Discover 3 Tips To Break Free From the Worker Bee Mindset
Updated: Mar 27, 2022
Episode 48
Are you thinking of starting an online business or coaching business but aren't sure what niche is right for you?
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Let me guess, you are working full time while juggling a side-hustle, family, marriage, and peace of mind, right? Are you starting to wonder when it will end? When can your side hustle become your mainstream income?
Well, friend, you are in the right place. Tune in as we reveal three must have points to help you break free from the worker-bee mindset so you can live the freedom lifestyle you crave. These mindset shifts will help you treat your business like a business, refrain from getting attached to the outcome while still managing the outcome, and implement there 3 C's every business must have to be successful.
TRANSCRIPTION
Welcome to The Passive Income Examiner show, helping you navigate the muddy waters of building successful revenue streams beyond the nine to five. I'm your host Lindsay Sutherland, mama of four, who has a passion for living my best life and helping you do the same. I'm honored you're here and excited to offer you valuable and inspiring content. I believe, we can have the freedom we desire and the happiness we deserve. Thanks for joining me. Hey, Pie Tribe. Welcome back to another episode. I'm so glad to have you with me today. I just want to start off by letting you know about this amazing, cute little kitten that I have. And if you hear any scratching or clinking in the background, that's her, she's playing. You know, it's funny cause I'm not a cat person. I'm a dog person and she is literally the sweetest little thing. She can be playful one minute and then completely calm and relaxed the next, which I need. True story, I was attacked by cats when I was young, so I was kind of afraid of them. So, she's actually helping me get over my fear and I enjoy having her here when I'm working. So you get to experience Lavender. That's her name. We named her Lavender. She's a beautiful little gray kitten.
Okay. Well, first and foremost today's episode is about how to break free from the worker bee mindset!
And I want you to know, I know what you're going through. I have been where you are. You're working a full-time job. Maybe you're building a business on the side or putting together a side hustle or even an investment strategy to help you escape the nine to five. And then also you're focused on your family and your extracurricular activities and even yourself. And sometimes at the end of the day, it just feels like either it's not happening fast enough, right. Or it feels like it's never gonna end, like it's constant struggle. And so I put together a little mini series. I want to really focus on some mindset to help you get from worker bee to freedom lover, to living your freedom lifestyle, because there's truly a shift that has to happen, especially if you've been working in a day job for most of your career. So I recognize a serial entrepreneur is somebody who is just never satisfied working for somebody else. There are people out there like that. I remember one of my previous episodes with Paige Fetterson I'll link it here in the show notes. She started an Amazon store, but here she is, this adventurous millennial, who has hardly worked a job a day in her life because she has been an entrepreneur her entire career. And I applaud people like her, I do.
I was one of those people that got a job. I did what I thought everybody was supposed to do. Go get a job, work for somebody else, climb the ladder. Right? And that's what I did until I felt trapped. Until I felt like, okay, now I'm stuck because now I'm making all this money and how do I get out of this situation because it's sucking my time and my happiness basically.
But anytime that we want to make a major change in our life, either break through a new boundary experience, a new adventure in our life, it is imperative that we expand our mind in order to receive that which we are trying to accomplish. It happened when I moved to Idaho imagining what Idaho would be like experiencing it in my mind to the point that it felt real, so much so that when we drove through Idaho for the first time, cause I'd never been here. I literally saw places that felt familiar to me. That is how vivid my imagination was and how open I was. I would spend hours imagining what life would be like living here. And those types of things are all important, but today's episode is much more strategic. It's much more focused on business.
So this episode is for you. If you are ready to start a business or treat your network marketing plan or your side hustle of any kind or your investment strategy as an official business, as an official plan for you to escape your job, there are three specific steps that I believe are necessary for you to take in order to achieve the freedom lifestyle that we're searching for.
So really, let's dive in because I want to get right to it. As you know, I like to be very direct and to the point. For today's episode, I'm just going to say business. Your business is personal, right? Your business is personal. That is a true statement, but we can't take our business personally. There is a big difference there.
So we can pour our heart and soul into it. We make the business, our mission. We find our why, and we chase after it, but we can't take it personally when things don't go well. This is a mistake. I see so many people make and honestly raising my hand here, I've made it too. Throwing out some content and getting crickets. Then what happens? We give up, we stopped posting or, you know, maybe we're doing some parties. If you're in a networking organization or you get a bunch of people who say they want to do your business and then they fall through and it it's like a personal blow because we get invested in the outcome. We're putting so much of our eggs into these baskets. We have to step back. We have to treat it as if it's almost like it's someone else's business. And I want you to think about this for a moment.
