Are we taking credit for more than what our own initiatives merit? More responsible than we actually are for the success of projects? Do we begin to believe that our value is much higher than reality actually shows. Yes, our knowhow brought success yet what you believe brought you success may or may not be true.
"It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so."
Will Rogers
Whenever we experience success in the workplace, we usually get a very positive feeling out of it, and this generally results in a net positive for us. Our self-esteem goes up and we have more confidence in our abilities. However, this only goes so far: often, when we have a string of successes, we begin to adopt a handful of beliefs that aren’t necessarily true.
This is a human failing, one that anyone with some measure of success can fall prey to. I’ve fallen prey to it myself - more than once, I’ve managed to make myself believe that I was somehow superior simply because I performed my individual role well. This is a dangerous thing to ever believe, even if it happens to be true. It alters your own behavior in a lot of ways and sets you up for failure, not for success.
What to Forget During Wild Economic Times…
At a recent global conference of top business coaches where practical business building tips for wild economic times were being documented – counter intuitive findings arose. The business owners doing well and who succeed further knew what to forget, ignore and stop doing. Essential business is learning to forget. These owners challenged beliefs about what brought them success during good times, carried forth what’s true and applicable and disregarded old believes or “I Knows” to be even more profitable and productive during today’s uncertainty. Picture your “I know” cup filled to the brim without capacity for more know how. Unless you release or forget the “I know” contents there won’t be room for business truths to be revealed.Yet forgetting is darn near impossible because there is such a vested interest intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and physically into “I know”. After all it got you this far. Forgetting means change and has implications affecting how others view who you are and how you view yourself. In essence your very identity and ego are at stake.
The Trouble With Success
During good times the tendency to believe we're responsible for far more of the credit than we deserve. Where to know what to do and stop doing?You realize rationally it makes sense then to forget. It is difficult and until I learned to forget these key “I know” beliefs about business building I was limited on the amount of success I could attract. I absolutely needed to forget these powerfully limiting beliefs in order to attract future success.
1. Forget about being the best business “doer”, the perfectionist and believing “no one” can do it as well as me
2. Forget about re-enrolling in the “school of hard knocks” where by the time I discover success it is going to be too late and
3. Forget about just knowing “how to” when it is about getting it done that matters.
Statistics from the U.S. Department of Commerce still show approximately one million business failures a year. Why would you go into business to work hard, defy long odds of success, and assume a large amount of debt to earn less and sacrifice more to receive only a meager return on your life’s energy? The answer is you would not. Yet if you are like most business owners with the key relationships to vendors and customers while simultaneously performing most of the key operations you are likely to end up in the situation described. Certainly, we went into business to achieve loftier goals and not to drain our energy for the title of “employer and employee”. We have an expensive job today, not a business. We are the chief business “doer” and not a business owner.
Before I became the business owner of a business coaching firm in Texas, I was an entrepreneur with several start-ups companies while I concurrently reviewed over 838 companies over a several year period with the intent to acquire a company I was passionate about. During that extensive research I met tens-and-tens of business owners at that pinnacle point in their business ownership career. I recognized that very few sellers were going to see any significant financial reward for their efforts. Why? Because these business owners were the chief business “doers”. The value of a business is the sustainable discretionary cash flows under the new ownership. And without the original owner, the cash flows were appreciably less under new ownership. These business owners forgot that to get full economic value the business-of-business is to be profitable regardless who owns it.
There are hundreds of thousands of businesses between 3 to 75 employees in the USA that perform below their capabilities. Often the business owner lacks the people and systems to emphasize how to play the game of business better. Our ability to play up to our potential is not only about technical ability. It is our ability to attract, select and retain a team dedicated and aligned with your vision who can service clients with your distinct products and services in order to win. I recognized this in my own businesses that my strengths at doing were my strongest shortcomings at being a more effective leader – business owner. As an entrepreneur and business coach I can now look more objectively at another entrepreneur’s business. I see the opportunities and shortcomings of these businesses from an outsider’s perspective to recognize when the owner is being the chief “doer”.
