The time has come ladies to stand up tall, stand out and OWN IT! Stop playing small, stop settling for lowly goals or for second best to avoid disappointment or avoid the pain of failure. Living with anything less than a life you love is disappointing. You’re worth it and you deserve to be happy simply because you are. That’s it. It’s time to stop being guided by fear, it’s time to step it up to the next level, own your voice, your truth, your experience and share it with the world!
Mentoring women entrepreneurs and service based professionals, coaches, consultants and healers over the last few years that all have the mindset chatter and a devilish inner critic that makes them have a fear of being visible and continue with the cycle of playing small is the biggest challenge entrepreneurs’ face starting out. There’s so much fear of being judged by others. They question themselves, “Am I good enough to charge that much?” They compare themselves against others and feel like a fraud. Their inner voice says, “I just have to take one more class or course, then I’ll be ready.” It’s real torture.
You must give yourself permission to be the expert, to impact people, to make a difference and serve. This all starts with a decision. Don’t worry about you, focus on serving those people, make it about them and it becomes easier to show up and be visible. These are the same simple and effective cash flow strategy’s and mindset mastery techniques I share with my clients in my $10k 30-day program and I want to share them with you here because women all around the world are awakening in the workforce and a large number of them are finding their way through entrepreneurship. According to the U.S. Department of Education Institute and 150- years of collecting data on education levels by gender there is an encouraging trend showing us that women have stepped up, challenged themselves and have decisively chosen to make their own mark in life. In fact, over 50% of all Bachelor and Master’s degrees were earned by women by 1989 and projections show that by 2019 over 50% of graduating doctors will be women.
Source: U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences National Center for Education Statistics.
Table 310.
Percentage of Degrees conferred to Women Over the Last 150 Years
Degrees conferred by degree-granting institutions, by level of degree and sex of student: Selected years, 1869-70 through 2021-22, June 2012.
Be visible and make offers to people who can say, “YES.” The more offers you make, the more money you make. SIMPLE.
That might sound simple enough but being committed to taking action is a whole other ball game. Many of the women that come to find me are so stuck in resistance mode that they spin around in circles trying to get their message just right, their branding perfect and all of it is a big fat waste of time. Even just this morning I had a call with a client from the Netherlands and she is an expert, a super star wonderful lady but she is procrastinating big time on being visible. She reported not feeling confident with her message, “Vanessa I don’t feel like I am calling out my market loud and clear enough. I am not defining them enough,” and I told her the big fat lie that keeps entrepreneurs from making money.
I’ll share it with you. It’s a simple idea but once you get it, - it can totally change your idea of being ready enough. The clarity comes from doing. You get clarity about who your ideal clients are and what problems they have that you can solve by getting off the bleachers and into the game. Here’s my little trick to taking your Power Back in business when fear comes a knocking.
Be willing to serve from exactly where you are at. You’re good enough, you know enough, this is guaranteed exactly where you are and what you know can help some people out there. So cut the crap already and start serving. It’s that simple.
Brendon Buchard a well-known expert in motivation and inspiration one day said, “You’ll be an expert when you decide to be an expert;; you just one day decide and that’s it.” One of the best pieces of advice I have ever heard! Brendon Buchard is famous for his expert academy program and seminars and I took it while writing my first book. It was a powerful but simple idea that helped me to transform my fear about being ready enough or expert enough.
I often tell a story to my audiences about how John Gray the famous author and personal relationship counselor got started before he published his book, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. According to the story, he started out learning transcendental meditation in his very early 20’s. He invested everything he had at the time to jump on a plane and attend an event on the opposite coast that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was going to attend.
John didn’t have a ticket for the event but he figured if he explained to the ticket agents at the door how he had just flown half way across the country to attend they would surely see that he was a special case and let him in. Well that idea flopped. He was refused entry at the door because he didn’t have a ticket. Dejected he walked around to the back of the building to get his bearings and regroup. There he saw Maharishi with his entourage preparing to enter the building in front of the awaiting audience. John DECIDES to tag along and slips right in on the main stage right alongside the Maharishi as part of his entourage. No one noticed and no one second- guessed him! Soon after, John became the personal assistant to Maharishi! How’s that for faking it, until you make it!
Now I actually hate the term, fake it till you make it. I really do. I went bankrupt trying that little number on and I don’t recommend it. I always encourage my clients to keep their day job while they attract the equivalent or more income from their new biz. Then they can feel good about easily cutting themselves loose from the ball and chain. I call this creating an exit strategy.
