Limiting Beliefs Holding Your Business Back

The biggest thing that will hold you back from growing your online business is you and what's going on in between your ears. Today is going to be a doozy because I'm going to reveal some of the biggest limiting beliefs that have held me back and still do at times. Luckily, I know how to overcome them and that hold most people back from actually starting growing their online business or just getting out of the rut that they are kind of stuck in. So today I am going to just be a little bit harsh and push you with love, of course. And just kind of reveal some pain points, some things that you're probably facing. And I guarantee that out of these 5 limiting beliefs that we're going to cover, at least one of them is going to resonate with you. And my hope, my dream, and kind of takeaway that I want you to get from this episode is that you're not the only person who's dealing with this. I do a ton of customer research and I found the pains that people deal with in terms of growing their online business. So you're not the only one. And I hope that this episode inspires you to take action and make it happen. So without further ado, let's dive into some limiting beliefs that are holding you back from growing your business. Welcome to episode number 5 of the Profit Your Knowledge podcast. I'm your host, James Allen, here to help you turn your knowledge passions and skills into an online business and build a life of freedom. I'm super excited for today's episode because we are going to crush some limiting beliefs. This is stuff that I have dealt with many times in the past and like I said, done a lot of customer research. I think it's something that everybody should make a part of, like their normal routine and running their business is always just studying your audience and helping them solve problems because that's what we do as online business owners and just business owners in general. And one of the biggest problems is learning how to overcome what's going on in between the ears. So like I said, today we got 5 of these that we're going to cover. These are 5 of the biggest ones that I have found and dealt with myself. Um, and then, yeah, I'll kind of coach you in how to overcome them. So let me know down in the comments which one really resonates with you, uh, which one or couple it could be, or maybe all of them, uh, is you— is what you think is kind of holding you back and Give me some, you know, steps that you're going to take to actually overcome this yourself. This is obviously if you're on YouTube. If you are on the podcast, you can always leave a review or you can hop over to YouTube or you can even just email me. It's james@profityourknowledge.com. Send me an email and we'll chat. Before we get into these limiting beliefs, if you are a person who's thinking about starting an online business, but you don't really know which route to go, you kind of have that lack of direction. Which by the way is one of the limiting beliefs. If that's kind of you, or if you're someone who's just looking to create more scalable income and maybe you have been doing really well with like a coaching business or a service-based business, but you're just tired of being glued to the phone, constantly working with clients, even though you love to work with them and you want to create more scalable income so you can stop trading your time for money, I have a special resource for you. It is a 5-step action guide or really an action plan. And this thing is going to walk you through in a very short period of time, probably take about 10 minutes to read through it. It'll walk you through how to find your business idea, how to find your target audience. It also goes over how to create content, how to get discovered and bring leads to your website or your business, how to create an online course, what to price it at. It goes over all of that stuff. And the best part is, and the coolest part is how to use email to create an automated system that sells this thing for you on autopilot. So it's how to turn your knowledge into an online income stream on autopilot. Okay, so to pick up that guide, just go over to profityourknowledge.com/guide, or there's also a link in the description of this episode. So let's dive into some limiting beliefs. Again, we got 5 of them. I'm going to try and keep this as concise as possible and just kind of blast through these while also giving you enough tangible action so that you can Think about this, make something happen from it. Number 1, and it's probably the biggest one that people always deal with and always say, and it's a lack of time. I would like more time. If I could change anything, it would just be that I had more time. And in that 5-step action plan that we talked about, that is something that you could, you could devote 3 hours a week to it. 3 hours a week, a couple minutes a day. you know, just kind of slowly just start chipping away, building that, that type of business model. That's the amazing thing about it. It doesn't require a ridiculous amount of time. Obviously, the more time you can put into this business model, the faster that you can build it and that things can happen. But you can just start building this in your spare time, which is pretty awesome. But