Confronting Your Own Worst Enemy

Posted on June 05, 2010 by Beth Buelow, One of Thousands of Entrepreneurship Coaches on Noomii.

How often in your entrepreneurial adventure have you found yourself getting smacked upside the head?

By your own hand?!

I had this unpleasant experience a few weeks ago, and now that the sting has subsided, I can write about what I learned with the hope that you can avoid becoming your own worst enemy.

The Set-Up:

I have one BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) this year: to write my first book. To do that, I decided to impose some structure on the process, with built-in accountability and deadlines. My solution was to create a free six-part teleclass called Mind Over Chatter 101. The series was positioned as part lecture, part discussion. Information was posted on my website, and invitations were issued via Twitter, Facebook and my weekly eNewsletter.

The response was good; in all, 11 people officially registered. I wanted people to feel flexible with the series, so attendance on the live call was optional. I offered the call recording for download the next day. The advantage of being on the call was the discussion following the content sharing. I was excited about stimulating consciousness about empowering language choices and knew it was useful information.

The Fall-Out:

The first call I had five people on the line and received positive feedback. So far, so good. The next teleclass, three dialed in. The third class, zero. And the fourth class was almost worse: one person was trying to dial in and experienced technical difficulties. So effectively, live attendance was zero.

The evening after the fourth class, I was bummed. Several of the participants had let me know that they wouldn’t be able to dial in that night, which I appreciated. However, after waiting on the line for 10 minutes with no callers, I felt deflated. I started questioning what I was doing. What was going on? Did those who registered not feel like this was a valuable use of their time and energy? Did anyone even care?!?

After allowing myself to indulge in a little self-pity, I woke up the next morning with the answer.

I had invited them NOT to call!

As the saying goes, we teach others how we want to be treated. The message I sent out was that I and my offering could be treated casually and what I had to offer was not urgent. The information, while valuable, had no commitment attached to it. I made it easy for everything else in someone’s life to take precedence.

OUCH! That’s when the self-imposed smack upside the head happened.

The Rebound:

After I picked myself up off the floor, I realized that my misstep was due in part to not following my own guidance. I suspect some of what I experienced may have happened to others at some point in their journey. My teleclass topics focused on self-talk and language choices. In the spirit of sharing lessons learned, here’s where I fell victim and how I put mind over chatter.

1. Topic: Conditional, “If this, then that” statements.In planning the series, I had fear-based thoughts such as “if I charge for this series, then no one will register” and “If I frame it so that being on the live call is the only way to participate, then no one will register.” I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to handle rejection (i.e. no to low registrations).

Lesson Learned: I can handle whatever happens. The answer to any fearful “If” statement I can conjure up is, “I can handle it.” If I am too attached to a particular outcome, I’ll consider anything less-than as a failure. A healthier approach is to be curious: “I wonder what’s going to happen?” and trust that whatever happens, I can handle it.

2. Topic: Disclaimers. My biggest disclaimer: “you don’t have to be on the live call.” In other words, I was saying, “I want you there, but don’t feel obligated or like it’s this ball and chain around your schedule.”

Lesson Learned: Ask for what I want. By soft-peddling the invitation and my desire to have people on the call, I gave them an out… which they took! If I want people to show up, it’s important to give them a clear and confident, benefit-oriented invitation; otherwise, I might as well have created a podcast!

3. Topic: Limiting Beliefs. These were all over the place! They not only extended into the fee-or-free question, they also intruded into content delivery. Most notably, they found traction in my lack of confidence in being able to speak from an outline, rather than a script. I thought I’d lose my train of thought, wander, babble and generally not make any sense (even with an outline!).

Lesson Learned: Challenge all limiting beliefs sooner rather than later. The beliefs I had only served to put me into a small, “you’ll sound like an idiot” box. As the series progressed, I gradually worked more from an outline than a script. It was a little scary and also liberating. Now that I’ve challenged that limiting belief, I’m more confident in my own voice and the value I have to offer.

4. Topic: Negative Framing. This is about saying what you DON’T want rather than what you DO. In this case: I don’t want people to feel pressured into being on the live call. I don’t want people to feel put on the spot during a live call. I don’t want cost to be a barrier to registering.

Lesson Learned: Ask for what I want. (We can never hear this one too many times.) I want people to feel invited and needed. I want people to feel safe and comfortable talking or not talking during the call. I want value to be exchanged. Using “I want” rather “I don’t want” language completely changes the choices I make about how I share the opportunity with others.

My husband occasionally says to me, “Coach, heal thyself!” Knowing on an intellectual level the power of our thoughts and word choices, and being able to support others in making intentional choices, does not always translate into applied mastery of the topic.

We want to “walk the talk,” and when we trip, it’s an opportunity for curiosity and compassion. We’re always putting ourselves out there, risking a piece of ourselves and often feeling vulnerable. It’s not about whether we end up setting ourselves on fire; that’s going to happen if we’re risking anything. It’s about how we emerge from that fire and continue on and heal.

If you find something isn’t going the way you planned, stop, look and listen (or would that be stop, drop and roll?!). What have you been telling yourself and others? Where is fear showing up? And what would happen if you trusted yourself and knew that you could handle anything?

You, my dear colleague, would be your own best friend.