What intention have you set?
Recently, my spouse, Rustin, and I celebrated our dating anniversary, marking 12 years from the day we met. He reflected out loud about that night—it was two weeks before Easter, and we’d both given up alcohol for Lent and gone out with friends who hadn’t made the same pledge (you try being both single and sober in a DC bar in your 20s in 2009—tricky stuff). But we somehow found each other.
“I knew you were a hard worker,” Rustin said about the impression he got of me that night. “That if you put your mind to something, that you would do it. That was really attractive.”
He’d never shared this with me, and I found it fascinating. I’d always thought of myself as a decisive person; although I am a Libra, my mother yelled at me if I was indecisive as a child, so I quickly got out of the habit. But I’d never really thought about the true source of my decisiveness: intentionality.
When I decided to leave behind my career in communications and apply to business school, I had no idea what I was doing. I was 25 years old, and no one in my family had gotten an MBA before. But with Rustin’s encouragement, I took the GMAT three times, completed dozens of networking calls to fuel admissions essays that sounded purposeful and pensive, and took off work for two three-day weekends to visit schools while praying my boss wouldn’t notice my absence. I was set on going into finance, working as a limited partner to make a difference in the institutional investment space. I’d set an intention and nothing—not even the GMAT—was going to stop me.
The same sense was with me when I decided to leave my job at a private equity fund of funds to write a book. My father had passed away, I’d turned 30 two weeks later, and I needed to take stock of what both of those things meant for my life. Writing a memoir was the best way for me to do that, I decided. So, I created a budget to show Rustin what lifestyle adjustments we would need to live without my income for a while. When I showed it to him, he was much more comfortable with the idea of my taking the leap because I’d shown him tangible evidence of my intention.
And finally, when I’d finished the book and being a full-time writer was no longer challenging, I set a new intention: to create space for emerging & diverse managers and give them a running start in the race to form their first funds. This has been my goal for two years, from ideation to today. I’ve done group and individual business coaching to hone my entrepreneurship skills, and traveled across the country to attend industry conferences to strengthen and develop relationships. I’ve had my schedule packed with calls during the pandemic. I hired an assistant to help me manage my operations. My business looks much different than I thought it would when I first thought about it two years ago, and I’m grateful for the investments I’ve made to pursue this intention head-on.
My intentions have driven me from one point to another in my life. They ensure that I do what I say I will do and leave no room for questions other than, “How would I like to go about doing this?” or “What would be the most efficient way to proceed?”
So, when someone asks, “How do you get clients?” I tell them, “I attract people who have set a clear intention and are willing to put in the work.”
My clients are people who have done just that: they know what they want, and they know that they are worth believing and investing in. They have the sense that they will do this thing simply because they have set their mind to do it. I can work with anyone who is willing to put in the work.
One lesson that I’ve learned from my own setting of intentions is that there is always more to it than just the idea. So, yes, set the intention, but also:
Surround yourself with people who believe in you, to encourage you.
Show proof of your intention by having a plan.
And make investments in yourself to drive toward that goal.
By working with me, my clients do all of the above. Once they know that they want, I give them bulletproof confidence that they can achieve it because we make a plan that is easy to execute. It requires an investment of their time and mine, and it is always worth it because they get the result they want, be it a solid strategic plan for the firm they’re starting, a clear sense of the culture they’re going to create, or a resonant story that speaks volumes about what they do and how they do it.
So, what intention have you set? Have you surrounded yourself with people who believe in your? Have you developed a plan? What investments are you willing to make to put in the work? Email me (vonetta at vyadvisors dot com) and let me know. Or, better yet, schedule a call with me.
If you’re ready to take the next step, I’m ready to take it with you.