What if…

Posted by on January 11, 2012

Back in September, I was in Atlanta for a conference, and had an opportunity to speak briefly to the audience.

In my time “on stage” I shared from the heart about how difficult 2011 had been for me, and yet, how changing my perspective was ultimately the one thing that could salvage my life and my business. I challenged everyone in the room to take a closer look at their motivations, and what their life/biz really meant to them.

It was met with rousing applause, and I toyed around with sharing my verbal “manifesto” publicly for a while after I came back home.

Ultimately, I shelved the idea, because I couldn’t figure out exactly the words I wanted to use.

Um, that would be my perfectionism kicking in. I didn’t want to share it until it was “ready.”

That is, until my friend Dave, a high school teacher, and would-be entrepreneur, wrote this post that riled me up enough to want to work it over again.

So here’s the gist of the “What If” speech I gave that date in Atlanta. It’s a work in progress, and ultimately, it will become something more robust, but for now, I just want to share these ideas with you. I’d love your input.

What if…?

To say 2011 was a tough year would be an understatement for me.

It sucked in so many ways. In 2010, I stood here talking about the pain of the breakdown and the breakthrough. This year was also painful, but for different reasons:

I invested a lot into this year: time, energy, money. I also lost a lot this year: closed a business, laid off my assistant, launched multiple products that “failed” (meaning they didn’t make money, or go according to my “master plan”).

People were coming out of the wood work telling me what I was doing “wrong”, telling me what I “should” do, and I stopped trusting my own instincts for a good portion of the year, because I had shifted into survival mode.

Finally, as is wont to happen when you stop trusting yourself, there came a point where I started questioning everything.

  • What if this year was a waste?
  • What if I’ve been spinning my wheels and ruining my life?
  • What if people hate the new direction I want to take?
  • What if I can’t find my Perfect-Fit Customers?
  • What if I get burned by (insert scenario or person here) again?
  • What if I’ll always be fat, unhappy, and… (you get the idea)

“What if.. what if… what if… What would my life be like then?”

I was hurting, and instead of taking time to heal, I was trying to play through the pain. Sometimes, pain is a signal that needs to be heeded.

So many of you are hurting in this exact same way, second-guessing yourself like I did. We ask all the wrong kinds of “what if” questions: the kind that roil our mindset and throw us completely off our track. Questions that don’t serve us, aren’t life giving, and, quite frankly, do more harm than good.

What if, instead, we chose to ask better questions?

There’s a better way to approach being an entrepreneur. Better questions pave the way. Here’s a handful of the questions I jotted down to start asking myself, to kick start my new mindset and my better direction:

“What if (Version 2.0)…?”

  • we stopped making excuses, and start making friends?
  • we decide to be our own guru?
  • we chose “also, and” instead of “either/or”?
  • we just want what we want?
  • we listened to our own still, small voice, instead of the cacophonous noise around us?
  • faith is the antidote to fear?
  • we focused on excellence first?
  • people spread awesome?
  • we choose to spread awesome, too?
  • the person sitting next to you has the gift you need and you never said “hi”?
  • your solution will save the world, and you chose not to share it because it’s hard, or painful?
  • we got comfortable with being uncomfortable?
  • we fully lived in our bodies?
  • your refusal to let your light shine actually condemns the world?
  • your mission is counter-intuitive to the current culture, but it needs to be (someone’s got to shake up the snow globe)?
  • you choose to value yourself?
  • excellence takes more time for me – and that’s okay?
  • we choose to give and receive fully – and accept that sometimes, hurting may be a part of it?
  • we accept that we’ll never know it all – and we’re not supposed to?

“What if.. what if… what if… What would my life be like then?”

What if your greatest power was found in being who you really, truly are? That’s what I’ve spent the last 11 months exploring here at Business Action Hero. You can see what I’ve ventured into over at the new blog, and the work we’re doing on this new “TV” series thing. But this is just the beginning of the adventure for me. I’m finally feeling courageous enough to trust my gut again, and ask better questions to get better results. What about you? What are you doing to create the life and business to which you most aspire?