Should I quit?

It depends if it's fear or misalignment...

The World She’s Building is a weekly-ish newsletter from World Builders’ founder, coach, strategist and intuitive guide, Jenni Gritters. Part strategy memo, part internal dialogue, part blueprint-in-process, this is a space where you’ll get to watch the build of a sustainable, cyclical, highly ambitious business ecosystem, in real time. Come for the experiments and visionary ideas, stay for the psychological guidance and intuitive hits.

I opened up a handful of spots for wealth architecture audits last week and only have 2 left. Want in? This process includes filling out an intake form, then 40 minutes with me by phone to help nail down the wobbles, cracks and leaks in your financial systems (and mindsets) that are keeping you stuck. These sessions are 25% of my usual 1-1 coaching rate because they’re also helping me with much-needed needed market research to plan for upcoming World Builders money programming.

---

This week, one of my clients sent me a mid-launch message. She was scared that her launch wasn’t going to work, and feeling exhausted by the whole push. She wanted to quit.

Today I’m going to share few things that I told her as she made the decision, because I know that moment of doubt so intimately. I know how it feels to just want to throw in the towel. I know how it feels to actually throw in the towel — and I also know how it feels to stay the course.

Here’s what I’ve learned after launching approximately 758947850 times over the past 6 years — some of which were incredible, and some of which generated basically no sales:

There’s a difference between a scared quit and a misaligned quit. I listened to my client’s message, then sent her a note I knew she wouldn’t like: I told her I didn’t think she should quit. I told her that I’d have her back either way — but for her, I knew that staying the course would produce the kind of self trust and confidence she was seeking. It would also give us really important data.

Here’s the specific nuance: There’s a very, very big difference between stepping away from something because it’s not aligned for you, and quitting because you’re scared. As business owners — and especially as we step into our CEO eras — we need to become attuned to the difference between these two things.

When something is misaligned, it often feels less like that stomach-drop-dread we all know so well, and more like a thought spiral. We’ll spend hours and hours trying to convince ourselves to do the thing, which is most likely happening because we really don’t want to do the thing. Often, I find that misalignments happen because:

• Your capacity isn’t there. You don’t have the time or emotional capacity required to offer the thing you’re selling.

• The offer doesn’t fit your energetic make up. For example, maybe you’re a projector trying to sell a high-touch offer when really you’d prefer asynchronous work because your alone time is essential for optimal delivery.

• You’ve outgrown the thing you’re selling. You’ve offered it several times before and you’re just straight up bored.

This is very, very different from the fear-based desire to quit. The fear often comes from being triggered. For example, if you were told during childhood that belonging required being quiet and perfect, and now you’ve decided to step out and proclaim your competency via a launch — your nervous system is going to be totally rocked. If you’re seeking the belonging you were rarely given as a child and it feels like your launch is asking everyone to choose you, same deal: Nervous system chaos.

In other words: Staying with a launch that’s bringing up your fears and shadows is hard work but it also (almost always) helps you bust through those blocks.

This is why I asked my client to think very, very hard about which space she was in. Did she want to quit her launch because she was feeling vulnerable and shaky standing in her competency, or did she want to quit her launch because the program she was selling simply wasn’t a fit for her anymore?

I bet you can guess: It was fear. She was exhausted already by being seen in her power. She was afraid people wouldn’t say yes, which would mean she’d have to look at all the spaces where she learned to let other people’s opinions of her determine her worth. She could see the challenge coming and all she wanted to do was walk away.

So. Freaking. Valid.

And this, my friends, is why business is actually a personal development exercise. It’s also why a lot of people don’t run businesses for longer than a year or two.

By the way: The program she was launching? Ideal for her energetic make up. A perfect fit for how she wants to spend her time. Important for revenue markers. Exactly right for where she’s at in her business building journey because the folks in the program (and the people who see the marketing) become warm leads for all her other offers.

She listened to my message, then sent me a note.

“Okay. I’m staying with it.”

I cheered — and then we talked about a plan to support her deeply, wildly, whimsically for the next 2-3 weeks, as she steps into her power and HOLDS IT.

If you’re also in a season of wanting to back out of something, I’d encourage you to think about why you want to quit. If you’ve been here for a while, you know I LOVE a good composting and quitting moment. I quit things all the time! But the discernment — and the ability to stay with discomfort — is what matters most. That’s how you prevent regret and choose growth over familiarity.

And here’s what else I told her:

It will take a while for your nervous system to adjust to this kind of visibility. That makes sense. HOLDING during a launch is one of the most epic strength builders I know. There’s often an early surge in sign ups from waitlisters or big fans, then dead silence for days while people make their decisions. Then, 1-2 days before close, you’ll start to see people sign up. The last 24 hours are when I make 40-50% of my sales. Yes, really. If you drop out during the silence, you’ll lose out on all the momentum you’ve been building. The glory always comes at the end — but that silence mid-launch can break you if you don’t have support, tools and self trust.

And: Even if this launch “doesn’t work,” you’re going to learn A LOT of important things that will help you long-term. Analytics are a blessing, but you won’t have them if you don’t bring ideas into the world and test them out.

Back in 2023, I opened up a cohort-based coaching program called Mindset Mastery. It was 4 weeks long and somewhere in the neighborhood of $400, meant to help people identify the core mental blocks that were keeping them stuck. One person signed up. I was devastated — and I stopped marketing it loudly as more and more silence crept in. This was my first ever “big launch” and I’d worked so hard on it!

But when I was able to set my ego aside, I made some decisions: I transferred that one person’s registration into a personalized program. Then I asked everyone else why they weren’t buying. I studied the email analytics. I studied the positioning of the program itself.

Based on the feedback and my study, I realized the price point was too high for the level of trust I’d built (my audience has been with me for a while but me being a coach was a newer positioning). Also, there were no tactical outcomes in the program — just mindset “shifts.”

This is how I learned to build curriculum that sticks, priced correctly for my people, with landing pages that highlight clear outcomes. This is how I learned about the way an audience can evolve with you. And this is also how I started to build a sense of trust in my own ability to get through failure and make sense of data.

After all this, I launched the same (but with an added tactical edge!) curriculum as a 90 minute workshop for $33. And you know what happened? 100 people signed up.

I wouldn’t have known ANY of this if I hadn’t “failed” and then used that data to shift my approach. And while I know it’s not comfortable, moments like this are essential to building any kind of world, business or creation.

My client listened to all this, opted back in, then exhaled and took the weekend to rest. She showed up that next Monday ready — ready to have her own back, ready to ask for support, ready to listen closely to her audience and see this as one bullet point on a very, very long business building arc.

Questions to Walk With

• If you’re contemplating quitting something, is it because you’re afraid of the shadows you’ll have to face, or is it because the thing is truly misaligned for your current season of life?

• What could following through — even if it “doesn’t work” — teach you?

xo,

Jenni

How to Join the World Builders Universe Right Now:

1. Register for The Clearing, our free monthly World Builders gathering, on June 2nd. This is a space where you get to experience an energetic shift, then collaborate with other community members as they request coaching.

2. Put in an application for The Council, which is the World Builders’ sacred circle program; our next cohort begins in July. This is where you do all of the identity work necessary to build a new world and become the architect of your own wealth, alongside a community of people who deeply understand you and your vision.