Is resistance the “real” dream killer?

Much debate goes on about what kills dreams these days, and of course there are many things.  But, how many of these things can be directly attributed to the person themselves?  What I mean is, instead of blaming the world, money, people, competition and everything outside of us, why not look within us first.

I just finished this book, The War of Art, Break Through The Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield. It was given to me at a Dan Kennedy workshop called the 7 Figure Academy.  The sole focus of this workshop was on the 7 ways to take your 6 figure business to 7 figures.  It was fascinating to me because a lot of this stuff I already knew and was using to help my clients.  Yet, it was assembled and explained to me in a way that I really got it on a whole other level too.

There was a lot of discussion and time spent on overcoming resistance.  Let’s face it, in order to be a successful entrepreneur and business owner, we have a lot of obstacles we need to face and overcome.  The biggest one I think is that huge internal one, you know what I’m talking about, those little voices inside of you that try to stop you from being successful. The ones that say you’re not good enough, or you don’t deserve this, or you’re going to fail, or instilling huge fear in you so much so that it freezes you right in your tracks and stops you from getting what you want and being successful.  These same voices that unfortunately have taken some great people from us like Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, John Belushi and others… they suffered from their inner demons and in the end couldn’t over come them. In fact, Oprah just had Whitney Houston on her opening show, wow, talk about demons and resistance.  Hers kept her from singing for almost 7 years.  Thank goodness she has a wonderful mom, who stepped in so she could find her incredible gift again, get past her demons of resistance and share her voice once more with the world.

I call them my little internal demons.  They rear their ugly heads when I least expect it.  In  Pressfield’s book, he talks a lot about how resistance shows up in your life and gives you some really great concrete ways to handle and push through them.  Here’s a great quote: Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.  Wow, that is so true. And another truth is we’re not alone in our resistance, we all struggle with it. Like when I was sitting down at the computer to write this, I could thing of a million other things I had to do and got up and did a few of them because I was “resistant” to writing this blog!

So my advice to you, is to be aware and pay more attention to yourself.  When you don’t want to do something, stop for a second, see if this is resistance calling and keeping you from doing something really great.  Make a daily plan where you’re focusing on core actions that will bring in more clients and more money each day.  Don’t fill your days with too many activities that will leave you feeling empty and like you have accomplished nothing. Face your internal demons and chip away at them so you can be the success entrepreneur that you came here to be.

One last thing that I have found really helps, join a group of like-minded entrepreneurs that meet on a regular basis. I”m in 2 different mastermind mind groups which were and still are awesome in helping me grow my business.  Nothing beats having like-minded entrepreneurs, who are incredibly successful, all working together to help you ensure your success as well.  This helps keep you stay on track with your business and make bigger leaps of  progress in shorter time frames. Remember isolation is a dream killer, that’s when the resistance demon strikes best.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes, “a rising tide floats all boats.” So work on overcoming your resistance and even helping others with this a long the way. We are much stronger together than we are separately.  There’s much power within in us.  Don’t let your fear and resistance take you away from being the incredible successful entrepreneur that you truly are and came here to be.

How Bowling Helped Me Be A Better Entrepreneur…

The number of times I’ve gone bowling at an actual bowling alley could be counted on both hands.  I went a couple of times when I lived in New Orleans (I grew up there until I moved away after going to LSU for college.) they had this great place called the Mid-City Lanes Rock-N-Bowl on the corner of Carrolton and Tulane.  It was this great old bowling alley that was up these really steep stairs and it wasn’t just bowling.  They had great Louisiana cuisine, (gumbo, crawfish etouffee, po-boys, etc.) and they had live local bands playing while you bowled.  It was so much fun, having a beer, eating great food and bowling. Of course the bowling for me was secondary to the music, food and drink.  I’ve never been an avid bowler, the game escapes me. I mean it seems so simple.  You roll a medium size ball down an alley and try to hit the ten pins at the end of it and knock them over.  Yet, to bowl, you really need to learn and practice this skill. And it’s one that I ‘d never quite figured out and just what it would mean to me many years later.

I also went bowling every so often at friends parties and an occasional birthday party for my son Harrison.  Then we got the Wii and I got a kick out of the bowling game, it was so real, even though it was just a video game. I kicked butt on the video game.

Then it happened, a few weeks ago for my son’s 12^th birthday we took him into New York City and went to Chelsea Bowling Alley on pier 60.  It was such a cool place, with the lights, music, and food. Reminded me a bit of my days back in New Orleans, but this alley was way too new and the music and food were no way near New Orleans standards.

