12 Mindset Traps Entrepreneurs Face

Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to this edition of Monday Momentum. Today we're going to talk about 12 mindset, mindset traps that you fall into, and it's very easy for us to fall into those. We're going to talk about each one of them, and I really want you to, I really want you to let this soak in. Because we probably all of us fall into at least one of these. Um, maybe some of us fall into multiples of these, but what I want you to do is to recognize what trap we're falling into so that we can bust through it. If we don't recognize what's holding us back, there's no way that we can move past it. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. There's 12 of them. I've put them together for you this morning. I want to talk about it because What I know to be true is that 75% of being an entrepreneur is about your mindset. It's not about your skill. It's not about your expertise. It's not about how much money you have. It is about your mindset. And we're going to talk about these 12 mindset traps today. So if you're watching, let me know that you're here. I would love to say hi to you this morning. Also, I've got the banner up today. We have tons of new members. We have lots of new people following. So So if you would like to join me every Monday morning at 9:00 AM Central for Monday Momentum, I send out a little text right before I go live just as a reminder that I'm about to go live. So if you'd like to receive that text from me on Monday mornings, just text me Monday to 940-204-0023. That will automatically put you on the list to get the text from me on Monday mornings. Um, because I don't want to text everyone. I don't want to text everyone, um, and wake you up on Monday morning. Especially if you're on the West Coast, but it's an option for you if you're here. I'm also going to— okay, I've got all my— I've got the comments. It was like blank for a minute and then they all popped in. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, Amy. Good morning, Myra. Good morning, Andrea. Good to see you here. Good morning, Christy. Good morning, Sarah. Sarah says, I already know this talk is about to be for me. This talk is about to be for a lot of you, and including me sometimes. I don't want you to think that I'm above any of these 12. I'm going to tell you where I fall into these traps. And so we're going to talk about it. I'm not above falling into these mindset traps, but what we can't do is stay there. Okay, good morning, uh, Lisa. It is July now. This is another thing, and this is why I'm talking about this this morning, because it's July 1st. We have a brand new month, a brand new opportunity. It's also Monday morning, so we get a fresh start on our week. We also get a fresh start on our month, and I want to give you a fresh start on your mindset this morning. Good morning, Sammy. Good morning, Michonne. Good morning, Shauna. Good morning, Hey everybody, good morning, Doris. Everybody is here. Good morning. And then I can see over in Subscription Box Week, today's our last day to be in Subscription Box Week. So good morning, everybody over in Subscription Box Week. I can see Cherie and Tabitha and Carrie over in Subscription Box Week. So today's the last day for Subscription Box Week, which also means today is the last day to join Launch Your Box. So if you've been on the fence or you've been thinking about it, you really need to get in today because we're closing the doors tomorrow morning. Also, the price will increase from this point forward. So we want you to get in and get going on that today. All right. So let's start talking about our 12 mindset shifts. If you're a note taker, I want you to write these down because I'm going to ask you, which one are you falling into that trap right now? I'm going to talk about which one I fall into. But I want you— I want you to tell me which one and we're going to talk about it. So number 1, We're going to talk about the 12 mindset traps. I want you to really think about— you're like, no, I'm not any of these. You're, you're probably one of these at least. So let's talk about number 1. Number 1 is the fear of failure. This is probably the biggest and most popular mindset trap that we fall into. We never actually get started because we are afraid of failing. So we never take that leap. We never try anything. We never actually start because we're afraid of failing right out the gate. Okay. So number 1 is fear of failure. You're never ever going to start if you've been sitting there thinking about starting your subscription box, thinking about starting your business, and you haven't done it because you might be worried about financial risks. You might be worried about your reputation. You might be worried that you're going to start something and no one's going to buy it. You might be worried about the impact it's going to have on your personal life. These are fears of failure. But I don't ever fear failure. I always have this fear of what if. What if I don't try this? What if I don't do this? What am I missing out on? There are so many things that I have tried and failed at. And you have to be okay with failure. You have to be okay that sometimes not everything you do is going to be success. You have to be okay with what's the worst-case scenario. I try this and