Remove Your Business Blind Spots

business are predictable results. Who doesn't want to know what the future holds when it comes to your business? But in order to have predictable results, we really need to get our main mind and brain straight, which is why Eileen McDonnell is here with us today to talk about that. Because it's all what's going on between your ears. It's how you speak to yourself. It's the words that you're using both audibly and inside your own mind. So, Eileen, great to have you here today to talk about this topic of Removing what we're calling the blind spots. These are the things that like we don't know what we don't know type of thing. So today you're here to tell us what it is we need to see. What is it? What is your estimation? What are the blind spots that we have as business owners?

Oh my God. So there's— thank you so much. And you described it perfectly. There are so many blind spots actually that It's not enough just to fill this space, right? We, um, there are many that show up in terms of our own work, our own worth, the value that we hold of ourselves, our self-image, the self-image of who we were as kids, who we were as teens, who we were in our 20s, um, and just creating all of these limiting stories. And we don't even realize much of the time that these are just stories that we've agreed to, that we've consented to. And then people will say like, I didn't consent to not have success, but in reality we do. We allow ourselves to stay enrolled, to stay connected to the stories of when we were young, or somebody said that our nose was too big or our forehead was too high, or, you know, that was a stupid answer to a question. We'll still hold on to the stories that say, I can't put my hand up to answer. Because my answer might be stupid. So all of these tiny things, they keep running in the background like apps on your phone. You know, when you double tap and then you swipe up to get rid of the apps, that's what happens in our brain. We have all of these things that are still, you know, taking up that energy and that space in our minds, and that's the subconscious programming. So we're not actually doing it on purpose. It isn't something that we are consciously choosing much of the time. A lot of it happens on autopilot. So to really identify the blind spots that's running in your business, it's about looking at these different areas in which you operate, everywhere from how dependable are you to what kind of attitude you have, to be able to call a positive mental attitude at all times, even when you're feeling impatient or even when you feel that you're struggling. It could be how much of a pleasing personality do you have, how patient you are. So there is a lot in the gamut of what holds entrepreneurs back.

One of the common stories that I think entrepreneurs, business leaders have is this idea, and we see this as evidenced in the online world as working so much, right? It's like doing all the things and taking all the actions and busy, busy, busy, but yet not really maybe necessarily getting the results that they'd hope for. They're in the busy cycle, but nothing's really resulting from that busyness. And I wonder if the story that's often told is one— and I can relate to this because I come from a blue-collar working town where I think that the philosophy was the harder you work, you have to work really, really hard in order to earn the money that you're earning.

Right.

And that there needs to be— there's a cap there. Do you see that a lot in the work that you're doing? And that stems back from my childhood. I'm just using that as an example. But other people might have examples from their own childhoods too about how we relate and how we think about money.

Yeah, absolutely. So it's— people think that the busier I am, the money I'm going to make, and that's not true. It's how productive you are and in what energy, what intention did you really put behind the actions that you're taking. Because let's say if you're an entrepreneur and you're reaching out to people to connect with, you know, to either introduce them to your product, to sell your product, whatever, if you have the belief in your head like, oh my gosh, this is never gonna work. And if it's an eye roll, and if you're thinking like, this is a have-to, and I have to do this, and you're really not attached to the positivity of the exercise, if you're really not looking at the service portion of the exercise, then it's not going to work. This isn't something that is going to be a really good tactic for you to use in your business. So you've got to change your attitude. So once you switch your attitude, and once you really see yourself with that self-image of, excuse me, of I can be, do, and have anything I want. I am the creator of my world. I'm the creator of my future. I am creating everything all the time. When you start to realize that you are completely responsible for that, then your attitude gets to start to change. And having that attitude change doesn't mean that it's an entire do-do-do attitude. And it's not the busy, right? I think it was you that— well, actually, no, it was somebody else that I was speaking to, and they said that one of the most common words is that people are busy, and they're busy, and they're in a— generally, they're in avoidance of doing the things that they really could be doing to grow their business, or— and it's all because of the stories that they've told themselves.