lack of time is the biggest thing that causes people to just say, I don't have the time, so why would I do it? And that's not just building an online business. That's also getting into shape. I don't have time to work out. You kidding me? But what we have to understand is that we don't have the time. Nobody has the time. I didn't have the time to leave construction work and start building an online business. I didn't have the time. But what we do is we need to make the time. And you've probably heard that many times, but it's so true. It's never a time problem. It's always a priority problem. We need to devote the time. Every single day. And there's, there's a lot of ways you can do this. Maybe it's you just saying, I'm just going to do this and making that mental commitment with yourself, that personal commitment to sit down an hour a day and start working on building your online business. Or maybe it is getting into shape or committing to deepening your relationship with your spouse or your kids or whatever it is. Obviously with me, I'm talking about building your online business and the work that you really love to do. But you need to just stop blaming time because it's really not a matter of time. You are the person, the only person who can dictate where you put your time, energy, and focus. It's all on you. All right. And I'm saying this with love because I know it can, it can feel a little harsh. I can kind of picking on you, but I'm not. Um, I'm picking on the old version of you, the person that wants to just say, I don't have the time. It's so lazy to think that. If you really want to build an online business or you want any kind of result for that matter, you have got to just buckle down and put the time into your calendar, into your schedule. I personally am a huge fan of time blocking, so my calendar is crazy and I have videos on my YouTube channel when I was focusing more on like performance and productivity and stuff, which I still love because it spills into what I teach today. It was just an evolutionary kind of teaching and progress. And, you know, that's a topic for a different day. But time blocking is such a great practice because when you learn to live from your calendar, you end up taking a lot more control of your time. You, you get to decide, I'm going to do this, I'm not going to do this. And you can put your priorities into your calendar. And I mean, really, like, you can still do that and not actually take action on it. It could be that you just maybe need to do some deep work or something. Maybe you do need some coaching. You need someone there to actually hold you accountable, whether it is having just an accountability buddy or hiring a coach, which I think is a great investment as long as you have a good coach. But you like, what is something that you can do to make the time this week to put towards building your online business? Maybe it's you downloading that 5-step guide because it's a great walkthrough. It's going to give you the format and step 1, step 2, step 3, all the way to step 5. It's going to give you the steps to take. And maybe it's you time blocking 1 hour a week. You know, it could be 10 minutes or 20 minutes a day or 30 minutes a day. Maybe 1 hour a day. That'd be awesome. You know, waking up a little bit earlier to work on your online business or to get in better shape or whatever it is. Can you do that this week? That's kind of my, my challenge for you is to sit down and just open up your calendar and say, even just pick 1 day. This Monday, I'm going to work on the online business. I'm going to download the 5-step guide. I'm going to read through it and I'm just going to start practicing it. There's videos inside of that guide, by the way, that literally show you what I mean inside of each one to help you have a better understanding. And I'm always here to support you as well. But I want you to know that I have your back. You do have the time. You have more than enough time. You just have to make that time. That's all it is. All right. So what can you do to make some time this week to growing your online business, to getting the result that you really want? Okay. You do have the time. So that's number 1. Number 2, this is an interesting one. My audience needs to be bigger. I need to have a bigger audience in order to grow my business. False. It's not true. Uh, having a big audience is awesome. Having a big loyal audience is even more awesome, but we don't need to have some giant audience. You don't need to have millions of followers and millions of subscribers or attention in order to have an online business. You really don't. You can have a relatively small audience. I mean, really, I forgot exactly who said this. I should have looked this up before I started this episode, but, um, there's this one, one guy, and I've heard it before, where all you really need, and it is really true, is 1,000 1,000 loyal fans. If you can create 1,000 loyal fans, you will be set for life. But you can still have a profitable business and a relatively successful business with less than 1,000. But having 1,000 true fans— and a great way to actually measure this is by looking at, like, your YouTube channel or your podcast listeners or your blog followers. And if you can see, or your email