God you’re not normal!” In my 38 years on earth, I had never once considered that being so weird was actually an advantage?!? A reason why people might like me instead of disliking me and pay me more instead of less?!? Suddenly, the world of entrepreneurship started to look very different. And I realized something that would, over the next two years, change everything in my life and business. I realized that the only rules were the ones YOU CREATE. In truth, there are NO RULES. No right way and wrong way. And this knowledge set me free.

I finally stopped apologizing for who I was and instead started screaming it from the rooftops. I stopped talking about what I do and instead talked about what I believe because that’s what actually matters. And it worked. Like BIG TIME. People began to see me differently and a community rapidly built itself around me. This is turn gave me the courage and insight to pursue what had always been my true passion and greatest gift, helping other Unicorns realize they’re Unicorns and then using that unicorness (totally a word!) to build confidence, community, and world-changing movements.

In the year following my 9-months-with-NO-clients phase I made $150K, landed my first $50k+ client, and went from working with assholes to working with the kind of Unicorns that are shattering ceilings, debunking myths about who we ‘should’ be, and completely reinventing in an utterly unique way, how we define success.

And the icing on the cake? I even have a team of badass Unicorns who help me do this!

So the next time you think that Entrepreneurship is all about struggle or that you’re never going to make an impact, have a community, or be loved for who you really are… STOP that runaway train of self-sabotage and KNOW THIS: Each of us is a magical fucking unicorn and that all you need to do is let her out.

Caterina Snyder | Brand Consultant & Coach
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