Sports teams and athletes have long recognized the benefit of a coach whether they are winning or not. Why would the coaching benefits to business owners be any different? Business coaches identify what you need to forget and place you on a predictable success path. They help us get more business, learn how to run our business and become a better business owner by sharing the time tested and proven methodologies of the success with us.
Isn’t this definition more like what we had in mind when we started our business? A commercial, profitable enterprise that operates without the business owner always being there. This definition provides us the business ownership freedom you were seeking. Even if we are committed to working the hours then earn more for our labor. Working hard ourselves does not get us further ahead long term as we saw then it came time to sell the company. We are still trading our time for money. There is a limited amount of time available to us. We need to forget about doing it all and harnessing our team and systems.
Forget About Re-Enrolling in the “School of Hard Knocks”
Prior to business coaching, I enrolled and re-enrolled into the “school of hard knocks” or self-discovery and invested at least $30m to $50m per year tuition for several years for this difficult doctorate. From my academic, corporate and family backgrounds, I believed that originality, complexity and difficulty was better, more true, more important, and made the most difference in success. Furthermore, my mindset was of economic scarcity. The world was a zero sum game. In order for you to win I had to lose and vise versa. I did not trust the concepts of simplicity and abundance. Although, this thought kept recurring. If economic scarcity was “real” then the world would be exactly as it was thousands of years ago. Today we have more of life’s riches than ever before. I was looking for the hard way – no the hardest way - my way to success. After several years of seeking I found the better knowledge. I had exhausted my ways and discovered that easy was better than hard. What was it in your belief that makes discovery of success difficult?
The knowledge was out there. Why was I not receptive to tap into it? I did not believe in the altruism of people willing to publish their success and share it in such explicit detail. Yet when I finally decided to seek I discovered that there were numerous laws of success as true as the laws of nature and philosophy. The law of correspondence - cause and effect was most significant because if do the same things others have done I should get similar results. I was delighted to have discovered these laws and eagerly wanted to begin applying them in my businesses. These laws generate the same result each time regardless of who applies them and they don’t wear out. I don’t fight these laws any longer. I work with them. I’m still learning what to and how to apply them - when, how much and/or how fast. I willingly forgot my old beliefs, ate “crow” and choose to enroll as a student of success vs. re-enrolling in the “school of hard knocks”. Do you believe you can learn these laws of success from what others have done and can you do as well by applying them?
Business coaching brings you this business literacy while accelerating your learning effectiveness.
Business coaches specialize in holding you accountable to your dreams.
Forget About Being the Best Business “Doer”
Often business ownership leaves us vulnerable to an “I know” attitude. Your strong need to express entrepreneurial creativity and independent autonomy are the very reasons why you are providing the product or service. We are passionate about what you are doing. And this is where we get entrapped - doing vs. being the business owner. This is an expensive lesson. No matter how strong your entrepreneurial traits and “I know” beliefs are they cannot defy the laws of business success. Until I forgot my “I knows” I was doomed to limited success.Statistics from the U.S. Department of Commerce still show approximately one million business failures a year. Why would you go into business to work hard, defy long odds of success, and assume a large amount of debt to earn less and sacrifice more to receive only a meager return on your life’s energy? The answer is you would not. Yet if you are like most business owners with the key relationships to vendors and customers while simultaneously performing most of the key operations you are likely to end up in the situation described. Certainly, we went into business to achieve loftier goals and not to drain our energy for the title of “employer and employee”. We have an expensive job today, not a business. We are the chief business “doer” and not a business owner.
Before I became the business owner of a business coaching firm in Texas, I was an entrepreneur with several start-ups companies while I concurrently reviewed over 838 companies over a several year period with the intent to acquire a company I was passionate about. During that extensive research I met tens-and-tens of business owners at that pinnacle point in their business ownership career. I recognized that very few sellers were going to see any significant financial reward for their efforts. Why? Because these business owners were the chief business “doers”. The value of a business is the sustainable discretionary cash flows under the new ownership. And without the original owner, the cash flows were appreciably less under new ownership. These business owners forgot that to get full economic value the business-of-business is to be profitable regardless who owns it.
