Success Is An Inside Job:  Why Mindset Overrules Skillset Every Time

When I first started my current business, I already had 20 years experience in corporate management, previous experience as an entrepreneur, and a graduate degree in business, a full year of which was spent immersing myself in entrepreneurship.  I had been a strong employee.  I shined even more as a student.  

As soon as I started my business, I enrolled in a 12 month program with a nationally known, highly successful business coach to master the skill of enrollment (aka, sales), among other things.   I attended every call, coaching session and mastermind. I did all the homework assignments, had extra coaching and support from multiple buddies in the program, and practiced the sales skills diligently and often.  

Between my business experience, masters degree and additional entrepreneurial training, I was looking pretty darn good on paper.

A few months into the mentoring program, I started having enrollment conversations with potential clients.  Every single one of them said no.  Dozens of them.  So I practiced more.  I found more buddies. I got extra coaching sessions.  But for months, no matter what I did, every single prospect said no.  

They thanked me profusely for the value I provided during our enrollment conversations.  One offered to write me a testimonial, and another even sent me a gift basket as a thank you.  But when it came to closing the sale, even those two said NO.

I came to realize that the solution to my sales problem wasn’t about having the right script, process, or skill set.  Those things were important, but they were never going to overcome the big gaping holes in my mindset.

Eventually I identified multiple mindset issues that were blocking me from enrolling clients in my business.  I had a poor money mindset.  I had deep self worth issues. Part of me was so afraid of failing that it sabotaged my every effort to move forward in business.

Worst of all, I had a paralyzing fear of being seen – of letting people in, and of letting the real me OUT.  I had become so guarded after a lifetime’s worth of loss and trauma from childhood on up, that my heart had become an armored fortress.  How do you think this impacted my ability to build a business based on RELATIONSHIPS? While I was out there trying to build my business, my internal programming was saying, Don’t even think about marketing yourself because you can’t let people in and you certainly can’t show them who you really are. You’re on marketing lockdown so you might as well go crawl under a rock and forget this whole business thing.

Looking under the surface isn’t for the faint of heart.  But doing so strengthens the spirit. It’s humbling to realize where you’re broken, or how you’ve turned into your parents, or to see all the ways you have lost yourself along your life’s path.  You have to look yourself in the mirror and really see yourself.  You have to feel all the feelings you’ve stuffed away and tried to ignore your whole life. 

You must have the courage to look beneath the surface if you want to succeed. Because acknowledging what’s broken is the first step toward healing it.  Seeing where you’ve strayed from your path will help lead you back to it.  And feeling those icky feelings you’ve buried and ignored will help you release them so they are no longer a burden.

Here is some of the work I did beneath the surface that turned my business around:

  • I began a practice of daily meditation and started respecting my intuition
  • I took conscious steps to develop a healthy and prosperous money mindset
  • I surrounded myself with people who have strong, healthy, loving spirits
  • I let go of old beliefs, relationships, habits and behaviors that no longer served me
  • I acknowledged the parts of me that were afraid to fail and lovingly asked for their support
  • I opened my heart and started letting people in, and letting the real me OUT
  • I made the commitment to being VISIBLE and VULNERABLE and REAL in my business

I hope my story helps you understand the power of what lies within you, and how it can make or break your success as a conscious entrepreneur.  Because no matter how good you look on paper, success is always going to be an inside job.

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