They made me bowl first, so talk about pressure… I thought, ok, this is going to be fine, I have all that practice from playing on the Wii, I’d be fine.  Well the first bowl was a gutter ball, the next, more of the same, then everyone after me starting knocking down pins.  I have to say I was getting a bit frustrated about my lack of “bowling” ability. We had 6 of us bowling… Then it hit me as I watched everyone else, it wasn’t about them.  I shouldn’t care what they think or even how they bowl.  And if I did, I’d have to use that emotion to fuel me to do better.  By the way, I was in last place.

So it was then and there when it was my next turn, that I decided to try something new.  I stood up and walked to the lane to pick up my ball and I simply visualized throwing a strike.  I didn’t think too much though, no over analyzing, I just saw the strike, then I kept that vision when I let go of the ball and guess what?  I had a strike!  How cool was that?!  I wish I could write that I used this strategy for the rest of the game and won. As it always happens in real life I got too distracted.  The good news is that I did finish in 3^rd place, which was much better than last!

The real lesson for me was what I discovered about bowling and how it’s helped me be a better entrepreneur… When you have your own business there are thousands of things that come at you and distract you from making money.  The real core and crux of being successful is having that vision of what success is, and taking the key core actions to make it come to fruition.  To create your success plan of goals for the year and ensure you take plenty of action to make them happen. So in order to be a success in business as entrepreneur you need a vision, a plan, and you need to take action and surround yourself with people who will help and support you to make it happen. Keep in mind the more focused you are, the clearer your vision, the better manager of time and being able to outsource what you’re not good at are great factors to help you be an incredibly successful entrepreneur.  Just know there will probably be some gutter balls here and there and maybe even a spare or two.  The real thrill comes from getting that first strike, so don’t forget to celebrate.  Then get ready to do it all over again!

<!–[if !mso]> <! st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } –>

The number of times I’ve gone bowling at an actual bowling alley could be counted on both hands.  I went a couple of times when I lived in New Orleans (I grew up there until I moved away after going to LSU for college.) they had this great place called the Mid-City Lanes Rock-N-Bowl on the corner of Carrolton and Tulane.  It was this great old bowling alley that was up these really steep stairs and it wasn’t just bowling.  They had great Louisiana cuisine, (gumbo, crawfish etouffee, po-boys, etc.) and they had live local bands playing while you bowled.  It was so much fun, having a beer, eating great food and bowling. Of course the bowling for me was secondary to the music, food and drink.  I’ve never been an avid bowler, the game escapes me. I mean it seems so simple.  You roll a medium size ball down an alley and try to hit the ten pins at the end of it and knock them over.  Yet, to bowl, you really need to learn and practice this skill. And it’s one that I ‘d never quite figured out and just what it would mean to me many years later.

I also went bowling every so often at friends parties and an occasional birthday party for my son Harrison.  Then we got the Wii and I got a kick out of the bowling game, it was so real, even though it was just a video game. I kicked butt on the video game.

Then it happened, a few weeks ago for my son’s 12^th birthday we took him into New York City and went to Chelsea Bowling Alley on pier 60.  It was such a cool place, with the lights, music, and food. Reminded me a bit of my days back in New Orleans, but this alley was way too new and the music and food were no way near New Orleans standards.

They made me bowl first, so talk about pressure… I thought, ok, this is going to be fine, I have all that practice from playing on the Wii, I’d be fine.  Well the first bowl was a gutter ball, the next, more of the same, then everyone after me starting knocking down pins.  I have to say I was getting a bit frustrated about my lack of “bowling” ability. We had 6 of us bowling… Then it hit me as I watched everyone else, it wasn’t about them.  I shouldn’t care what they think or even how they bowl.  And if I did, I’d have to use that emotion to fuel me to do better.  By the way, I was in last place.

So it was then and there when it was my next turn, that I decided to try something new.  I stood up and walked to the lane to pick up my ball and I simply visualized throwing a strike.  I didn’t think too much though, no over analyzing, I just saw the strike, then I kept that vision when I let go of the ball and guess what?  I had a strike!  How cool was that?!  I wish I could write that I used this strategy for the rest of the game and won. As it always happens in real life I got too distracted.  The good news is that I did finish in 3^rd place, which was much better than last!

The real lesson for me was what I discovered about bowling and how it’s helped me be a better entrepreneur… When you have your own business there are thousands of things that come at you and distract you from making money.  The real core and crux of being successful is having that vision of what success is, and taking the key core actions to make it come to fruition.  To create your success plan of goals for the year and ensure you take plenty of action to make them happen. So in order to be a success in business as entrepreneur you need a vision, a plan, and you need to take action and surround yourself with people who will help and support you to make it happen. Keep in mind the more focused you are, the clearer your vision, the better manager of time and being able to outsource what you’re not good at are great factors to help you be an incredibly successful entrepreneur.  Just know there will probably be some gutter balls here and there and maybe even a spare or two.  The real thrill comes from getting that first strike, so don’t forget to celebrate.  Then get ready to do it all over again!