Believing in Yourself

Episode 333. Aired March 11, 2020

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Do you avoid working on your business?
Is something holding you back from you reaching your goal?
Are you Afraid of Failure? Afraid of Success?
Do you plan time to work on future work?
Are you sitting on an accidental invention?

I started thinking about kitty litter this morning as I was scooping the poop. I thought I wondered why someone invented this. Did he/she love cats? And wanted to bring them inside? I followed my curiosity and read an article about the founder of kitty litter.  Thank you, Julia Williams, for that article.

The thing is he was making this absorbent stuff to absorb grease (probably for commercial purposes, like restaurants and automobile repair shops, probably (but this is me making stuff up) not intended for household uses. His company was selling this stuff to use for a different purpose, absorbing grease, not urine. His neighbor (a woman with cats) usually bought sawdust for her cat’s potty (because I guess it wasn’t called litter yet) and asked him if he could sell her some. Instead, he had her try these clay pellets they were selling for absorbancy to see if they would work for her cat box. And guess what, kitty litter was born.

He took the idea and adjusted it again to look at it for different markets, instead of only looking at it for the pet industry, he looked at it for the household industry. He branded it not once but twice. First, it was for pet stores. but then he rebranded for grocery stores. Same product different audience.

Think about your skills, you might be thinking that you have this very specific skill and it can’t be used for anything else. You can NEVER leave this job because these are the only people you know who make this widget and that is all you are good for is making said widget. But NO, look at it from another perspective. You know how to understand what a customer needs and wants. You have learned how to ask customers the right questions. You have learned about these specific customers and I bet you can do that again, investigate customers’ needs then solve that for another industry.

Your skill is not in the fact you can make a widget no.87. It is in the fact that you learned how to communicate with the audience and solve a very specific need for that audience and you learned how to make a widget for a different audience. This might just be one of your super powers.

My friend Dimi talked about scheduling in time for “future work” each week. This is comprised of planning for the business, learning new skills, marketing, etc. He said to plan it in each week.

I can honestly say that episode with Dimi has stuck with me and I have tried to implement a certain amount of time for learning each week ever since. But I honestly have really struggled to do the planning, the future planning.
I am seriously avoiding it, but why?

Do you ever avoid something, that probably should be fun, or at least will get you closer to the life you want to live, but maybe you are like me and AVOIDING it?

Can you SEE yourself living that life?

I have a dream of having a small house in the mountains of Colorado. A stream or river is nearby. There are aspen trees all around and I see the backyard, no fences but that is because there is some acreage with it. I can visualize it, but thinking about getting enough money to be able to buy that place is a whole ‘nother thing.

So I get stuck, I fill my plate. I avoid and then I run out of time to do the “me” work. The future work needed to do so I can live that life.

Am I afraid of Failure? Afraid of Success?

If this episode interests you or maybe you have some of your own questions then tune in LIVE on WED, March 11 at 2:30 pm ET / 11:30 am PT / 7:30 pm GMT

Did you miss the first part of this series, Believing in Others? Who Should You Believe In? Share it with someone you think might need it. Check it out here.