it doesn't work. Okay, so what? So what? But what I fear is not failure of trying something. I fear complacency. I fear if I don't do this, what am I missing out on? What if I don't do this? And so I want you to reframe If you're sitting here thinking you have fear of failure, I want you to think about the fear of what if. What if I try this and it's actually successful? What would I be missing out on? When I quit my full-time job and I started to go all in with my little side hustle business that I had, I had the fear of if I don't do this and it actually could be successful, what am I missing out on? Am I going to punch a clock the rest of my life? Am I going to just work all day and then do my side hustle all night, every night? What if I'm afraid of that? What if? So I want you, if you're thinking you're afraid of failing, what part of failing are you afraid of? Let's talk about it. Number 2, perfectionism. This is a trap that holds a lot of us back. From starting. It's like that desire to have everything perfect before launching, and it will cause us to delay. It will cause missed opportunities. We have heard over and over this week that from our members that you don't have to actually have it all figured out. You just have to start. And then we start to build momentum off of that. We heard it from Lexi on Saturday morning. She just had to start. She had one subscriber. She had to start the thing to figure it out and get better. We talked from Betsy last night. She started with 18 subscribers and has over 1,000 now. But if she never would have started, we never would have figured it out. And we even talked with Betsy last night about how she looks back at her first box and thinks, man, it's so much better now. It's so much better. If she would have waited until everything was perfect, if Lexi would have waited till everything was perfect, they probably would have never started. If you're sitting here waiting for you to have everything together to start, you just keep giving yourself a reason to put it off. That's all you're doing. We don't have to be perfect to be amazing. Our imperfections make us amazing. I am the most imperfect person. But I just do it and I figure it out. And if I make mistakes along the way, those are lessons learned. If your perfectionism is holding you back, you've got to, you've got to, like, cut those strings that are holding you back. We have to do it. Do it messy. Do it scared. Do it not knowing. I always, I always like because so many of us are women and I know we've got some amazing new guys in our community. There's like 10 of you in our community that have joined this week. But I always relate this to being a mother for the first time. When we get pregnant and we have our first child, oh my gosh, it's the scariest feeling. We don't know. We don't know how to be a mom. We don't know if we're going to do things right. We don't know if it's going to be OK. But there's no time to perfect everything because this child is coming and we have to figure it out. I feel like that's our subscription box. That's our business. We're birthing something into the world. We may not be ready, but we figure it out as we go. Stop waiting for things to be perfect. There's not going to be a perfect economy. There's not going to be a perfect month. There's not going to be a perfect scenario for you. If you're waiting for the perfect scenario or you're waiting for everything to be lined up perfectly, you're missing out on your opportunity. You're missing out on your opportunity. Number 3, imposter syndrome. If this is you, put imposter in the chat. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I don't know enough. I'm not young enough. That fear of inadequacy. You're not competent enough to do this. Why would somebody buy something from me? There's all these incredible subscription boxes out in the world. Why do I need to do one too? It's a real thing, and it holds so many of us back. Why? Because we feel unworthy. We feel unworthy of someone else looking to us as a leader, as a business owner, as someone that would want to buy something from us, right? Imposter syndrome is big. It leads to a ton of hesitation and it can really hinder our success. You don't have to be the smartest. You don't have to be— you don't have to know everything. You don't have to be the youngest, the prettiest, the most intelligent. You don't have to be. You just have to be consistent at what you're doing. That's all you have to be. You have to show up consistently. You have to provide value consistently. You have to be consistent. You don't have to be the best at everything. You just got to keep showing up. You just got to keep putting yourself out there. And that's a tough one to overcome. We are competent. We are capable. We are worthy. And we have to remind ourselves that even when we're having the bad days, that we can do this. Number 4, overestimating the importance of money. I can't start a business. It takes money. You're right, it does. Financial resources are essential to being a business owner. But when we tell ourselves we don't have enough money to start, We're not being savvy. We're not using our resources. We're not— we don't want it bad enough. If you can't afford to hire someone to build a website, you know what you do? You get on YouTube and you watch endless