There’s no more important business tip, than to learn what’s holding us back.
Over the last year, I’ve been getting more in depth with what really makes a good entrepreneur. What makes people successful and what sets the entrepreneur apart from the rest of their friends and family.
I figured that if I can learn this, I can use that to help all of our clients who want to be better business owners and entrepreneurs.
You know how they say that if you want to be successful you should surround yourself with successful people? Well we’ve had the opportunity to do just that and what I’ve learned is incredible.
If you truly want business success….
You need to work on these three things.
- Improving your skills
- Get over your fears
- Never give up
After reading business book after business book, after self-help book, after motivation book, after a bunch of business biographies, those are the 3 top pieces of advice I can take away.
They are the three steps to creating massive impact in your life and in your business. Today I am giving you some business tips to help you get over your fears and turn on the awesome power you have inside you that is your entrepreneurial drive.
Top Business Tips on What Holds Us Back
I was listening to a periscope earlier this morning which was kind of the inspiration for this post. If you don’t know what periscope is, it’s a live streaming service that allows people to create live TV style broadcasts from their phone.
We were talking about fears, and which one of those fears had the most impact on what we did with our life. It also ties in perfectly with something I have been thinking about for the past couple of weeks.
In my coaching calls with clients, we’ve been talking about marketing, business and the next steps they should take in order to put their ideas into action. Now I found it interesting that on more than one occasion I’ve been told by people who are struggling to take the next step, that they are perfectionists.
What is a perfectionist Anyway?
Why do we need to attain perfection? A lot of people will tell you that it stems from a fear of failure. Saying we’re perfectionists allows us to procrastinate and not take action, because we’re waiting for the moment, the product, the content to be perfect. It never will be. That’s why we need to get it out there and risk failure.
We’ve all heard that it’s okay to fail, failure builds character and that Thomas Edison failed 5000 times before he invented the light bulb.
For most people however it’s not a fear of failure that holds us back. It’s the fear of our friends and families seeing us fail which is the reason we never start. We’re afraid of looking bad, of looking weak, or vulnerable, or stupid to those around us.
We’re programmed to present ourselves as smart, strong and together people. We want people to admire us and we definitely don’t want them to see us fail. However for some of us, this is where success lies.
Success lies right on the edge of our comfort zone. Right on the edge of the box where we risk looking stupid, where we risk failing.
Something powerful that Ray Higdon said the other day is that we have our list of priorities and for some whether they realize it or not, Protect Self-Image is higher on that list than making a difference.
But who are we protecting that self-image for?
I can assure you it’s for people whose opinion doesn’t matter. Their opinion doesn’t matter, yet we place how we look in front of them higher on our list than achieving success and making a difference.
You could change the world, and make a difference, however you won’t, because protect self-image is higher on your priority list. Isn’t that terrible?
You could be the next inventor of something that changes the world. You could be the person that inspires that inventor to change the world. You could be the person who lifts up and inspires people everywhere, but not if you maintain your priorities.
If you maintain your priorities and protect your self-image, you won’t.
Protecting your self-image and making a difference are two completely opposite priorities. If you never put yourself out there and risk looking a little foolish you’ll never be able to take the next step and make the impact you know you’re capable of.
Which brings me back to being a perfectionist. We don’t need to create the most perfect piece of art, the most perfect blog post, or have the most perfect online video. 99% of the people around us will never create anything and put it out into the world. They will never risk looking foolish.
But for the 1% of us reading this article. We just might. If we even create something that we look back on in 5 years and say is garbage. I guarantee that piece of garbage is going to be infinitely more powerful and impactful than that half-done masterpiece your neighbour never finished and never showed the world.
This is true for anything we want to create. We always risk looking stupid, when we put ourselves and our work out there for people to see. It’s scary, nerve racking and I still get butterflies before I send something out. However it gets less and less each time.
I’ve come to realize that because most people find it so terrifying to put their work out in public, that when they see someone they know doing it, they get inspired.
There’s rarely any negativity (I haven’t seen any), but I have had people tell me that they’re really inspired to start doing something of their own. In fact I just had an email this morning letting me know that they love my videos on business and it’s inspired them to create their own.
It’s not hard to be a leader today. You have so many avenues to inspire those around you. The world is evolving into a digitally connected, interwoven web of videos, photos and ideas.
Take a moment to think about whose opinion you’re worried about. Does it make a difference when it comes to your success? Is it worth more to you than changing the world and inspiring those around you?
As a marketing leader, my goal is to inspire business owners to step out of their comfort zone and make an impact in the people and the world around them. By focusing on preserving self-image for people whose opinion doesn’t matter we can never truly create, we can’t make a difference.
We’re always going to run into nay sayers and unfortunately sometimes those people are our close friends and family. I guarantee you, that when you run into someone who has a negative opinion about what you’re creating, the problem lies with them. They have their own internal struggle that they’re dealing with. They have their own fears that they can’t get passed and they’re more often than not projecting those fears and limiting beliefs on what you’re doing.
I believe in you, I think we can never truly look foolish. Honestly, if you write a post, or make a goofy video where you’re not on top of your game, the worst that will happen is that people will see you as being human, and they’ll be able to connect with you more.
Most successful business owners have at least one major failure in their life. In fact, I know business owners who won’t work with someone as their partner unless they’ve had a failure. Failure and risking looking stupid is a vital part of growing as a successful entrepreneur.
We put ourselves out there when we decided that the traditional 9 to 5 wasn’t for us. We went against convention when we told our families that we’re going to risk it all and go into business for ourselves. Even if it is part time, even if it’s a side business, it takes guts. We can be fearless.
Take the next step, whatever it is, don’t strive for perfection, get version 1.0 out there and start inspiring those around you. You can make a difference.
Recent Comments