Asking For The Sale | #07

Asking For The Sale

No. 07 — read time 5 minutes

Welcome to The Soloist, a weekly newsletter where I share timeless ideas and insights about life, business, and art.

In my coaching work I get to work with many talented individuals who are figuring out how to make the transition from 9-5 to entrepreneurship. In today’s newsletter, I want to discuss a common theme I see across clients—fear of asking for the close.

A couple weeks back I wrote about Making Your First $1 Online. It focused on the tools needed as a way to show that not only are no-code tools prevalent, they’re free.

But it turns out that finding the right tool has little to do with making your first $1 online.

The problem is much deeper than finding the right tool.

Information is free and prevalent online. It’s never been easier to learn new things.

Unfortunately, most people never experience the thrill of making something and selling it to someone else.

Self-limiting beliefs stop us in our tracks

Learning how to overcome self-limiting beliefs is key to making money in entrepreneurship.

Whether you’re building a coaching practice or the next unicorn, you have to first believe that:

(a) people exchange money for value all the time (b) that you are worthy and capable of creating value.

The topic of self-limiting beliefs is a massive one (and one I’m keen to explore further). For today’s purposes we’ll keep it focused on entrepreneurship and making money online.

Self-limiting beliefs come in 3 flavors:

Beliefs about yourself - “I’m not smart enough”

Beliefs about the world - “What’s the point, the game’s rigged”

Beliefs about other people - “Other people will think I’m X”

, there is a ton of research into this area and how to overcome self-limiting beliefs.

Step 1: Look in the metaphorical mirror

As most of you have started to learn, I’m a big “take action” person.

But action without measurement is aimless speed. We want velocity, not speed.

And the way to make forward progress starts with measurement.

“That which gets measured gets managed” - Peter Drucker

Since we’re focused on what’s inside your mind, the metaphorical mirror exists by writing down your self-limiting beliefs.

Grab a pen and paper or open a new google doc.

Start writing.

Yes, right now.

I don’t know what I’m doing…

I don’t have any skills…

I don’t trust myself…

Be harsh. Write down all the nasty shit talking happening inside your brain.

Once it’s all written down one of two things will happen.

A. You’ll read the nasty, horrible, no-good self-talk and smile at how ridiculous some of it is

B. You’ll nod in agreement and say “yup, that’s about right”.

Step 2: Take responsibility

No one wants to hear Step 2.

Step 2 will not be comfortable.

But you didn’t open this email to hear about how to be comfortable.

You came hear to learn how to make money.

For any of the self-limiting beliefs that you think you agree with, you must weigh them and say:

“I take full responsibility for everything that happens in my life. Even if something isn’t my fault, if it impacts me it is my responsibility to fix it”.

You probably missed something powerful in that statement.

Read it again.

By internalizing that affirmation you shift yourself from passenger to driver.

The world no longer happens to you, the world happens for you.

You are the driver and you’re in the driver’s seat.

You control where life is going.

You don’t control the bumps on the road, the detours, or the crazy drivers on the road with you.

But you’re behind the steering wheel.

This is a powerful mental shift that will require some fine-tuning but it’s the most important part of the transformation.

Step 3: Rewire your brain

It’s not crazy to believe that we’re still dealing with shit from our great ancestors. So much of the way humans evolved happened over hundreds of millions of years that certain things are encoded in our DNA.

One of the wildest things our brains deal with is the response to acute stress, otherwise known as fight-or-flight.

We wake up in the morning in fight-or-flight mode (our brains release a hormone called noradrenaline).

We wake up worried about our safety.

That’s a rough way to go about your day. Let alone trying to break a major mental blockage of creating a sustainable income outside a 9-5.

Enter gratitude.

Psychologists Dr. Robert Emmons of the University of California at Davis and Dr. Michael McCullough of the University of Miami released a study in 2015 that looked at the physical outcomes of practicing gratitude.

The group in the study that practiced gratitude journaling daily reported feeling more optimistic and hopeful about the future.

The reason is that practicing gratitude isn’t woo-woo feel-good stuff people in yoga retreats do.

It literally rewires your brain to cut off the negative cycle of fight-or-flight which releases cortisol which makes us stressed which leads to fight-or-flight… and so on and so on.

I’m a big fan of the 5-minute journal my wife bought me but any old notebook will do fine.

Write down 3 things you’r grateful for in the morning and at night before bed.

Step 4: Test, test, test

OK, now it’s time to put it all together.

But let’s recap where we are first.

We identified ALL of our self-limiting beliefs forcing ourselves to either laugh at how ridiculous they are or accepting them as part of our world view.

We resolve to take responsibility for everything in our lives. Not accept fault, but accept responsibility for fixing. Everything.

We are working on re-wiring our brains through gratitude.

What does any of this have to do with making money?!

“Give Me Six Hours To Chop Down A Tree, And I Will Spend The First Four Sharpening The Axe.” - likely Abraham Lincoln.

The prep work involved is going to make this part of process much easier.

You have to go out and test.

This may mean cold outreach to your prospects. It may mean setting up a landing page this weekend. It may mean putting up $100 and running some FB ads to test conversions.

Start small but start by taking action.

By identifying and resolving to overcome self-limiting beliefs, you’re able to, at least momentarily, quiet the mental chatter to focus on action.

And action spurs more action.

It also brings with it important feedback loops.

You get to learn what works and what doesn’t.

And feedback loops are the momentum you need to start making money.

The sooner you find out whether the market is interested in what you have to offer, the quicker you’ll get to making that first $1.

But momentum and feedback loops NEVER happen without taking action.

And taking action, as we now know, is impossible if you’re stuck on self-limiting beliefs.

I hope you enjoyed today’s newsletter.

Till next week,

-Tom

P.S. Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. If you save a lot of bookmarks on Twitter (like me), try dewey. —
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2. If you're looking for coaching on audience growth book a slot here.

3. I’m putting together a course on how to network online to grow faster. If you’re interested sign up here.

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