amounts of videos and you figure out how to do it yourself. If you want it bad enough, not having the money to do it shouldn't stop you. If you don't have the money to buy product, what do we do? We put it on a credit card. We get a loan. We get a credit line. If you want it bad enough, you make it happen. You can't just say, I don't have any money to build a business. If you don't have any money to build a business right now, you're never going to have money to have a business. So what are you waiting for? We got to get resourceful. We got to figure it out. We got to problem solve how to make it happen with what we have. I don't have to go buy the most perfect custom printed boxes. You do, do you remember seeing my box? My very first box was a brown cheap craft box that I rubber stamped every one of them. We get resourceful and we figure out how to make things happen, and we keep putting that money back into our business and getting better. It's not about that perfectionism. We don't have to be perfect to get started. I don't have enough money to buy 100 pieces of everything, Sarah. Okay, so let's start with 10. Let's start with 20. Yeah. Number 5, the fear of taking risks. Being an entrepreneur is a risk. It involves risk. It's risky every day. But when you're afraid of taking risks, you're eliminating opportunities that come your way. And it can lead to stagnation. It can lead to being stuck somewhere because you're afraid to take the next risk, that next step. It might be risky. I'm not a huge risk taker. I'm not skydiving. I'm not going to the roulette wheel and putting my paycheck all on black. I'm taking calculated risks based on what I know. Risk versus reward. Baby step it. I took a huge risk at the beginning of this launch, one that I have never taken before, and it was scary for me. And it was uncomfortable for me. But you know what? It is paying off big time right now in this moment. And sometimes the risks aren't that big. Sometimes they're smaller risks and you get smaller rewards. And when you see those small risks pay off, it gives you confidence to take bigger risks. But if you're afraid of taking risks, you will never make it as an entrepreneur. We got to take risks, but we can take calculated risks. We can take data-driven risks. Number 6: negative self-talk. Unfortunately, my daughter does this a lot, my 16-year-old. She's constantly doubting herself. She's constantly speaking negatively about herself. You know, we— she played Friday. She went to basketball camp and she felt defeated. It was a college ID camp. There were recruiters there. She wants to play college basketball so badly. And she said, I missed all my shots, Mom. I was the worst person there. I couldn't dribble. Everybody else could dribble better than me. And I'm like, what are you talking about? In her mind, she only saw that she was the only person missing her shots. Do you know how many missed shots I saw during the 5v5 competition? In her mind, she was the only person that missed her shots. She couldn't even see that other people missed shots too. It's all about this negative self-talk about how she's not good enough. She's not the best dribbler. She's not this. Instead of talking about what she did do well. She was passing, she had a ton of assists, she was playing really well defensively, but she couldn't see any of that. She just constantly tells herself she's not good enough. That negative self-talk, that negative self-doubt. And then it causes bad decision-making. She saw she was missing her shot, so anytime she was open to take a shot, she passed the ball. She's a great team player, but when you stop making the shots— I knew she was doubting her ability to make shots because she was open multiple times and turned and passed the ball. How many times have you turned and passed the ball? When it comes to your business because you're afraid. Stop talking about yourself negatively. It can affect you big time. Number 7: lack of focus. You're trying to do too many things at once. You're not finishing anything. You don't have a clear plan to complete things. And it leads to burnout, no progress, and fatigue, and you're exhausted and overwhelmed. Anybody here have a lack of focus? You know, I was having a conversation with the boyfriend this morning, or maybe it was last night, and we were talking about how creative brains just are all over the place, right? Creative— our creative minds are all over the place. And some of that can be, you know, partnered with ADHD. My 18-year-old son has ADHD. Um, and so when your creative brain is all over the place and then you partner that with ADHD, even if you have it or you don't, um, my creative brain is all over the place one time, all the time. But if I don't have a clear system process, I'm going to be all over the place in my business. And so what I've learned to do with my creative brain is to systemize stuff. He was looking at the wall of names that I've been putting up in my office at home, and everything is like in a line with color coding, and I put things up in fours. He said, it's kind of like your OCD about some things. I've been putting them on the wall in sheets of 4 by color. And I go, I don't know. It's just a system and a process that I've created in my mind. And when I can create a system and process with things, I'm more