How to Deal with Fear and Grow Your Video Business. EP #270 - Den Lennie

G', day, guys. It's Dan here. And on today's episode, which is number 270 of the how to Scale a Video Business Podcast, I want to talk about how to deal with fear and growth in your video business. Because I believe that the thing that stops most of us from scaling faster is actually a fear of success, not a fear of failure.

Welcome to the Video Business Accelerator Podcast. Each week we uncover the secrets to creating a wildly successful and scalable video production business. With your host, Dan Lenny, discover how the accelerator program is transforming the lives of our members at www.videobusinessaccelerator.com. enjoy this episode.

So this is a topic which is really close to my heart because I have been consciously battling this for as long as I can remember, and that is the fear of success. And once you acknowledge that there might be a fear of success.

Or a discomfort with success, it's amazing what can start to shift now from my own story. The fear of success is, is I think a fear of standing out from my family group, I suppose my conditioning. You know, I was brought up in a family, pretty working class. Dad worked as a printer, Mum worked in a shop when she did work and she, the rest time she brought up the kids. My dad didn't earn a ton of money. He was like $40,000 a year, like 22,000 pounds a year as a print shift foreman. And he, you know, he brought a family of four and we had a house that he paid a mortg on and we always had holidays and we always had presents at Christmas, but there was never much money around. You know, we would be buying the, the Safeway's own brand food. It was like, you know, Christmas was a bike between three of us. None of us had colored televisions in our bedrooms back then, you know, but, but there was lots of love in the house, but there was this undercurrent of money was running out. There's never enough money. And they were always getting by. And I remember my grandmother saying to me, you know, son, don't get too big for your boots. Don't be, you know, don't be too, don't be a show off. And then, you know, this undercurrent of if someone was successful, like there was a guy up the road who would buy a new car every three years. And he was the only guy in the street, he would buy a brand new car. And my dad used to say, oh, look, you know, new cars are a waste of money because as soon as you drive them off the forecourt you lose a lot of money. So it was this undercurrent of, you know, wasting money. People who had money were wasting it. There was something around, you know, if people had success, there was almost a veil of, you know, they'd done something dodgy to get there. And it was never explicit, but I think it was, it was just a kind of a hand down from generation to generation. Where my grandmother lived in a council house, you know, she rented a house for her whole life and they grew up with a family of four in a tiny two bedroom house. So there's this absolute undercurrent of we are not the kind of people that get success and get rich and get wealthy. And if there was someone who was wealthy, there was just a hint of an undercurrent of somehow they've done something dodgy to get there. They're not good people because they've got money. And so when you grow up in an environment like that.

And the tall poppies alive and well in Australia and in the uk, no one really wants to see you do too well because it makes your social group feel uncomfortable. If you become too successful, they'll cut you down because, oh, look at, you know, you got some money, now you think you're better than all of us. And so that absolute undercurrent of success and failure and where you are in your social economic group, it is a very challenging mindset to overcome. And so if you're going to set up a business that, that, that is a business that can sustain you and your family for decades, you have to step out of that comfort zone of being the odd one out. You have to actually get comfortable with being different and wanting something different and being willing to.

Brave the cold if you step out of your comfort circle. And so, you know, the real fear, I think, is success. And I think it can hinder you growing as a business because you're not comfortable with what you perceive might happen if you become successful. And I'd love to know your thoughts on that. Is that something that, that resonates with you? We had a huge discussion about this at our Gold coast event in Australia here and we just listed all of these different.

You know, phrases that had come up in childhood. Things like, you know, money doesn't grow on trees or, you know, why can't you be just happy with what you've got? Why do you want more? And so there's this kind of conditioning that exists to limit your capability. And it's because those people saying it have limits and their own belief systems. And what do we do? We pass those limits on to our children if we're not careful. And I, you know, I love. There's a client of mine, Ben, who. Who's mentioned that he's had his mom saying to the kids, you know, kids, if you just work hard, you can have everything you want. And Ben goes, ha, mom, no kids. That's not true. If you work smart, you can have everything you want, but you don't have to be working hard 15 hours a day to have all the success that you want. And that was a huge shift for me. I used to believe when I started a business that if I just worked harder and hustled more, I'd get more. And there is some truth in the fact that if you are very focused and you outwork everyone else, then you will have a degree of success that's greater than others. But the downside is you will burn out at some point. And I think Gary Vee was the real advocate of hustle, hustle, hustle. And then he shifted his perspective and he actually came out and said, you know what? Actually, I got that wrong. Hustling is not actually healthy. And there are ways to build a business that can sustain and you can thrive in that. Doesn't involve you working 18 hours a day, sacrificing family time, sacrificing time with friends. You can balance it better. Now, what I will say is, in the first five to 10 years of building a business, you are going to work bloody hard. I think for me, it's only really in year 11, 12 and 13 that I've seen a shift. For the first 10 years, years I was working on my business in some capacity seven days a week. In year 11, I got that down to six and a half days a week. And in year 12, I got it to six days a week. And in year 13, I'm actually down at three and a half days a week now. So, you know, there's a kind of what they call the hockey stick of longevity in work, and then it starts to take off. And most people have unrealistic expectations of how long it's going to take to build a business. And, you know, you can read all the books in the world about how to create agencies and make millions of pounds or millions of dollars, but if you're making a couple of thousand a month, that is almost too far in the extremes. That's like saying, you know, I'm currently flying economy Ron Ryanair or EasyJet or JetBlue or some other budget airline. Jetstar and it's 50 bucks a ticket. But I want to fly. I want to learn how I can build a business. I can own a private jet. It's aspirational, but it's so ridiculously far out of where you are now that it may not actually provide any real insight. And in actual fact, what you want to do is get from where you are now to the next step. And that's the only thing you need to focus on. And I think the world of entrepreneurship and marketing and media and social media and TikToks and all this other stuff is selling a dream that I feel sometimes takes people too far in the wrong direction. You know, if you're making a couple of grand a month just now, if we could get you to from two and a half thousand a month to 5,000amonth, would that be worth investing in? You know, if we could take you from 50 grand a year to 100 grand a year, or we could take you from 50 grand a year to 150 grand a year, that would be doubling or tripling your income, would that be worth investing in? Because that is where I think people are making the mistake.

So look at where your next step is and work out how can I get there? Can I get there on my own? Or can I get there quicker with help?

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