It has been almost a year since my last post. I am also on the brink of further changes, so it is about time for another update.

I quickly re-read my last post before writing this one, and it was interesting, a lot of what I probably would have had to say in this one I kind of already said in the last one, or at least foreshadowed it.

So what is the update?

Well I have continued to run the business I mentioned in the last post with my friend. It has been really hard to do that and keep the qigong courses running as well, but I have done it.

While I have managed to keep running the qigong courses, I wouldn’t say that I have even managed to tread water and stay still. I think it would be more accurate to say that in some ways things have slid backwards in that area. That is largely because, like it or not, most things in life require some consistent effort to just keep them where they are, let alone moving forwards. There are lots of things that need to be done, like updating and making changes on the qigong website, that I just haven’t been able to do, so now it is starting to look and function in a very dated way – it has slid backwards rather than staying current. I also haven’t had any time or focus to put into promotion of the qigong courses and classes, and have not been able to do any further course development etc. In many ways the qigong teaching is exactly where it was at a year ago, but in many ways it also feels like by not changing, it has actually slid backwards, and if I am not able to start moving forwards again soon, the slide will continue or even increase.

This has been hard for me, as I see how much qigong can do in people’s lives, and I feel like I have not been coming close to fulfilling my potential in this area of spreading understanding of qigong.

So… I am leaving the business that I built with my friend. The decision is mutual, I would not just abandon him in the business, if anything he is pushing for a faster end to it than I am.

We have had the business on the market for sale for several months, but a buyer has not come through yet. So we have decided that if it does not sell by the end of the year, that we will just shut the business down anyway. This would be a real shame, as it was our goal to build and sell the business. And aside from the financial implications to us of not selling the business, there is real value in the business that someone else could benefit from if they took it over. It is likely that if we kept the business running and waited, that eventually a buyer would come forwards. But this could take many months, and each of us want to move forward with other things in our lives that mean more to us than the money a potential sale would bring, and we cannot move forwards in those areas while still running the business.

So at this stage it seems most likely that we will simply be walking away from it. It is interesting as I have been thinking about this. I realised that this is the second time I have walked away from significant potential financial return, to follow my heart. And each time it was for qigong. The other time was when I left a job to pursue a path that would allow me to put my focus into teaching qigong and led to me writing my first book on qigong. My boss called me up and offered to double my rate of pay for me to come back. But it was too late, I had already decided the direction I wanted to head in.

It is exciting in many ways. I am really looking forward to being able to refocus on qigong, and put all my work time and effort into it. I am also looking forward to a more balanced life, and things like getting enough sleep regularly…

It is a bit scary too though. As I will now need to make the qigong teaching economically viable as it will be my only source of income once more. Realistically this is going to mean that I need to start putting prices on my work. I won’t do that straight away. As I referred to in my previous blog post, it will actually take quite a bit of work to reformat things so that I can teach in this way, and there is a lot of catching up with updating various things to do before switching to a paid model as well. But this is something I will need to work towards. I think it will take at least 6 months to a year before I am ready to make the switch.

If I can make a decent income in a mundane business that only requires a basic level of skill such as the one that I have been running with my friend, then surely I can earn a viable income with an uncommon skill that I have spent decades developing. Maybe I just can’t do it using GFRF, maybe I just need to put prices on it.

Regardless, I will continue to run GFRF at least for the next 6 months or year, and then I guess I will just have to see how things go.