There are hundreds of thousands of businesses between 3 to 75 employees in the USA that perform below their capabilities. Often the business owner lacks the people and systems to emphasize how to play the game of business better. Our ability to play up to our potential is not only about technical ability. It is our ability to attract, select and retain a team dedicated and aligned with your vision who can service clients with your distinct products and services in order to win. I recognized this in my own businesses that my strengths at doing were my strongest shortcomings at being a more effective leader – business owner. As an entrepreneur and business coach I can now look more objectively at another entrepreneur’s business. I see the opportunities and shortcomings of these businesses from an outsider’s perspective to recognize when the owner is being the chief “doer”.
Sports teams and athletes have long recognized the benefit of a coach whether they are winning or not. Why would the coaching benefits to business owners be any different? Business coaches identify what you need to forget and place you on a predictable success path. They help us get more business, learn how to run our business and become a better business owner by sharing the time tested and proven methodologies of the success with us.
Isn’t this definition more like what we had in mind when we started our business? A commercial, profitable enterprise that operates without the business owner always being there. This definition provides us the business ownership freedom you were seeking. Even if we are committed to working the hours then earn more for our labor. Working hard ourselves does not get us further ahead long term as we saw then it came time to sell the company. We are still trading our time for money. There is a limited amount of time available to us. We need to forget about doing it all and harnessing our team and systems.
- Key Thing to Forget – Don’t be the chief business “doer”.
- Key Thing to Learn – Be the best business owner – leader.
Forget About Re-Enrolling in the “School of Hard Knocks”
Prior to business coaching, I enrolled and re-enrolled into the “school of hard knocks” or self-discovery and invested at least $30m to $50m per year tuition for several years for this difficult doctorate. From my academic, corporate and family backgrounds, I believed that originality, complexity and difficulty was better, more true, more important, and made the most difference in success. Furthermore, my mindset was of economic scarcity. The world was a zero sum game. In order for you to win I had to lose and vise versa. I did not trust the concepts of simplicity and abundance. Although, this thought kept recurring. If economic scarcity was “real” then the world would be exactly as it was thousands of years ago. Today we have more of life’s riches than ever before. I was looking for the hard way – no the hardest way - my way to success. After several years of seeking I found the better knowledge. I had exhausted my ways and discovered that easy was better than hard. What was it in your belief that makes discovery of success difficult? The knowledge was out there. Why was I not receptive to tap into it? I did not believe in the altruism of people willing to publish their success and share it in such explicit detail. Yet when I finally decided to seek I discovered that there were numerous laws of success as true as the laws of nature and philosophy. The law of correspondence - cause and effect was most significant because if do the same things others have done I should get similar results. I was delighted to have discovered these laws and eagerly wanted to begin applying them in my businesses. These laws generate the same result each time regardless of who applies them and they don’t wear out. I don’t fight these laws any longer. I work with them. I’m still learning what to and how to apply them - when, how much and/or how fast. I willingly forgot my old beliefs, ate “crow” and choose to enroll as a student of success vs. re-enrolling in the “school of hard knocks”. Do you believe you can learn these laws of success from what others have done and can you do as well by applying them?
Business coaching brings you this business literacy while accelerating your learning effectiveness.
- Key Thing to Forget: Don’t continue to re-enroll in the school of hard knocks
- Key Thing to Learn: Be a student of success
Forget About Just Knowing “How To” When It Is About Getting It Done That Matters
I’ve spoken to hundreds of business owners that state that even when they finally know what to do and want the reward they are not willing to pay the price in dollars or personal energy. Instead they want things to be easier. They tend to forget the hidden price they pay by remaining where they are in the perception of security and comfort that comes in the form of loss of personal freedom. By failing to invest in their team, they spend more hours working, earn less and generally receive less of life’s rewards. What is this worth to you to get your time back, work with a higher quality team and make more money? Priceless.Business coaches specialize in holding you accountable to your dreams.
- Key Thing to Forget: Knowing without acting is not enough
- Key Thing to Learn: Hold yourself accountable with a business coach
If you're having this discussion about what you believe that ain't so, then give me a call. This is what ActionCOACH - Business Coaching do! Challenge your beliefs and give you insights as to what works. Thinking Bigger, Insisting on Win/Win, Being First to Inspire!
eM: StephenMarino@ActionCOACH.com ph: 972 709 6776
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