REAL SH*T: The #1 thing I got wrong about chasing my dream life
ACTION ➝ BELIEF > BELIEF ➝ ACTION
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To the 200+ of you that joined me in the last 24 hours—welcome! Am I going viral somewhere I should know about or did my Etsy witch spell kick in? Either way, I’m so happy you’re here :)
I’m Essence Iman, an ex-beauty founder, oversharer, and writer of this newsletter, Slutty Founder where we cover business, beauty + what it takes to build magnetic brands, make f*ck you money and live gorgeous self-directed lives in between.
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SF
It’s been 2 years since I shut down my award-winning beauty business and built an entire career on not shutting the fuck up about it.
In the 2 years that followed my decision, I created some distance between myself and the hustle rather than sprinting headfirst into a new entrepreneurial chapter out of habit.
In that time I started my consultancy (which I love!), doing strategy work with female founder-led consumer brands.
I also:
Became a published writer for the first time in over a decade
Became one of the fastest growing Business newsletters on Substack
Grew more obsessed with showing online (positive)
Grew exceptionally more comfortable with visibility (fear of being seen hates to see me coming)
Took on my first equity advisory role for a brand I really believe in (more on that in another post!)
Became friends with a number of smart, gorgeous and ambitious women I dreamed of being connected to
In naming all of that I can’t believe old me would have thought a large piece of achieving those wins was about because I finally became fit to take action. That is the #1 thing I got wrong about wanting my dream life. Success is ACTUALLY about taking actions that force your identity to catch up.
Why I Shut Down My Award-Winning Beauty Brand This Year
Seven years after setting out on my entrepreneurial journey with just $200 in start up capital, I had created something aspirational—a dream realized through sheer grit and ingenuity. By most standards, my beauty brand, The Established, was a success. It had earned a loyal customer base, multiple awards, and mentions in the pages of magazines that I had…
I was well aware that the young woman who built The Established in 2019 was not necessarily the woman who was going to get me to the next level of fuck-you-money status. Which is why I made reshaping my identity a full-time job.
I’ve done this through:
EFT Tapping
Subliminals (which my mom unironically refers to as ‘spells’)
Breathwork
Robotic Affirmations and the like
The new person I’ve become is one I’m very proud of. You’ll be please to know that I’m that much more of a bitch especially to time wasters and the male species.
Driving home from pilates the other day (sidebar: what is this trend of EDM in pilates?? where tf is the Drake? Don’t PMO!!!!) I was thinking about my entire journey with reshaping my identity especially in the last 2 years and what I wish I knew sooner.
I started to get a little irate behind the wheel thinking about how much time I wasted believing desire/belief would do the legwork—when the work is ACTUALLY learning to withstand being someone you temporarily didn’t recognize in the moments when you’re shooting your shot. It’s a very jarring thing to the nervous system. I wish I knew how often it would creep up on me and how often I would have to just let it!
I think too often we’re encouraged to put the belief before the action. But the action is more important than the belief. It actually REINFORCES the belief (the more you do it).
One of my most groundbreaking ballet performances was when I was 7.
In a navy blue velvet leotard with a single flower down the middle and in sun tan tights and white ballet shoes we danced to the now disgraced R.Kelly’s I Believe I Can Fly. How Philly. Growing up, there was no shortage of messaging—rather— it was recurring KNOWLEDGE, that if you believed it, you could achieve it (even with absolutely no real life examples of how). The belief was the most important thing, of course, even more so than the doing. This was the logic and the myth.
“Faith without works is dead” was really only quoted when people didn’t want you blaming God for your prayers not working out.
For a long, long time I definitely thought success would materialize as a certain byproduct of my innate talents and desires. So long as I dreamt the biggest I would be the winner! Plzzz.
It sounds naïve, but I truly thought so much of reaching success would just feel more inevitable. I didn’t expect it to involve any of this!
My content journey is no exception.
6 months ago I was complaining to my group chat about how I didn’t think I could ever make a good brand analysis green screen video. They don’t know this, but I was actually near tears, typing back in frustration to their unsympathetic responses telling me there was no reason I couldn’t; that they believed in me. Your friends always gas you. I was thinking, like: what do they know, they don’t work in beauty or social media.
That same day I took that anger out on a green screen video that I recorded about Fenty Beauty. I was fed up before, during and immediately after my recording. Hated everything about it. I could have cried hitting post because I felt it wasn’t perfect and I used to want to die when I did things that I didn’t perceive as perfect. But I posted it anyways. I wasn’t about to do all that work for no reason.
Not only did the video go viral, but it ended up giving me some cojones! It created evidence. The evidence wasn’t in the virality, but more so in the act of having gotten it out the way.
BTW, the creator I compared my [potential] videos to in my group chat, wrote me me recently and said they loved my work and loved Slutty Founder. So full circle, right? And in just a matter of months.
I was so focused on becoming the kind of person who could do the thing instead of prioritizing the action of actually doing the thing. But the action is what creates the evidence that I AM that person bitch.
Waiting for proof that you’re the kind of person who can do it is just another way of seeking validation. Stop edging your dream life with this bullsh*t.
It’s okay to dream still, obviously, but just do it in reverse. I feel like it hacks the matrix!
Action → belief > belief → action.
Make sense?
Both roads work eventually. One will just get you there a hell of a lot faster.