subscribers that actually engage and doing like some math with the metrics and stuff, if you can see that right around 1,000 is constantly engaging with you, watching your videos, you can always break 1,000 just consistently, then that's a sign that you have more than enough of an audience. There are channels who have 1,000 or 5,000 subscribers, which in the world of YouTube, that is like nothing. That is tiny. Most people have or a lot of these like big people where people think that they need to be in order to have this online business is like 250, quarter million subscribers or a million subscribers or plus. And you really don't because the money is really made with a small channel on the backend. If you're doing one-on-one coaching or providing your services with people and instead using YouTube and a podcast as more of a lead generation tool which is what we should do, that's how you can have more of an income with having a smaller audience. I have like 350 subscribers, you know, and I still make money in my business. So, you know, people see that and they're like, wow, it must be like harsh. You're getting like 26 views or something. Someone said that actually in a comment the other day. And I was explaining this to them, just replied in a comment real quick that it's, it's really about what's going on on the backend. So instead of focusing on, views and your subscribers, which is really discouraging for a lot of people. And it's a huge habit that I had to break and still work at breaking instead of just like looking at my videos every single time and seeing that it's not growing. What you need to understand is that it's a long game building an audience. It doesn't just happen overnight. It takes time. So instead of focusing on views and subscribers, focus on your opt-ins. That's a way better metric to focus on. Focus on creating better lead magnets that are more enticing and videos that are related to those lead magnets so that it can actually speak the language of the people that you want to reach. Okay. You don't need to have some crazy big audience instead of, or instead of focusing on views and subscribers, focus on opt-ins, focus on the backend sales and focus on consistency because a lot of people are like, oh, I need to have a bigger audience, but then they don't put the work in to actually build a bigger audience, which is you showing up consistently and putting out awesome free content and value to people. At least if you want to win in the online world, you have to provide value first and then you can start building a relationship digitally without ever meeting people and building your audience. Okay, but focus on selling on the back end. Sell courses on the back end at a premium price, a couple hundred bucks, even a $100 course when you have a relatively decent-sized audience, you can make some awesome money from doing that. Getting discovered on YouTube or in a podcast or online and then bringing people over to your email list with a lead magnet, a good one because you understand your audience, then making sales on the back end or doing one-on-one coaching for a higher-ticket product. Could be a couple thousand dollars that you work with people one-on-one, um, depending on what your offer is. You can end up making some awesome money. So your audience does not need to be bigger in order for you to be successful. But the biggest thing in terms of creating an audience, like I said before, it's consistency. People want the bigger audience, but they don't want to put the work into actually building that audience, being consistent, putting value out into the marketplace, always offering your lead magnet. Those are the things that over time are eventually going to really build that audience. And adding value to them, giving people extra stuff, overdelivering, like doing the work basically. But people say, oh, I, I want my audience to be bigger, but they don't want to do the work. So I hope you can see that you just need to be consistent. You have to do the things that I teach. I just made a video last week about 3 things that you can do in every single piece of content to make sure it's a great piece of content, that it's actually adding value to people. So check out that video. Um, I forgot the name of the title, but it's the last video I put out or last podcast episode, episode number 4. Uh, so your audience does not need to be bigger. That's the last I'm going to say. Focus on consistency, your opt-ins more than views and backend sales. That matters way more than anything. Okay. That's number 2. Crush. We got 3 more. Let's power through this. Number 3, uh, limiting belief holding back your business. Is wanting to be perfect, quotation marks, perfect. This also spills into a lack of confidence because you wanting it to be perfect is just really an excuse because we're never perfect. I'm not perfect. I make mistakes all the time. Me starting this episode today, I had to do a retake on my intro to just get the ball rolling. I have to sit here and prep myself and say, okay, I'm going to do this and I get ready and then I try it. And, you know, I sometimes I have to take multiple takes to try and get it, but I get it as good as I can because I could— I could just sit here all day, but I don't have all day. I don't