Podcast

Episode 468: If I Persist I Will Succeed

This episode is your invitation to believe in yourself and your business. Because if you don’t believe in yourself and in your business, then you’re not actually going to take the steps you need to take to have it be successful. And the irony of that is, we often want our business to be successful, so we can believe in it and believe in ourselves. But you really have to be willing to go first.

Tune in to hear my experience with that, why it’s so important for perfectionists, and how believing in yourself can lead to taking action even with doubts and setbacks.

Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode468.

In The Episode You’ll Learn:

  • The importance of believing in yourself and your business so you can succeed
  • Why perfectionism can hold entrepreneurs back as they work on their business
  • My entrepreneurship journey in persisting to pursue my goals, even with doubts and setbacks
  • Why you should stop waiting for proof you’ll succeed before you take action
  • How to take action when you have fears and doubts

Featured In The Episode:

Work With Me:
My coaching program Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (aka PGSD) teaches you how to take consistent action on the most important things for your business without burning yourself out.
On 1 July we will be starting our 12 Week Power Planning Challenge inside Perfectionists Getting Shit Done. Get instant, lifetime access to the program when you sign up today. To find out more about the program and sign up today, visit: samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.

Listen To The Episode

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Introduction
Hi and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project, a podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release their perfectionism handbrake so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the Perfectionist Getting Shit Done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business. You can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.

Sam Laura Brown
Today, I just want to record a quick little episode for you to just talk about believing in yourself and your business. It’s so important. It really is ultimately everything. Because if you don’t believe in yourself and in your business, then you’re not actually going to take the steps you need to take to have it be successful. And the irony of that is we often want our business to be successful, so we can believe in it and believe in ourselves, but you really have to be willing to go first. And so I just want to talk to you in this episode about that, about my experience with that, because it is absolutely so, so, so important if you want to build a successful business.

I also just want to read to you an email that I wrote today called, thank God I wasn’t an overnight success. And I’m going to just read through this email and then share a few more thoughts with you about it, because I really want to help, like, relieve some of the pressure that you might be feeling to make really big leaps in your revenue. And I also want to mention this episode, I’m just keeping it quick and short, because on the 20th of June, which is Thursday, I’m going to be releasing a five part follow through series on the podcast, so it’s going to help you make plans you actually follow help you know what’s important, what isn’t it’s going to help you do courageous things.

I’m going to teach you the four simple things you need to do to actually follow through consistently, and how to become someone who follows through. So I know for so many people listening, who are maybe in a slump and are in need of a bit of a mid year reset, or just want to be the kind of person that can trust themselves to do what they promised themselves they would do. Stay tuned for the series. Subscribe to the podcast if you aren’t already, and that series is really to celebrate as well. I’m so excited for this that we are doing inside my program, Perfectionist Getting Shit Done. We are doing a 12 week power planning challenge together as a community.

So you will come into PGSD, and we get set on the first of July, which also happens to be a Monday, and you will get guided through your first 12 weeks of power planning and figuring out your growth goal, exactly what your needle movers are, and being supported, and if you love accountability and just really having that sense of community, having somewhere to ask questions, being able to get coaching yourself or to hear others getting coached, and to just really be able to feel committed to something and feel accountable, I really want to help you to plan properly, as a perfectionist and follow through with your plans. I know how to teach that. I have so many success stories from the process that we have inside PGSD.

So if you have been listening to this podcast, you have been finding it really helpful, and you actually want to get out of your own way, like not just make little bits of progress by yourself, but if you really want to get out of your own way in your business, I want to invite you inside. So in that follow through series, I’m also going to be telling you a bit more about the program and inviting you to sign up. So if you aren’t already subscribed to this podcast, make sure you do that now.

So I want to read this email out and then just chat a little bit about it. So it says, the pressure to make giant leaps in our revenue keeps so many perfectionists paralyzed. It has us trying to perfect our messaging figure out the perfect business model and make sure the business we commit to is a business we want to have forever. But I wasn’t an overnight success, and you don’t have to be either. There are entrepreneurs who go from zero to six figures in their first year, and there are others who go from $100,000 into the millions with little effort. We hear a lot about these overnight success stories. And while it’s what is most talked about, it’s not what’s most common. It took me three years to make my first dollar, and it was six years before I had my first $100,000 year.