The point I’m trying to make is this, John Gray made a decision, first he decided to GO FOR IT, really going all in, by traveling and learning with Maharishi. He decided, he committed by getting his plane ticket and then he GAVE HIMSELF PERMISSION! Permission is a gateway that unlocks, unravels and uncovers your path!
I remember way back before the mop job that my original intention was just making some extra money for the holidays. I had declared bankruptcy earlier that year and I was still licking my wounds and recovering. I had moved into a shared college town house with college age roommates, at the age of 26 and with my self confidence at an all time low, all I could conceive was wanting to make a couple extra hundred bucks a week for the holidays coming up. I found this job selling ink jet cartridges at Best Buy for $22 an hour.
The job interfered with the web design class I was taking on the weekends and inevitably, I would be late to work. I got the job but I couldn’t come in late and the guy doing the hiring even told me. He said, “Vanessa you’re way over qualified for this job, but you can’t come in late so we can’t give you the job.”
So, I started asking myself what did I really want?! If I was honest with myself, I didn’t want to work some crappy mall job. I wanted to get the heck out of the cold and move to Hawaii! As soon as I gave myself permission on going for what truly was exciting and what really lit me up, Kabam, the opportunity presented itself and voila, the rest is history. I moved to Hawaii two short months after leaving the mop job.
Now I have clients all the time who come to see me because they want to make passive income. Do you know what kind of systems and traffic you have to set up in order to do that? It’s a big job, it’s do-able but it takes some real effort in the systems and online tech department. If you’re not internet savvy, get ready for a big learning curve. I teach something a bit different. It has to do with big paydays and cash flow infusions by sealing high-ticket service packages, coaching, or consulting.
Believe it, or not, it’s harder to sell someone a $200 product than it is a $2,000 product or service. With coaching and consulting, it will take just the same amount of work and time on the phone having a sales conversation with folks selling a higher priced item. Moreover, it takes fewer sales to make more money and the only investment needed is TIME. In the beginning, starting up a service based business you do have a lot of time. It’s also important to give yourself permission to want what you really want in your business.
Jennifer came to see me because she was desperate to make more money selling her coaching. She was a natural born intuitive who had studied the law of attraction and even had her own radio show but wasn’t making any real money. She was feeling the crunch because she was a mom of a young daughter and she and her husband were $300,000 in debt. She told me her parents who had been supported by her brother were now looking to her because her brother lost his job. When Jennifer came to me, she was ready to breakthrough whatever mindset patterns were holding her in low cash flow mode. In just twenty-four hours after our first call, she closed $6,000 in sales and went on to make over $20,000 in business that month!
Such is the power of saying, “YES,” and aligning to what you want in your life! Jennifer said, “YES,” to learning and implemented a new sales attraction system for her business.
She said, “YES,” to raising her fees and offering her clients better service. Guess what, they said yes too!
Choosing to continue playing small can be catastrophic on your self- worth, your pocketbook and your confidence level in general. To make a change you have to be willing to close the door on certain behaviors and decision patterns, look fear squarely in the face and say, “I am bigger than you!”
Seriously, we suffer, struggle and feel less worthy because we made a decision that our problems are bigger than us and in that moment we give our Power away.
What are you saying NO to? What person, relationship, pattern, feeling, job and possible addictive behaviors are you saying that’s enough to? Nature abhors a vacuum. Although in business, I do not recommend people quit their jobs and launch whole-heartedly into entrepreneurship. What I do recommend is create an exit strategy. This is the same thing for women who find themselves in abusive relationships. If it’s really bad, you leave pronto, but when you have children and pets involved it can be tricky. Don’t leave it to chance, decide that it’s enough, decide you deserve better and begin creating your exit strategy. What’s the first thing you need to do? What’s the next step after the decision? Look at all plans and strategies as the next step so you don’t become overwhelmed. When coaching entrepreneurs I will give them only three things to do each week. Three more is too much, but wow when you do three things a week in your business, do you ever build momentum! When you choose to close a door, you automatically open a door to new possibilities. Life is a series of choices. Choose to be much bigger than your problems, choose to stop negotiating your feelings and choose to honor them, really show up for yourself and watch the doors open for you everywhere! God wants you to obey his will for your life, remember that! This source energy has been calling you to do something and it’s scary. Give yourself permission to go for it and DO IT regardless because you will meet all the help and support you require on your journey! However, don’t take my word for it - prove it to yourself by Taking Your Power Back.