I Was Afraid to Take on New Clients Again

I was afraid to take on new clients after taking a long break to heal my nervous system.

When I felt ready to execute our improved Hucklberry services again, I intentionally called in the clients who would receive this work with an open heart, especially when it comes to reading their businesses energetically, but also the clients who are willing and ready to do the inner work required to create the outer results they desire for their passions. I see myself as a bridge that guides not only the inner transformation of the client personally, but also the transformation that happens within the business itself. This work is essentially an intense awakening of leadership and impact, so I spend a lot of time calling in the people who genuinely need this kind of support and who are willing to trust me enough to allow me to guide that transformation alongside them.

A few weeks later, three potential clients reached out asking for help, and almost immediately, my heart started beating really fast and I could feel anxiety and doubt beginning to creep in. What was interesting to me was that this happened after I had been so excited to assist them. I was excited about the work, excited about what we were building at Hucklberry and excited about the possibility of working with people who were genuinely looking for the kind of support we were now offering, yet while I was setting up discovery calls with them, I froze.

I realised that I was afraid of losing myself to the business again.

I was afraid of becoming so passionate about what I was doing that I would once again override my own needs, and that my life would slowly start changing into something very fast-paced, filled with constant outputs, responsibilities and people waiting for me, with very little time left to rest deeply, meditate or simply enjoy my day in the way that I wanted to. See, I had started to really like having space and time to create. I loved being in that state where no one was really waiting for me, where I could wake up and allow myself to move through my day without constantly feeling like I had to produce something for someone else.

But, in the same breath, I missed being of service.

That was the contradiction I found myself sitting with.

I missed the people. I missed the conversations. I missed being able to take what I know, what I have lived through and what I comes through intuitively, and use it to help someone else see something within themselves or their business that they couldn’t quite see on their own. But I was also afraid of doing things the old way, because I could feel myself almost falling back into that familiar loop again, and this time I was much more conscious of it, so I stopped myself.

I think that over the years of working with people and their brands, I felt like I was constantly bracing myself for being spoken down to, underestimated, paid late or sometimes not being paid at all. Many of the clients I worked with were much older than me, and I would easily become a yes-person because I believed there was so much for me to learn from them and, in some ways, I think I placed their “experience” above my own knowing. I was so eager to prove myself and to be good at what I did that I sometimes forgot that learning from someone who has been in a leadership position longer than me, does not mean I have to abandon myself in the process.

There was a time when I dishonoured myself so deeply that I allowed myself to be screamed at, and even allowed my race to be mocked and questioned in a meeting. I barely remember how the conversation even got there, but somehow this particular client decided to link my race to a strategy I had created, and I was told that I was “whitewashed.” Looking back, I can see how much I was operating from survival at the time, choosing clients because I needed the work, because I wanted to build the business and because I believed that perhaps enduring certain things was simply part of being in business.

But it wasn’t.

I felt beaten, bruised and battered by the harshness of some of the clients I had chosen out of survival, and I think a part of me became afraid that if I opened the doors to clients again, I would somehow find myself repeating the same patterns and allowing people into my world who were not good for me simply because I wanted the business to grow.

For a long time, I was operating in business from quite a wounded masculine, hustle mentality, where everything was about pushing, doing, achieving, producing and proving. There was very little room for simply being, and I think I became so accustomed to that way of operating that I didn’t realise how deeply it had affected me until I finally stepped away.

During my break, I really enjoyed being softer. I enjoyed slowing down and having space to hear myself again, and I enjoyed discovering what it felt like to not constantly be in a state of output. Then, as I began moving back towards the business, I felt a little bit of that masculine side of me returning, and initially I wondered whether that was something I needed to be cautious of.

But then I started asking myself a different question: what if I don’t need to choose?

What if I am allowed to be both?

What does it look like to allow both energies to exist within me, because I am both, but this time, instead of operating from a wounded version of either of them, what would it look like to allow the healed version of both to exist?

Perhaps my masculine doesn’t need to be the part of me that pushes and hustles and overrides everything in its path in order to get somewhere, just as my feminine doesn’t need to be the part of me that constantly waits, receives and stays soft at the expense of structure. Perhaps there is a version of both that can work together, where structure can hold softness, where action can be guided by intuition, where ambition doesn’t have to come at the expense of rest, and where building something meaningful doesn’t require me to abandon myself in the process.

