- I have my boss hat on today.
It's invisible, so that's why you can't see it,
but if you see, like, hat hair, that's why.
(upbeat music)
Good morning, good life, welcome back to Amy TV,
where we come together to help you go after the life
that you want.
And today is another episode of Wine Wednesday.
What's my tag line again?
It's that horrific joke that doesn't get old to me
except for the part where I don't remember it.
Hmm, I hope this mic is working, unlike recent days.
(high pitch beep)
Good morning, good life, welcome back to Amy TV
and another episode of Wine Wednesday,
where we don't believe in complaining,
but if you're gonna whine,
then pour me some.
So just very quickly,
because when you go to Italy in the summer,
you have to keep bragging about it
forever and ever and ever,
I am drinking yet another wine from our travels.
This is the Riserva 2013 Pulcino,
and this is from the area of Montepulciano,
which I told you last time, we loved.
That was our little wine country jaunt,
but pretty much everywhere in Italy is wine country,
just so you know.
I got to thinking, do you care?
(chuckles)
This isn't like a wine tasting show.
Do you care what I think about the wine I'm drinking?
Because, like, I am so unbiased.
I just enjoy all of them, so...
(sniffs wine)
Gary does a sniffy sniff, right?
It smells like wine, we're good.
I wanted to just dive straight in today
because I actually have a lot of feels on this topic.
For those of you who are unaware,
maybe you've just watched a couple of YouTube videos
or you heard a podcast,
I don't know how you ended up here.
I'm so grateful, but if you didn't know,
I've been in business for 10 years.
10 years!
And guess what?
That's not that long.
Being in business for 10 years
means I kind of know what I'm talking about at this point.
I mean that facetiously, but I also mean that
to be, that it's a really interesting world
we live in today.
Absolutely anyone can start a business.
This is both a good problem and a bad problem,
and I kinda wanted to get into that today,
specifically if you happen to be in business for yourself
or are thinking about it and the things
that you should be considering
as you are going down this road.
I've learned a lot in the space of 10 years,
mostly around the things that are my expertise,
and what my clients that my companies pay me for,
and what people have purchased products from me for
in regards to.
Those are the things I specialize in,
but in regards to actually having a business
and what that takes,
I've learned a lot about that as well.
There's still so much to learn
because 10 years is actually not that much in business time.
It's businesses that get past the five year mark
that it's like,
"Wow, you figured out how to stay in business."
(chuckles)
So it's really interesting now
because the accessibility that we have with digital
and the internet and all the things, anybody can do it.
And your business is what you make of it,
but that doesn't mean what a lot of people think it means,
and I think that's what we need to address.
The business is what you make of it,
but the work is not.
The work is just the work.
The work is the stuff you have to do no matter what,
and you have to do a lot of it.
So you're either willing to put in that work or you're not.
It's not all sunshine, rainbows, and Instagram accounts
when you start a business.
There's a lot of other stuff involved in this
and you have to really be willing to take it all on
and in stride because it's not gonna be pretty
all of the time.
As a matter of fact, simply taking an Instagram photo,
which is a piece of media,
which helps you market something
and sometimes it's helping you market something
that's also a free piece of content,
is hard, it's uncomfortable, it's not easy.
So already, that's the thing we're excited about,
but that's also difficult.
And then there's things like accounting and taxes
and hiring people and managing people and overhead
and making these decisions and it's difficult.
Not to mention, you go into business for yourself,
guess what?
You've got to sell yourself.
Yeah.
Guess what?
You're in sales.
Congratulations, you are a salesperson.
As a matter of fact, anyone that works at any company
is a salesperson,
and I don't think anyone really wraps
their mind around that.
We envision something so yuhhhhhh when we think
of sales people and it's also really, really critical
that we take it on in our own way,
in our own authentic way,
'cause it's so important to the business lasting.
Again, beyond that five year mark
that most businesses crash and burn,
and into the future.
There is so much freedom that goes into this,
but it also comes with a lot of responsibility,
and that's why you truly have to wrap your mind around
all of these different hats that you have to wear
when you are in business.
The reality is, until you fully grasp all of it,
you will not be successful,
and I don't think enough people are saying that.
It's a lot easier to just say,
"Come on, it's great. Try it out.
You'll love it. You'll enjoy it."
Sorry, I was gonna like burp at the end of that sentence,
I was really hoping to make it, and I did.
It's very easy to enjoy the freedom
but it's hard to own up to the responsibility.
Some of the issue here, I think, is a little bit
of a lack of clarity about
what it means to go into business,
and one thing that I hear frequently
is the word "entrepreneur".