want to spend here all day to get the perfect episode. I know that more importantly, it's me just putting out awesome value to the best of my ability and just doing it consistently and getting better every single time that I do it because I do it consistently. Okay, but you're never going to be perfect. Nobody's perfect. Perfect is a misconception. It's false. And the biggest thing is that you just have to start. Okay, have the confidence to just start. Have the confidence to stand up to that little voice in your head that says, oh no, it has to be perfect. You have to do this. And I see this all the time with friends getting into business or clients that I work with. They think they have to have some crazy perfect setup. Get it good enough. And then start and progress as you go. I have changed up the way that I create content over time to doing more of this like podcast style. I used to do a lot of heavy editing and before that, you know, I did more of this kind of podcast style, but now I've upgraded my setup. So I got a nicer camera, a nicer microphone and stuff because I just made small tweaks as I kept being consistent and doing the work. But you just have to start And I think I heard it best from— it was Marshall Silver who actually said this, who I heard it from. But he said, put out crap and then put out crap 2.0. Put out crap. Just, just start doing it and then put out crap 2.0 and don't be so self-critical. Don't think it has to be perfect because it really doesn't. The biggest thing is that you're being genuine, you're being you. And honestly, when you are being genuine and when you are being you in your content and adding value because you care and you want people to succeed, which is like what I want for you, That is not perfect. People are awesome because of their imperfections. You are awesome because of your imperfections. I'm cool because of my imperfections. At least I think I'm cool. Um, but you don't need to be perfect. Stop waiting to be perfect or wanting to be perfect. Perfect is kind of weird. It's offsetting. It's like, it's almost too like cookie cutter, uh, or too, too perfect. And it actually turns people off really. People like the inconsistencies. I mean, be consistent with putting out the content, but you know what I mean? I think you know what I mean. Be willing to look like a newbie. That's kind of what I'm getting at. It's like it's okay to, to fall, like to trip on your words. That's why I like doing this video podcast. I used to do it where I had to edit everything and it was just like it took a lot of time for me to edit and I didn't want to hire an editor. So, and I would like doing this. I like being able to communicate one-on-one. I like how it's more intimate. But if I trip on my words or I say, um, or I forget what I said, then I just roll with it. You know, that's what I would do if I was sitting here talking with you one-on-one. If you and I were in a coffee shop, I would trip on my words because that just is what it is. Okay, but be willing to look like a newbie. Stop thinking you have to be perfect. It really is underneath that perfect quote-unquote thing is a lack of confidence. You have more than enough. If you really care about your topic, you study it all the time. You live by what you teach. You have more than enough to get out there and just start. You don't need to have some certificate. This is one of the things I do a lot of customer research, and this is one of the things that holds people back. For so, so many people, I need to have some sort of certificate or be certified on a certain subject in order to teach it. I didn't get certified on how to teach online business. I did get coaching certifications when I first started because I used to have this limiting belief. I need to be certified to be legit. I learned really quick that that doesn't matter. People, all they care about is, can you help me? Can you help me with what it is that you teach? Can you help me lose weight? I don't care if you have some certification or whatever. Sometimes you need certifications. Like, I became a CrossFit coach because I needed that to coach at a gym, so I had to get that certification. But doing the work that we do, doing coaching and stuff like that, like, you don't need that. No, no one, no one really cares. I got certified as like a spiritual transformation coach when I first started. And then I just started coaching. I don't even really teach a whole lot of what I got certified in anymore. Some of the mindset stuff is still there for sure. But now when it comes to online business, I didn't get any certs for this and I can still help people. I can still get out there, make a difference in people's lives. I'm doing it right now. But yeah, be willing to look like a newbie. And the biggest thing, like I work with people all the time creating content and stuff. And they're like, oh, like I put out a piece of content. I just look so robotic. I look weird or I sound weird. It doesn't seem like me. And it's like, yeah, it's because it takes practice. I was never this good at being on camera. I've just been doing it for a long time. So that's how I got better at being on camera. And I, you know, if you're just listening to the podcast, like I record this podcast and look at my