Watch this if you’re afraid of starting your first business

Summary

• Don't wait to feel fearless before taking action; act despite the fear to build the muscle of courage.
• Reflect on personal experiences of overcoming fear, such as approaching clients for sales when I was younger, and realize that the feeling of making your first sale is incredibly empowering.
• Invest time in learning new skills, even when it's uncomfortable or challenging, like when I bought sales books and applied the knowledge to improve my job performance.
• Recognize the power of authenticity and conviction in sales over tactics or scripts; people respond to genuine emotions and intentions.
• Always be prepared to find new clients and understand that business is unpredictable with many fluctuations to anticipate.
• Confront fears directly; they often turn out to be much less daunting than anticipated, acting as a shortcut to personal and business growth.
• Maintain humility while leading a team, but don't mistake it for insecurity; ask for honest feedback and act confidently in your strengths to become an effective leader.
• Entering business for the wrong reasons, like avoiding decision-making, suggests you might be better off with a job; running a business requires accepting a lack of complete certainty.
• Seek advice selectively and be resourceful in learning; gather knowledge from experts in specific fields rather than looking for a single mentor for everything.
• Understand that respect from your team is crucial, but so is being liked; it encourages discretionary effort and better performance.
• Communication must be scaled within a growing business; find creative ways to make your knowledge and presence felt across the organization.
• Hire experienced leaders if possible to avoid the pitfalls of an inexperienced team; this can prevent significant mistakes as the business scales.
• Recognize that business ownership entails responsibility and may limit absolute personal freedom; align your business model with your true goals, whether they are for freedom or impact.
• Use feedback loops within the business – financial measures, client results, employee satisfaction – to gauge whether you're making the desired impact over time.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest starting small and simple. Focus on building courage, not on trying to eliminate fear. Try taking one small step today that scares you a bit, maybe it's calling a potential client or trying a new sales pitch. Remember, it’s okay to have butterflies; just get them flying in formation!

Here’s an easy way to boost learning. Pick up a book to gain a new skill. Don’t let it sit on your shelf. Read for a little bit each day and try to apply what you learn. This can be a game-changer. It was for me when I started selling; it can be for you too.

Don’t forget to be real – in sales and leadership. People can tell if you're genuine. Share your story, your struggles, and how you overcame them. This can create a strong connection and build trust. And when leading a team, ask for feedback. This helps you grow and shows your team you value their input.

Now, when it comes to decision-making, accept that it can be tough in business but don’t shy away from it. You won't always have the answers, and that's okay. You’ll learn more by making decisions than you will from waiting for certainty.

Networking is also low-cost but can be high-value. Find ways to connect with new clients and keep an eye out for opportunities. Markets go up and down, so always be prepared.

If you're running your own business, remember to be liked as well as respected. It's fine to want your team to value you, but it helps if they enjoy working with you too. They’ll go the extra mile when they genuinely care.

Lastly, remember to keep tabs on your business through feedback loops. They don't have to be complicated, just consistent checks on finances, client feedback, and team happiness. Use them to steer your business in the direction you want it to go.

Take these actions one at a time. Before you know it, you’ll build a successful business that’s not just surviving the fear but thriving because of the courage you’ve developed.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"You don't act without fear; you carry it with you and do it anyways"

– Leila Hormozi

"After you make your first sale you realize that you have the ability to make money"

– Leila Hormozi

"What I've realized that's been a huge strength for me from that day forward in business has just been authenticity"

– Leila Hormozi

"Fear is a mile wide and an inch deep"

– Leila Hormozi

"If you change how you're acting, eventually your mind will catch up and it will stop having those thoughts that provoke the anxiety and the fear"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

