Ep 075 Birthing the Business of Your Dreams Through Your Identity

This episode is the real story behind why Your Aligned AF Life just became Rich AF, Real AF. Shalvika breaks down what happened after her biggest revenue year in business — a year that looked perfect on paper and left her burnt out, uncreative, and questioning everything by December. She unpacks how a corporate contract she never actively sought pulled her out of alignment with her own identity, walks through five specific ways misalignment shows up even when the numbers look great, and hands listeners the exact 3-question identity audit she used to figure out who needs to show up in order to build the business she actually wants — not just the one that performs well.

Key Takeaways

• Hitting your biggest goal doesn't automatically mean you're aligned — misalignment can hide inside a "successful" year.
• Your identity (not your strategy) determines what you say yes to — Shalvika broke her own payment-upfront rule because a part of her believed "making it" meant she had to compromise.
• Pricing misalignment shows up as an internal tug-of-war on a consult call — that hesitation before quoting your worth is a signal, not a personality flaw.
• Saying yes to every client who says yes to you is often a fear identity ("I'm someone who doesn't disappoint people"), not generosity.
• Dreading a random Tuesday is one of the clearest signs your business and your identity have drifted apart.
• The fix is identity-first: Who am I being right now? Where do I want to go in a year? Who needs to show up to bridge that gap?

Transcript

Hello, hello, and welcome to this episode of Rich as Fuck, Real as Fuck. This is the place where we talk all things about creativity, money, mindset, and the discipline that it takes to build a life that pays. And if you're someone who's been around listening to Your Aligned as Fuck Life with Shalvika, you are welcome back — we have undergone a slight pivot. From Your Aligned as Fuck to Rich as Fuck, Real as Fuck. Because I have undergone a massive pivot in my life and in my business, and that is something that I want to talk to you about from the get-go. But before I go there, let me introduce the topic that we are going to be talking about today: birthing the business of your dreams through your identity.

So before I dive in any further, let me first start by telling you what identity is. Identity is what it is that you believe about yourself. It is what you believe yourself to be capable of. What you think you can do, what you cannot do, what is possible for you, what is not possible for you. The kind of money that's possible for you, the kind of love that you can have — all of these things encompass your identity. It is a collection of your strongest beliefs about yourself.

So for example, just to give you a very simple example: I am a woman. That is an identity. And everything that entails that statement — "I am a woman" — is a part of my identity. Now maybe I have challenged some of those things, maybe I have tried to mold certain things to what my life looks like. But the sum total of my identity is going to be the collection of the beliefs that I have.

And today we are not going to talk about where these beliefs came from — I don't really want to go there. I really want to focus specifically on how you can birth the business of your dreams using your identity. And I'm going to use my own real example, so I want to start off by sharing a very personal story.

2025 was the biggest year for me in my business. I made the most amount of money, I worked with a really amazing bunch of high-ticket clients, I had my highest month, I had my highest year in business, all in one year. It was crazy, it was phenomenal. And then when 2026 started, it just felt like — do I have to go and repeat that again? It just felt a tad bit exhausting. And I don't know if you've ever felt that, because this is something I've been waiting for since I started my business back in 2020 — where I wanted to be fully booked, where I wanted there to be a waitlist for people to work with me one-on-one, where I wanted to make the kind of revenue that I made in 2025. And I achieved all of those things in one year. And at the end of that year I was like, oh my god, does this need to be done again?

I want to share a little backstory about what went behind that. I actually landed a massive corporate contract in 2025, and that contributed to a big chunk of that revenue goal, a big chunk of those clients that I was busy with, that I was completely booked out with. However, one of the things that happened was — I never really intended to go the corporate route. It was not something that I was genuinely, authentically seeking out. It just came my way. It felt exciting at the time, and of course it was good money, so I said yes.

Now, here is the bit where the identity piece kind of comes in. I grew up in a very middle-class Indian family, so landing a corporate gig was like — I have made it big. It means I'm in the big leagues now, I sign contracts that are massive in number. That is who I am. But at my core, at the level of my own identity, at the level of my own heart around building what I'm building — because at the end of the day, it is a creative business, it is a business that I am building through my heart and soul and my entire being — something felt off. Because a lot of that contract felt performative. And I'm not saying I will never work with corporate clients again, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just saying that the way I handled it, because it was unexpected, the way I showed up for myself and for my business was in misalignment with who I am and what I want to build.

