No Limit Success

Business Owner Mindset

This has been bugging me for a few days. It seems I want to complicate everything about business because I still think like an employee. I have been rereading Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money--That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert T. Kiyosaki and trying to straighten out my brain.

When you have a traditional education and upbringing (go to school, get a good job, retire) you are just not aware of all the possibilities for earning money and creating wealth. You only know how to trade your time for money, in a job or as a self-employed person. There is a hard-cap limit on how much you can make -- # of hours you can work times the rate you can charge.

It isn't my fault this is all I knew. I went to school. School is taught by people with jobs. They are not aware of what they don't know. The teachers do not have all the information. I've heard it said, "A students teach; B students work for the companies started by C students."

Everything I know about life, business and success has been taught to me by people with jobs.

Wow.

Kiyosaki says 95% of the population earns their living by trading time for money (employees or self-employed). That 95% teach only what they know.

As a 95 percenter, my perceived needs for safety and security overrode any desire to get more through taking risks. I was unaware of any other options. I did not appreciate that those that think govern those that labour. It did not occur to me that those who know how work for those that know why. I was happy and content with my job, never aware that I only had a job because the owner of the company did not want to do what I was doing.

I needed a checkup from the neck up.

I needed a business system that gave me leverage of my time and effort. My earnings had to be a percentage of the earnings of many others. It was the only way to break the time for money hard-cap limit. I had to help others succeed so I could succeed. The better teacher that I become, the more I will earn.

My new business needed my confidence in my abilities, but not my arrogance that I already knew everything worth knowing. I had to understand and believe that I didn't know what I didn't know. I have to be open to learning.

And failure. Don't get me started.

It is almost abusive the way failure is handled in school. "Don't make a mistake!" "Everyone passes so they are not stigmitized by failure." "Winning isn't everything, just playing is enough."

Give yourself a slap! I still have to beat these "words of wisdom" out of my head.

Failure is required! It is how we learn. Think about walking... the toddler pulls herself up on the edge of the table and lets go... wobbling she gains balance and puts one leg out.. and falls! Do we punish her? Do we tell her, "Never try to walk again, darling, I will carry you forever"? Of course not.

It isn't failure or success at something that is important. It is owning the skill you want to have. "I want to walk and I will keep trying until I do." So what if you fall 99 times, as long as you get up 100. Missing a goal is OK as long as you moved forward in attempting to reach it.

Sorry... I get excited about that subject.

Here is something that was really hard for me: "It isn't about what you know, it is about what you can share with someone else about what you know." I liked hearing that! I always thought I had to be an expert before showing someone else. The important thing is to teach and encourage. Move in the direction of improving my business knowledge, but don't wait to get started and take action. All the traffic lights between me and my destination don't have to be green before I head out of the driveway!

Have faith. "I always knew the ending." My eye needs to be on the prize, not the price.

Throw away that rear view mirror. I love this quote from Dan Tocchini:

"The biggest challenge to excellence is being good at something, because to move from good to great requires your willingness to re-think everything you’ve done that got you to be good. In fact, the very thing that got you where you are might be the very thing that stops you from going where you say you want to be."

Finally, know why. Don't be concerned with the how, focus on why. If I don't know where I'm going I am sure to get there. I have to imagine my life five years from today, after I decided what I wanted today for tomorrow ... and it happened! The movie The Secret says we have to Ask, Believe and Receive. I will attract what I think about the most.

Moving from being an Employee and Self-Employed person to a Business Owner requires change and isn't easy and it's worth it!

posted by Paul Maclauchlan @ 9:47 AM