Giving Away Your Power
I had the pleasure of spending the last week speaking at an event. And I had the most interesting conversation with a woman there.
She had just registered for a coaching program for her business.
And she said, “I just hope this is going to work. I don’t know if it will and I’m so scared.”
I looked at her and said, “You’re giving away your power. The program doesn’t work for you. It’s not like a pill you pop, or a class that you sit in and absorb information from. You put in the work, follow the instructions, ask questions and make it work. You decide it’s going to work first and foremost. Then you do the program.”
It made me realize one of the reasons I’ve been so successful in my own business. I never let any coach or program decide if I was going to be successful.
I decided I was going to be successful first. I decided exactly how long I needed to get a return on my investment and how much money that would be.
Then I worked the heck out of the program to make sure that I got exactly what I needed to make sure that happened.
That means I showed up to every call, asked questions, did the work, and even bought extra coaching when necessary. I even found and purchased outside resources if needed.
I practiced taking full responsibility for my successes and failures without laying blame on anything other than myself. I’m not perfect. There were moments when I went into blame and disappointment — but I was careful not to stay there too long.
You see the truth is that we love to throw money at our problems and then walk away or passively participate hoping for awesome results.
Any amount of theory will only take you so far — it’s taking action that makes for the best absorption of content.
Here’s another example of how we throw our money away. One of my clients hired a new copywriter and then gave her $3,000, without giving her a test article or working with her to share her voice. Four weeks later she gets a sales page that she hates.
One of my colleagues hired a Facebook marketing team. She didn’t meet with them each week to understand what they were doing and how much money they were spending. Thirty days later she had spent $10,000 and had no real leads.
We can’t give our power away by passively participating in a program and hoping it will work. Or by paying a vendor and then ignoring them. But the temptation as entrepreneurs is to do just that.
Active participation. Active partnership. Active listening. Active planning. These are the keys to success.
Here’s to enjoying the actions — and the fruits of the successes.
Photo: flickr, eyebex
