I’ve taken a pause from my weekly Starting a Small Business series to talk about something that’s been all over my emails and news feeds lately.
It’s fear of success.
Derek Halpern of Social Triggers fame sent an email about this on Monday – it was about a guy who wasn’t willing to invest a few thousand dollars to scale up and skyrocket his business, unless he earned $5,000 extra in his business first.
That kind of thinking is counter-productive. It forces you to rely on luck to grow your business, rather than sound, strategic investment. And it keeps you from growing. It keeps you from achieving the success you dream of.
And when it comes down to it…not investing in your company and then complaining that you aren’t able to grow your business is just shooting yourself in the foot. Why would you do that?
You don’t have to spend thousands on growing your business – you can spend a few hundred for a program like Firepole Marketing’s Audience Business Mastermind, which guarantees to help you add $3-6k per month to your company’s income, just by learning to listen to your audience (quick note: this program is amazing and I highly recommend it if you want big results for a small investment…)
If you have no money at all to invest, then you have to invest time. Hoping and wishing for more business so that you can “afford” to invest in your growth, will never, ever, EVER work.
Luck Will Never Bring You Success
I used to have the same mindset as Derek Halpern’s acquaintance. I wanted to spend money to make money, but I was afraid to do it. I would say to myself, “Okay – if I have a really good month next month, I’ll put some of that money into a program that will help me scale up.”
Guess what; I never spent the money. Even when I did “luck out” and have a higher revenue month, I’d just withdraw more for myself, or try to build up a rainy day fund. But what usually ended up happening was that I’d find other ways to fritter that extra money away on e-books and swag and other things I didn’t really need…I just bought them because they were cheaper than doing what I really needed to succeed.
I used to be afraid of success.
There was really only one way to get over that fear – I had to get to the root of what was causing that feeling, and deal with that. It was an internal struggle that had to end. Once I dealt with it, I knew I could begin to really help others do the same, and along with that, my business could grow. My Broke to 6 Figures megapost talks about some of these struggles (if you haven’t read it, you can get access to it here).
Too many people treat their businesses like a lotto play. They just figure that by playing the game, eventually they will win. For most people, the win never comes. But the great thing about owning a business as opposed to playing the lotto?
You can control the outcome.
So what are you going to do – keep throwing hopeful thoughts into thin air, or go inside yourself to figure out what’s holding you back, and kill those limiting beliefs?