There were certain things around payments, for example. I had to run around and take follow-ups and wait for months for certain payments to come through. That is not how I run my business. Outside of that corporate contract, I have for years now always taken advance payments. I don't offer payment plans. I don't get on a call for the first coaching session with someone unless I am already paid for that service. But I did that in this case. Why? Because there was that part of my identity that told me: oh my god, you finally made it big, so it's okay to compromise a little. It's okay if they aren't paying me upfront for the entire thing, I can start — I mean, it's a corporate company, they've signed a contract, of course they're going to honor it. And they did honor it, but the headache and the effort I had to put toward getting those payments was not something I like in my business.

The second thing is I had to be performative in a way — I had to show up in a certain way. Now again, it's not that they expected me to show up that way, it's that identity of what a "corporate coach" looks like that I had in my head, which I was using to fuel that entire experience with the clients I was working with.

So let's go back to the beginning of 2026, and I was like — what the fuck is this, what do I want to do. For a couple of months I felt really lost, because I had created an amazing program for that corporate company, and I know that even today, that curriculum is completely ready for me to use wherever I want. But it didn't feel right for me, in my body, to just be selling that. I was not a corporate leadership coach. I am a leadership coach because I teach business — of course everyone who runs a business, everyone who's a creative and drives their revenue through their creative enterprise is a leader in themselves — but not in the corporate leader way.

So I took a couple of months and I realized this is not the direction I want to go. I started off with a vision, and then this opportunity cropped up, and I jumped on it, and by the end of the year I let that opportunity steer the direction my business was going to go. And that's where the misalignment came from — because I was not the one driving it. So that is why your identity is important, but it's also important how you're using your identity to take your business in the direction you want to go in.

So before I give you some questions and walk you through the process I went through, I want to talk about how misalignment shows up, how to identify that misalignment has shown up.

The first way — what I just shared — everything on paper was fine. I had my biggest year, the most successful year I had dreamt of, this is something I wanted for a really long time, and I felt empty by the end of it. I felt drained, burnt out, unmotivated, and very uncreative — which is so unlike me, I'm a highly creative person in my life. So that is one way misalignment could be showing up: everything on paper is perfect, but you still feel like something is missing, something feels forced, you know what you want to do but you're not really doing it because your heart is not completely in it. That is misalignment.

Another way misalignment can show up: say you are about to walk into a consultation call and you've decided this is the price you're going to quote, and just as you're about to sign into that meeting, there's this small little voice going — but is this really the price we're going to quote, because we're worth so much more. And then there's this internal tug-of-war, where one voice says we're worth so much more, and another voice says but they're giving us the opportunity, maybe I shouldn't be picky, what if they decide I'm too expensive and don't sign up. That is misalignment. That is pricing misalignment. Your identity knows the direction you want to go, but in reality you're pulling yourself away from it because there's a lot of bullshit thoughts and beliefs going around it. There may even be a conflicting identity — maybe six months ago you quoted a new price and got rejected once, and decided people think I'm too expensive. That's a clear misalignment too.

Another way — and I've touched on this with my own example — you just take whatever opportunity comes. I'm not saying don't take the opportunities that come your way, do not get me wrong, I am in no way regretting 2025, I think it gave me the space and time I needed to go through this entire pivot from Your Aligned as Fuck Life to Rich as Fuck, Real as Fuck. I'm so excited about this, by the way. But you may have this identity that says — oh my god, what if people don't say yes. So the minute someone says yes, even though in your mind you may know they're not the right fit, that they're not going to put in the work — I've had that experience. I've signed clients who weren't ready to put in the work at all, even though I made it clear that as a coach I'm a facilitator, I cannot do your daily chores, tasks, habits and rituals for you, I can facilitate the doing of those things but the actual doing has to be done by you. And this person completely refused to do that, and I had to fire this client and pay back whatever money they had paid me, and it was a big deal at the time, but now I feel like — thank god. But there is this inherent fear-belief that we have, that whoever says yes, I have to say yes, because that's who I am. That's rooted in an identity of "I'm someone who doesn't disappoint people, I'm someone who doesn't reject people." It could also be rooted in "things don't come that easily for me, so if things are coming toward me, I should go for them."

