Issue #62 How your brain holds you back

You can have the most amazing service or product. You can have the most efficient team working with you...

However, if you don't have the right mindset, you will not go far.

That's why during today's Back to Business section, Jeff will talk about the "brains behind the machine", aka switching from the employee to entrepreneur mindset.

In today's email:

• 🗣 Amazing Announcements, our blogs, and stuff coming your way.
• 💸 Back to Business, Jeff will discuss mindset and the reptilian's brain impact on entrepreneurs
• 💖 Community Corner - Showcasing Yanique's podcast and some interesting marketing history

💛 Carla

Amazing Announcements

📋 Get a Business Plan template made for entrepreneurs: If you look online for business plan templates, you'll find that they are all created for successful, established businesses, not for growing startups or small businesses. See how our 7-element business plan template is different here.

💵 What is a Cash Flow Statement? A cash flow statement is vital for any business because it shows you how much money is coming in and going out. But if you don't understand how to read or use a cash flow statement, then you won't be able to make the right decisions for your business. So get started here.

Back to Business

The insidious reptilian brain's impact on entrepreneurs (and how to break free).

I like change. I have always been very comfortable with it.

In college, I accepted an internship in an IT department in Germany, not speaking German or knowing anything about IT. I once moved my family from California to South Africa because, well, why not?  

So, entrepreneurship is a walk in the park, right? Easy. No fear, concern, or hesitation here.

Yeah, that is what I tell myself.

Many entrepreneurs confront fear, and I am no exception. Sometimes that is a straight-up in-your-face kind of fear – like what you feel before a big speech or a tough conversation.  

But that is the easy kind of fear to confront. You see it, you acknowledge it, and you take action anyway.  

The more insidious fear you may not even feel. It comes from your reptilian brain protecting you. You might not even realize it's there, but it is.  

When you retreat to old habits, put off decisions, avoid action, or avoid doing something new because it doesn't feel right, that is the reptilian brain in action.  

For me: not changing, staying in one place, and going deep is uncomfortable, that’s my challenge.

Lately, I've been setting up a lot of "SGM Engagement Engines," which requires sending mass emails. Clients often take months to approve the first email because sending an email to many people is new and uncomfortable

The reptilian brain doesn't like it.

See, building a business forces you to do new things, and nothing raises those reptilian hackles faster than something new.

Jung, in one of his books, I don't remember which, evokes the imagery of standing on a cliff looking out into a primordial fog to describe this conundrum. Behind you is everything you know; in front of you is this blank fog of creation containing only a hint of the future.

And the creative must go forward.

As entrepreneurs, we are creatives. We create the future, so we must step off the cliff and trust that we make the ground beneath our feet as we do so.  

I feel more fear and uncertainty about the lack of change; others feel uncertain when change happens, and we all feel uncomfortable breaking our habits.  

The good news is that we can all build an entrepreneurial mindset. And even better, we've identified seven areas of focus where the reptilian brain reveals itself, and you have the opportunity to practice.

These are:

• Scarcity versus Abundance.
• Cost versus Opportunity.
• Obligation versus Privilege
• Perfection versus Action
• Destination versus Journey
• Transaction versus Transformation
• Manipulation versus Inspiration

You can read more about these and gain more comfort with the primordial fog… here.  

Enjoy,

Jeff

Community Corner

🗣 Client Shoutout: Yanique DaCosta! She's one of our Thrivers and has started a brilliant podcast called Eventist 365. It's a podcast that uses narrative interviews to explore how corporate event professionals push through the craziness of the event world to create something out of nothing!

• And in her latest episode, she interviewed our very own Joe Rojas! Give it a listen on iTunes or Spotify!

🍽 Marketing Strategy of Michelin Stars Recently, I watched a video titled "Food Theory: Restaurants Are LYING To You". Outrageous video title name aside, what was most interesting to me in this video was hearing the history of Michelin Stars and how it started out as a marketing opportunity... for a tire company!

1. If this is news to you, then you should buckle up and watch the first couple of minutes of this video (from 2:03-7:40).

📊 Want to Level Up Your LinkedIn Game? Two companies put their heads together and created a free LinkedIn Carousel Generator. All you do is feed it URLs of tweets, images, or even Reddit posts, and then it'll generate an eye-catching carousel so you can impress your connections on LinkedIn.