It felt like it took forever, but I’m glad I kept going, even though it was slower than I wanted it to be, that time was going to pass regardless. And even though business felt hard, wasting my potential at an accounting job felt even harder. I’m so thankful to my past self for committing even when there was no proof it would work, for believing even when my brain didn’t know how, and for being willing to feel delusional. My belief in myself was fragile, but it was sufficient. I believed in myself a little more than I didn’t. I picked up one foot and I put it in front of the other. I was scared and I was unsure, but I did it. I let myself set big goals that invited me to grow. I showed up as best as I could. It was far from perfect, and I got there. There was no giant leap. And nothing I’ve ever done has gone viral. I simply believe that if I persisted, I would succeed. And that became my reality.

I share that with you, because really like that mantra of if I persist, I will succeed. Is what was able to is what had me actually been able to show up and do the things that I needed to do, and I also through that belief of if I persist, I will succeed, I was able to then accept and receive and look for support and community and other people to help me get to where I wanted to go. But I had to be willing to believe enough for myself and for everyone else. I know that often we want other people to tell us it’s a good idea. We want other people to believe in it. And this might manifest for you if you are not wanting to tell other people about your ideas, because if they invalidate it, then you’re going to invalidate it too.

But when you can get to believing enough, it can be a fragile belief, but believing enough that it doesn’t matter if others don’t, and not from this like, I’m going to prove everyone wrong energy, which might be something that for you, is something that drives you, but when people talk about like, you know, I’m going to prove everyone wrong, that just has never been how my brain works, I’m like, no, they’re probably right and I’m probably wrong. So what I want to offer to you, and I know it’s challenging and it’s hard to do this because you have to be willing to believe with no proof. You have to be willing to feel delusional. You have to be willing to believe even when you don’t know exactly how it’s going to play out. Is to be willing to believe enough for both yourself and for your partner.

You probably have a very supportive partner, but if you have been doubtful about your business, they probably are as well, because they’re reflecting that doubt back to you. Or if you’ve been feeling like my goal actually isn’t feasible and yet could happen, but it probably isn’t going to like there’s just a very slim chance, but maybe it will happen. You have to be believing in your goal before the past year goal will be revealed to you. You have to go first. You can’t say, Okay, I’ll have this big fire burning, and then I’ll put in the wood. That’s this quote from Earl Nightingale, who has some amazing inspirational, motivational YouTube videos. He has long since passed. He I think he was around in like, the early 1900s I could be so wrong about that, but I love the quote that he has that really reflects back how often we’re like, well, I’ll get the result, and then I’ll put in the effort, I’ll have the proof, and then I’ll believe it doesn’t work like that. It just simply doesn’t work like that.

And so if you have been waiting for your business to show you proof, or for your partner to believe in your idea more than you do, you need to stop waiting. And I know it takes courage. And there’s a quote that I read in 2017 that said leap even when your legs are trembling. And that to me, I was like, Oh God, I have to actually stop waiting for my legs to stop trembling. That isn’t going to happen. I actually need to learn to do it scared. And it isn’t that hard to do it scared, but it is. It is that hard emotionally to do it scared. But I’ve done things that are scary before, and I could do this too. I could support myself to do this, and I could get support to help me do this as well.

So I just want to encourage you with this episode. If you have been feeling like I don’t know if it makes sense for me to go all in on this business or this idea that I have for my business, or this goal that I have, and maybe, as a result of that, you don’t really have clear goals, you don’t really have clear plans, or there’s a project or a task that you’ve been meaning to do that you just keep pushing off. Because ultimately, it feels like the question is, well, will this business actually work? And all you need to do is be believing in your ability to persist and to figure it out. It’s why it’s something that I’m so proud of teaching and so passionate about teaching.

And if you’ve seen shows like Shark Tank or Dragon’s Den, where they are investing in businesses that, and this is something so many investors say, is that, yeah, the business model and business idea matters. To some extent. It does, but the most important thing is the founder. The most important thing is the person behind the idea, behind the business model. Because when an idea meets reality, it will evolve, it will iterate, it will improve. You will get feedback. Hypotheses will be proven right or proven wrong. But is the founder, someone who’s going to show up and keep going and be resourceful and be resilient and be courageous. They are investing in that entrepreneur, not investing in the idea itself.

