Burn Your Bridges – by Chris Cade
Years ago, I created a video based on several quotes from Mike Dooley's “Notes from the Universe.”
In it, there's a quote that seems to resonate with where I'm at professionally right now:
“It does little good to say you want something and then, ‘just in case,' prepare to do without. Burn your bridges.”
Recently, I've burned several bridges in the pursuit of something greater…
In the pursuit of serving you more fully.
There are people in our community who have received my emails for 15 years.
They may recall my earliest websites were my blog, a spiritual stories website, and a site with the Course In Miracles workbook lessons. At one point, I also had a separate site just for inspirational videos. Then of course, we also have The Miracles Store.
Every time I had an idea, I would make a new website for it.
Fast forward a decade… until about two and a half years ago. I had the idea to start sharing free spiritual growth events.
Yes, ANOTHER website to add to my collection of “more websites than any human being can possibly manage.”
Well, not exactly. See, I didn't want to repeat that pattern. Instead, I just shared a little bit on Facebook.
Fortunately, it worked so well that I reluctantly decided to create an entire website and a new event announcements email list (which I've shared about before).
I built that website a little over two years ago. Since then, it's continued to grow… and it's something I've become passionate about.
Then it dawned on me…
*Everything* I've written and created for the last 15 years, on every website, was living in the wrong place.
My blog posts, the spiritual stories, the inspirational videos…
All of those websites I had created…
Were images of a person I once was, a business I once ran, and an outdated way I once served.
When I realized this, it shook me. I doubted what it was really saying underneath it all. However, I couldn't deny the truth.
It was time to burn my bridges.
And even though I knew that's what my business had come to, I still moved forward with a reasonable degree of logic.
Why?
Because I didn't want to repeat the big mistake I made when I first left the corporate world, and my six-figure job, to serve you….
I left too early. I burned that bridge before I was earning enough business income to sustain me.
Consequently, I went into many tens of thousands of dollars of debt.
So for anybody who wants to follow their passion and start a business, my first piece of advice is to keep your day job, build your business at night, and make the shift when it's financially wise to do so.
Needless to say, I learned an expensive lesson about burning bridges.
That's why this time, I did it systematically. I began to take the most popular spiritual stories, inspirational videos, and blog posts of mine, and move them over to this blog.
Eventually, I started to get a little more extreme. I moved over all of the ACIM workbook lessons from my ACIM website. Then I deleted that website entirely.
It felt weird. That was one of the first websites I ever created. And it just vanished from the internet in a split-second when I pressed the “delete” button.
I continued to move as many spiritual stories as I could, systematically, until I was so numb (there were about 1,000 of them!) that I couldn't take it anymore. I had almost given up on moving the several hundred remaining when my old Silicon Valley tech mind kicked in and thought of a solution.
Within 15 minutes of starting that idea, another website of mine vanished from the internet. That was the very first spiritual website I created.
A part of me mourned. See, that wasn't just the first spiritual website I created…
It was the REASON I served you. I used to send out emails with spiritual stories and “reflection questions” every couple of days.
At the time, I wasn't really very spiritual. Okay, let me take that back. I wasn't spiritual at all.
I made the site for my then-wife to share her spiritual stories. I saw it as a way to earn extra money beyond my Silicon Valley salary. I built it not out of service, but out of ego.
However, people started replying to my emails. They said “Thank you” for making a difference in their lives. The more thank you emails I received, the more I wanted to send emails.
Knowing I made a difference made ALL the difference. That made me want to serve you full time and leave the corporate world.
Circling back… two sites of mine literally vanished from the internet.
Amidst all of this, I realized that so many of the blog posts I wrote for The Miracles Store didn't really belong there. They weren't about the mission and the message.
That's why I moved almost all of those blog posts also over to this blog, and even though I didn't delete The Miracles Store, it's blog is a barren wasteland now.
Lastly, I was faced with the website that came before them all… mine.
Every day, I'd read a few of my previous blog posts and ask myself, heartfully and candidly, “Should this still exist? If so, where?”
See, I've been writing and serving you for fifteen years. Over that time, I've grown and changed a lot. Some of what I wrote doesn't reflect who I am now, how I think now, or the messages I want to be putting into the world.
That's why, with many hundreds of blog posts still there, I went through them, one by one, and deleted it. I either saved it (for later editing and republishing), edited it and posted it to this blog, or I just deleted it.
Like The Miracles Store, though I didn't delete my website, there are no more blog posts on my blog.
Why?
Because when I really looked at the HEART of everything I've done, I realized one simple thing:
The last fifteen years of serving you align perfectly to help this website, this mission, live up to its potential… and serve you and others with everything I've created and will create.
It's been a very emotional shift. Burning those bridges hasn't been easy nor fast.
It's been a slow burn of trusting the Divine, and of letting go of everything I've created from the last fifteen years that no longer serves you nor me.
My heart tells me that this is where my entrepreneurial efforts need to live right now. It tells me to go “all in” and I have been, more and more with each passing day.
Burning those bridges has also felt very freeing because now, I feel like my attention and energy are hyper-focused on what really matters.
The thing is, this message isn't really about me. It's about you.
Where in your life do you have something that needs your fully attention? Maybe it's a relationship, a job, a hobby, a business, your health, or some other passion?
What bridges can you burn… that will literally *force* you to succeed in accomplishing your goal?
When you let go of what no longer serves you, when you let burn what no longer needs to live in you, you'll find more energy, power, light, and freedom to become your best self.
Try it and see what happens. Your future self will be glad you did. 🙂
This post was written by Chris Cade, founder of SpiritualGrowthEvents.com