3 Business Mistakes You Don't Need to Make

Welcome, welcome, welcome. This week on the podcast, we're gonna talk about mistakes. I am very out there in the world, saying that, first to tell you that between the two businesses I own, I have made all the mistakes. And I am a big fan of making mistakes in order to learn and grow, I don't like purposely set out to mess things up. But I also know that we can't learn without making mistakes you do, they're part of the game. That being said, what I've found over my years of entrepreneurship is that there are some mistakes that I made way larger way more often, and way more extensive than I needed to, and that I didn't need to give them all the time and energy that they took. So today, what I want to share with you are three specific mistakes that I have made in my business. And that I find clients come to me making over and over again, also, that I made over the years that took loads of time and energy to untangle. But actually are ones that you don't have to make, that are things that you don't have to do, you could just skip them and like go to the next level of of success. By not doing these, you could save yourself all this time and energy, because I have already made those mistakes for you. Before we get to that I want to share a really amazing thing one of my clients did last week, she did something that even surprised herself. We were talking about what would be fun in her business. And as we were talking, I asked her you know, so tell me, what would be fun for you to do. She had said to me, oh, if I do this thing, it would be so much fun. I was like, Oh, that's interesting, what else would be fun. And she took a second and she opened her mouth and some words came out. And then she went Oh, and covered her mouth real quick. Because what fell out was like this secret desire to do something new that she didn't even realize was in there. And like she paused afterwards and looked kind of guilty. And it turned out that that's it was like a secret thing that she's always thought would be fun to do. But had never dared to say out loud. And the most fun part of it wasn't even that she actually articulated it. That was part of the fun. But the most fun part of it was because she articulated it. Now we get to do something with it. So it's just super fun to have her not only realize this thing that she's been secretly wanting to do, and probably hadn't even admit to herself, that she thought would be tons of fun. But now, we get to create this secret wish the secret fun in her business together. Like this is the joy of coaching for me that you know, she has this idea of something that would be super fun for her to do. And she didn't even realize it was in there. And when it fell out, she was like, oh, it would be super fun. She thought it was out of reach. And it is not. It's actually something she's already in the process of creating and didn't even notice. So that's just super fun. Okay, so let's talk about the three mistakes. The first one is one that I make repeatedly, even still, I think we all do. And if you have any, any planner in you, you do this. So the first mistake I want to talk about is one that has cost me lots of money over the years and time. And it is this, I have tried to solve problems that I didn't have

yet, rather than the ones I had in front of me. So this takes on lots of different forms. For me, when I built my first business, the most costly form of it was building a website that did all kinds of things that solved problems we would have had three years from now from then, before I even knew before we had those problems, I didn't need to solve them. So we spent lots of time and energy like planning for every eventuality rather than just starting. Here are the things that go wrong with that when you're planning for every eventuality more eventualities just pop into your brain, and you build and build and build. And then it turns out that once you really get moving that's not what you end up doing. So you've built things you don't need number one. The second thing that's wrong there is that not wrong. I don't mean, but the thing that like, sucks all the time and energy and money is that what we didn't do when we were planning, planning, planning for all the problems we might have someday, is solve the first problems we had, which was getting what we had in front of people, right? So often, I will have clients come to me and say, okay, so I want to do X thing. And if I want to do X thing, I need A, B, C, D, E, and F. And then they go, what's the tool I should use for AF? Well, it doesn't matter, actually. Because until you do a, nothing else matters. We want to naturally plan I am all for planning in planning is, in so many ways, a way to exert control over things that feel unsure, right? Like when we're not exactly sure what's going to happen, we make 16 contingency plans.

That's what this is. So me solving problems I didn't have yet was me trying to control the uncontrollable, and in throwing money at it to solve it, which didn't actually help. Now, one of the things that I have learned to ask myself that you can ask him yourself, that helps me time and time and time again, is what is the problem I'm trying to solve right now. So often, I find myself like, oh, if I use this tool, I could do these things, and that dah dah dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. But then when I stop and say, Okay, wait, what is the problem I'm trying to solve right now, that problem has nothing to do with the tool I'm looking at. So we can pull ourselves back. And yes, I'm not saying don't plan. But I'm saying don't spend tons of energy, money time brain space, thinking like, Okay, I have two clients now. But when I have 100 clients, I have to have at work like this. So I have to build it like this now, you will change 57 times between now and 100 clients, between now and 1000, sales between now and whatever, in the processes you need will evolve with you, you're going to have times where you think like, Oh, I have to have a way to track that now that I'm doing it, and you make one. solving the problem you have today is a little bit of trusting yourself, right? If you can solve the problem you have today, you can trust yourself to solve the next problem when it comes up. So the key question to ask yourself in here is what is the problem I have right now? What am I trying to solve for? Alright, Mistake number two. Mistake number two is one that I had to learn the hard way. And I think we all do in life, but please, this is me trying to ease your path a little bit. So for me, one of the things that I really like to do is to listen to people, and then take action on their thoughts. Like if somebody says, Well, you ought to do it this way. I think like, Okay, I'm willing to try that. Oh, the circles I managed to tie myself in while I was doing this. So the mistake in here is not so much in listening, because listening is great. Taking input. Great. Although I do it less now than I ever have probably. The problem was that what I did was I felt compelled to use everyone else's ideas. Rather than just trusting myself. I felt like if they offered me a suggestion, I had to take it. And we all do this on some level, right? somebody says to you, oh, here's this really handy worksheet I use in my class, you want to try it? And you think like,

okay,

I'll give this a shot. Or a friend says to you, oh, well, you know, when I was trying to lose weight, I did it like this. And you think like, Oh, that's worth a try. But in business, so often, we get so much advice from people that don't actually get what we're doing, or that aren't our target audience. They'll say, oh, but if you talk to people on LinkedIn, instead of Oh, you know, Facebook, or if you only did it on Instagram, it would work better. Cool. Okay. But if I took everybody's advice, I'd have all the platforms in my first business I did. Because everybody said, well, you have to be on all the platforms, when like, really, I'm bad at two thirds of the platforms. And it turns out all I need for that business is Pinterest.

