TES 018 - How Entrepreneurs Face Down Fear

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Hey there, Mel Abraham here, the author of the brand new number one best selling book the Entrepreneur Solution and the founder of Business Breakthrough Academy where we teach you how to design a business and create a life, a life of financial freedom and peace of mind. And welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur Solution show. And I'm really excited about this episode because we're dealing, I want to deal with something that I think many, many entrepreneurs and people in general.

Struggle with, including myself. I struggle with it all the time. And it's this, this four letter word called fear. And what is fear in an entrepreneur's world? What, what causes it, where does it come from? And, and really how are the things to, what are the things we can do to eliminate it? So we're going to, after this brief introduction, we're going to come back, we're going to talk about fear in a different way. We're going to give you some tools and some things and some thoughts that might help you tackle it. Because I don't think that it's about fear. I think it's about something else. And you'll find out about that soon. If you happen to be on the road and not by your computer and you want to get the guidebook for this episode, go ahead and text mylegacy no space, one word mylegacy at 38470. If you want to download the guidebook and go to the website, do that by going to melabraham.com session018. That's melabraham.com session018 and I'll see you right after this brief introduction.

Welcome to the Entrepreneur's Solution where highly successful entrepreneur Mel Abraham becomes your entrepreneurial mentor. Here, Mel reveals his business building strategies and even gets a chance to answer your questions. Mel Abraham, a CPA by education, but an entrepreneur by exhilaration and a true believer in the entrepreneurial way of life. It's through entrepreneurship that we create community, support society and live our dreams.

It's where possibility meets reality again. And you can have the life and lifestyle you want. One of freedom and peace of mind. Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur's Solution, where it's time for you to be bold, dream big, and live life your way.

Hey there. Mel Abraham here. Thank you. Welcome back. Welcome back to this episode of the Entrepreneur Solution show. And this one, I'm going to talk about fear. I mean, this thing comes up. It comes up for all of us, including myself. I mean, I've been an entrepreneur for 30 plus years, and I got to tell you, it's a constant battle. It's a constant wrestling with this concept of fear or anxiety. But once I realized what it was about, I was able to allay it. I was able to.

Control it, to understand it, to be able to deal with it in a way that really stripped it away. The challenge with fear is that it causes paralysis. I mean, it truly does. It paralyzes us into not doing things. It blinds our mind's capacity to see options that actually are right there in front of us. Many times we start to get sucked into it and into the problems and not look for the solutions. And the solutions may be easy enough to find for us.

I remember years ago when I was in college, I was in a fraternity. I was pledging a fraternity. And during Hell Week, one of the things they did, it was really late at night, they came running in, grabbed one of us, and they would take us into this room where all the other fraternity brothers were in there, and there's big light on us. They put us on the ground and sit us down on the ground and they throw a blanket on top of us. And they looked at us and they said, you're wearing something that you do not need.

Take it off. And you know, most of us, including myself, I took my shoe off and tossed it out and they said, no, you're wearing something you do not need. Take it off. I took the other shoe off and again, it was wrong. And this went on for a little while until I kind of sat there and said, duh, what's the one thing that I don't need right now? And that was the blanket they put over my head. And I only tell that story for you to understand that many times the things that we fear, the solution to those fears, it's right in front of us and we don't see it. We fail to see the obvious. And most of the time, what fear is is really your ability to focus, but you're focusing on the wrong things. It's a misplaced focus, but it can be the catalyst that gets you to move. So there's the key. When you start to feel fearful, one of the things to do is to immediately get present.

Find the passion to move beyond it. So let's just look at it for a moment and understand in an entrepreneur's world, where does fear come from? So we can avoid this paralysis, so we can avoid keeping the blanket over our heads and not doing things.

What I found with entrepreneurs, working with entrepreneurs as well as myself, is the fear a lot of times comes from not knowing where to start.

Not knowing enough, saying to yourself, how many times have you said to yourself, because I know that I'm guilty of it too. I don't know enough about it yet. So if I don't know enough about it yet, maybe I shouldn't be doing it. But really, what's the message in that? The solution is right there. I need to learn more about it. Or the entrepreneurs look at it and say, I don't have enough money. Or they look at it and they say.

I just, I'm not sure that either the product's good enough or I'm good enough, or people don't believe in me.