So I sat with myself and had a really introspective moment, and as I looked at the woman I have become and the leader I have become, I quickly realised something that I think I had temporarily forgotten: I trust myself now.

I trust myself enough to know who and what is allowed to circle around me.

For a moment, I had forgotten that I am allowed to choose who I work with. I am privileged enough to say no to something that doesn’t feel aligned, and I don’t have to convince myself that every opportunity is the right opportunity simply because it is an opportunity. I don’t have to take every client who comes through the door, and I don’t have to build a business that is accessible to everyone in order for it to be successful.

I just have to learn to trust myself on a deeper level.

I think so often we believe that our businesses thrive because we have a service or product that can serve everyone, but that’s not entirely true. A business can still be successful when we are intentional about who we serve, because the right people will often value the work differently when they understand what it is actually designed to do. It is up to us to trust that inner knowing and to recognise that alignment is not only about whether someone needs our service, but also about whether we are the right people to walk alongside each other.

So right now, I am taking my time.

I’m getting to know potential clients before deciding whether we should work together, allowing their brand, their business and their energy to sink in before making a decision, rather than feeling like I need to immediately say yes because someone has shown interest. I’m learning to build slowly and steadily, and to allow the business to expand within the type of souls I genuinely want to serve.

I’ve also realised, on this beautiful journey, that not everyone will see the value of intuitive business work or understand why someone would want to bring intuitive insight into the development of their business, and that’s okay.

We won’t be for everyone, and I actually think there is something freeing about accepting that.

Because even if our work is not for everyone, if there is someone out there who genuinely needs what we offer and we are able to help them see themselves, their business or their next chapter differently, then we still have impact.

Through understanding this, I also had to sit with what success for Hucklberry looks like to me now, and I realised that it definitely doesn’t look the same as it did a decade ago. Back then, success was much more connected to growth, output, proving myself, building something impressive and showing myself that I could do it, whereas now success feels much more intentional and much more connected to how deeply we can serve, how well we can hold the work we are doing, and how thoughtfully we can continue fine-tuning the services we already have.

We’re listening more now and saying less, we’re feeling into things more, and we’re working at a pace that supports the foundation of the business rather than constantly asking the foundation to carry more weight than it can hold.

For me, it’s now about evolving our greatness at every stage of the business, so that the work we do creates a ripple effect into the lives of the clients we serve, the communities we build in collaboration and support, and perhaps eventually into an ecosystem within our country. And if God requests a global reach from us one day, then it will be done.

But I don’t need to force that.

I don’t need to know exactly what that looks like today.

It’s about building a network of leaders and supporting those who are sensitive like me, those who don’t always know where to start, but who know somewhere within themselves that they want to build something deeper and bigger than themselves. It’s about creating spaces where people can explore not only what they want to build, but who they are becoming in the process of building it, because I have come to understand that the business cannot always be separated from the person leading it. And sometimes, when I speak about this vision, it feels so far out of reach.

There are moments when I look at what I want Hucklberry to become and think, how are we ever going to get there?

But I’ve noticed something along this journey: the more people focus on their own inner, purposeful journey, the more we begin to address many of the issues we experience personally and within society. When people begin to understand themselves more deeply, when they begin to lead from a place of greater self-awareness and when they build from purpose rather than purely from survival, something begins to shift not only within the individual, but within the spaces and communities they influence.

Maybe that’s the bigger picture for me.

And perhaps this is what this next chapter of Hucklberry is really about for me: learning how to build something without losing myself inside it.

Learning that I can be deeply passionate about my work and still have boundaries.

Learning that I can be of service without becoming responsible for everyone.

Learning that I can lead without constantly pushing.

Learning that I can create something ambitious while still having time to rest, enjoy my life and simply be me.

If you feel that you resonate with this way of working, connect with us and book an intuitive business session here 

I’d be more than grateful to support you on your own journey of transformation, particularly if you are someone who knows there is something deeper within you and your business that is asking to be seen, understood and brought into the world.

Because perhaps the work isn’t always about figuring out what your business needs to do next. Perhaps sometimes, it’s about understanding who you need to become in order to build what you’re here to build.

Sharing my truth, to bring you closer to yours.

Saskia Riley
Founder of Hucklberry