I have been going through some challenges recently, in both my personal life and business life, that I want to share a little about.
For the last couple of months, one of my close family members has been dealing with a very serious illness that has required multiple doctors’ visits a week that I have been in charge of. That has limited the amount of time and energy that I have been able to put into my business. I love my business and doing what I do with my clients and students. And, I also love my family member more than words can say.
I have had to be willing to take some pause in my business to tend to the needs of my family. There are times where I have felt resentment that I can’t just do what I want. I know this will pass, and I am doing my best to maintain my energy and my sanity. I am still working through this emotionally, as it is not easy for me.
If that wasn’t enough, this week another challenge appeared – this time in business. My husband and I started a new service under my company with the “doing business as” Big Island UFO Tours. We had gone on a UFO Tour in Sedona, AZ five years ago, and it was an amazing experience.
When we moved to the Big Island of Hawaii and realized how my UFO activity and low light (dark sky) we had, we decided to do a similar night tour as we had done, but with our own twist. I have had experiences of UFO and aliens most of my life, and my husband had his own profound experience several years ago as well. I have a new mission (in addition to my other missions) to be a Galactic Ambassador, helping to spread the message of love and unity that is held by my Arcturian family.
We went on a ghost tour in Kona sometime late spring/early summer, and we met the owner of the tour company and hit it off with him. I mentioned that we were going to start a UFO Tour business, and he said that he was also going to do that. I had the idea of collaborating with him, rather than competing with him. He wanted me to collaborate on his vortex tours.
After about a month of trying to figure out how a collaboration might work, as we had two separate business entities, my husband and I decided that it was not going to work to collaborate. I tried to let him down as gently as possible, as we were hoping to maintain the friendship.
We had not gotten to discussing any specifics of how the business might operate and what would be included in the tour, only how the financial piece might happen, as we were going to purchase all of the equipment (to the tune of $20,000 – Gen 3 military night vision goggles start at $3,000/pair).
At first the conversation went okay and he said that he had already implemented Plan B, which I also indicated that I had implemented Plan B in case it didn’t work out. I had already purchased the domain name and had outlined exactly what our tour would offer. The next day I received a text saying that he could no longer be friends with us, that we had nothing in common, and he felt strung along. I wrote back that he had every right to feel how he feels, but we did not string him along and knew that a partnership would not work out in the long run.
Fast forward 6 weeks later, which puts us at the beginning of this week. My husband and I had spent numerous hours getting the business put together, website built, equipment ordered and all the other things to be able to officially launch on Sept. 1.
On Sunday, the 5th, I got an email from Google that this man, our competitor, had given us a 1 star review on Google and told complete lies in the review about how we stole all his ideas and alluded to a federal lawsuit we might be in. None of that is true. I have requested to have the review taken down, and in the meantime, I was able to publicly reply to his comment.
Yesterday, I became aware that he had stolen content from our website to use on his own website and his FB marketing. He completely plagiarized my words and content, and he stole photos that I took personally on my phone to use on our website.
Before that, he had his own tour and way he was going to run his business, which was quite different from our model. In his insecurity, he changed his tour structure to be identical to ours. I guess I should be flattered that he liked my ideas more than his own?
I have contacted an attorney regarding the plagiarized and stolen content and am waiting to hear back how we might proceed.
It’s really sad that this person is coming from such a low vibration frequency of fear that there is not enough business for everyone. He is coming from the outdated masculine business model of competition and being the only one.
I am coming from the feminine business model of supporting and nurturing and that there is plenty of business for all. I am in several women-based business groups and masterminds, and even if some of us overlap in what we do, we support each other and cheer each other on.
I don’t know how all of this will turn out, but I am allowing myself to trust that it will all work out for the highest and greatest good. This situation has shown me and my husband that we absolutely made the right decision to not collaborate. Can you imagine what might have happened down the road? It would have been even uglier than it is now.
I’ll end by saying that I am trying to do the best I can for my family and my business. Every day is a chance to learn and grow and to remember to take time to recuperate my energy.
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