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“Mindset“…the new buzzword, something like pivot (vomit).
I was the same way. Daughter of a Marine, born in the early 80’s and baby of five, I definitely didn’t hear anything about “mentality” when she was growing up.
What I heard was:
“Money doesn’t grow on trees” or “Not now, that’s too expensive.”
I didn’t know it at the time, but a lack mentality surrounded me. There was never enough. And, if there was, it would disappear sooner rather than later. Party or famine
Miraculously, my parents sent all 5 of us kids to college, and I thought you were going to college, so get a job for the rest of your life. That’s what you do. College, work, pay bills, die.
Unfortunately, that’s what happened to my dad, and he was working until he passed away. The cancer took him so fast that he didn’t even get a chance to quit. He only took sick days. He was 71 years old, had a C-level banking career, and was still struggling financially.
Seeing him go through it, and knowing that he had wanted to retire years before but couldn’t, prompted me to leave the marketing agency I was with and start my own in 2016. I was afraid dive back into entrepreneurshipbut as you probably already know, entrepreneurship is deep in your bones, something you can’t shake, something we continue to do even if (when) it seems crazy.
I approached my business in a similar way to the first, doing all the “things” without much thinking, feeling, or feeling emotions about what I wanted the outcome to be.
It was only by accident that I actually stumbled upon the “mentality”. Read on for the three books that helped me take my business beyond six figures.
Related: These are the next 6 books you should read if you are serious about success
Book 1 – The secret
I call him The secret the gateway book to mindset It was introduced to me by a guest on my podcast who was a billionaire. What stood out was what he was going through when he found him. She had financial problems, single, her children were young, and she said, “I realized that no one was going to save me, so I had to save myself.”
And that’s what this book is about: knowing that we can change everything and understand that we are much more powerful than we realize while being aware that it all starts with us.
Our thoughts change our attitudesthat change our behavior, that change our actions, that change our lives.
What I love The secret it’s that it’s easy to digest and has a variety of people from all over the world sharing their experiences with “the secret.”
Book #2 — Think and Grow Rich
I loved Bob Proctor from The secret much, and constantly spoke of Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, so I read it below!
One of the things I love about this book is the origin story… Napoleon Hill was a poor young reporter who was assigned to interview the richest man in the United States at the time, Andrew Carnegie. Unbeknownst to Hill, Carnegie sought out someone to interview the world’s most successful people and document their shared traits. During the interview, he asked Hill if he would do it without pay, and the only thing Carnegie would bring to the table would be the introductions of these successful people. Hill said he did, and spent more than 20 years interviewing the likes of Henry Ford, Theodore Roosevelt, and Alexander Graham Bell.
To me, this reinforces the fact that there is so much going on around us that we don’t even realize it until we realize that even exist.
This book outlines 13 principles that these people used to achieve tremendous success.
Book #3 — In Tune with Infinity
Where The secret it made me feel warm and fuzzy, this book made me feel raw and exposed. I started discovering layers of myself that I didn’t even know were there and didn’t realize needed to be addressed. They say ignorance is bliss, and I didn’t know so much!
That’s when I started looking childhood traumas, limiting beliefs, and aspects of myself that I didn’t even know were there. I realized that I needed to let go of so many familiar feelings, emotions, and behaviors in order to grow.
Sounds simple, right? It’s simple, but it’s not easy.
You may be wondering what these things have to do with running a business. For me, I would make bad decisions in my business based on past experiences and learned behaviors.
For example, I would take on a client in need who didn’t have the budget for my services, but would agree anyway. This is due to my childhood experiences and my feelings of scarcity.
I realized that these underlying patterns were on autopilot, and it took me a while to step back and see what was going on. And when I did, things started to change.
I was attracting clients because I started doing things that seemed right to me. I was able to focus more because I was cutting out the negative talk, which led to better results. i could win confidence and clarity about my business.
“Success is 95% mindset and 5% strategy.” You can have the best strategies in the world, but if you don’t have the mindset to back them up and align with them, they won’t work.
So even though I agree with The secrets “Ask, believe, receive”, there is more below the surface of those words. You have to dig, feel uncomfortable, and do things you’ve never done before to remove the patterns, thoughts, and emotions that have been hidden so that you can genuinely believe that you will receive what you ask for (and work for).