Yeah, yeah, you're right. And there's a lot of fear there. And to your point about having the right intention behind whatever actions that you're taking, strategy you have to have as well. But intention and attitude is really, really important. And one of the things that can be challenging, I think, in entrepreneurship is that people try a lot of things without success. So, they haven't had a history of things working. So now, it's difficult for them to speak positively to themselves, like, this is going to work, because they've tried 10 other things that never— that didn't, in their estimation, work. Again, everyone's definition of success is different. So for someone who has been doing all the things, trying all the things, hasn't really reached their definition of success, it can be challenging for them to retool or reprogram how it is that they're speaking to themselves. What do you say to those people?

Well, the first thing is you've never been here in this moment. You've never tried to do this before. So you've tried other things and those other things didn't work. That's okay, because even with a faulty plan, even with an imperfect plan, when you're persistent and you're connected to your vision, you're gonna get to your vision. You will achieve that success that you want, but you've got to keep going and you must remember Remove self-doubt. And oftentimes people really ignore that feeling inside of themselves that they should be going into one direction and/or trying something new, or maybe putting together a new program, maybe posting something on social media. And it comes in, it's like a download, and then they ignore it. They do nothing about it, or they go out to committee and they get everybody's opinion or permission to do something like, hey, is this a good idea? And you won't find your vision in the eyes and hearts of other people, right? So I have a sign up on my wall and it says, tell the world what you intend to do, but first show it. So it's really important to follow your own navigation and really to stop looking for people, for other people's opinions who haven't tried to do what you're doing. So I often tell my clients, reach out to people who are doing more than you, because you're never going to get criticized by people who are doing more than you. You're never going to get discouraged by people who are doing more than you, but you will by the people that are doing less. And it's not necessarily coming from a bad space, it's just coming from a space of somebody who's— who doesn't have that access to information. So follow your own intuition and begin to trust it. That's a big gap that I find entrepreneurs have is that they don't trust their own intuition and their own direction. And they think because it's never been proven that it may not work. And then they don't want to take that step because they're waiting for the guarantee that, yeah, it's totally going to work. Because if A equals, you know, if A plus B is C, well, I got to make sure that I'm going to get C if my energy is A, if I'm putting this into it. But it doesn't always work that way. You don't get a guarantee. None of us do. We just get to walk in faith that it's gonna work because we're holding on to that vision.

Yeah, that resilience and that perseverance and that muscle that we have to have, it's, it's one that is required, I think, when you're an entrepreneur and you're creating programs, memberships, masterminds, whatever it is that you're creating comes from your own, your own, uh, thoughts, right? It's really downloaded, as you said, like you get a download about something that you to do. I'm going to speak from experience here. I have tried and done— I shouldn't say tried, I've done so many different things, lots of different things. I've thrown a lot of spaghetti at walls over the course of years, but I never give up. And I'm always listening to that intuitive voice that says, this is the path you should be going down. It's never really steered me wrong, right? And a lot of people are afraid to do that because, to your point, they have people who haven't done as much as them, that are telling them, 'That's a stupid idea. It's never going to succeed. Who do you think you are?' So sometimes it's not even the voices in our own heads, it's actually people in our lives that are dragging us down and pulling us down. How can we deal with people that are close to us, who we love, who might not see the same vision that we have for our own lives?

And that is such a good question because oftentimes people don't have, whether it's spousal support or their parents have an opinion or their best friend has an opinion. And what happens is if we stop doing what we want to do because somebody else has said, hey, by the way, I think that's a really silly idea or whatever, we have already been doubtful about our own plan and our own vision. So being sure of what we wanna do is critical. Carrying that belief is critical. And then having the mental strength to tell somebody, you know what, thank you so much for your input. That's it. And you don't need to defend yourself. You don't need to criticize their opinion or whatever. Somebody very wise gave me the advice once, don't criticize, don't defend. And that is priceless, priceless advice. It'll create incredible peace in your life if you could remember those 4 words. So to, to, to help strengthen that resolve is really to develop the faith in yourself. Surround yourself with people who hold your vision at the same level of energy and belief as you do. Make sure that you are connected to your vision every single day. I mean, Thomas Edison, he tried over 10,000 times to create the incandescent light bulb. For example, how many times would it have taken for you or I to say, you know what, peace out, I'm not doing it, this is crazy, I don't, you know, what, like 6? Some people, you know, once, some people— 4, 4. Right, right. So how many, how many times would it have taken you? So it really is having that resilience. And what, what I really want people to understand is that within you, you have your other self, the person that is in complete control of their thoughts, emotions, their attitudes, their reactions, and they're not governed by assumptions and circumstance. That if, you know, we were talking about the other day about being stuck in traffic or people dragging us down, and I know I'm doing a lot of air quotes, but these are the words that I really want you to pay attention to because this is the language that goes through our mind all the time when we do self-talk. And we are never a victim of anything unless we choose to be. And imagine what our lives of business would be like if we were responsible for everything and had that level of control.

