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Lesson Info

Dealing with Fear

Now, the next day, just one that really doesn't necessarily come in this order when you're starting a business, it is something that is just part of the entrepreneurial experience, which is dealing with fear and dealing with doubt, and the way we're going to particularly be addressing this in this class is to talk about jedi mind tricks, a gigantic star wars fan and, uh, in an irony here, when I came to san francisco to attend this course, I pulled up in front of the hotel in san francisco and there was a huge car that had yoda on the front. There were two busses that had darth vader. It was the course for the force. There is a light saber relay here in san francisco happening today, and I, like almost didn't make it here. I swear to god, I was like, uh, that would have been the best instagram picture ever write for the course for the force, but I love the idea and I love everything about the mythology of star wars it's very heroes saga right where you you can think about natural fear ...

that comes when you're trying to do great things in the universe and save people who need to be saved, but you have these wise mentors. The high council of jedi knights that air there to really help you on your journey and and we'll talk much more specifically today about that or like what are some specific ways and tools we can use to be working with fear? Because I don't think fear is a bad thing at all it's a really, really natural, healthy part of how it is that we're wired it's a protective force, and I know as a martial artist, my my teacher, mr fiori is very much of the self defense mindset where he says, you know, you walk into a situation, something doesn't feel right. Your best course of action always is to run out the door right? Because you send something is not right and you were but your intuition, and then if something happened, somebody jumps you or put you in a headlock that you need to know how to get out of it and that's what you train, but basically we need to trust our instinct when a situation feels dangerous now it's interesting sometimes the way we're socialized in particularly women. Let me know if this resonates with the women in the group or the women that are out there on the internet audience is as women often we're socialized to be kind to be polite, so we might be in a situation where a man elevator door opens and when you get this feeling like something just doesn't feel right of like I don't really feel like it or you're walking in the street and something feels a little bit strange you don't really feel comfortable with somebody sometimes we're socialized to just be nice like don't be rude you know just go ahead and get in the elevator or just go ahead and walk down that street when I say the more that you listen to your instinct and you trust it that is the kind of thing that can really keep you safe sometimes we're wrong right sometimes we think that somebody is scary when they're really not which is awesome but let's understand that in the context of being safe ourselves first so the fear is there to support us on dh to really help us on our journey have any of you ever had that experience where you just got this weird feeling somewhere that you weren't quite safe for it wasn't a good situation it was thinking like not fear in that in the traditional sense but sometimes my thing is I hate not being able to be effective and so sometimes the fear is just like, you know, walking away from something you know fearing like you can't walk away from something from a project or a client or something and I had a moment recently where I wish that I could have pulled a don draper you know, just this is the this is the day and if you don't like it and because because sometimes you know you are socialized to somehow I think that you're supposed to be able to figure it out, figure it out for everybody and and and sometimes you know you're actually not really serving the person well if you if you can't do that and also if it's not fun for you and you don't feel like you could do your best work then then it's it's like so so that's where my fear usually comes and it's not being afraid or intimidated but more um you know, not feeling like I can follow my instinct for something that just isn't going to get the best out of me and and then I don't really thrive in that circumstance so yeah, well and it's I think it's it's recognizing there's always a consequence right sometimes for acting on respecting your instinct and sometimes, you know, standing up to fear or taking care of yourself, which in itself is something that really builds your courage, but it also builds your perspective like had a don draper get to be don draper, great writers and a great actor way but we probably know people like that, right? They're just like they come in and they inhabit themselves and they're like I'm not doing that project or like this is the way that I see it let me just see it I was telling emily she's like do you want me to share ideas or you want to stand in my work and I was like not at all let that is your area like don't let me mess with your craft obviously I made a good choice because she knows what she's doing right dwight that's really right so I mean that's that that's often part of what we call confidence is being able to be in situations where you feel fear you feel like it's not right and you learn how to act on it the more that you act on it the better you get but yes e j share one of the things here sometimes you don't even realize that you're afraid and for me like I've had it come up around money like I kind of set like this money go yeah and then I'm like doing stuff and it's not working and I'm like oh like you know, kind of like, okay, well, let me go back and like find my plant yeah, and it wasn't until like I really sat and like sat with it, I realized like I was afraid that working with that many clients I would like to lose out on time with my son I'd be tired all the time and so it actually helped me like clarify just like get really get clear about what kind of boundaries I wanted to set and sow but it was kind of like a long process because I didn't realize I was afraid definitely it's so oh I can't wait till we get into that one yeah I mean it's really leading money oh my god talk about the thing that keeps us honest and helps us with our own development it just immediately jumps in there so there could be huge fear that comes up and often it really has nothing at all to do with money or our capability of earning money just our thoughts about it so we'll definitely be hitting that so let me move through some of these different these other different areas so we have you look at yourself you're ideal client you look at the role of fear understand it have some tools for working through it then we really want to start to dig in and understand specifically in the fourth step of how can we really dig in and understand specifically what our people need this is where we do market research we dig in for data this is what susan is going to really help us with I love to make stuff up right just like I think people want this or when I'm working with a lot of clients or like my big goal is to do like interpretive dance and like match with cooking pasta you know all this stuff which could be awesome and there can be absolutely no market nader interest in that whatsoever it's like a totally fun project but sometimes it doesn't necessarily end up is a business idea so the more that we get specific the more that we dig in even with having specific clients where maybe you're working with an individual I'm not sure what what kind of clients are you selling to individual selling your fashion individuals ok so we know when you're selling to individuals there could be specific things that you dig in to really understand like who is that person and what drives them and what's their life like they can help you understand the kind of lines that you want to create what kind of fabrics do they want? What kind of patterns? Right? What movement? How are they really walking through their lives the more you can