The #1 Mistake That Costs Entrepreneurs Freedom & Joy
In this video, you’ll learn:
✔️ THE #1 MISTAKE THAT ENTREPRENEURS MAKE THAT PREVENTS THEM FROM CREATING FREEDOM
✔️ THREE VITAL COMPONENTS THAT MUST BE IN PLACE TO RUN A BUSINESS THAT BRINGS YOUR JOY!
I hope you enjoy it!
If you don’t have time to watch the full video, you can also read the full transcript further down the page.
Many business owners start as solo entrepreneurs wearing all the hats in their business. Over time they’ll become the jack of all trades, and this can lead to some unproductive work habits that leave them feeling exhausted (and their team frustrated.)
They have very little free time (if any,) and they’re resenting the very thing they started to bring them freedom and joy. (This, by the way, is where a lot of clients find themselves right before they hire me.)
The above frustrations happen for various (and typical) reasons:
Humans are creatures of habit, and so it can be challenging to identify and change the rituals that are preventing business owners from freeing up time
Society has an obsession with productivity, and narratives of hustling harder/success takes blood, sweat, and tears is preached everywhere you go.
Past experiences trigger business owners and make them not trust their businesses, putting them on edge and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The biggest mistake all entrepreneurs make that makes them hate their business:
It’s from this frame of mind where entrepreneurs make their biggest mistake:
I call it the “One day when then I will...” syndrome– this is where a business owner continually puts off giving themselves anything they need to succeed. But that day never comes, no matter their progress/success.
This leads to more dissatisfaction – making the entrepreneur want to burn it all down, or they’ll start to entertaining thoughts of selling their asset.
So, how do you get from this stuck and frustrating place to joy and freedom (without selling your business?)
When I work with my client to help them create more freedom without giving up higher profits, we usually start with the end in mind.
I take them right to that “One day, then I will” fantasy, and I ask: what would the ideal situation look like if you were running a profitable business that allowed you to take time off?
Reverse engineering the objective
Once the client identifies this, we reverse engineer the goal.
We identify:
What systems would need to be in place to support the goal
What delegation strategies would need to be deployed
And address any weaknesses that may be lingering in their team structure
I also help my clients identify their unique resiliency routines and ways of working in their business that rejuvenates and conserves energy.
An incremental approach
Once all these pieces are in place, we develop an incremental upgrade plan that allows the client to gradually implement and test parts of the puzzle. By doing this, my client gets to experiment and trust their support structures and make changes in real-time.
That’s part of the strategy we helped Sarah Noel Block implement, so she could spend quality time with her family. Read her story here.
Are you ready to break through to the next level in your business? In three short weeks, you can establish a quick, daily journaling practice that will help you reach your full potential with The Up Level Project Workbook, plus receive a daily mantra sent directly to your phone by texting “Up Level” to +1 (617) 855 0518.
Video transcript
Hello hello hello there let's try this again if you were here before and you couldn't see me or you were like why is she hanging up I apologize we had some tech issues so welcome back uh to this uh video where we are going to talk about the most or the number one mistake that entrepreneurs make that is costing them their freedom their joy and a lot of profits. I'm also going to talk in this video of how you can overcome that and the three um vital components that must be in place that will help you to run your business and design your business in a way that is going to give you increased profits and freedom. So if you are brand new to me hello and welcome my name is Hanukkah I am a two-time award-winning entrepreneur a best-selling author of the book The Up Level Project and I'm also a certified life coach with over 17 years of experience growing businesses in various industries and today I mainly help multiple six to seven figure entrepreneurs to increase their profits to create more freedom and team satisfaction so let's dive right into today's topic The Chief Everything Officer.
I work with a lot of entrepreneurs who started out as solo entrepreneurs and I think all of us or a lot of entrepreneurs start their businesses that way we it sort of starts with a company of one and then you start wearing all the hats and you become what I like to call the chief everything officer I don't know who coined that phrase but I love that phrase and use it quite a lot and so you wear all the hats in your business and then you start hiring people and by then you may have fallen into some very unproductive and ineffective ways of working which then can leave you to feel unsupported despite the fact that you have a team it can make you resentful it can leave you exhausted and it can also leave your team extremely frustrated so this I think we can all agree is a no-win situation for any entrepreneur who is looking to scale their business.
