Don’t get in your own way! Debunk the business myths holding you back and free yourself up for unlimited success.
There’s a question I try to remember to ask myself from time to time and I don’t do it often enough and that is, “What do you believe that’s not true?” I think that’s a fantastic question for both business and life. What is it that you believe that is not true? Let’s just apply it strictly to business. If you ask yourself this question about different parts of your business, or if you ask yourself this question about things you’re complaining about, or you ask yourself this question about things you don’t think are possible, it might break down some barriers in that it will make you think differently. I think that’s what it does for me, but again, I don’t ask myself it enough.
For example, are you burned out with the industry? Are you burned out with your business? The story that you tell yourself is that there’s no money in this business, there’s too many guys not charging enough money, so there’s no room for me to make money because I can’t charge enough, or I live in a bad area where nobody needs a service like mine. Is that story real, or might it be that you’re incorrect? It’s simply that you’re doing things wrong, or you haven’t learned something you need to know that would open up a whole new set of possibilities and completely change your mindset and paradigm.
I think it’s a super important question. What is it you believe that isn’t true? Marketing doesn’t work. Door hangers don’t work in my market. Online marketing doesn’t work in my area, because I’m in Florida, and they’re older individuals and they don’t really go online to do business. Social media doesn’t work at all. It’s just cat images and things like that, so you can’t really actually sell anything using social media on and on and on, or there’s no real money in this industry. I really should be in a different industry. Lawn care, that’s not a good industry, but boy I know somebody that made a whole lot of money in cleaning, that’s a good industry.
That’s a false belief. How many of those are there? There are no employees, we can’t find employees, there are no good employees left anywhere anymore, so I can’t grow my business, or it’s too difficult to grow a business and manage employees, so I’m just going to stay small. All of those are examples of limiting beliefs that I believe are all inaccurate. We all have them at different levels.
10 years ago I had limiting beliefs that were totally different than my limiting beliefs today. I don’t even know what my limiting beliefs are now, but I know I’ve got a bunch of them. I know I’m completely wrong on a whole bunch of stuff. I know that I’m blinded on a bunch of stuff. I know that I walk around saying, “Oh, I don’t think that’ll work. Oh, that’s not possible. No, no we can’t do that.” I know that. Sometimes I even hear some things like that come out my mouth. I’m like, “Okay, I could be right, but am I sure I’m right. Am I limiting my business? Could we go from where we’re at now to 5 times the size we are in a matter of years if I didn’t believe something falsely?” I could go on and on.
The question, again, is what is it that you believe that is not true? You want to question as much as you can, and I want to question as much as I can about what I say is or isn’t possible and see if that’s reality. To me the way you figure that stuff out is by becoming friends with the really successful people that are ahead of you. It’s by reading, and studying, and getting in business groups, and getting in marketing groups, and surrounding yourself with people way ahead of you so that they’ll inspire you and give you energy and they’ll question some of the insanity of what you believe only because they were there at one time. They used to be there and they’ve broken through and they’ve got to the next level, but they’ll force you to question things. You’ve got to be around that. Ask that question as much as you can and I think it’s business changing and actually life changing.