The word entrepreneur is just thrown around left and right,
used in all kinds of sentences,
meaning all kinds of different things,
and to me, I have an opinion about it
I think I want to share with you
because I think even if you disagree,
it'll help you to work out a little bit of clarity
of what it really means to go into business,
and how you do it,
what you do with your time,
and what you're selling.
So in my opinion, there's two different kinds of people
that are in business.
There is somebody who is an entrepreneur
and there's also somebody who's at the most basic level
selling time for money and is more of a freelancer.
Regardless of that, you can both have an LLC,
you can both file for some paperwork and make it fancy,
you can both have business cards,
but how you spend your time and how you make money
is indicative of what type of business it is.
So I find it really fascinating when people say,
"I am an entrepreneur,"
and it's just like, you're a copywriter, so...
To me when, let's say you are a copywriter,
and you're a copywriter for a company,
you have decided you're not gonna take on a bunch of risk,
you're just gonna do your job for somebody else's goals
and outlines, and that is how you make money.
You get a traditional paycheck,
however the logistics of that company works,
you might get a 401K,
you might get health insurance,
you might have your taxes handled for you, et cetera.
That's what that's like.
Then there's copywriting for yourself.
Just because you're now selling yourself to clients
and having to find your own revenue streams,
find your own way to bring in that money,
doesn't necessarily mean that you're entrepreneurial now.
You've simply moved how you make a paycheck.
Either way, you're trading time for money.
So I think that's a really important thing for people
to grasp right off the bat because when you say,
"I want to go out on my own, I want to do my own thing,"
that's a hundred percent fine,
and whether you want to call yourself
an entrepreneur or not is fine.
I'm more worried about you realizing
what's actually happening.
Not only do you have to do your job for that time,
for the whole amount of time that you are free,
free as a bird to run your business,
it ain't nine to five, I can tell you that.
Now you also have to spend your time on the logistics
of the company that you didn't initially have
in that other regular job or freelance job
for another company where they took on all the risk,
and they just simply wrote you a check.
So, I think that's really important
for people to think about.
If you do, then you're much more likely
to truly understand what it's gonna take
diving into this world,
and if you haven't thought about that
and you're already in business,
this may be one of the problems with it.
There's also another thing that I think could probably
be even worse than lack of clarity about
what you're actually doing,
and that is the scarcity mindset,
and I'm saying this as somebody that is absolutely
a recovering scarcity mindset individual.
I think we all experience it in different areas of our lives
or at different points in our lives,
and it's either the only way we think,
or it's just something that happens to pop up
in certain pockets of our lives, just kind of depending
on who we've surrounded ourselves with,
how we grew up,
and just the way people have talked to us in our lives.
I like to think that growing up as a young,
impressionable person is different now,
and that we're more likely to be around people
who will allow you think bigger
and not think in such scarce circumstances,
but at the same time, we're also so much more harsh
and hard on each other and so I don't always think
that that's the case.
But anytime there's a way to combat scarcity,
I think that's super important.
So what does that mean in business?
Maybe you're not paying somebody to do a job
that's a 10 dollar an hour job
because you think it's cheaper for you to do it,
but you're trying to get yourself,
especially if you're selling time for money,
to a 150 dollar an hour place.
How are you gonna get yourself to be 150 dollars an hour
if you're sometimes doing 150 dollar an hour tasks
and sometimes doing 10 dollar an hour tasks?
Average that out,
figure out how much you're spending over here,
you're not actually making 150 dollars an hour.
So when we don't pay people to help us,
there is a scarcity issue there,
and it's about getting to the real problem.
One of the commandments that I've talked
to my team about is,
identify the real problem .
It's very easy to complain or just say,
"This is how we've always done things,"
et cetera, but identify the real problem.
It's usually linked to scarcity.
A couple of other examples of this
is not paying for skill development.
So, do you think you want to go to a conference
but you don't want to pay for the ticket?
Well, do they have valuable content?
Maybe they have a good atmosphere of people
you could network with,
and you should be thinking about how
you can pay to go to that,
and spend the time on it,
because it's going to send you into a further better place.
Another thing is thinking that you should always
get free stuff in return for media.
You know, it's so typical these days for somebody
to tweet a company and say,
"I want this free product and I'll tweet for you
or I'll Instagram for you,"
and guess what?
It doesn't matter how many followers you have,
you're right, you could make a difference for that brand,
but why are you doing that?
Because you're giving yourself a commitment
to technically get sponsored by somebody
who's not even paying you,
they're just sending you product potentially,
if you get them to do it,
and it's all because you don't want to spend money
on something that you actually find valuable,
which is why you're asking for it in the first place.