Free Time
What happens here then is that the entrepreneur will have very free little free time and they are always in this mode of waiting for the other shoe to drop and this is exactly where people are or a lot of my clients are when they decide to hire me and start working with me and these frustrations number one I want to say happens for very normal reasons and it happens for various reasons and those reasons are that us as human beings are conditioned to be creatures of habit and so we all have certain habits that may not be serving us to the base of our abilities and is preventing us from actually achieving what we want but unfortunately it's very difficult for us to spot what those behaviors are and to change them if we don't have any form of accountability or someone who can come in with a fresh pair of eyes and go hey that's maybe not the best thing to do anymore and also if you've been running your business I often say this to the clients that I work with it's like you know what got you here is not what's going to take you to where you want to go so we do have to upgrade our actions and change the way that we show up in our business the bigger our business becomes and that can be very difficult so that keeps you stuck in that frustrated don't have a lot of time because you're used to operating this certain way in your business and then secondly the other thing that can lead to a business owner being burned out exhausted not having any free time is society's very suggestive and like almost like a whispering messaging that is constantly being shouted and screamed everywhere we look of you know we're obsessed with being more and more and more productive."
We have narratives that say things like you gotta hustle harder or early bird catches the worm and you know then we also as a collective have bought into this idea that success uh takes blood sweat and tears and so if that mindset is running in your subconscious mind then it also makes it extremely difficult for you to create the habits and the changes that are necessary for you to even give yourself permission to have more free time um and then of course the other thing that is not talked about a lot that can also lead to why business owners feel frustrated and even resentful is because certain things in their business may be triggering past things that have happened to them and bringing on um really big emotions that can then derail them to be able to create more freedom and profits and then it's from this frame of mind.
The Mistake
That business owners will make their biggest mistake and that mistake is what I like to call the one day win then I will syndrome so this is the illusion that entrepreneurs are under that once they reach a certain level of success or a certain level of profits then they will allow themselves to receive more support to finally hire the business coach to take that vacation that they've been talking about and unfortunately when you are in the one day when then I will mentality then that one day never comes it just never arrives and um you never reach that level where you finally feel comfortable to allow yourself to build in certain things rewards or support that will actually help you and be beneficial for your business and so of course when you are living in that mentality or that perspective then that's going to lead to more dissatisfaction and it is going to eventually then learn to you burning out or wanting to burn everything to the ground and it's here where usually an entrepreneur will start to toy with this idea of maybe I should sell this business maybe it's time for me to just go do something completely different and sell their biggest asset.
The Solution
So as we can see getting yourself into the state of mind and making that mistake can be super harmful for you your team and even your mental health so when I work with clients um to help them to get out of this space and to create more freedom without sacrificing their profits I usually have us start with the end game in mind and I will take them to that one day when then I will I'll ask them to actually complete that sentence for us and from there I'll then ask okay so what would that ideal situation look like what would it look like if all of the challenges that you're currently facing in your business was over with it was done and you could take time off and you can take that the vacation that you've always dreamed of and knowing that your team has got you covered and then from there once they've given us that vision then we'll reverse engineer the goal for them so that's when we then go into okay so if that is what we are going for that is what you want to create then what are the systems that need to be in place to support you to be able and then after we've done that I also like to spend a lot of time with clients to pinpoint their unique resiliency routines and it's here where I use their personality and I really go deep into how their energy works best, how they can conserve their energy, what type of leader they are, how they can show up as their most effective selves so that they can show up in their businesses with more energy, more confidence, and so that it becomes a more energetically giving experience than a draining experience and they can get rejuvenated and energized by their business versus feeling triggered and frustrated the whole time.
Now once we have all of that in place and i'm just going to recap that real quick so we start with what is the one-day win vision what is that dream outcome that you want and then we reverse engineer it we go to okay so uh if you want that what systems will support you what dedication strategies team members need to be in place um and we look at all the weaknesses and then we also come up with a unique resiliency routine for that person.
Now once we have all of that then we do an incremental implementation of the plan so um i often find that if you have a new strategy and you take the whole thing and you just jam it in there then it can be overwhelming it can be super triggering um and so what works actually better is if you do an opera like an incremental upgrade to where you want to go so you slowly but surely start to implement pieces of the puzzle that will then eventually help you to get to where you want to go and by doing that it gives the business owner time to get comfortable with the new strategy but it also helps you to trust the process like because because you're gonna get positive feedback and then we can use that positive reinforcement to help the client to affect the change that they want to see.
So that is number one the biggest mistake that entrepreneurs make and then what you can do to um ensure that you move away from that mistake and you design a business that you are actually in love with and allows you lots of freedom along with higher profits. All right I hope that was helpful.
If you are currently in the market for a new coach or if you're struggling with a lot of what i just talked about i still have some openings to work with me privately and you can click through on the links and go to my website where you'll be able to find a way to get in touch and book a q a call where we can discuss how i can help you. Thank you so much for being here i hope this was helpful and i'll catch you next time.
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If you liked what you read here, and you’re curious to learn more about business coaching, you might also like this other article I wrote: How can a business coach help me?
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