And I see it so often. We perfectionist entrepreneurs. We get so caught up on I just need to have the right idea, the right. Business model, the right niche, the right messaging, if I can just figure that out, I’m going to be successful. And that is the wrong place to focus. Those things are elements of a business, of course, but when you can really understand and get present to your business is going to evolve. It’s going to go through so many iterations. It’s not a matter of trying to find the right like the one right iteration or the one right way to do it. When we get so focused on business like that, it means that we actually miss out on showing up and giving it a try and learning through experience, which ultimately is the only way to learn. And I know that when it comes to business, there is so much uncertainty. It’s not like in school where you’re told, like, I need to see this on the exam, and if you give me this answer, I’ll give you an A or in a job where you have someone who’s saying, This is what we’re working on. This is what you need to get done this week. I’m here to support you.

When it is your business. You have to provide that certainty and safety to yourself. You have to learn to do that and also get comfortable with uncertainty. And I was sharing this recently on a PGSD coaching call, how my brain, it loves to think I don’t like uncertainty, like, when things are feeling uncertain in my business, I’m like, Oh, I wish I could just get this working, I could figure it out. And like, I just want to be in that place of certainty and feeling successful, and what I have come to realize is that I love the uncertainty of business as much as my brain resists it. I love it because that’s what creates possibility. That’s what creates the potential for unlimited upside. Is the uncertainty. Without that uncertainty, there isn’t that possibility and potential. When I was in my accounting job, it was very certain, and that’s why I left, because I knew if I’m going to be here for the next 20 years, I’m going to be in that office on the other side of the room, sitting in that chair at that desk, doing these kinds of tasks with these kinds of people. It’s so certain, I just don’t want it, even though it’s so scary to take a different path.

So with this episode, I just want to invite you to believe your belief in yourself. It doesn’t need to be strong, you don’t need to feel confident, you don’t need to feel like you have your shit together. You don’t need to feel like you know everything. All you need to do is believe in yourself a little more than you don’t believe in yourself, and to just stoke that fire, to keep believing and know that your brain is going to tell you all the reasons it won’t work, but to keep coming back to all the reasons that it will and why it is possible for you and backing yourself as the founder, as the entrepreneur, it doesn’t really matter what the business idea or business model is, that will iterate as you take steps towards your goals. But if you can come back to I can figure this out. I don’t know how yet, and it’s incredibly scary, but I’m the kind of person who can figure this out. I’m the kind of person who can figure out how to do courageous things that I really don’t want to do. I’m the kind of person who wants to be up to something rather than just going through the motions of, when you catch up with a friend, they’re like, oh, you know, same old. Like, I do not want to be the person who says same old. That is not the life I want to have.

And so it’s so scary and uncertain. But also, if you don’t do it, and if you’re like me, like, I just knew if I just stay in this accounting job or any corporate job, I’m still gonna have that desire to have a business like this restless feeling, this desire, it’s not gonna go away. I wanna be the person who did something with that, and I know I’m just gonna resent myself if I don’t. I know I’m just gonna resent myself if I don’t try, as scary as it might be to try. And so the scales were pretty even between belief and disbelief, but eventually I had them tipped in the favor of belief that I was believing a little more than I didn’t, and I believed, if I persist, I will succeed, and I acted accordingly.

I kept going, I kept showing up. It was imperfect, but I kept going at it. I got support, I met other people who were doing similar things, and I kept going, and I kept going, and I kept going, and I’ve been able to now nearly be five years full time in my business, which I’m so excited about and bloody proud of. But it is possible. There’s no reason I would ever be able to create my own business, and yet here I am, and doing a good job of it, and it’s possible for you, too. So with that said, I hope you’re having a beautiful day. I hope you tune into the follow through series coming out this Thursday. I’ll talk to you then.

Outro
If you want to get done without burning out, then I invite you to watch the free training that I’ve created on how to plan properly as a perfectionist with power planning, by the end of the training, you’ll be ready to start using power planning today to get your perfectionist mindset on your side so you can get out of your own way in your business. To sign up and watch the training. Go to samlaurabrown.com/plan.






Author: Sam Brown