I have been asked more times than I can count lately why in the world I would ever sell Femail Creations.  Having spent the better part of fifteen years building up a business with my heart     and soul, how could I ever sell it and move on?

“To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.” –  Mother Teresa

My mission and passion haven’t changed—to inspire and make a difference.  However, I have learned, as Mother Teresa says,  I must keep putting oil in my lamp.  In order to teach women how to put oil in their lamps I have to pay attention to my own flashing low oil indicator light.

As excerpted from my new book Oil For Your Lamp…

“Over the last forty years, research studies have shown that women’s overall level of happiness has dropped.  This decline in happiness has no connection to whether or not we have kids, how healthy we are, what career we choose, what our income is, how old we are, or whether we are single or divorced.  The bottom line is: Women are loosing ground on the happiness scale. I think it’s because we are out of oil.

Over the years as my dream of empowering and inspiring women and girls expanded and grew, and so too did the time and energy required to fulfill that dream.  As many entrepreneurs can relate, the “start up years” last far longer than can be imagined.  I have joked that owning your own business means you can set your own hours—yep, you get to pick any 18 hours a day you want to work!

Rarely did I ever take a real day off.  Even when I took a “vacation” the laptop, cell phone and work came with me.  As the owner of the company I was never off duty.  After almost a decade like this true exhaustion set in and health challenges were mounting.  My body started refusing to comply with this inhumane schedule.

I wish I could report to you that as soon as my body spoke up, I listened. I want to tell you I wised up and started to take better care of myself.  But that would be a lie.  I am ashamed to admit while I was telling other women to nurture themselves, I was spreading myself far too thin.

The passion to help other women was stronger than the call to help myself and I unwisely started another business.  Yet even with the best infrastructure in place and devoting endless hours to the new business it became a financial and emotional bottomless pit. It had finally depleted every once of energy I had left.  It was a wake up call for me.

We all have to start with ourselves.  It was time to walk my talk.  I had to get serious about putting oil into my very depleted lamp.  I began a journey of making very difficult decisions.  I started removing things from my life that were not filing up my cup and adding things that brought joy back into my life.  Some changes were sweeping, other changes were small. I started cooking again and I started writing more books, something I rarely had time for with my old work schedule.  I tended to my garden, weeding out the draining things, and planting more of the things that replenished my spirit.

It wasn’t easy for me to admit how far off track I had gotten.  After all it was my mission in life to inspire and empower other women, and here I was failing at that for myself.   However, the gift of burn out, and a soul crying out for OIL, finally snapped even me out of it.”

To purchase your copy of Oil For Your Lamp visit  www.simpletruths.com

Lisa Hammond
The Barefoot CEO ®