Today I want to share with you an exercise I have been doing that can really improve your business. Not just your business but any problems you have personally too. One thing I've noticed is entrepreneurship can be the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Sometimes you might think you're a crazy person because you can think you're so amazing, you have it all together and you're so proud of yourself for this one thing you just did and then you go on Instagram, you read a review or you read a comment and one person can make you feel the lowest of lows. Now you're like, why am I even doing this? This is so stupid! Why would I think I could do this? All of a sudden something good happens the next day and you're back up on those highs. It's crazy that this can be that drastic but it is. When I joke to people that I'm going to quit my business and go work at Target, they laugh because secretly they're thinking, yes….sometimes it feels pretty amazing to think that you could clock in and clock out. But we have to understand this one simple tweak that we can make in less than a minute can completely change the outcome of what we're doing.
I'm a big fan of Brooke Castillo. I have been listening to her podcast for almost a year already. One thing that Brooke talks about is something she calls, ‘The Model'. I'm going to work with you on this model today! I want to really discuss how this is drastically helping or hurting your business. So The Model…there are five parts to it and she's saying that every part of this affects the next thing.
#1:Your Circumstance.
#2: Your thoughts.
#3: Your feelings
#4: Your actions
#5: Your results.
I'm going to give you some examples of maybe what you're feeling right now. We call them before and after. For instance, let's think of your circumstance right now is that you're not making money.Your thought is that business is hard. Maybe your thought is I'm not good enough. All of a sudden because you're thinking that you're feeling I'm not tech savvy, funnels are scary, they're too difficult for me to do it or I don't know how to automate my business and because of that your actions are big. I should say because you're feeling confused. Your actions are that you start to make excuses why you don't have it set up yet, why you haven't done it or why you're not going to do it. Because of that you're creating results which is you're not moving forward in your business. You're not getting the clients you want to have. You're not growing at the rate you want to grow all because it's starting with your thoughts.
So let's think about this. The reality is that you're not making money, that is your circumstance. How can we flip the switch here and switch this thought. Instead of thinking I'm not making money this is hard, this is really hard, maybe your thought can be I can figure anything out. Let's just think about that for a minute. Before you said this is hard and now you're thinking I can figure anything out. Even though something is hard, you're thinking that you can figure this out which will cause your feelings to become more confident that you're going to do whatever it takes. You're going to Google, you're going to YouTube, you're going to call your friend up, you're going to do any of this stuff. When you feel confident your action will be that you either set it up or you outsource it because you can figure everything else out. The result will be your business moves forward. Did I confuse you?! There's no reason to be confused! Why?
That's a thought. Your thought is you're confused at what I just said. I want you to stop every time you have a thought today where you recognize you're having a thought. Whether you open up your fridge at lunch and you're going there's nothing in here to eat…there's a million things in there we've just got to be creative! Does one of your employees never get it right? She never does what I'm asking her? Maybe you want to think what is it? I'm being unclear about the thought and I must not be clear enough. When you're thinking, you're not clear enough. Now all of a sudden your feelings and your actions will change with that employee. I had this client who everybody kept quitting on her. I mean literally every time I talked to her somebody new had quit and she would blame the employee. Every single time. It was always somebody else's fault. When you stay in that mindset you're not going to go anywhere. You're going to continue to go down this spiral and everybody's going to keep quitting on you. The more you can see and take ownership of what you're doing and asking, why does this person keep messing up and not place the blame on them and say what could I be doing more of? What could I be doing better at to help them fully understand this. You will start to see those feelings and actions and your results will change because of it. Let me give you a couple more examples.
Let's think about this. Your circumstance is basically where you're at right now. It's the thing that is happening that's making you think a thought. Something has to happen for you to think something. For example, your circumstance is making you think, money is tight. Have you ever had that thought that money is really tight, I'm not sure how I'm going to pay the bills this month, I'm not sure where rent is coming from or the electric bill? How does that make you feel when you're thinking about money being tight? I know it makes me feel super anxious, scared and because of that sometimes I can't sleep and I start making really quick decisions because I'm in that desperation mode and I'll give up too quickly. The result is a business that looks like you don't know what you're doing because you're making too rash of decisions. I see this happen all the time. I can tell when somebody's business isn't doing well because they are just throwing spaghetti at the wall and trying to see if anything will stick. But they're not letting it stick because they're moving too quickly and it's because they can't stop thinking how tight money is. When a client comes to me and says if I don't start making money by this date…right there that sentence will kill you.
You are basically saying I'm closing my business on this date because that's all you're thinking about. They say that when people hear that they have six months left to live or a year left or whatever it is they actually will typically die when they say the timeline. So if they say six months they really are going to die within six months. It's pretty common. The statistics are crazy because you're putting it in your head. This deadline, this timeline and when you're making negative comments you're already acting as if it's an option to quit your business. That is a scary place to be in. I had a girl say to me, my husband said if I don't start making money by this date I would have to close my business. I hadn't heard from her in a while and I messaged my friend asking if she had heard from her and how her business was. My friend told me she closed it and of course she did because to her it was an option. There was this backup plan. There was this deadline. When you think that it's an option to quit, your results will be that you quit. I don't ever think it's an option to quit. I don't ever think that if this business doesn't go well I have this backup plan. Your thoughts are destroying your dreams. I'm not saying lie to your subconscious and say money is amazing and it's flowing in. When people make these comments I don't know if I believe that this is going to make you start believing it because you really do realize that money is tight. Your bank account is showing you money is tight. Let's focus on something else.
