I Was Never Meant to Sell

I am going to let you in on a secret: I have never liked selling.

Not because I don’t understand exchange.

Not because I don’t value money, effort, or reciprocity.

And not because I’m uncomfortable being paid for my work.

I understand deeply that money is energy — that it is one way energy moves between humans in relationship.

What I have never been comfortable with is the energy of trying to sell something to another human being.

That subtle shift where presence tightens into persuasion.

Where listening becomes strategy.

Where care begins to lean toward outcome.

Even when it’s done “ethically.”

Even when it’s done “authentically.”

Something in me has always known: this is not how my work is meant to move.

For a long time, though, I made this mean something else.

Not that I was naïve about business.

And not that I lacked ambition.

I made it mean that this was why I wasn’t being successful at getting some of my work out into the world.

I watched my consulting and advisory work move with ease — invitations arriving through relationship, trust, and word of mouth — while other offerings stalled when I tried to move them through more conventional channels.

Launches that felt heavy.

Products that required pushing.

Language that sounded right but didn’t feel alive when spoken.

I didn’t yet see the pattern.

My consulting had always travelled through relationship.

Through conversation.

Through recognition.

When I tried to move other creations without that relational field — when I tried to “launch” them instead of letting them be met — I assumed something was wrong with me.

It took time to realize: nothing was broken.

I was simply asking my work to move in a way it was never designed to move.

The discomfort wasn’t resistance.

It was memory.

I was never meant to extract value from people.

Or optimize humans.

Or turn relationship into conversion.

I noticed this early on, long before I had language for it.

I could sit with someone for hours, listening deeply, offering insight freely — and feel energized, clear, alive.

But the moment I tried to “close” something, to guide the conversation toward a sale, my body would tighten. My voice would subtly change. Something essential would go quiet.

Or I would feel someone hesitate — not because they didn’t want the work, but because they were calculating money, timing, worth — and instead of feeling motivated to persuade them, I would feel protective. I wanted them to choose freely, not be nudged.

That should have told me everything.

What my system naturally does — what it has always done — is tend.

That came into focus recently in a conversation that unlocked language I didn’t know I’d been searching for. It landed not as a metaphor, but as recognition:

Tending a commons with pillars.

It didn’t invent something new.

It remembered something old.

By a commons, I mean something held in shared care rather than owned, extracted from, or optimized.

A commons is not chaos.

And it is not “free.”

A true commons has care, boundaries, rhythm, ritual, and responsibility.

Think of the neighbour who quietly tends a community garden — not because it belongs to them, but because it feeds everyone.

Or the elder who tells the same stories year after year, not for applause, but because forgetting would cost too much.

A commons exists so something essential can circulate without being owned.

Knowledge.

Story.

Wisdom.

Belonging.

You don’t sell a commons.

You tend it.

You listen to what it needs.

You protect it from depletion.

You keep it accessible without letting it be consumed into nothing.

This is a fundamentally different posture than selling — even selling with integrity.

And then there are pillars.

Pillars are not prestige.

They are not paywalls born of fear.

They are not status symbols.

Pillars exist to hold weight.

They are the offerings that carry responsibility, commitment, and depth.

They create stability so generosity doesn’t collapse.

They allow circulation without exhaustion.

They make openness sustainable.

In human terms, pillars are the work that moves through relationship with gravity — work that asks for time, presence, and mutual responsibility.

Pillars do not enclose the commons.

They keep it open.

Seeing this changed everything.

It allowed me to stop forcing all of my work through the same channel.

To stop mistaking “not launching well” for “not working.”

To stop judging myself for refusing to move against my own nature.

This way of working quietly refuses a lot, without ever needing to argue.

It refuses hustle.

It refuses scarcity.

It refuses the belief that everything must monetize itself to be legitimate.

It refuses the idea that worth is proven through optimization.

Instead, it says something gentler — and far more radical:

Some things are meant to circulate.

Some things are meant to hold weight.

And both are sacred.

This framing gave me real permission — not mindset permission, but embodied permission.

Permission to let The Created Life move widely and generously.

Permission to let consulting, teaching, and advisory work carry financial gravity.

Permission to let gifts remain gifts without guilt.

Permission to let homes grow slowly, relationally.

Permission to let pillars exist without apology.

It also gave others a felt sense of why my work doesn’t behave like so much of what’s out there.

Why I don’t chase.

Why I don’t push.

Why I don’t persuade.

Because I am not selling to people.

I am tending something with them.

If I ever need to name it simply — for a page, a talk, or just for myself — it comes down to this:

My work lives in an ecosystem.

Some offerings are doors.

Some are homes.

Some are pillars.

And some are gifts.

I tend a commons — and I build pillars so it can stay open.

No defence required.

No justification needed.

This is not a rejection of business.

It is a remembering of relationship.

And it is the only way I know how to work without betraying myself.