2 Steps to Keep Expanding “Outside the Cubicle”

Today’s post is a Vlog post (aka a video blog)

Check out the video as I share the 2 steps that will help you continue to expand your thinking so you don’t get stuck in a “cubicle” of your own making.

I know what it’s like to get stuck in the old way of thinking – when I first started my business I even made my office look like my cubicle from when I was an employee (sick I know – but I didn’t realize what I had done until later on).  To help you break free and break into what’s possible, check out the video for your essential steps:

Also, if you want another way to integrate these two steps and get more valuable content for free?? Check out: http://sixfiguresoutsidethecubicle.com

Are you vulnerable?

I came across this video recently and thought – YES!!! This is how I coach my VIP’s – be authentic and real. Have a good relationship with yourself and watch your business grow from there! Take a look:

How to succeed as an entrepreneur

If you compare the most successful entrepreneurs throughout history, there are clear success patterns that emerge. Below I have highlighted a few key components from studying the likes of Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Walt Disney, Richard Branson and others. As I have said before, modeling success is the quickest way to achieving your goals. Read on, learn and put these best practices into action.

1. A clear vision and sense of purpose – there is something to be said about having a clear vision and a great sense of purpose. Take Oprah as an example, she was transparent about her vision of a different kind of talk show. She was never guarded about her desire to create positive change in the world by empowering women. In fact, many people told her she would not succeed in fulfilling her vision, yet she has more than fulfilled her vision and purpose. I have seen the power of setting a clear vision and having a sense of purpose. It is unyielding and those that are driven by this clarity are quite unstoppable.
2. A belief in yourself and your vision/purpose- having seen this first hand, when someone is fully aligned with their vision and purpose, they get out of their own way and their success seems meteoric. This belief in yourself and what you want to bring to the world is truly what keeps entrepreneurs going at times. No one said the journey of an entrepreneur is easy, in fact there are many bumps along the way and maintaining a strong belief in yourself and what you are meant to do propel you forward and through obstacles that may come your way.
3. A group of supporters – imagine your journey from corporate to entrepreneur as traveling by boat from California to the Hawaiian Islands. As you leave California, all your friends on the shore are telling you not to go, that you are crazy, that you will never make it, that you might get lost along the way and lose everything. As you set sail all you can hear are those you are leaving behind and since you can’t see the islands yet, you begin to doubt yourself and your journey. You know the islands are there, because you’ve plotted out the course, however the journey is long and you can be faced with a ton of uncertainty on the way. Having supports becomes a necessity in reminding you of your vision and of the purpose that propels you forward.
4. A great deal of curiosity – being curious about what is, instead of being rigid is another key component. Individuals who are extremely rule bound end up sabotaging themselves because they lack the ability to adapt emerging trends and changing circumstances. Perhaps this is why some businesses end up failing over time as they grow. They lose the ability to be curious and try different approaches to the work they do, and end up obsolete. In order to not end up obsolete before you begin, you need to challenge yourself and your thinking. Be open to others ideas especially if they are different than your own. I guarantee it will open up perspectives you never dreamed of.
5. An ability to learn from mistakes- the key here is that mistakes will happen, don’t spend your time trying to avoid all mistakes because that will just keep you stuck. Also, as you make mistakes take time to learn from them. What worked, what didn’t work and why? Also, learn from others and the mistakes they made. Whether its people just like you or reading autobiographies of successful entrepreneurs, there are great lessons to be learned by what they did wrong as with what they did right.

Remember taking action is the underlying characteristic of the successful entrepreneur. Of the above best practices what do you need to work on in order to continue on your path to entrepreneurship? Make a note of it and any action steps you need to take to make it happen. There’s no time like the present, so get going!

Starting a business is a mental exercise

I have made reference in past articles, that the difference that makes the difference in who succeeds in the transition from corporate life to entrepreneur is mindset. When you train yourself to look at the opportunities, to move forward with a mindset of what’s possible, rather than fear, you move forward much quicker. In this video, Tony Robbins talks about the mental fortitude that will help people get through this economic crisis. My view is that if you take the time and build up this fortitude now, then you will be in a much better position as we move out of this economic downfall and move towards the boom once more.

Beliefs and our reality

I’ve been doing a ton of research on the concept of beliefs, preparing for a class I am co-facilitating designed specifically around this notion of how beliefs (among other things) can either help or hinder our success.  It is fascinating to know that the limits we perceive in our daily lives have root in the beliefs we hold to be true for ourselves. Not only that, most often the core beliefs (which tend to give us the biggest problems) were ones we created when we were little kids and had very little information to discern what was happening in the world around us.  What does that mean exactly?  Well let me give you an example:

When I was young, 8 or so, as my family watched a slasher movie, I overheard the following comment “Pretty, skinny girls always get it!”  Well at 8, I wasn’t sure what “get it” meant, but from the sounds of it I didn’t want to find out! Shortly after that, I found all sorts of evidence that “Pretty, skinny girls get it”, mostly it seemed that they would come to some sort of violent death or at least be left for dead after some brutal attack.  It wasn’t hard to find this evidence, TV, songs, movies, etc all confirmed that “getting it” was no good.  Pretty soon I started putting on weight, and struggled with it for YEARS.  It wasn’t until recently when I was trying to find out what sorts of beliefs was I holding on to that were preventing me from being at the weight I wanted, when I stumbled onto this notion that I’d been carrying around for so long!  My life all of a sudden made sense!  I now knew why it creeped me out when I got too much attention from “strange” men and why my weight had been yo-yo’ing all these years! Now it was time to take my life back!  I did some NLP Belief Change work that helped a great deal.  I am now on my way (in an extremely effortless way) to getting down to my goal weight.  It absolutely feels like magic.

Although I wont share the details of the process I used, I will leave you with some questions you can ask yourself, to help loosen some of these limiting beliefs.

• How have you known this belief is true, until now?
• Is this belief always true? For everybody?
• What is the positive purpose for holding this belief?
• How would you know this belief wasn’t true? And what evidence (see, hear, feel) do you have for that?

These questions will start shaking the belief up a bit creating space for you to consider more possibilities.  The one thing I find that works tremendously well, with limiting beliefs, inner critics, negative emotions, etc. is determining what the positive purpose/intent in holding these things to be true.  By acknowledging and somehow incorporating that intent into your solution, allows you greater flexibility than remaining in inner conflict.

If you want more information on the specifics, please feel free to send me an email @ silvia@insightscc.comor post a comment.