Good news, bad news. The bad news is, you are your biggest obstacle. The good news is, I can tell you how to fix it, don’t you worry. So let me explain what I mean.
So, in business most of our problems, our issues, generally appear to come from others. For example, have you ever said this –“Oh Amazon is taking over everything.”
How about — “Oh, I can’t write this in a blog because everybody else will say this and that.” When you think about it, this is what is in your mind.
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You have self-limiting beliefs. And you have worries about what everybody else thinks about you.
Now, when I say you have that, that means you do, I do, its natural. It’s built in. They’ve done experiments about it.
You might see photographs where they put babies in swimming pools and babies go down under the water, they’re all smiles, they swim around. You think to yourself, ‘Oh, no they can’t swim. They can’t hold their breath.’
But they don’t yet know what fear is. They don’t know anything. They are blissfully unaware of everything.
Unfortunately, as life develops they develop knowledge and they grow up. And it all changes. You start to get aware of your surroundings, you start to get aware of what people are telling you.
You are marketed to, you are taught, you learn. But everything you develop, comes from others. It comes from what is there.
Even in work, can you remember when you were maybe 15, 16, maybe 17, and you had a job and you just did it?
You just did stuff and if you enjoyed doing something, you would just do it. But at some point rather, you left school, you got a job and then you are getting paid for it.
And then you didn’t enjoy it, because it was a job. Because at that point, that’s what happens. That’s what we’re taught, that’s what develops.
When we are young and naïve and we don’t know any better, we’re keen, we’re good for anything. But once we develop knowledge, once we know more about our surroundings, we develop fears and complaints and moans and thoughts.
It’s the Same for Our Businesses
And this is lot of the same in business. So for instance, a lot of people will say, when I would tell them, “you should be blogging” or “you should be writing about information” or, “you should be giving out all ” the information about your industry, your trade, your products, your services” — and I’ve had people tell me before, “No, we can’t do that because I’ll have complaints“.
You might even say, “I’ll have people ringing me up, I’ll have other people in our trade, ringing me up and complaining.”
Well, just stay back a bit, look in on this conversation and think, ‘Who? What are you actually concerned about there?’
If you think about it, you are concerned about what other people think about you. And that is going to hold you back my friend. And is that what you want?
So it’s holding you back and stopping you progressing, so you are letting other people’s agendas or potential agendas stifle your development. And that’s not good.
You should let yourself go. Let yourself run free.
I Can’t Compete with the Big Dogs
The other one as well is for instance, you could take a big company, like Amazon, and you could say, “Well amazon does that, and we could never compete with them.”
Why not? Why does everyone say that? Why do you and I automatically say that? Why can’t you? What held Jeff Bezos back? Nothing.
He didn’t think that no one could compete with, he can’t compete with Walmart or in UK with Tescos or whoever else was there. He just got on with it.
He had set his goals, he had vision and he had his drive. Or still has. He goes for it. Nothing holds him back.
That’s a bad example because nobody, seemingly can compete with Amazon. Or can they? Is everyone going to give up? But that is a self-limiting belief. That is putting a ceiling on yourself.
Now Dan Sullivan, who is a Strategic Coach, has an exercise to develop the 10X mindset, so you take where your business is today.
So it’s February 2016 and you take a period of time, say its 10 years, and you want to 10x your business, you want to multiply by 10 times.
We are talking 10 times sales, 10 times profits, whatever, 10 times the customers, 10 times the staff, whatever you want.
And first of all, the initial reaction is, ‘Wow, you must be kidding, I’ve been trying for years. I couldn’t do that.’ But then what he does is, tell you to look at where you are today.
Then say just for example, your sales are a $100,000 per year. Now you start up may be 5 years ago, and I’m just making these figures up, but 5 years ago, your figures were 0 and at some point, you hit 10,000.
I mean it might have been in a few weeks, or a few months, might have been a year. You’re 10,000, you’ve gone from 10,000 to a 100,000. Now that is 10x. Did you plan that? Was it in a plan?
When you hit 10,000 if someone said you’ll be at 100,000 soon. Would you have just laughed? And said, ‘that’s nice.’
Well, why are you setting the ceiling? Now why can’t you do it again? There are ways it can be done. Businesses out there do 10 times a sale that you do in your industry.
Somewhere in the world, maybe lots of them, maybe one. But it can be done. What’s holding you back? It’s your self-limiting belief and this is the thing.
This is why I am trying to get through. A lot of these obstacles are in your mind. ‘Competition, oh it’s all the competition.’ The competition is there for everybody.
‘Prices, oh I can’t put my prices up.’ No one will buy it. Why not? There are companies supplying what you supply.
Some are cheaper than you, some are more expensive than you. They’ve all got customers. What’s holding you back?
The most expensive supplier in your industry has customers. What makes them, you are saying they are better than you?
The cheapest one there in your trade, there is only one at any point that can be the cheapest. So it’s not price, it’s just your belief.
Your mind that’s telling you that it is. Your customer’s not interested, they just want your service.
So whenever you develop a problem, what I want you to do, is step back. Look at yourself, look at it from the outside, and try and find where you are the obstacle, you have a notion, have a mindset, that is holding you back and developing that problem and then try and remove it.
Now that’s not the easiest thing. But if you can practice this exercise, eventually you will find that in your business, in your life and in everything, you are in control of your own destiny.
And that is a fantastic way to be. Because then you can try an ultra. No one else matters. Nothing else matters. It’s down to you.
Perhaps you don’t want to, perhaps you haven’t got the drive to do it, or perhaps anyone altered a bit. But as long as you know that you can. And it’s down to you, the way you think, you can go get it.
Maybe go listen to a Tony Robin cd, something like that. Whatever. You’ll be good. Don’t you worry.
If you want to get in touch with me, you can email me anytime, I reply to everyone single one. Its jon@marketingforowners.com, just email me anytime.
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