What’s Holding You Back from the Success You Want

This is a topic I've wanted to talk about for quite some time. Something that I believe will help you grow your business and make you more successful in every aspect of your life. It’s one of those issues that we all like to believe doesn’t really affect us. We tell ourselves “we grew out of that a long time ago.” Or, “sure that affects other people, but not me.” We all pay a steep price for ignoring it. I see this with my business clients all the time. These would-be entrepreneurs look at their business performance and they can’t understand why their struggling. They have no idea what’s really holding them back. Yet it’s obvious to me. It’s the same thing that holds all of us back in all aspects of our lives. I’m talking about fear. We all suffer from it. The only difference between those who are successful and those who struggle is the successful people learn to master it. Fear is the oldest and strongest emotion that all human beings share. It’s actually hard-wired into our nervous system – our subconscious. And it creates its own self-fulfilling dynamic as we give in to it. You see, at the end of the day, the majority of people are all too afraid of offending people – of stirring up conflict, of standing up or out from the crowd, of taking bold action. And when an entrepreneur gives in to fear like that, they lose energy, they lose momentum, they lose the ability to be confident in their decision-making. They can no longer take advantage of the opportunities that fit in with their own strategic alignment. Unfortunately all that eventually translates into inaction. And that inaction or procrastination ultimately leads many people to have less and less confidence over time. Our relationship to fear has evolved for thousands of years. It’s changed over time from a primitive natural fear of being killed, of immense danger, to a more generalized anxiety about the future. Now the majority of people have a fearful attitude about life itself that I believe dominates most of our lives. I'll explain a bit more about that in a second, but because fear has evolved like it has, we come to see almost every event in terms of risk. When you do that, you tend to exaggerate the danger of your own vulnerability. Therefore, you focus on the potential adversity as opposed to the upside. But as a rational, productive, and ultimately successful entrepreneur, it’s necessary for you to overcome this trend and evolve beyond your fears. Realize that no one is born without fear. It’s actually unnatural to not feel fear. To overcome its constraining forces on your growth – of you as a person, you as an entrepreneur and your business – you have to go through a conscious process to overcome it. But before I walk you through how to do that, I want to give you a little bit more background. From my perspective, America was once a country that was full of pragmatists and realists. Realistic thinking. But today, with the threats we face in society no longer being so violent, so hazardous, our character has changed. Reality of life has become something that most people try to avoid. Something they want to escape from by means whatever means. And our culture has manufactured endless ways to escape reality: Movies. TV. Websites. Anything to help escape for a period of time. No matter how challenging the economic times might be, we now live in a society of relative prosperity. We are all better off than our ancestors. But in many ways that has turned out to be a detriment to the resilient spirits of many people. Today, most people feel that they naturally deserve things. They are due certain privileges. When any setback occurs, it’s almost like a surprise. How could it have ever happened? And because we live in these comfortable circumstances, our main goal then becomes how to maintain the comfort and security that we have. Remember we have these layers of fear that we’re neurologically hard-wired for, so our natural tendency is to interpret any minor, temporary obstacles as something larger – as bigger setbacks, as crises. We become more sensitive to the slightest risk or threat to the status quo. We find it harder to tolerate feelings of fear because they are now more vague and troubling as opposed to direct and acute. So many people default into a passive mode rather than taking action to face down our perceived threats. While you can't stop the tide of fantasy and escapism that basically pervades society these days, what you can do as an individual, as a successful entrepreneur, is decide to buck the trend and create a more powerful you. Ultimately you are born with the greatest weapon in all of nature – a rational conscious mind. It has the power to expand your vision far and wide. It gives you the unique capacity to distinguish patterns and events and learn from the past. It allows you to glimpse into the future. See through facades and appearances. You must use that gift to fight escapism and move in the opposite direction. Instead you have to focus outward and become a keen observer of everything that’s going around you. You are fighting for your own clarity. You don’t want to escape. Things will always happen, but it’s your mind that chooses to interpret them either as positive or negative. If you can see everything (or at least most things), as a challenge, a positive – it will help you combat that fear. What every successful entrepreneur needs to do at some point is take the opposite approach to the norm if they're going to be successful. Instead of becoming discouraged and depressed by any obstacle, see it as a wakeup call. As a challenge that will transform you into a better, more successful entrepreneur. Into someone who can be successful no matter what's thrown at you. When that happens, your energy levels rise. You move to the more aggressive side of growing your business. You are able to surprise your competitors with boldness and ultimately, you care less what people think and paradoxically this causes them to admire you more. It starts with a choice: Decide to NOT live in fear. Suddenly all those obstacles won’t be so insurmountable.