The thought is that I'm excited to serve people. I'm excited to work with future customers. Money can still be tight but you can still have that thought. Does that make sense? If I'm excited to serve people, how do I feel? Well I feel really confident! I'm looking forward to working with them. My action is, I will talk to people like I have the best product and I can really, really help you. You will be so excited about the way that I'm talking that you are going to want to sign up because you're going this is the program for me! There is a difference between the fact that I should say it between feeling desperate and just trying to get anybody to buy because you need money vs. you truly believing you can serve and help and they feel that energy. People always tell me they love my energy. I have such high energy, I have such a different energy and I never understood what that meant but I think it's because I'm a very positive person by nature and because of that I think very positively and the energy that I put off is that you can do anything that is possible. People feel your energy, you cannot hide desperation and you cannot hide something not working well. You think you're hiding it but people can feel it. If you think you're not getting customers it's because you're putting off the energy of things aren't going well and you're not getting customers. You have to be careful.
A year ago with my annual event that I was doing, I was having this mentality that I'm just really pushing my live event right now. I need to convince people they need to come to this event. This is a good event. One of my friends said, be careful with the language you're using. Do you really want to push people? You want to push this event on people, you want to convince people to come to this event? I didn't think anything of it because that was my current focus. She said all you need to do is show up and talk about the amazing opportunity and people will be signing up all the time. I had this epiphany of I haven't been doing that. I really have been thinking I'm going to push, I'm going to convince and I really stepped up in that moment and decided I'm just going to show up and I'm going to share the most exciting part about this event and why they want to come and that day alone we had this spike in enrollment when I had not had sold any tickets that week. So if you're thinking I don't know if this is going to work…I'm telling you it will!! This year's live event had been the lightest and easiest year for me to sell tickets and I really haven't felt like I was selling. I felt like I'm just showing up and sharing my excitement for this event. I'm showing up at a different place and because I'm thinking different thoughts my results are directly being affected.
Let me share a couple more because maybe I haven't hit one that has resonated with you yet. This was one that I was thinking and it was definitely hurting me and I want to show you and maybe you're here right now. Before my circumstance or my thought about my business was that I was small. There's some big players in this space and I'm very, very small and I don't have a huge audience. So my feeling was that I wasn't good enough or maybe people were agreeing with me that I was small because I was small. So clearly not everybody was jumping on the bandwagon and I was staying small. My action was I wouldn't ask to speak on big stages or on big podcasts because I thought the people that are big so why would they want me on their show??The result was that I wasn't getting on big podcasts. Make sense? I had to realize that the new thought was I know that I have so much experience and I can truly help people. It didn't change the fact that I still at the time had a small audience but my focus was I really have real experience. I'm a real entrepreneur. I've been doing this for 16 years. I have a seven figure business. I've created a very successful company and I can help people when I think like that. I feel confident and I pitch myself and I say hey listen, I see you have this amazing podcast, I have amazing experience, I think I'd be a great fit for your show and guess what?? I'm getting on big podcasts! I'm getting big speaking opportunities! These are things that are changing the results because of one thought. I'm not lying to myself and changing my circumstance, the circumstance hasn't changed but the thought behind it has. Do you see the effect this can have on your business? Do you see the power?
We are saying things about ourselves, about our families, about our friends, about our business and it's causing us to do things that maybe we're not proud of. Maybe we're not happy with. You have this opportunity to completely change the trajectory of your life, not just your business but your life. So here's what I want you to do today. I want to make this really tactical for you. I want you to stop and observe every time a thought comes through. You may be judging this blog right now whether you think it's amazing or maybe you think this is so stupid. You have absolutely thought something right now. As the day goes on, stop and think for a moment. I want you to say to yourself, ok…that was a thought. What is that thought making me feel? When I feel this way what am I doing? What are the actions associated with these feelings? When I take these actions what is the result I'm getting? You might not be happy with that result at all. The only way you can change the result is by changing the thought. So what is a different thing I can think when I open that refrigerator and I say I have nothing to eat or I open my closet and think I have nothing to wear?
How many times have you thought, I'm really busy. I'm really confused. I don't get it. That's when you can say I can do anything. I can figure out anything. I don't get it right now but I will figure it out. Having that phrase in your back pocket, having this model in your back pocket, the next time you react to something or you have a thought about something slow down and figure out how this model can work for you. Take time today, pause, observe, fill in the blanks of what you're doing and then switch and change up those thoughts to get the result you're looking for. I promise you it's going to make a big, big big, big change in what you're doing!
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