Something that I was not prepared for when I started my own business, was the way I was going to feel when I began making more money than I had ever done in my career history.
For the first time in my life I was standing in my power, being myself and using my innate gifts and abilities. I felt free to do what I wanted, I stopped apologising and asking for permission, and I was being rewarded for doing so. That felt good. Really good.
I also became acutely aware of the privilege and timing of my life. Unbeknownst to me when I was born I won, as Warren Buffett calls it, the "ovarian lottery". I had a supportive and loving upbringing, with parents whose biggest investment was in the education of my sister and I. Even though I was given everything I needed to set me up for a great career - working to build someone else's dream was never part of my plan.
I've always been a serial entrepreneur. I had the lemonade stalls as a kid, a beanie baby trading empire on eBay in the 90s, a cotton bag business at 16, a mobile dog grooming business and freelance styling business, to name a few. I've also been an employee and detested having capped earning potential and only a certain number of days a year for vacation. Sure I had a monthly salary, but I couldn't get a dog and work from a coffee shop or from a beach in Bali.
That was until I started my life coaching business in 2015.
I was living in a time when, as a woman, I had more freedom than ever before to live the way I wanted to, because of the collision of two things: the relentless work of the women's movement and the internet.
I felt the weight of generations of women past and present calling on me to be courageous enough to take everything I wanted off the table. It was time.
I could hear the words of Virginia Woolf in my ears when she was referring to Shakespeare's fictional sister Judith in A Room of One's Own:
"Drawing her life from the lives of the unknown who were her forerunners, as her brother did before her, she will be born. As for her coming without that preparation, without that effort on our part, without that determination that when she is born again she shall find it possible to live and write her poetry, that we cannot expect, for that would be impossible. But I maintain that she would come if we worked for her, and that so to work, even in poverty and obscurity, is worthwhile."
Chip. Chip. Chip. Millions of lifetimes of sacrifice so I had this chance, to declare my desires and create wealth for myself so I can be and do more. So I can SAY MORE.
So I started my business for me, for them, for all of us.
That's because the more women that step into the realm of entrepreneurship and create wealth inspires other women to do the same. Imagine what will begin to happen globally when millions of socially conscious women entrepreneurs spread the wealth around and support other women to do the same? This is entrepreneurial activism.
Creating wealth by following your passions (not chasing it) and staying in your zone of genius as a women is your right. There's never been a better time to start a business as a woman and take the money off the table, because you can. In the UK a recent survey showed that only 11.4pc of millionaires are women, men are still way ahead.
Join the movement to tip that figure into balance, because she who pays the bills has the power and influence. Just ask Oprah.