camera the whole time and that goes up as my YouTube video. But what I do is I listen to my podcast, I listen to my YouTube videos and I watch them and I say, how can I actually get better at this? I didn't like that I did that. That was too much minutiae, it was too much scrambling on my words. So I noticed that and then the next video, 'cause I'm just consistent with putting it out, I practice being aware of that and I practice just doing it and working at it bit by bit. People think every single piece of content needs to be perfect. It doesn't. People think every course needs to be perfect. It doesn't. Just launch it, get it out there. Because when you create a digital course or a coaching program, you adjust as you go. You can go back. It's not like writing a book, you know, where you have to like write the book and then you publish it a bunch and now you need to make a couple updates and add a chapter or something or take away a couple chapters. Now you have to print out all these new books. Like, it's way easier than that. The business model, at least, that, that I teach, creating a course, if you just launch it and then you get feedback from your students and you're like, okay, I'm just going to go switch out this lesson, I'm going to update this lesson, I'm going to get rid of that lesson. Click of a couple buttons, you're good. Okay, so just start. Stop— put out crap, you know, and then put out crap 2.0. Stop thinking that it has to be perfect because it doesn't. Do the best you can, constantly improve and review your work. That's how you're going to get better. Look at your cringeworthy content, say, how can I improve this? What can I do to be better on camera? And then practice that. That's the biggest thing. All right. That was number 4. Wanting to be perfect, lack of confidence is really what it is. You have more than enough to succeed. Trust me. Number 5, this is the final one. It's a lack of direction. If you're thinking to yourself, I have no idea what to do. I still, I've been doing this for a long time and I still just have no clue what to do. It's okay. If you think that creating online courses complicated and you keep overcomplicating online course creation or creating an offer of any kind, even if it's for like one-on-one coaching, it's okay. Everybody does this. I did this for a long time. That's why I have mentors. That's why I have people, idols, heroes that I follow. Uh, if you're struggling to figure out what your topic should be, download my 5-step guide. I swear it is, it is 8 pages. And it's going to walk you through all this stuff. It's going to give you that clarity, give you those action steps. Is it going to happen overnight? No. Depending on where you're at, you could have a huge audience. I have no idea. You could have no audience like I did when I first started and just be building from scratch. But I guarantee that this business model will work for you as long as you teach things. If you teach people how to get in shape, teach people martial arts, you teach people mindset, transformation, online business, relationships, whatever, you teach people things. This will work for you and it will take time, but just make it a part of your identity. Making content's a part of my identity. Okay, I could go a lot into lack of direction, and it is kind of vague because it depends on, well, kind of where you're at. Um, but if you follow that 5-step guide and just chip away at it, watch my content, I will help you build a business model like this where you can work with people, put in 20 hours or 30 hours tops a week into building your business. You can even start with way less than that depending on where you're at. You could do 3 hours a week or 5 hours a week, whatever you can. But eventually you can get to a point where you can have a business that is doing 5, 6, even 7 figures depending on where you're at with this business model. I'm not at 7 figures yet, quote me on it, but one day I will be. But my mentors are. One of my mentors is Graham Cochran. He's like, James Allen. He does the same business model. It's where I really learned this from. And he is a multi-seven-figure, two different businesses doing the same business model because he teaches things online. So if you want more direction, download the 5-step guide. Um, a lack of direction too could be just inner work that you need to do for yourself. Um, it could be you need to meditate, maybe. I don't know. I'm not going to be. Really the whole guru on that. I know meditation really helps. It helps me, but more about like focusing and maintaining focus. So it could just be some inner work that you need to do. But the bottom line, in terms of lack of direction, if you can think about a general rough idea of this is what I want and just take action steps towards that, you're going to win. It's just going to take time, and it can happen faster for you than it happened for me. It can happen way slower than it happened for me. It took me a long time, took me way longer than I expected to grow my business, and I'm still growing it. I'm still learning as I go every single day, every single week, every time I put out a piece of content, every course I release or launch, you know, every time I work with a client, I'm constantly learning. It's a