likely to do them. I'm more likely to stay focused. I'm more likely to implement them. And I'm not all over the place. Just like my launch the last week, everything was planned. Everything had a system and process. I knew how many lives I needed to do. We knew how many emails had to go out. We knew how many posts we needed to do. We knew everything. Everything has a system and a process. For the launch. And I know that about myself. And for a long time, I thought that was just me. But after working with all of these entrepreneurs, these thousands of entrepreneurs that I get to work with every day, I realize y'all are like me. You just need a system and process to be able to focus. And that's where I create worksheets and templates and plans like the launch plan I lay out for you. You've heard our members talk about that launch plan every day last week. In our interviews. They need the system and process as much as I do. And that's where I've really focused and streamlined our training to give you systems and processes that all you have to do is just implement. Because when we lack focus, it affects our day-to-day. It affects everything that we do. And as creatives, Many of us are creatives. We tend to be all over the place and we just need to put a system and process in place so that we can focus on the task at hand and get it done. And then when we do that, we feel good about ourselves, right? Like, I accomplished that. I finished that. I did that. That's what we need to, to combat the lack of focus. Number 8. Not valuing our time. We fall into this trap of doing everything ourselves, waiting too long to hire someone for help, trying to figure everything out ourselves without getting advice or a coach or an employee or an expert in that particular area. And this leads into a lot of inefficiencies for us, and then we become frustrated and burnt out. And so we have to take a step back and value our time. Sometimes we have to hire someone to do the thing that is really hard for us to do. And we have to put a value on that. What's the value of paying someone to do something for us or me spending the next 8 hours spinning in my head, getting frustrated, getting pissed off and quitting? What's the value of my time here? Someone that knows how to do this could probably do it in a fraction of the time that I'm going to be able to do this. My time is worth more than figuring this out. And if I have the financial resources to invest in it, I should. If I don't, I need to buckle down and figure it out. Right. We talked about the importance of money and number 4. If I don't have the resources, I'm going to have to figure it out. But what is the value of my time? Many entrepreneurs don't value their time, and that's where we get frustrated and burn out and quit. Okay, number 9. This is going to hit some of you hard. Number 9, comparison to others. We are constantly comparing ourselves to other people, maybe in our industry, maybe in a different industry. And this leads to discouragement. It leads to loss of motivation. When you hear Betsy with our interview last night talk about how she started with 18 subscribers and 3 years later she's got over 1,000 subscribers, that should motivate you, not discourage you. If you're comparing yourself to Betsy, like, well, why can't my thing be successful like Betsy? Why can't I have 375,000 Instagram followers like Betsy? She started from zero. You need to not compare yourself to her, but be inspired that you can do this because she did it too. We can't compare ourselves. To other people. It's just like, you know, I've used the— I've used the FabFitFun comparison. If I compared myself to FabFitFun, I would never have started. I am not a giant company. I don't have thousands of employees. I don't have resources that they have. I'm not getting free stuff. I can't put $200 worth of products in my $50 box. If I compared myself to FabFitFun, I would have never have started. So if you're sitting there right now comparing yourself to someone else, you will never start. It's your journey. It's your progress. It's what you can do. And we need to use the wins in the community to inspire us, not to discourage us. You're sitting there letting their wins discourage you. You got a mindset block here. If you're feeling bad about yourself when someone comes in and shares their win, we got a mindset shift here we need to take. You should use that to inspire you. Okay, number 10. We've only got 12, so I hope you're writing these down because I want to know which ones you're trapped by, which ones you're struggling with when we get done with 12. Number 10, you're resistant to change. You're resistant to change. The business environment has shifted so much over the last 4 years, like you wouldn't recognize it. We've been through constant change. We've been through a global pandemic, a supply chain issue, an economy that's struggling. Like, we are constantly evolving and changing. And if you can't evolve and change with what's happening in the world around you, you're going to get stuck. You're going to get stagnant. You're going to plateau. You might even start to shift down. We can't resist change. We have to lean into it. When new platforms pop up, we have to lean into it. When new algorithms change, we have to lean into it. When something stops working, we have