Another way misalignment can show up: you know in your core — and this is me at the beginning of 2026 — you know this is not the direction I want to take my business, this is not the direction I want my life to go in, this is definitely not what I want to be selling, what I'm excited about selling. But the idea of making a pivot is so daunting, because you've built this for so many years. Your Aligned as Fuck Life has been that since 2022. So then to take it and — I'm not saying it's crap, all the content will still be available, it's still there, we're just bigger and better now — but what if people stop identifying with me? Even on my Instagram, there are people who were there for leadership coaching, for manifestation, for pure identity coaching, life coaching, that I was doing up until now, and now I'm suddenly working with only creatives — creative entrepreneurs, artists, influencers, writers, actors. So obviously it's going to take some time for my audience to get used to that. Pivots are hard. But that could also be a misalignment — when you know you have to make a pivot but you're not making it, because there's this massive fear of "I'm going to have to rebuild this from scratch." The thing is, you're never rebuilding from scratch. So many of the podcast episodes I've already recorded are still relevant if you're a creative — I did an eight-episode series a few years ago completely dedicated to creativity. How did I not pick up on these breadcrumbs? I don't know, but I did that. So maybe you want to pivot but you're not pivoting — that is misalignment.

Another very simple, very effective way to know if there's misalignment between your identity and what you're building: you wake up on a regular Tuesday morning and you dread going into work. Here's the thing — if you're a creative or a creative entrepreneur, you started this for yourself, so that you could have the freedom to maybe go work from a cafe on a Tuesday, or if it's raining outside, go on a hike in the afternoon without having to worry about what people are going to think, without having to worry about "but I have ten back-to-back meetings." That's not what you built your business for. So if you wake up dreading your day, any day, that is a sure-shot sign there is misalignment between your identity and what you are building.

Alright, so enough talk about misalignment — let's talk about actually birthing the business of your dreams through your identity. Here's what I want you to do. If you're watching this on YouTube, if you're listening on a podcast platform, I want you to pause this right now, grab a journal — an actual journal, it's okay if you're scribbling on your iPad too, but I want you to write it down with your hands, I don't want you typing this out — and write down the answers to three questions.

The first question is: who are you being? Who are you being right now? For example — if you follow me on Instagram, you know I'm publishing 100 videos in July. Scares the shit out of me, but we're doing it anyway. Who am I being right now? I am someone who is being extremely creative, because the minute I decided I wanted to publish 100 videos, there was this explosion of creativity inside of me, so many ideas pouring out of my brain. That is who I am being. Who I am also being — it's raining right now, it's a stay-indoors, cozy, curled-up-with-your-warm-coffee-or-hot-chai kind of weather, and I'm being a little lazy, to be honest. I haven't gone for a workout in a week, even though I'm working out at home, I haven't gone out for one. That's who I am being. Another thing — who are you being in your business? Who am I being when I show up, when I am selling? Am I someone who's not convinced of what I'm selling? Am I someone who's only looking at selling from one direction? Am I someone who, the minute I heard the first rejection, decided "they rejected me, this isn't good enough" and made a tiny pivot, and then when someone rejects me there too, I do another tiny pivot? Who are you being today in your business? Who are you being today in your creativity? Are you someone who's consuming more than they're creating? Are you someone who's just scrolling through, binge-watching reel after reel of other business coaches and other people in your own niche, and not creating something of your own?

I want you to be really, really honest — and again, you're not going to share that answer with me, you're not going to share it with anyone, you're doing this exercise just for you. So: who am I being in my business right now? I want you to free-write. Pause right here, take five, ten, twenty minutes, whatever it takes, and free-write: who am I being right now in my business?

That's the first question. Let's move to the second. I'm really expecting that you've already free-written who you're being — I hope you have. If you haven't, that's okay, you can go back after this episode, but please do that exercise, it's going to be so damn good.

Second question, very simple: where do I want to go? It's July 2026 — imagine it's July 2027. Where do I want to be? How do I want my business to look? What kind of clients do I work with? What kind of revenue do I generate? Do I have recurring income? Do I have team members? Do I have a suite of products, or do I just sell one thing and go all in? Do I have a hundred people in my program? Have I sold my art to, I don't know, twenty thousand people? Whatever that looks like for you — where is it that I want to go? What is the business milestone I want to have reached in this next year?

