To be totally transparent, I’ve thought about closing down the weekly Bearing Fruit newsletter more than once. It takes a lot of *all I’ve got* to write to you this often, especially with some kind of clarity or insight.

And I knew that if the newsletter shuts down, so goes Boost & Bloom, my course for founders.

“It’s fine,” I thought. “This isn’t a big money maker for me. I just love nurturing other people’s businesses. But I’ll get a bunch of my time back and that’s healthy.”

I announced my wavering to my students. One of them immediately wrote back with:

“I just got actual money, in my LLC account 25 minutes before I read this email.”

(It’s these victories that make my heart sing.)

She said, “You cannot scale back on this course. You are two years of snowflakes on their way to an avalanche.” 

It takes two years.

She’s right. Building something as complex as a new business (mine included!) takes about two years.

I see this in my taekwondo journey and you can probably map out something similar in your own life.

I recently passed my blue belt test.

At my dojo, that’s halfway to a black belt. If you’re consistent with your practice – meaning you come to class twice a week, practice a bit at home, and dial in your nutrition, sleep, and stress – you can be a black belt in two years.

It took me two years of homeownership to fully realize allllllll the labor it requires.

The first year I planted my garden, it was sparse – just a few flowers. The second year? Total smokeshow.

If I was watching taekwondo YouTube videos once a month, it would take me much, much longer, if not forever to gain the skills of a black belt.

In other words, two years seems to be the shortest time to evolve something new.

The shortcut comes when you have:

A coach, who can give you personal and specific feedback

A plan, showing you what to handle when

Consistency, where you show up on a regular basis week after week

Patience, so you don’t beat yourself up for taking the time it just takes

You need that amount of space to see the seasons.

The ups and downs. To get enough experience that you make mistakes you can learn from. To let word of mouth work its magic. To get comfortable with the discomfort.

It takes two years because there’s so much to build – and you also need to keep your head on your body and your soul intact. Keep breathing.

Though I have nothing but experience to back this up, I think two years is also the time to evaluate if your efforts are paying off.

Let’s say you’ve decided to launch a video series on LinkedIn. You’ve consistently produced weekly, informative videos about your specialty, as a form of content marketing to turn some viewers into clients. If you’ve been working at this for two years and you’ve gotten maybe one client and your videos are only garnering a dozen likes, it’s time to cut your losses and focus your content marketing elsewhere.

If you started a newsletter two years ago but only published twice and you’ve got just your parents on your email list, it’s time to re-evaluate. Perhaps you shut it down. Perhaps you need a coach, a plan, consistency, and patience.

If you’ve been building your business behind the scenes for two solid years before you get your first deposit into your LLC account, you should celebrate. Your hard work is working. That timing sounds about right.

I promised to protect names where requested, so this student will stay anonymous, but check out this result, almost two years after enrolling in Boost & Bloom:

“I’m not exaggerating when I say that the $2,000 class has already led to a 37% increase in my monthly profits. And I only work about 25-27 billable hours a week due to my work/life balance goals.”

(There goes my heart singing again.)

Vinu knew:

You can feel around in the dark and take forever but you’ll go further faster with a coach, a plan, consistency, and patience.

Folks with businesses already established will see results even sooner. This is what happened to Mara, after only 10 months in my course:

Took her mom on a cruise! Damn, that’s cute.

Join us in Boost & Bloom and give yourself two years to grow. Enrollment closes tomorrow.

I’ll bring the coaching and the plans. You bring the patience and consistency. We’ve got this.