Ever done an exercise to calculate your desired income for your business? I have my own clients do this, and I hope that you’ve done it too. But, here’s the question. Do you cut it so close that you leave no room for error? Do you expect everything to pay out immediately and get stressed when it doesn’t?
You’ve got to give yourself some “mistake money.”
Now, for me to say that I must also immediately say that there is no such thing as a mistake. There is no right or wrong, only growth. Our paths are filled with constant opportunities for expansion should we choose to interpret our results with that filter.
And, sometimes that requires money. So, business owner, please allow yourself to receive more than you think you “should” so you’ve got some room to grow.
I have my clients double their income goal so they have that money to invest in their business – in marketing opportunities and support (and, of course, coaching!)
Let me tell you about why this is so important.
Mistakes are an Illusion
I lost my cell phone when I was traveling in Vietnam. I’m not sure but I truly believe I set it on a bench and walked away. I calmly ordered a replacement to be on my doorstep when I returned home. I used it as an opportunity to upgrade to a nicer one, and I didn’t spend a minute stressing about the cost or which phone to buy. When you follow the laws of the Universe in your thinking you know it will all come back to you. There’s no mistake, and focusing on lack creates more lack.
Event Sponsorship Lessons
I spoke with several people who sponsored events this last week. Some approached their sponsorship with a healthy attitude: I’ve prepared as much as I knew to prepare and I made my best effort to represent myself and my business so that people want to work with me. I am learning as I go and I will work through the “feedback” I get from my results and adjust and move forward. I put “feedback” in quotes because you don’t ask for feedback, you look at your specific results as feedback, ideally with the help of a coach or mentor who is outside of you to help you see why you attracted the results you did.
I spoke with other sponsors who had invested and were so attached to getting a specific results that their stressed-out energy was not attracting the people they desire. They didn’t use the event as an opportunity to try out different things and see what worked, instead they saw something that didn’t work in the first 30 minutes and allowed that to kick them into “The Great Entrepreneurial Flip-Flop” and a big fat ball of stress. Their results are done for at that point!
And either of these scenarios are absolutely OK if you walk away and learn from it. In fact, sometimes it’s the expensive lesson that gets your attention.
My Expensive Lesson
I swear I’ve learned this lesson 100 times or more. Just because someone is an expert, doesn’t mean I should ignore what I know. One of my life lessons I’m certain is owning my own intelligence and intuitive knowing about things. Of course, that is part of what makes me good at helping others to do it.
Early this year I had a video produced for my home page. I hired a company of people I liked, and I was very excited. The investment was not as much as some video companies, which I thought would be good, right? Though a part of me wondered why it was inexpensive (pay attention to this!)
During the process of preparing to shoot the video, I had some gut feelings that the process wasn’t as smooth as I would have liked in terms of being guided to create a powerful video. It was fine but not great, and ignored my gut. I decided I’d give it a shot.
The day of the video, I changed clothes a couple of times, and was directed to take out my earrings, so I put on a necklace, and asked an opinion about how I looked. I never looked at the video footage to see how I looked.
The filming for one 3-minute video took an entire day due to the location of the studio and the excessive noise outside. We filmed on a green screen, which seemed cool to me. I was a little worried because green is not my color, but I decided to ‘trust the expert.’ I felt quite uncomfortable as the day progressed and we did take after take, but I kept my mouth shut and muscled through. I hadn’t yet come to terms with my inner bitch, and “felt bad” to complain about the setting that clearly didn’t work.
Mistake, mistake, mistake… er… I mean missed opportunities.
Seriously.
So I got the video back, and I looked green, and exhausted from an entire day of filming, and my wardrobe and jewelry choice? Ridiculous! (My own self-judgment here).
So, here’s the thing. I could have gotten upset. I could have let it stop me. I could have been angry about the money I spent. (It was still a big investment). Or I could have said, which I did, “Isn’t that interesting. I deferred to an expert again instead of trusting my gut. I didn’t participate in a way that got me a result that I wanted. Thank you Universe for yet another lesson. I’ll get it one day. :)”
My video has never seen the light of day.
I recently invested in a new video shoot (stay tuned!). I recorded 9 videos in one day. On a white screen. It was a collaborative process in which I spoke up when I noticed I wasn’t enjoying part of the script. I asked for what I wanted. I learned from my mistakes.
And one of these days it will absolutely pay off, because I won’t entertain thoughts of it going any other way.
Do you?