As a business coach, I am a keeper of dreams.
What does that mean? It means that every single week, I have conversations with women entrepreneurs like you. And during those talks, they share their dreams with me. Dreams of a business that pays well and still allows them to pick their kids up from school. Dreams of travel, just booking flights as often as they’d like without limitation. Dreams of a big house where they can throw fun parties and host friends and family regularly. Dreams of their kids attending the best private school in town. Dreams of enough money to take care of their aging parents. Dreams of a goddamn pair of Louboutins and that new Chanel to go with them. They want to stop worrying about money and start truly living. They want to make an impact on the world and leave a legacy.
But our talks don’t end there. After they tell me their dreams and why they started their businesses in the first place, they tell me their excuses. And their excuses always sound like reasons to make a change, not reasons not to.
Do any of these sound familiar?
You can’t commit to making a change in your business right now because your children need you. Your children needing you is the exact reason to scale your business. I committed to making a change in my business because I wanted to be more present with my kids, I wanted to be more available to them. Growing my business means that I can afford to have a team to help me execute and no longer need to do EVERYTHING or work insane hours to make money. I run my million dollar business from 8:30am – 2:30pm, Monday – Thursday, most weeks. So can you.
You can’t commit because your spouse doesn’t think you should. Well, let’s just call bullshit on this one right from the start. Outsourcing your business decisions to your spouse is not badass boss behavior. Your spouse, as much as he or she loves you, is not capable of making the best decision for you. Your spouse doesn’t know what you are capable of, only you do. Show your partner that you can do this. For years I told my husband that this business would provide everything we needed and for years I didn’t deliver because of my fears. My fears led me to hedge and hedging led to less money, not more. Then I got tired of making excuses to him (and myself) and decided to really deliver on what I said I would do, I decided to finally put my back in to it, and not with just more elbow grease, but by doing what’s hard: going all in on the dream, investing in myself and risking my ego. Spoiler alert: it worked.
You can’t commit because you’ve been disappointed before and really ought to just focus on building this thing by yourself and it’s a big investment that you probably shouldn’t make. Let’s call this one the catch-all. Cause it’s all your fears rolled into one. You’re scared to feel like a fool for making the wrong investment, you’re scared you can't do it, or that it won’t work for you, you’re scared you’ll be sent into the poor house rather than into the milly club. Here’s the deal, if you are going to take a chance and bet on something, shouldn’t it be yourself?
At the end of the day, that’s what all these excuses are about: fear.
But it’s funny what you’re not scared of: you’re not scared to grow so slow that your business just dies from lack of momentum, you’re not scared to work 70 hour work weeks for the next 10 years of your life, and still not achieve your goals and dreams. You’re not scared to go into debt trying to make this happen on your own instead of investing in the support that every entrepreneur needs. You’re not scared that your dreams may never come true.
Here’s what I have to say to your excuses: fuck ‘em. Badasses make boss moves, not excuses. If you’re a badass, if you believe in yourself and if you’re ready to take a chance on you, let’s talk.