Think about your job. Think about what, how you behave in a nine to five. And this is ironic, actually, right here. This how to break free from the worker bee mindset use the worker bee mindset towards your business. That is complete irony at its core, but in a way it is so true. You want to look at your business as if it belongs to somebody else, because then you treat it more strategically. Imagine you're being hired to consult on this business. What would you tell the owner? What would you, and what kind of systems and processes would you create to make the business run efficiently? When you look at it from an outsider, looking in, you have a whole different perspective than when you're in it, when you're attached to that outcome. And so that's why I say, you know, take your business personally, as far as it is personal, but don't take the outcome personally. Don't be offended when things don't go quite as you planned, all you have to do is step back, reorganize, restrategize, and give it another go. All right. So I know sometimes it's like, "Lindsay, that's so much easier to say than to do," but it is. And that's true. That's why this is a mindset shift. So let me help you with a strategy. You can apply if you're in that moment where maybe you look at your phone every day, because you're waiting for somebody to re to DM you, you're waiting for somebody to comment on your post or you're checking your email, hoping that there's a whole bunch of sales. Whatever it is, you're hungry for this result that you're seeking, stop, stop doing it. You need to turn over the results to whatever higher power you believe in. If you believe in one, just faith, in nothing trust in the busy-ness of what you do, what you do will create results.
We used to say in the car business action begets action. So it isn't necessarily accurate action. Okay? Or perfectionistic perfection that begets action or, yeah, it's just taking action. Sometimes it's messy. Sometimes it's clunky, but you have to be able to step back and go, okay, what's working. What's not working. Where do I want to go from here? So what I like to do is have brainstorming sessions lately. This has been happening for me on my mountain bike. I go out, I set an intention before I ride. I say, okay, I need to get clarity on XYZ. And then as I'm riding, I'm working through the problem and coming up with solutions. And so that is a great strategy to help you objectively look at your business and plan accordingly to become unattached to that outcome.
Okay. Number two, this, this is something that is a little bit cliche and I think it's used quite often. And although I believe it is true, what's lacking is that people who use it don't often tell you the how to make this work. So this is when you see this quote, "run it like a business, run your side, hustle like a business." Well, what does that mean? Exactly? I mean, part of what I just described, it falls into this category, running it like a business.
Imagine if you were the general manager rather than the owner and your job is to look at numbers and look at how things are planning out. Are your marketing strategies working? Are you, how many clients do you need in order to get the results you want, et cetera. That's what a general manager would do. To me running it like a business means a lot of things and it can mean a lot of things to different people, but I'm going to tell you a few things that it means for sure.
And one of which is evaluate, inspect what you expect, evaluate the returns, adjust and tweak. Also have a financial plan, have a business plan. Even if your business plan is a simple one pager, and it's only for you, it talks about your mission. It talks about your goal. It talks about how you're going to get your goal. It's going to talk about marketing plan, what your marketing plan is, and then how you're going to evaluate it. And then you use your business plan to evaluate your year or your quarter or every six months. And then you make adjustments. Maybe you even rewrite your business plan and you continue to pursue persevere, continue to pursue it. Having a business plan is so important because it's literally like a roadmap for your business. And it's so easy when we're solopreneurs to get so caught up in all of the things that we can think of to do that we can lose sight of the big picture. The second thing is to have a good accounting system, even QuickBooks online, it's like $7 a month for solopreneurs. And you can keep track of your income and expenses and run it like a business. You shouldn't have a ton of overhead until you can capitalize on, on profiting so that you can compensate for the overhead. Or if you have the money to start, it make a goal. By this 90 days, we plan to be break even or whatnot, but be aware of the money that's going in and going out so that you can continue to focus on profitability, focus on a building, a business that has low overhead. If you can. That would be ideal. Network marketing is a great way to do that. Freelancing is another wonderful way to do that as well. Running an agency model business are so many good business plans out there course, creator coaching. That's another really great low overhead. So there's a lot of things you can do to keep your overhead small, but you really want to be focused on it and minimal expenses until you can afford to grow.
Okay? So running it like a business basically means treating it as if it's an entity. So we look at it like we're the general manager, we're looking at our profit and loss statements. We are looking at our business plan and our marketing plan. We are evaluating it. We are the, we are the employee and the owner, right? So we have to wear both hats. It's true. Especially if we're building as a solopreneur, but it's important to have board meetings with ourselves. It's not just an excuse to talk to ourselves now. No, but really, like I said, even if your board meeting is like mine, riding a bike to where you're strategically thinking through something, it is important to be intentional about the direction of your company and to stay very focused. Laser-Focused on the next steps.
Okay. The last important topic for how to break free from the worker bee mindset is it's a three part answer basically. And I call it the three C'S. First, you need to be clear about your business plan and about your vision. If you're not clear about your business plan and your vision and your customer and your strategy, if you don't have clarity in any of those subjects, your business will not work.
The next step is to commit, promise to yourself that you're doing this and you're going full speed ahead. Do not stop unless you're doing an evaluation session or you want to see how something plays out. For example, if you're running Facebook ads, you're waiting for a week to see seven to 10 days, how they, how they play out, then you're going to evaluate them, but you're not giving up anything. You're just going to continue to move forward. Even if it's small, messy action, you consistently stay busy, which is the third C by the way, consistency. Schedule, time to show up for your business and make it your priority to show up. So often it's easy to just blow it off. Oh, well, I don't feel like it. Oh, I've got this. And they know even when people are coming in town, I show up for my podcast.