Again, free-write, get into as much detail as you can, even if it feels delulu — look at me, a millennial using a Gen Z term. Even if it feels out of reach — if it feels out of reach, remember that where you are today also, at one point, felt out of reach. Every single thing you've achieved so far, at some point, felt delusional. Here I am, six years after starting my business, sitting here going through this big pivot, even though it's affected my monthly revenue — because I made a bunch of money last year, so right now I have the luxury to pivot. And that felt delusional at one point in the past too. So think about what you really, really want this year, no matter how unrealistic or delusional it feels. Write it down.

Third question — and this is where your future-self identity is really at: who needs to show up in order for me to go from where I am today to where I want to go? We talked about where I am today, who's showing up today. We talked about where I want to go, who I want to be a year from now, what I want to have a year from now. Now we bridge that gap — who needs to show up, who do I need to become, to get there? What is the identity of the person who has sold their art to twenty thousand people, has made a million dollars, has made one crore, whatever that looks like for you?

Now, when you're answering this question, I want you to write down the identity piece, not the actions. I don't want you writing "I'm someone who's very disciplined, who creates content every day, who posts three times on Instagram" — those are actions. Posting three times on Instagram is an action, going to the gym twice a week is an action. I want you to think about it from an identity perspective. Who am I being? "I am someone who moves my body no matter what. I am someone who shows up multiple times every day on whatever platforms, no matter what, because I know my visibility is what's driving my business. I am someone who is so devoted to what I have created, that no matter how many rejections I get, I keep going. I keep finding different perspectives to sell the same thing. I keep following up with people. I keep getting more people on consult calls with me, because I'm devoted to this idea, because I know this is an idea that's going to change people's lives." Tap into who you need to be. If it helps, answer the prompt "I'm the kind of person who..." and fill in the blanks.

These statements — the answer to "who needs to show up" — these are the identities you want to embody. This is where you need to go. This is your... not North Pole, oh my god — pole star, no — it's a lighthouse. It is your guiding light. You're out at sea, this is your guiding light. You see the lighthouse blinking, you know that's where you want to go, you're not suddenly going to decide to head right just because.

So the next very, very important thing to do is to start saying no to everything that does not fit that identity. Maybe you're invited to a party on a Sunday night, and you know that Monday morning you want to sit and record three videos, or create some art, or write for three hours, because "I am the kind of person who shows up for my dreams" — that's an identity you've decided for yourself. So you say no to the party.

I want you to start auditing your life using this list — who needs to show up — audit everything keeping that in mind. Over the next few episodes we're also going to talk about how you can switch identities and how to go from where you're at to where you want to go. Say no to everything that does not align with this identity, and that is how you birth the business of your dreams using your identity: I am the sort of person who... — and then write that down. Trust me, the way you look at your business, the way you look at tasks inside your business, will completely transform the minute you do that.

Before I wrap this up, I want to talk to you about the Creative AF Experience. It's a year-long program for the creative entrepreneur that I have created, birthed with all of my love, all of my experience, with this idea of — I want more creators to make more money, I want more creators to be more visible, I want more creators to actually be fucking wealthy. So it's open for enrollment, I'm going to put the link in the show notes and the description. I want to talk to you today a little about the first part of the first module inside this program, which is called Aligned as Fuck. It's about a twelve-week journey where we're going to do exactly this work — we're going to fine-tune your identity, we're going to go even deeper, dive into your values, your why, your superpowers, audit what's misaligned in your life and business right now, and find a way to bring it all together, to use your identity to build a business that is aligned as fuck with who you are. Because here's the thing — if you're a creative like me, your business is you, you are the medium through which you birth every single thing inside your business. That's amazing, but it's also why alignment matters so much — because, like I shared in the beginning, you don't want to be lost, out at sea, like "what the fuck am I doing, how am I going to grow from here, where am I going to go from here." I don't want that for you.

So here is my invitation to you: the Creative AF Experience is a year-long experience, enrollments are open, founding member spots are available — find the links in the description and the show notes. If you have any questions, reach out to me @shalvakap on Instagram. I also did a three-part video series called Creative AF Live, which is available for you for free — if you want a taste of what it's going to be like inside the Creative AF Experience, I'll put a link to that too, in the show notes and description. So join us there — I cannot wait to see what this next year brings forth for you, because honestly, there's so much that can transform and change and come forth for you in one year.

Awesome. That is all I have for you today. I'll see you next time inside Rich as Fuck, Real as Fuck. See you soon, bitches. Bye