Yeah, this is a great segue into the stuck in traffic piece because I want to talk about some tangible ways that we talk to ourselves. Again, it could be audibly so that other people hear, or within our own brains. You're in traffic and you say to yourself, 'Oh, here I am. I'm stuck in traffic again,' right? So let's walk through some maybe more common scenarios as it pertains to maybe life, like being stuck in traffic, or business. Some common scenarios, ways we talk to ourselves, and then give the reverse of that in terms of how we should be talking to ourselves.

Sure, sure.

Let's start with stuck in traffic.

Yeah, so if, you know, you're like you said, you're sitting there and you're in traffic you get to choose your experience. So I am a human being, I've been in traffic and I've been impatient. So I'm sitting there like, oh my gosh, will they just go? They can move up a car length. Why aren't they going? There's so much space in front of them. Oh, I just want to go there. And you're waving at the person, let me squeeze by, right? Like, this is all the insanity that happens, right? Because in that moment, first of all, we feel powerless. That you're here, I'm here, we're all here, and it's stuck. Now, being stuck, you could choose to be stuck or you could choose to see it as a gift. And then you could ask yourself, okay, so right now I'm feeling impatient. Why am I feeling impatient? What is it about this situation that makes me feel impatient? So I'm feeling powerless that I can't get out even if I really wanted to. And what do I get to learn? Like, what can I do in this time that I'm just sitting here? And sometimes it's, I mean, you're not gonna close your eyes and go into meditation, but maybe you're gonna have a conversation with yourself about how can I learn to be more patient? How can I be grateful for the person in front of me who isn't moving, who doesn't feel the sense of urgency to, you know, suck the other person's bumper, right? Of just being at peace. To live and let live. And oh my gosh, look at this, you know, here I am, I'm 48 years old, I'm driving a nice car, and I'm sitting here in traffic. What a gift. What a gift. Because how much would somebody else give or pay to be in that situation, right? So it's all— number one is finding gratitude for every single situation, every single one, and having a good mental attitude with it. Otherwise you're just poisoning yourself with your own attitude.

Yeah, here's another scenario I think that's more business-minded that would maybe come up for people who are struggling or feel like they're struggling. Um, I don't have enough people, no one's signing up for my program. That could be a common thing that people would say to themselves, like, no one— I'm being ignored, no one's paying attention, no engagement, no one's signing up for my program. What would be a way to reprogram that thought.

Yeah, so speak what you seek until you see what you said. So you're sitting there saying, no one's buying my program, no one sees me. Correct, right? Because you're saying no one's buying my program and no one sees me. So therefore, it's about reframing the thought, asking better questions, and being like, oh my gosh, okay, so 'How can I get more seen? How can I attract and create more clients?' Hmm, how? Because what happens is that you're giving the command to the brain, and the brain— and this is a much longer segment in conversation— but the brain looks to close loops, right? It's an efficiency machine. So it's looking to close the thought pattern, and as soon as it hits all the buttons, right, all the previous buttons, then boop, there we go. It's done and pattern over. And, you know, then you're just sitting there still asking yourself, nobody sees me, or why is nobody seeing me? The better question is how, like I said, how, and then who can help me? Who can I look to, right? And whenever we ask these questions, something that is super, super critical and important is that you ask it from a space of self-observation. Not from a space of self-judgment, self-criticism, self-beat-up. That's not what we want to do. We want to look at it because we are just having a human experience, not a perfect one. So when we're exploring these things and these questions, we get to know that we are perfectly imperfect. We are in the exact perfect scenario that we should be at all times, that this is happening for us, not to us. So when we start asking the questions of, you know, how can I get more clients, or focusing on, I am so happy and grateful for the 12 clients that I'm working with that are lovely, and be specific, be specific. I mean, you don't have to give them all names, but be specific of the kinds of clients that you want to work with and call those in and say, okay, I'm so happy and grateful I'm so happy and grateful for my clients. I'm so happy and grateful for the amount of money that I'm earning. I'm so happy and grateful for the, the service that I provide, that they're transforming, that they're growing, that I'm delivering that. And be grateful for things that you don't even have yet.