to change it. But if you're resistant to change, well, this is not how I always did it. Well, this is not how it was in 2019. Well, this is not what it was. This is not how we advertise. When I started my business, we have to be open to change. We have to be open to learning. The changes— we got to stop resisting the change. We got to lean into it. We got to be the change. Number 11: short-term thinking. If you're solely focused on the short-term gains and the short-term wins, you're undermining your long-term success. Building a subscription box business is a long-term play. We're building a strong, stable, recurring revenue stream. And it's not about the quick win. It's about getting started and growing and scaling. We got to have patience. We can't think because, oh, I'm starting today that next month I'm going to have 500 subscribers. It might be true for some of you that have been building your audience for years, but it's a long, it's a long-term play. We're playing the long game here. We're building something that could sustain us month after month after month after year after year, that can give us a real income, that can change our family's future. It's not about going viral. It's not about the quick win. It's a long-term play. And if you have this short-term mindset, like, I got to, I got to have a big win tomorrow, you're going to be so stressed out, you're going to quit before you even start. Number 12. Here's the last one. Then I want you to start putting in the chat which ones you fall into. And I'm going to tell you which ones I fall into. Number 12 is the lack of self-care. When we neglect our personal health and well-being, it affects everything in our business and our business performance. It's a balance, right? It's a balance of our personal life and our work life. It can, it can affect our health, it can affect our relationships, It can affect our day-to-day. We can't neglect us. We can't neglect us. Tell me which ones of these are you. Which mindset trap are you falling into? I've fallen into number 3 and number 12 quite a bit. Number 3 was imposter syndrome, feeling like I'm not worthy, like I'm not good enough, like why would someone show up and listen to me? I felt that for a lot, a lot of years. And number 12, just working till I'm sick. I couldn't tell you how many times a year I would get sick because I just overworked myself and I didn't take care of myself. And that changed, that changed a couple years ago when I was going through a divorce and I realized that I'm the only person now taking care of my children, and I couldn't see that I was— I couldn't see— I could see at that moment that I wasn't taking care of myself. Blood pressure was out of control. My weight was at an all-time high. Stressed out every single day. You catch me sideways and I'm popping off because I'm so, so stressed, and I could no longer live that way. And I didn't realize it until my life was kind of falling apart around me. Which ones are you? Taj says 3, 7, and 12. Antoinette says 1, 2, 7, 8, and 12. Amy says 12, definitely. Myra says all of them. I am all of them. Jennifer says, I have a lack of focus and imposter syndrome. The good thing about that, Jennifer, is that you can recognize that now and you can start to shift your focus and know your worth. And I think that the imposter syndrome will change once— because once you're able to focus on things and really make progress, it's going to give you that confidence. To not feel like an imposter anymore. What we have to do is constantly work. This is all a constant work in progress. There's probably not one person here that says, you know what, Sarah, I don't fall into any of those. I'm good. Liar. We fall into some of these at any time, and sometimes it'll ebb and flow. Sometimes I'll be wrapped up in my perfectionism. Sometimes, you know, I'm, I'm afraid of taking a big risk. We ebb and flow into these all, and it's not bad. We just have to recognize them so that we can overcome them. That's all we need to do. That's all we're trying to work on. If one of these is holding you back right now, It's time to take a step forward. I am going to do this. I am capable of this. I am worthy of everything that's ahead of me. And don't count the rest of this year out. We have the next 6 months to really make a difference in our business and our lives, whether that's I'm— I need to start. I've been putting off starting for years because of these mindset blocks. I've been putting off launching for months because it's not perfect, because I'm afraid of failure, because I keep talking to myself negatively. It's our time to start now. You're not different because you have one of these mindset blocks. Every single person watching me live right now, and there's about 125 of you watching me live right now, has one of these, and they know it. Whether they're saying it in the comments or not, they know it. You're not different. And if you're watching this on the replay, you're not different either. It's time to just get over the hump. 75% of being an entrepreneur is is your mindset. All right, so let's make a difference in what we're doing. Let's talk to ourselves differently. We have 6 months left in 2024 to make a difference. Let's go. Here's your Monday morning pep talk. All right, all right, I'll see you guys soon. Have a good day.