understand that the more the better you can really design so digging in and understanding the market is hugely important sometimes I think it's an area that we ignore a little bit uh because it seems hard the good news is it's not hard susan's going to give us some really specific tips on that from that when you begin to get very specific ideas about what the needs are of the market that's where we have to go into the next stage which is testing and trying I think the biggest thing I say often as a coach is let's, try it. What can we do to take one step? And when is that date? And then sometimes people can freeze up a little bit like, well, wait a minute, you know, I have let me get more prepared, and I'm not quite sure, but the more that you test and try different things in the market with real people that's, when you really begin to get immediate information and data and feedback, so testing and trying the early offers, you have a sense of what you want to do, even when you're exploring different career options talked to people who were in that career, right? Get the experience of really working with, um, the testing and trying is something that you're going to use their out the course of your time as an entrepreneur, but it's a really, really important part of the process. Now, um, again, it's? Not exactly in the order, sometimes people will do this a little bit earlier, but having a strong business foundation is the next extremely important step. Now I am a liberal arts major. I used to be allergic to accounting. I wasn't very good in math, maybe because there's a conspiracy for, you know, girls in math, which I totally believe my I always tell my brother, who is a scientist that all the math and science jeans went to him and there were none left for me, so I cut off a kind of liberal arts you know and I love people it's it's cool, but sometimes the business side can really overwhelm creative entrepreneurs in particular right where artists we'd like to create we don't really want to be bothered by a bunch of stuff think about it in terms of a foundation of a house that you're building if you do not have a strong foundation that's earthquake proof we are in san francisco right where you really are taking care of things like figuring out the right business structure teo be efficient for you tax wise protecting yourself sometimes crazy stuff happens and you get involved in a business situation where somebody wants to sue you if you don't have the right kind of business structure, people can go after your own personal assets or your home or things like that, right? How do you get your financial systems in place so that you know exactly how much money that you're making and how you contract and get used to looking at the financial side of business? There are so many ways that you could do it, which we're going to be talking about, um, tomorrow with my good friend kyle durant who's an amazing tax attorney and a person who knows a lot about business foundation but you really need to get comfortable with that process as you are an entrepreneur. The next step after your business foundation is really looking at intellectual property, and a lot of what we do, especially creative entrepreneurs, is make sure that we're not violating anybody's copyright by basic things like photos that we might use in power point presentations all the way through to how are we protecting our own right? How are we actually making sure that were protected? If we share a coaching methodology that we've developed with somebody, how do we know that they're not just going to take it and run with it? So what are the different legal considerations for how it is that you want to put things together? Um, and make sure that you understand the legal ramifications of your decisions? I'm very much from, like the lean startup methodology perspective where you don't want to burden yourself with tons of really complicated legal things, but you want to make sure that you're really clean and clear in your legal legal processes, particularly when it comes to working with other people, because that's, often where things get a little messy, we tend to do things like let's put on a show, right? Let's do a partnership and then you kind of shake hands and don't document anything developed something together, which is great, and then maybe, you know, if it was rodney and mike, all of a sudden you decide to go different directions and mike's like belonging to use what we developed and rodney's like. But wait a minute, you know, half that's mine and all of a sudden a great, beautiful partnership that served people ends up becoming this awkward, difficult conversation. Where is if you had to find things from the beginning? Right? How are you going to share it? How's the money going to flow? What happens if somebody is going to leave, then it means that you can both be totally cleaning clear. So those kinds of considerations air really, really important and it's often a step that is skipped until something happens, right? You have to do your taxes, and you realize if you had set up the right structure, you wouldn't have to pay so many taxes or you get audited and you don't have a kind of business financial system. So that's, why we want to make sure that we can get those in place? Um, and then finally, we can really begin to look at what are the core components after you've done that business foundation you have your ideas, you have your offers, you have your business foundation, you're protecting your assets and then you really want to start to think about what are the different offers that you have, right? How can you actually really develop particular offers so that you know what it is that you're selling and really get it out in the world from there you want to look at what is your sales process? So, uh, selling if something? Does anybody have a little heebie jeebies when it comes to selling make you a little bit nervous, maybe a little bit good not that you're nervous about it, but that when you are really efficient and effective in selling and just understand that it's a process, then you khun b really effective and doing it, we're going to be looking specifically at that when you know what you're selling processes than you want to think about your marketing structure, which is that next step and what are the different ways that you can reach your audience specifically? Um and then finally, what are ways that you can really wrap everything up in a plan so that you have a specific plan that you can work with so that you know, of all the different things that you're working on? You know what the plan is and how you're actually going to be executing it? So that's really the journey that we're going to go on in each of these different areas, you know, one of these areas might be the focus of your work with for the next quarter, right? Some of you might really be focusing on getting systems in your business and getting your legal things in place. Or you might be in a place where you're really ready to develop offers and start to go out there and sell all right studio audience is we've been talking any, uh, particular questions or comments, thoughts as we've talked about the journey, yes, one of the things they struggle with this with all the different bubbles and things that you can spend your time, because even if your product line shit to go back and you still want to test and try and how do you focus your time? Is that a loaded question? I e I mean, I'm probably in the selling stage and then market, you know, marketing and selling, and so there just seemed sometimes there seem to be so many roads to go down and how do you, you know, and I'm sure we'll get into that, but just when you have, you know that the asset stuff kind of feel like I have that under control, this is another, but even still it's still so feel so overwhelming, totally well, one of the reasons why I think it's important to have the whole path is when you do know everything. That is possible of what needs to happen. Actually, when we start to talk about tying your plan together on the final day in any given time, we can, on ly, have a certain set of initiatives and projects.