Or they look at it and they say, I don't have customers. What happens if I build it and no one comes, which could happen. Could happen. Or they look at, you know, why am I not going into the entrepreneurial area or doing what I want to do because it might affect my family. Or they live in what I call worst case thinking. They live in worst case thinking. Always the negatives. Without understanding that there is a positive slant to it, there is an opportunity. Yes, entrepreneurship, building a business, doing things has risks, but with the risk becomes opportunities. You're never going to be able to build something great without taking some risks associated with it. But here's what I found out. And this is what allows me to.

Allows me to tackle the fears when I feel them welling up, when I feel them paralyzing, when I feel them sucking the energy out of me and putting me in a place of, of paralysis where I'm not going to act. It is typically for one of six reasons. I either have lack of clarity.

And when I say clarity, I don't know what I want to do, I don't know what I want to achieve, I don't know when I want to achieve it, I'm not sure how to do it. Lack of clarity will result in fear, but because you're not sure where to start, you don't Think you know enough. So the key is, again, the solution is in here, is clarity becomes paramount in everything you do. Are you clear on where you want to go? Are you clear on what you want to do? Are you clear on why you want to do it?

Are you clear on the people that might be able to help you get there? So lack of clarity is one. And this, what this is, is a checklist. When I feel that fear well enough, I go through these six and I say, is it coming from one of these six? Because from that, then I know how to solve it, and then I know how to build myself outside the fear and move myself beyond it. The second first is lack of clarity. The second is lack of information. Many times we don't know what to do because we don't have enough information. Well, lack of information in today's world, in today's technological world.

There'S no reason to say I don't have enough information. Look, we've got this new invention called the goog. Google, it's out there. Just Google it. There's plenty of information out there. YouTube, there's how to's reach out to people. Most of the information you need is sitting at your fingertips. It's about putting the work in. It's about putting the research in. It's about putting the effort in. To get to that point. I was just listening to a, a podcast by Gary Vaynerchuk. Great guy, great entrepreneur with a great mind.

A little rough around the edges in his presentation style, but at the same time, good person, good heart.

And he says when he finds something that he likes, that he thinks has potential, he will invest hours and hours and hours and hours of effort until he masters it, until he understands it inside and out and tries it. And he says, the biggest asset I have is time. And especially for entrepreneurs that say I don't have enough money, which is one of those fears. No money. Then your biggest asset is time. Invest the time to understand. But he tells a story about a person who sends him an email, sent him an email saying, my business is tanking, my business is. I'm not sure. And basically he's on the edge of his world, and yet he's sending emails out and not investing the time in his business. He says, you need to work harder, you need to find things, you need to get the information and extract it and build on it. And I think it's the same thing here. Lack of information certainly will create a fear because of that lack of knowledge, but it's one of the easiest elements to fix in today's world, reaching out to someone, reaching out to Google, YouTube, other websites and getting that information. So that's number two, lack of clarity, lack of information. And the third is lack of commitment. There's a lot of entrepreneurs that I've met are, well, they're interested, they're intrigued with maybe starting something, maybe I can make a little money on the side. And entrepreneurship, you're either in or you're out. I believe.

If you really want to be successful, you can't play it part time in the sense of.

Sometimes you're doing it, sometimes you're not. And I don't mean that you can't have a side gig. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that if you're going to have a side gig, it's still a full time. In other words, you still have focus on it on a regular basis, on a systematic basis. And you're putting the commitment in to make it a success rather than looking at, well, I'm going to do this on the side. If I make a little money, great. If I don't, okay, that's not committed. Commit to the business, commit to the idea, commit to the value you're going to create, even if it is part time. Are you committed? Are you committed to doing the things that are necessary to bring your idea, your value to a marketplace and bring it to life? And then the fourth is lack of action.

To me, this lack of action, you call it lack of execution. Just to say this is where really the rubber meets the road. Most of the problems we have in business are result of bad decisions or bad execution. And most of that, the majority of that is bad execution.

Your execution is what is going to bring things to life. And if you are not taking action, some people are frozen in fear because they are afraid to take the wrong action. But here's the thing to think about, you've heard me say this.

In some of my other programs and speeches, is that when you make a decision, when you take an action, it doesn't put you in concrete, it doesn't make it so you can't move. Most of the things we do in our business, in our life are not terminal. In other words, that I have the ability to change and shift directions. Point is this, we make a decision, we take an action to get more information so we can make a better informed decision and, and take a better action. So the key is take action, do it consistently. Execute, execute, execute. Then.

