Pursuit 365 Day 43: Sarah Khan

Sarah Khan is a business acceleration strategist and the CEO of Linchpin Virtual.

I HATE MATH.

My oldest daughter inherited a similar hatred.

It was bad enough doing common core math homework with her the last few years, but now having to learn it at home as schools move online is causing more friction and aggravation than learning ever should.

She would start, I would “help”, and as we tried to shoehorn her way of learning into the singular framework presented by the curriculum, frustration ensued. Tears (some, my own). Anger. Raised voices. Slammed doors.

And we were no closer to figuring out the math.

She felt stupid. My sweet girl who is so incredibly brilliant and smart and empowered…felt stupid.

Until one day…

I decided to approach math lessons the way I was taught, the way it made sense to me. Then, I threw in some fun videos, we hit up YouTube, and we embraced different ways of looking at the same problem.

There was a lot of resistance at first… “But mama, this is how we’re SUPPOSED to do it.”

The mindset was strong.

But we ignored the experts who told us their way was easy…their way was simpler than “the old ways”…their way was the “best” way.

And you know what happened?

Almost overnight she started thriving in math. It started making sense. Things got easier.

I now advocate with her teachers to allow her to do it her way.

There are many paths up a mountain…

It dawned on me that this is one of the very reasons why so many entrepreneurs fail or give up. Especially women entrepreneurs.

Because we keep being told by the experts and gurus that there is only ONE way to run and grow a business.

THEIR way.

So, we keep throwing money at them.

We keep trying to shoehorn our passions and interests, values and integrity into their frameworks.

And when we don’t see the results, they tell us we should see (because THEY saw results), we can’t help but feel stupid.

That’s why I don’t have a framework.

I don’t have a one-size-fits-all method with my clients.

We look at what YOU need. At what YOU want. At YOUR values.

YOUR goals. YOUR dreams.

We look at the kind of life and business you want.

And we create a framework that works FOR YOU.

Not me. Not Joe down the road. Not Sally around the corner.

YOU.

Just you, me, and your dreams.

Because we’ve spent long enough trying to fit into frameworks we’ve been told since our school days are how things are done.

My mission, and my business, is to remind you that there are many paths up a mountain…and you get to decide which path you take.

I have two daughters watching me build my business. My legacy will be showing them it will work however you do it, so long as you do it with integrity. And the only person wasting time is the one shouting that their way is the only way.

So far, it’s working.