never-ending process, okay? But A quick example is, like I mentioned before, I left construction work. I had a six-figure job doing $80,000 per year to six figures, which most people would be like, wow, that's amazing. I hated my job though, but I left and I said, I want to help people in some way. And I really wanted to help people in terms of their career. So I left. I took the most logical step, the one thing that I knew I could do. And I learned about a coaching certification. Called at the time Life Mastery Institute. Now it's called Brave Thinking Institute through Mary Morrissey, who's an awesome mentor, by the way. Very knowledgeable, very wise. And I said, that's around the ballpark of what I want to do. So I jumped in and I left construction work and I got certified, went, climbed up the certification ranks, all that. And then I realized that I don't really want to do this. I felt like a therapist. I want to help people with trauma and things. I had enough of that growing up. and, um, I wanted to help people with career, so I kept developing and evolving and I changed different niches. I went into leadership coaching, wasn't really my thing. And then I got into performance and productivity because I love exercise, I love energy stuff, and it was towards helping people with their business. But then it just evolved into me teaching people online business, and this is my sweet spot. This is where I'm happy. It's my happy place because I get to help people be their own boss and build a life of freedom. That's really what it's about. That's what I always wanted when I was in construction. I didn't even know where I was, where I would be today, but I just started. And that's the biggest thing. As you go, you find the path. More of the path, I guess, gets revealed to you the more that you just take courageous action steps in the direction of what you want. You have to have at least a general idea. I want to help people with coaching stuff. Okay, cool. Just start doing it. Start working with people. Start doing the work. Make mistakes, fall on your face, and over time you are going to end up getting that clarity on exactly what it is that you really want to do. Okay, but downloading my 5-step guide is really going to help you because it's going to give you some action steps to work towards. Try my method, and if you don't like it, that's okay. Try somebody else's method, but keep trying stuff. Make investments in yourself, apply what you learn, and be willing to fail. That is my advice for you if you suffer with that lack of direction stuff. With action comes clarity. So take action. All right. Download my 5-step guide. That's your first action step. Download the 5-step guide. Check it out. Go through it. If you have questions, leave a comment on a YouTube video or just send me an email. Let me know. Reach out through my website, whatever it is. Reply back to one of my emails that I send out, because once you opt in for the, the 5-step guide, you will be on my email list. Unsubscribe if you wish, but I imagine you'll probably want to stay because I put out some awesome free stuff for you. And yeah, that'll be about it. Okay, so download the 5-step guide again, profityourknowledge.com/guide, or there's a link in the description. But all in all, I'm just going to sum up what these 5 major limiting beliefs are. Lack of time. You don't have time. You make time. That's it. Number 2, your audience needs to be, needs to be bigger in order for you to be successful. No, it doesn't. Focus on opt-ins, back-end sales, selling courses, selling one-on-one services on the back end and being consistent. That is what matters. Okay. Number 3, you're wanting to be perfect, which is really a lack of confidence. You have to just start, put out crap and then put out crap 2.0. Review your work and constantly improve. Um, oh, I only have 4. 1, 2, 3. Oh, there's only 4. I didn't even do 5. My bad. Uh, number 4, lack of direction. Um, just try things, make investments, apply what you learn, and, uh, be willing to fail. All right. That's funny. I thought I had 5 written down, but I had 4. Ah, that's what I'm talking about right there. That's me making a mistake, but that's all good. So anyway, let me know down in the comments which one of these 4, not 5, resonates with you, if any of them. And, um, yeah, I mean, that's the biggest thing. Just take action, take what you learned here, get out there and just start making it happen. Take some sort of action and you're going to improve, uh, review your work, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. But like this video, if it did give you value, and if you feel that this would be valuable for a friend, then please share it. That'd be awesome. I appreciate it. It helps the algorithm and everything. Uh, but really, if you do want to get some coaching, I'd love to respond to your comments. Let me know down in the comments any questions you have or which one of these limiting beliefs is you— is what you think is the biggest determining factor that is holding you back. Or if you have another one that you think it is, I'd love to learn. All right. That's all I got for you today. Uh, take what you learned here and get out there and start growing your online business. We'll see you in the next one.