When we don't want to pay people for their thing,
they don't want to pay us for our thing,
it's karma, it's business karma.
I wish more people understood this,
and another one is that maybe you're not hiring people
who can help you understand what steps to skip.
Can you Google how to do anything in business?
Yes you can, go right ahead.
Can you Google your time away if you're trying
to build a business at the 150 dollar level per hour
and not the 10?
Yes, you can, and there's definitely things that
are something you should Google,
and I challenge you to consider the next time
you tweet somebody you adore, to ask them a question,
and it's actually something you could've Googled,
and it's not really an opinion based type of thing.
Google it,
but at the same time,
could you hire somebody who could advise you on
the fastest track to the thing that you're trying to do?
If what you're Googling is one step in an 80 step process
to take your idea to fruition for something
that somebody can purchase,
then maybe it would be best to take a course on it,
to hire a coach on it.
The more scarcity mindset that we have
in everything that we do,
the more likely there's a lot of things wrong
in our business,
and I think that I definitely
have identified with this so much.
There are things that I just felt such
an emotional connection to that I thought
for sure I needed to do,
it had to be on me,
but the more I've come to terms with, why,
asking myself why is that?
I've found that I got a lot of brain space back,
got a lot of time back,
got a lot of excitement back in what I was doing,
and got off the hamster wheel.
You can't do everything, you can't, I've tried.
I've tried to do everything and be perfect at it,
and it doesn't work.
So I'm here to tell you that,
that's free information for you,
please take it,
because you will fail if you think that.
There are many things that I have failed on in my business,
if not for anything but you know,
something could have happened a lot sooner,
if I would've just thought
a little bit differently about it,
but you will fail if you still think that you can do it all,
and you don't have to have any help to do it.
So, what's the potential problem with your business?
It's likely a lot to do with the misconceptions about
how awesome it could be to be in business for yourself
without really grasping the hard parts,
the responsibility parts,
and more than anything, it's a scarcity mindset.
If you feel that there's something
that you don't need help with or that
you wouldn't possibly pay for,
even though you've heard of many people paying for it,
and it moving them forward in their lives,
then that is definitely a scarcity thing.
Another scarcity thing that could be really hurting is,
"I don't know where I'm gonna get my next client from.
I don't know where I'm gonna get
my next revenue stream from.
I don't know where this money is coming in.
I don't know how I'm gonna make this work.
I don't know who's gonna send me business."
and thinking like that, again, is that scarcity constraint
around your brain that's not opening you up
to what the actual possibilities are.
And I'm not necessarily a believer of the secret,
but what I am a believer of,
is if you think negatively,
you are attracting more negative than you are positive.
When you think more positively,
you see with those goggles more often,
and I don't know about you,
but I would love if they're sitting in front of me,
I'm gonna choose the positive goggles
over the negative goggles,
every day of the week,
because if nothing else,
I need something to put me in the right direction.
I would love to hear from you if you are an aspiring
or current business owner.
Share or comment below and tell me,
what has been the biggest challenge in your mindset, so far?
Whether you have taken the leap or not,
what is something you feel has been holding your back?
Holding your back?
My God, Amy, you've had three sips of wine.
Holding you back.
As a quick note, this is top of mind,
because I just launched a new tier in Shine Squad
specifically to businesses and I'm not gonna
go on and on about it here,
but you can go check that out in my Patreon.
Just so you know,
I have not been coaching businesses for a couple of years.
I've been really focused on the media play here,
having the best videos and the best podcasts for you,
and doing the best possible work here that I can.
That's not going anywhere,
but I miss having these conversations
because I have learned so much in the last 10 years,
and I continue to.
So now I've created a space for people who are
of the Shine Squad mentality,
positive, uplifting,
challenging themselves to be better,
that are also in the business space.
So if that sounds like that's you,
then I would highly recommend you check it out.
This is the first time I'm coaching businesses again
in a couple of years and it's in a way
that we can hold ourselves accountable,
but not so much that it's inaccessible to you.
I think the biggest problem,
especially with scarcity and asking for help,
is that a lot of businesses haven't figured out
how to find the cash flow to afford it,
and I'm trying to make that happen.
So, check it out if that feels like a fit for you,
and thanks if you do.
That's all for today,
thank you so much for tuning in,
I appreciate it as always.
Make sure you subscribe for good vibes,
kiss the ones you love,
and go after the life that you want.
Cheers.
(up-tempo music)
Wow, this is a lot of pink.
Ah, so good.
I picked out the cutest outfit for this video
and it turns out I wore it in the last Wine Wednesday,
which was not that long ago.
That same white sweatshirt,
I wish I could wear it all the time,
so comfortable.