Last week I was sharing with our Connect Mastermind (this is a group running 6-figure memberships) that one of the most important things we need to do as entrepreneurs is to protect our confidence.
It’s easy to get rattled when you’re running a business. A negative comment or review. A promotion that doesn’t go well. Or a client that leaves for a competitor.
These are the types of things that can send us into a tailspin and leave us questioning ourselves and our business.
That’s why you’ve got to protect your confidence. So here are 3 quick ideas:
You want to be around people who believe in you and your ideas. That might be a mastermind or it might just be a group of entrepreneurial friends. But the people around you have more influence on you than you may realize.
That’s why I’ve been part of a paid mastermind for over 20 years. I get a constant stream of encouragement, support and inspiration. All of which give perspective when things aren’t going according to plan.
I still remember my first email “unsubscribe”. I was devastated. An entrepreneurial friend of mine (Matt) saw the look on my face and asked “what’s wrong?” After I told him, he chuckled and explained that with every email he gets, he’ll have hundreds of people unsubscribe. He told me “it’s a good thing because it’s like a filter… it leaves you with your best people”.
In an instant, he normalized something that moments before felt heavy and discouraging. Get good people around you that can help shift perspective.
There have been multiple situations where I’ve been delivering a live presentation and someone has said something in the comments that instantly threw me off.
And even if I didn’t say anything, my energy changed - which can have a negative impact… especially if you’re selling something.
So what do you do?
First thing is you can just not pay attention to the comments and have someone else respond. That helps keep you focused on keeping your energy high and delivering for your audience.
Second is you can turn the comments on/off so that the only interaction happens when you want it to happen. It won’t always protect you from some bozo saying something stupid when you do open them up, but from my experience, bozos rarely have the patience to wait around.
One of the things we do as a company is have two Slack channels dedicated to collecting customer wins- one for the training side of our business and the other for the software. Any time a customer posts in our community about their progress, we take a screenshot and post it in the appropriate channel.
Why?
Because it’s easy to forget the impact your work is having. But when you capture it, you can review it and remind yourself of why you do what you do. It’s powerful and builds confidence because you can see that your work matters.
And one of my little tricks is that I review these customer wins any time I’m about to make an offer. I want to remind myself that there are real people whose lives are being transformed because of what we do. It gives purpose and meaning to our work. And it builds confidence that what we’re offering is making a difference.
In their best-selling book “The Gap and The Gain”, authors Dan Sullivan and Dr. Ben Hardy talk about the idea of shifting your focus to look at how far you’ve come.
Most driven entrepreneurs have goals. Things we’re trying to achieve or accomplish. That’s good. But the danger is always focusing on the “gap”... what you don’t have. That can lead to you feeling discouraged, deflated and rarely happy.
Whereas if you live in the “gain”, you look at where you are now and how far you’ve come. And when you do this, you build confidence, momentum and live with a sense of gratitude.
Now I’m not suggesting we don’t strive for bigger goals. Trust me, I’m an achiever at heart. But this little shift can make all the difference in how you feel and the momentum you build in your life.
So my encouragement for you today is live in the “gain”. No matter where you are in your journey, reflect on where you are now, what you’ve learned and the progress you’ve made (vs. where you were 3, 5 or 10 years ago). Keep a library of your wins. Yes, you want to keep a list of the big wins. But also the little wins too. Because those stack up as well.
If you follow these ideas, you’ll be well on your way to protecting your confidence. And when you do that, you become unstoppable.
Keep moving forward my friend!