The fifth one is lack of support. And.

When I talk about lack of support. I'm talking about business support, but I'm also talking about relational support. Your loved ones, your family, your spouse, your significant other. And I think what we need to do is enroll people in our mission, enroll people in our purpose, enroll people in what we're trying to create, to move forward, and they will rally behind us. But you need to have those conversations. If you feel that you're not getting. You don't have supportive spouse, or if you feel that you don't have a supportive group, then one have those conversations. And I know that sometimes they can be difficult. Look, my wife came from, and she's a extremely articulate, bright, intelligent lady and very successful, very successful executive in the corporate space. She came into the entrepreneurial space with me. She still has her corporate work that she does. And she does a phenomenal job building teams and the things that she does, I mean, just amazing. And she's viewing me in this entrepreneurial space that she's never been in. And so we had to have some conversations so I could help her understand what being an entrepreneur, or in her case, being the wife of an entrepreneur, which is a zany, crazy journey, could be like. And she's one of the greatest supports for me today that I could ever ask for. She rallies behind me. She cheers me on. She's my champion. She's my cheerleader, and I am for her. So what we need to do is have those conversations. We need to build those relationships. And if you feel that you don't have enough support around you, you need to reach out and bring them in, create a support mechanism around you. All of these things that create fear are solvable. And then the last is this concept of a lack of a backup plan. So here's the thing, and I have a very good friend of mine that says you don't need a plan B.

And I think it's misinterpreted when he says that it's not that you don't need a plan B, you don't need a destination B. All right? There's a difference. My destination is the same. The path in which I get there, I'm not necessarily married to, because it's the destination that I want to get to. So if the first path isn't working or it's blocked or something happens, I do have a backup plan. And the time to do your backup plan to get to the same destination.

Is before you start. The more alternatives, the more ways you've worked out the possible outcome, the more ways that you've thought it through, figured out what the risks are, figured out what the obstacles are, and learned how you might be able to navigate around those. The easier it's going to be, the less stress you're going to have. Because you know, one thing's for certain, when you put a plan in place and you start to execute, guess what? The plan doesn't go as planned. That's a guaranteed. So plan for it from the beginning. Figure out the alternative ways to still get to the same destination. Remember, it's not about having not having a plan B. I want you to have a plan B, but I want you to continue towards destination A, if that makes sense. So those are the things that I would look at and I would do it as a checklist. If you're finding that you're stuck, if you're finding that you're fearful, if you're finding that fear welling up inside of you, that anxiety, where you're going, I don't know, I don't know and I don't want to go, then ask yourself, is it because of a lack of clarity? Is it because a lack of information? Is it because I just maybe not committed to it? Is it because I'm not taking action or I'm not executing properly, or do I need support or do I need to start developing a backup plan? Not to a different destination though, a backup plan to the same destination. This is the recipe that I've used for myself and for my clients and for other entrepreneurs to help them start to filter out and get that.

And move beyond that fear. I mean, think about it for a moment. If I get clarity, have the information, I become committed to it. I start to take concerted execution and action. I have a supportive team and I have alternatives. How can you be fearful because you got everything in the game at that point. I hope that helps you. I hope that that helps you deal with what comes up in many entrepreneurs lives. You are not alone. I'm not alone. It comes up with me many times. Understand it, use it to your advantage. Figure out what it is. I hope that you found this of value again. If you found this a value, go ahead and share it with a friend. Give them the gift of what we're doing here. Give them the gift of some of the tools, the resources and the techniques that we're doing to help them, their business, build their world, build their dreams, get them out of the darkness again and bring them to life. And to download the guidebook and everything in the resource guide for this, go ahead and go to Melabraham Session 018 Melabraham Sessions 018 and if you happen to not be at your computer and you're out on a run or you're at the gym, just text text mylegacy one word no spaces 38470 we'll get the download link directly. You if you have a question about this success, business, money, whatever, whatever question you have, I don't know, you can even ask me. Don't ask me questions about recipes and things like that. I can't help there. But you can go ahead and send it anyways. Go to askmelnow.com that's askmelnow.com you can click the button. You can leave me a message your question I will get to all the questions personally and most of the time I will do it on one of the upcoming episodes. So I hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope that this helps you, serves you and supports you as you move forward in your entrepreneurial journey. And if there's anything I can do with you, do for you in the process, reach out, let me know. Look forward to being part of your journey and again, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant. See you soon. Bye for now.

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