And that could be one person, you know, if you're starting something new and you've never done it before and you have one person who you're helping, maybe that's not even a client. Maybe if you're— again, you feel like you're struggling to get clients, you ask yourself, well, how could I get more clients? Maybe it starts to open up opportunities for you to think beyond. Maybe I could go out and I can help someone who isn't actually officially a client right now so I can get the ball rolling, and that gives momentum. And now all of a sudden you're doing something good and things are starting to progress. I, I think it's great. These are some great examples of how we can reprogram how we speak to ourselves. And there are countless, countless ways in which we're negative to ourselves.

Oh, for sure. Absolutely. And another thing that I see is that people always expect to get before they give. So if you're not getting, it's because you're not showing up and giving enough. So keep going, go out there, serve, even serve imperfectly, just go out and help as many people as you can. And you'll see that the riches will start to show up, the riches in all different ways. I'm not talking just about money. I'm talking about health and relationships and connections and, you know, all the things that you really want and desire. And just go out and serve. Go out and keep doing that.

Yeah. Eileen, how do people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about your work?

They can go to— there you go— my website. It's makeepicshiftshappen.com. Makeepicshiftshappen.com, and you can check out the programs that we have, the Sacred Breakthrough and the Feminine Mastermind. And on there we've got, uh, books too. I, I still get to put up the second bestseller that I co-authored called 11 Aligned Alchemists.

Yeah, that's amazing. This is great stuff, and I love that you specialize in this. I think that this whole piece around mindset and how we speak to ourselves those are blind spots. They are things that we don't know. And I think we've helped to paint a picture of how we can reframe that conversation. The last thing I want to ask you is, what is a tip, tool, tactic, or technique that's really helping you to market yourself in this day and age, right?

It's—

I always talk about this from the perspective of stop marketing like it's 1999. Market for the year we live in. Think about the future, but what's working for you today?

Well, there's two things. The first thing is showing up and being vulnerable, showing up and really speaking from the scar, not speaking from the wound, but just because, you know, so many people think that they have to be the expert in what they're doing, that they have to have everything all together in order for them to be respected or understood or heard or seen. Where really you just need to be maybe 1 or 2 steps in front of your clients, right? For the people that you can help. So that would be the first thing is just show up vulnerably, share, create genuine, genuine connection. Don't spam and DM people with these huge things, making offers when you just said hello. And the second thing, super quick, is the Pomodoro method. I have this app and it's free. It's called Focus To Do, and it really gets you focused on, on your time in 25-minute blocks, and then you take a break. That alone has increased productivity inside of my business tremendously. So now I talk in terms of Pomodoros, of how many Pomodoros is this task going to take, and I give myself this amount of time to do this. So it really helps quiet the overthinking. The perfectionism and allows me to move forward in my business.

We have done many episodes on perfectionism and I'm familiar with that, but I don't actually use an app. What I've been doing is I sit here pretty much every day. I have a coffee and I just keep— whenever it gets cool, which might be about 25 minutes in, I take it downstairs and I rewarm and I come back. It's called the Coffee Pomodoro Method. But to your point, there's an app for that as well. So that's wonderful. And yeah, I think it is absolutely a productivity tip that can really help people. So Eileen, great to have you here on Cash In On Camera today. A pleasure to talk to you about the business blind spots that we all commonly have. But I think you've given some great tips on how we can overcome them. Thank you for being here.

Thank you so much,