I think out of all of the months I've been doing this, there has been one time that I was not producing an episode on a weekly basis now actually there's been a couple times I was later than I wanted to be. And I've had some technical difficulties, but it wasn't because I wasn't trying, it was just, things were in the way. But even when I've had people here, I plan ahead. I prerecord, I get them out. I make it a priority to show up for you. And I do it because to me, this is my content strategy. This is my business plan. This is part of my business plan. So it's maybe small and messy action. And maybe I don't have a massive following right now, but it is the action I'm taking. And I believe in it. So I am going to give it a hundred percent effort.
The coach I hired to teach me on podcasts said do it for a year first, after a year, reevaluate, it hasn't been a year. So that's why it's so important to stay consistent with anything you do. You have to give it time to try to, to process, to make it work. Don't just try something. And then there I go back to the first one and take it personally and give up, stay consistent with your strategy. So clear mission, vision, and audience, like who are you targeting, commit to your business and be consistent in your action. So really, really quick, first and foremost, let me just say some. Let me just interrupt myself here. As I turned around to look at my kitty, cause I thought she was doing something naughty. She's not. The first thing I want, I want to mention is sometimes if you're struggling, like let's say you have a business idea, but you're not sure if it's right for you.
I completely relate. I've been down this road. Sometimes it's a good idea to just start with a business idea, even if you're not a hundred percent sure. And it may evolve into something even better. But if you don't start with that inappropriate action, right. Or inaccurate action, you would never know what the right action is to take. So that's the reason why it is so important to take action. Even when you feel like it may not be right for you yet. I often see people who say, well, I don't have it all figured out. I don't know. I'm not clear about how I'm going to do things. I'm not clear on who I want to serve. And I'm going to tell you what I have been there, but I've still taken action. And as I go, my business has been evolving because I'm committed and I'm consistent. So, and because I run it like a business and I'm not taking it personally, when things aren't working out, I just keep trying until it works out. You see, I think I did an episode about this, where I looked in through my past and I realized all the things I've done between network marketing, running led business for flooring company, you know, all the side hustles and extra outside of a nine to five, basically that I've done. And one day I had this epiphany. The only reason those things didn't work is because I didn't work them. Every single strategy can work. If you work it, every single business model can work if you work it. And yes, it's true. We want to be having a business that aligns with our passion. That's why in the last episode, I did talk about how to pinpoint your passion. And I hope you go back and listen to that. If you're ready to get some more clarity, but the next step would be to get clear on the business model and then get clear on who you're talking to get clear on your messaging. These are all important aspects that really need to be thought through if you're struggling or you're ready for some help, because let's face it. Sometimes it's easier to get an outside perspective on somebody that can help us clear, get clear on these things, then reach out to me. I'm more than happy to offer a strategy sessions to help just get, just get you on the path. Just even if it's a, one-off get you motivated type thing and get you some direction. Give you a little bit of a plan and then you can take it from there. Or if you want ongoing coaching, we could do that too. So that is an option. And then also it's an option. If you have a business plan, you just want to run it off of somebody or maybe you're looking for a strategic content strategy. See, sometimes we're not an expert in everything, you know, look at for a minute. I just want to take a little sidebar and say, how many general managers do, you know, are an expert in every piece of their business model, right? Coming from the car business. I can tell you that the majority of general managers in the automotive industry came from sales, like selling cars. They start out selling cars and they move up to team lead. Then they move up to desk manager. They go to finance, maybe internet, then general manager, very rarely do they spend any time in the service or body shop departments. Okay. But yet the service department typically makes the majority of the money for the dealership. Interesting and true story. So with that being said, how can a general manager understand marketing for a service department that they've never worked at? They can't, sometimes they have to outsource it. Sometimes they have to hire that out. And I'm telling you in your business, if you're treating your business like a business, there are going to be certain things that you're not an expert in. And that is okay. You do not need to be an expert in everything. It is okay to outsource and to seek guidance and help when it makes sense or when there's an area where maybe you're not a pro, but you would like to learn more and maybe you want to do it yourself, get some help and guidance and somebody to help you get on the right track. So that's my little soap box for today. I'm going to kind of cut it short here. Now the next episode we're going to do is how to let go of your nine to five. Even if you're the primary income earner, this is a hot topic that I know so many people, there are key things, keeping them from leaving their nine to five, like insurance and the fact that they make all the money in the household and they're the foundation and it's just too risky to leave. There are ways to do it. And I would like to discuss that in our next episode. All right. My friends, I hope you found value in today's episode. And if so, please make sure to share it with at least three other entrepreneurs that you know are ready to break free from that nine to five. And I'd love to hear your feedback and review. If you want to head over to iTunes and leave me a review, heck even screenshot it and tag me on Instagram just to make me feel good. No, I'm just kidding. Cause I'm not taking it personally. All right, dears. Thank you so much for tuning in until next week. Bye for now.
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