Align Your Business with the Real You: Connect with Yourself, Create What Matters Most, and Define Your Success

Align Your Business with the Real You is a fantastic book for any entrepreneur, whether you’re old or new to the game. Author Jennifer Musser’s words resonated with me from the very first page, and as I read each chapter, I became more and more immersed in the content. As someone who has owned several businesses, I have found my niche—the business I love growing and working. But like many jobs, being an entrepreneur can take its toll on your personal life because sometimes, there is no separation between home and work.

What I enjoyed about Align Your Business with the Real You was that the exercises are one hundred percent doable. Musser employs many techniques centered around one main thought: “Listen to yourself.” How many of us ask ourselves if our business aligns with other aspects of our lives? By tapping into our personal beliefs, values, and thoughts, we can change the direction of our businesses, making them a perfect fit.

Musser does a great job of using anecdotal stories to illustrate how she has used the various techniques she gives her readers. One of the stories I enjoyed was when she realized she had no pink in her wardrobe. She ponders this after a friend is helping her choose an outfit for an event. After a long night of trying to decipher the pink questions, Musser realized that she didn’t wear vibrant pink because she matched her environment. She was allowing her environment to dictate how she showed up instead of choosing her environment and how she would show up to it. This made me think about my environment and how I will personalize it to match my inner thoughts and personality.

My favorite exercise in the book was the personal check-in. By asking ourselves questions such as “How do I really feel?” or “Do I feel healthy?” or “What customers do I enjoy serving?” we can tap more into our inner selves and find out what it is that makes us tick. This also leads to cherishing your inner circle, another aspect I hadn’t considered. With the invention of social media, so many people are worried about gaining “followers.” But do these people fill our cups? Of course not. We don’t know these strangers, yet we put such a heavy weight on that little number at the top of the screen. When you think about the people you feel good around, who make you smile and laugh, who you learn the most from, that is your inner circle.

After reading Align Your Business with the Real You, I felt a lot lighter. I felt like I had ideas galore that I had never thought of. And on top of it all, I felt gratitude for everyone and everything around me. Musser’s stop-and-smell-the-roses technique is the perfect fix for any entrepreneur who has woken up tired.