Why You MUST Embrace the Discomfort of Growth. EP #266 - Den Lennie

Good day, guys. It's Dan here. And this week on the show, I want to talk about the importance of embracing the discomfort around growth. More on that in just one second.

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Enjoy this episode.

So this is episode 266 of the how to Scale a Video Business Podcast. And I'm sure you've heard the expression, you know, mindset is everything.

And it, and it absolutely is. How our mindset is created is through conditioning, it's through parenting, it's through experience. And the, the number one obstacle that I perceive and I've experienced in growing a business over the last 13 years is belief systems around what is possible and what you are capable of and what your ceilings are. And, you know, it's very clear to me that how we're brought up, how we're conditioned, what is learned from childhood, from school, from parents, from grandparents, from family members, has an enormous impact on us later in life. I think it's been sort of wildly wild, widely not wildly widely documented that all of our behaviors are learned by the age of seven. Now in dogs, it's 16 weeks. When you're training a dog, if you don't get those habits built in by week 16, they're very hard to train a dog beyond the 16 week mark. Now in business, we don't often leave school and start a business. In video, we leave school, we do whatever we do, we go university, college, whatever, get a job. But when it comes to working in video production, it's something that's usually driven certainly in my own story, by a passion for filming and photography and having always had that desire to look through a lens. But when my career evolved into choosing to run a business, there was a big shift from freelance to business owner. And the biggest obstacle was my own belief systems about what was possible. I remember speaking to a cameraman in London when I was still a Cameraman, earning about 30, 40,000 pounds a year. I think it was 34,000 a year I was earning at London tonight. And I had a car and all this kind of stuff. And that to me at the time was a load of money. And I remember this, this guy saying, I want to make 100 grand a year as a cameraman. I was like, that is just not possible. What are you talking about? You know, and he's like, totally is totally as possible and off he went and did it, bought a kit and started working on bigger projects. And so I realized then I had some limiting beliefs.

And the most challenging thing about limiting belief is first acknowledging that you have it, but then embracing the discomfort of the growth that's required to break it. And, you know, when you break a bone, it's very painful and it's very uncomfortable. It takes time to heal, but when it heals back, it's calloused, and so it heals back stronger. And then you have a heightened awareness for the risks involved that created the break in the first place.

And so the discomfort of growth is the heart of the ecosystem around breaking the idea of limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs are like a huge, thick glass plate placed just above where you can see if you look up and if you can touch it, it's probably a little bit too close, but just out of reach is probably your limiting beliefs. So you might decide that, you know, you've just started a video business, let's just say maybe making a couple of grand a month, and you might be thinking, wow, you know, I'd love. I'd love to do one of these programs at Dens, but, you know, I need to get my business into better shape before I can do it. And what I say to that is, why would you wait, why would you try and figure this out on your own as opposed to reaching out to someone who's done it multiple times in an environment where there's people doing it right now? But sometimes the limiting beliefs are, I can't afford it. I can't afford to invest in myself because there's a. There's a. There's a. There's a kind of. There's a belief system there that perhaps you'd never invested in yourself. But, yeah, I guarantee you've invested at least five to ten grand on gear. Computers, software, cameras, tripods, gimbals, drones, you know, cables, filters, bags, multiple bags, multiple new accessories, maybe a few Kickstarter campaigns. You will have spent money on equipment because your belief system says, I need equipment to be a filmmaker. But beyond that basic kit, there's. There's this. There's this kind of bridge which says, oh, I don't have money to invest in my business because I've got to make money with the money I've spent already. And I see this quite a lot. And what I want to share with you is you have to embrace the discomfort of growth because if you're not uncomfortable, you're not going to grow. And actually, the more uncomfortable you Are with a decision, the more likely you are to follow through and make it work. People sometimes say to me, oh, you know, if you're so passionate about this, why don't you do it for free? It's like, well, I'm a business coach. The word is business. I have no shame in being completely clear that I run this business for profit. It's not a charity, it's not a non for profit. I run this business for profit because I enjoy the lifestyle that I've become accustomed to. I have plans, I have things that I want to do. And that involves financial stability and financial support and financial security and wealth.

So I have used my almost three decades of experience in video production over 13 years running a business, working with hundreds of filmmakers and thousands of filmmakers. I count all the training courses we've created and there's probably over 10,000 people been impacted by my work over the last 10, 12 years.

So I have a great amount of.

What'S the word I'm looking for? The great word respect and self worth around the value that we bring. And so I create programs that have really the culmination of my life's work that I make available for anyone who is looking to grow their business and they have a price attached to them. And I never discussed the price because we have different payment option plans depending on the businesses that approach us. And if I just talk about price, then you get caught up in the wrong things. I always look to build the value and then ask the question, does this seem fair and how can this work for you? And I was talking to, I was listening back to some videos yesterday. We had recorded recently a recent event, and one of our clients said, you know, the one thing Dan's really good at is actually making you play a bigger game, having you think a bit more broadly about what is possible. And that is one of the core reasons you have a coach, is you have a coach because you've got someone in your corner pushing you further than you feel comfortable with and saying, it's okay, go over the edge, I'm here to catch you. But the truth is, when you leap off the net, we leap off the cliff. The net will appear. That is something that will just happen. So unless you get comfortable with pushing yourself further than is comfortable. And also, I'm gonna be quite blunt. You know, a lot of people say to me, oh, I'd love to do your program, but you know, I need to save up the money first. There's never the same issue when it comes to buying gear. So so why is that? And I think it's because buying gear is a simple I can buy this camera, then I've got this camera, then I'm a filmmaker. But I would say 85 to 90 of film businesses don't succeed beyond scraping a bare living of maybe 20, 30,000 a year is because they're not willing to go into the area of discomfort, which is like, hey, I'm going to invest in a program and support and a coach. And I know it's not going to happen quickly and I know it's not going to be easy. But he's got the roadmap, he's got the growth accelerators, he's got the framework that all you have to do is show up and plug into. And the people that do that have monumental transformation in their lives. So, guys, I hope that's useful. I will catch you next week.

You've been listening to the Video Business Accelerator Podcast with your host, Dan Lenny. If you are a video business owner who is tired of going it alone and would benefit from mentorship, support and weekly accountability, then mouse over to www.video business accelerator.com to learn more about how the Accelerator program can help you today. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show over on itunes, and we'd really appreciate you taking a few minutes to leave a review.