#117
Thankfully, I resolved to write this newsletter more in December 2018, so now it’s January 2019, here I am.
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Me, Sanctus and I
You may have noticed that I’ve gone on a bit of a rebrand. This is now James’ Newsletter.
When I started writing this newsletter I called it the Sanctus Newsletter, when really it’s always been James' Newsletter.
Three years ago when I started writing and started Sanctus, I had no idea where Sanctus started and James began, or where James started and Sanctus began.
Sanctus and I were inseparable, we were completely intertwined. Those first newsletters over two years ago were a mixture of my personal journey and Sanctus’, our two identities were completely tied together.
On reflection, when I started Sanctus, my identity was still very much in flux. I was going through a big shift, there was this big blank space in me that I was filling up.
In that cavity that was me, Sanctus emerged and over 3 years of building a business later, Sanctus has become a huge part of my identity.
So much so that towards the end of last year, I was looking at myself and asking myself the same question I’d asked myself when I was struggling with my mental health: "who am I?"
(I spoke about this on the Sanctus Podcast, where I had a live coaching session.)
When I first asked myself that question: "who am I?”, it’s because I felt like nothing, it’s because I had no idea who I was, it’s because I felt like any sense of myself I had had been shattered. Hence, the anxiety, the overwhelm, it was painful.
Yet, recently I’d been asking myself that same question again.
Who am I? Who am I without Sanctus? Who is James without Sanctus? If I didn’t have Sanctus, what would I do?
These are the questions I’ve been asking myself.
I’d always worn my consumption with Sanctus as a badge of honour. I've literally worn Sanctus across my chest every day for nearly three years. I have been Sanctus, completely and utterly.
I thought that was a good thing, I thought that was what I needed to be to do a good job, to change the perception of mental health I’d have to live it every single day and a be a shining beacon of light representing this brand.
For the first two years that much was true. My obsession, my fixation, my passion they served us, they served me and I absolutely loved it.
Yet last year I saw the other side, I saw the overwhelm, the anxiety, the pressure and I saw how my clinging on, my love and my longing could also be unhealthy for me and for Sanctus.
I almost can’t believe my own words, but I’m proud to say I currently feel more separated from Sanctus than I ever have before. I feel a disconnect and it feels great.
I’ve been working on myself, on James. I’ve been exploring other parts of myself and investing in other areas of my life, so that Sanctus is only one part of me, not all of me.
I’ve realised that if Sanctus is to be far bigger than me, far greater than all of us then I have to learn to live without it. How can Sanctus grow beyond me if I can’t grow beyond it?
This feels unconventional to traditional startup and entrepreneurial folklore, because the fairytales seem to pass on the myth that you must be completely consumed by your work to be successful. Yet I’m questioning this and I’m not sure it’s true. Or at least it’s not true for me.
Hence the rebrand and bringing this back to James’ Newsletter.
This newsletter will be about me first and Sanctus second, so if you’re up for that then please stick around I’ll be writing weekly. if you’re not, you can unsubscribe here.
That’s all I’ve got for today, no new years resolutions, no great big reflections on 2018.
Just a commitment to being myself.
James x