Who knew? So I would say that the mistake Here is not in the taking the input. But you can also feel free to limit that. It isn't feeling compelled to take action on the opinions you've been offered. Because that's just what they are opinions. What I've learned to ask myself over the years is, Does this make sense for me right now? I can walk away from a conversation and take what they said to me, like, you know, it would be great for your business to be on Instagram. Okay, I don't disagree that it would be great for my business to be on Instagram. And then I come back and I sit down at my desk. And I think, does this make sense for me right now. Because in the end, I have to be the decision maker of my business, right? Just like you're the decision maker in your household, the decision maker in your classroom, the decision maker and your, you know, friend, group, whatever you want to do, I have to treat myself the same way in my business as the CEO. So if I stop, and I think, Okay, wait, does this make sense for me right now? A lot of times, the answer is no. You know what, it doesn't make sense for me to spend time on Instagram right now. I'm just not there yet. I don't, I don't love Instagram. I might never get there. And that's okay. So if you want to listen to the opinions, great. You just don't need to take them in no one will think less of you. You know, sometimes I think like, Oh my gosh, if I didn't take their suggestion, they're gonna think I don't respect their thoughts. That's not true. They're just making a suggestion. It is okay for you to think like, this doesn't fit me right now. But I'll keep it in mind. And that's something I've learned to say to people far and wide. Yeah, I appreciate your thought. This doesn't actually fit me right now. But I will keep it in mind. No problem. Okay, so that's Mistake number two. Mistake number three is a killer. It is one that took me years to realize I was doing. But is such a quick fix. Once you see it. It's like Oh, okay. And once you have it, you can't it doesn't go away. But you do have to hang on to it. So the mistake I made early on, and I think so many businesses make particularly early on is confusing sharing with connecting. Sharing and connecting are not the same thing. So I think of this most often as the difference between posting and meeting people. In my business, I can share content, I can share ideas, I can share freebies, I can share lives, I share this podcast. But me sharing is not necessarily the exact same thing as me connecting to you directly. I now am able to know we are connected at this stage in my business, because I know we are in conversation. But what happens is early in business, particularly we fall into this trap, where it's like I'm creating, I'm putting stuff out there, how come nobody's talking to me. Because what you're doing is sharing, you're just saying like here, world, here's my stuff. Now you love me. And that's not the same thing as truly connecting. So sometimes what I asked myself is, am I saying this just share? Or am I saying this to connect? And every now and then less so than it once was? I'd say oh, I was just sharing. I think like, Oh, this was just me sharing. This is not me connecting. Oftentimes just sharing is like, Hey, I got a new dog. Versus like, Hey, I got this new dog. And, you know, talk to me about what you've done with your dogs that you think I should know, there's a different level of connecting there than me just telling you stuff. In a classroom, it's the difference between sort of teaching and telling, right? Sharing is just telling. It's like, here's what I have, here's use this, I have this thing for you. Versus like, hey, let's have a conversation. Here's what I think you should know what do you think about it? What are your thoughts? Where do you get confused? Where do you get stuck? And now that I know the difference between sharing and connecting, I'm a much better connector. And that is it makes all the difference. to really focus on you know, is this me connecting or am I just telling people stuff? Because it comes from a different place and you it comes off differently and it comes back to you differently when you're just like throwing spaghetti against the universe. That's a very mixed metaphor sorry when you're just throwing spaghetti against the wall throwing things out there again into the universe you're just throwing them out you're not expecting anything back even though you kind of are when you're connecting you're building conversation so it's really in the intent but if you have that intent often you do things differently and i see it with clients that make this shift from telling or sharing to connecting to to pulling in versus just throwing out right and it makes a tremendous difference it's made all the difference for me so three mistakes you don't have to make any more solving problems you don't have yet so how do you solve the problem that's in front of you right now what is the problem right now using all the opinions feeling compelled to use everybody's input like does this matter for me and confusing sharing with connecting and the question under there is what is my intent here am i sharing or am i trying to connect okay so i hope that I have helped you at least a little bit to maybe avoid some of these mistakes or spend a little bit of time on them spend a little less time on them and not spend more time on them please let me know what happens feel free to reach out to me on Facebook feel free to connect come on over and join my group it's called teachers in business if you haven't already this is the kind of stuff we talk about all the time and then also feel free to connect one on one and send a message and say hey now I’m connecting more or hey i didn't realize i was solving problems i didn't have yet but I was and if you're stuck in this if you find yourself over and over again sharing instead of connecting using everyone else's opinions and you can't turn it off or you're just in way over planning mode and you are stuck in the cave of planning and not taking any action solving for problems you're gonna have in three years but not two days so that you never get to those problems in three years please reach out i can help this is what i do i have done this work myself is what i do day in day out with clients and i would love to help you get to a place where you are taking action to solve the problems you have today really listening to yourself and trusting yourself first and connecting deeply with your people if you want to do that you can head to my websites torpeycoaching.com and then I will see you on the next episode of the podcast I’m taking next week off but i will be back the first full week in April - I'll see you then