here are some things I would tell my younger self if I were starting a business instead of trying to figure out how do I get over the fear of starting something new I would ask myself how do I feel the fear and do it anyways when I was younger I was trying to get rid of a feeling before I would take an action and it wasn't until my back was against a wall where I felt terrified but I felt also like I had no choice but to act that I realized that you don't act without fear you carry it with you and do it anyways and I remember looking up the definition of courage and I realized that courage cannot exist without fear and that was when I realized that I don't wish for fear to go away but I instead wish for courage to be present and then when I realize that I needed to build the muscle of Courage that is when I realized like I don't need to waste all this time trying to get rid of the fears trying to get rid of the anxieties trying to get rid of all these thoughts and feelings that I have about failing I just need to build the muscle of Courage which is accepting those thoughts and feelings and doing it anyways I remember when I I first started selling at 24-hour fitness and the first woman I approached I went up to her and she was on the elliptical and I was going to go up and offer a free personal training session the first time I ever did it the worst reaction anyone's ever gotten which she just turned over to me and she was like off that first week I remember having to go into the bathroom and just crying because I just felt so awful but I also didn't want anyone to know I felt awful I was hiding it I had moved out to California on my own I had gotten this job I didn't have enough money and I knew I need to make it work I just remember feeling so hopeless in the beginning before you make your first sale it feels impossible to make money after you make your first sale you realize that you have the ability to make money and that in itself is like the best feeling that one could have but I used that energy and I said I've just got to put all of this negative energy into learning and into growing and so I bought like three books on sales and I was like you know what I've never wanted to learn how to sell but if I don't learn how to sell right now I will never achieve achieve the goals I have in life every night I would get back I'd be exhausted but I would make myself read an hour and I would go to work the next day and apply whatever I was learning it was doing that for a long enough period of time that finally I was able to break through and I remember making my first sale and one of the biggest things I realized was that like no tactic no script Nothing of that can have the impact that the frame has on the sale and I didn't even know at that time what a frame was but I understand what it is now and I'll tell you what the frame was the frame was I lost 100 lb I moved my ass out to California because I wanted to help other people do the same do you want me to help you that was the frame that I brought to the sale it wasn't oh here's my discount oh here's this program here's what I'm going to do for you after reading all this stuff on sales I was like I don't need a tactic I have what everybody wants which is conviction I truly want to help the people that are sitting across the table from me at the end of the day I think people can feel your emotion when you're talking to them during a sales process and they can tell where it's coming from what what I've realized that's been a huge strength for me from that day forward in business has just been authenticity I'm just going to tell it to people how it is I'm going to be honest about who I am what my intentions are what I want to do of course I want to make money but I also want to help you you know I remember one of my expectations was like oh once I have these people like I don't need to worry about getting more people but what I realized you always want to be looking for new clients because people naturally if you really help them are going to go off on their own and do it because that was what I really tried to do is I wanted to teach them what to do not just like give it to them so that they could go on their own and they could actually like be empowered and make decisions on their own so I would say if I was talking to somebody today or talking to my younger self I would say don't expect that what is today is tomorrow you know clients come and go business comes and goes there's Seasons there's holidays there's always things that are unexpected and business is not linear it is very irregular when you first start off you don't know the trends the irregularities what's normal what's not normal and so you just have to expect that things are going to fluctuate a ton so there's this quote I heard which is that fear is a mile wide and an inch deep and it really resonated with me because when we first started gym launch there were so many things that I was so scared of feeling like I wasn't doing enough for my team you know I'm not overd delivering for clients am I legally or not legally compliant feeling like I was not good enough to lead people who were smarter than me what I realized is that every time I actually confronted a fear it was just so much less than I expected like it's a shortcut if you're willing to lean into it because one the fear dissipates and then two is you get to the other side and you get to move on hearing that quote I remember thinking like wow that really resonates with me because I always am expecting it to be so much worse than it is and it's just almost never as bad as we think it is I think that I've always been pretty hard on myself and I think that that's good in a lot of ways it keeps me moving forward I'm always trying to improve I'm always trying to be better what I realized was it became a blocker for me when it came to Leading a team because people also want somebody who has a sense of certainty Direction feels confident in themselves I remember there was this exercise that a friend told me he was doing I said what is it he's like well my coach told me to go to all my friends and ask them what's the one thing that I'm doing that's holding me back from being the best version of myself I end up asking about eight people every single person said the same thing and I remember feeling embarrassed because wow that must be very obvious and then also realizing that like my humility was actually like massive insecurity and the feedback that everyone had given me was you don't know how good you are to a degree that it hurts you I mean there's being humble and having humility and then there's just being insecure and I didn't want to take my humility so far that I was an insecure leader and I thought to myself you know would I want to be led by somebody like that and so that was when I really started working on changing my behavior so I could show up like somebody who knows that they're good at stuff you know rather than just pretending or just thinking you suck at everything I just decided to act differently I did things that made me feel very uncomfortable taking credit really hard for me um but really hard to also lead a lot of people if you have no credit so I started being okay taking credit I started advocating for myself more uh on meetings in decision making and I started making decisions even though I felt wildly uncomfortable that other people didn't like but I saw it pan out I just acted differently if you change how you're acting eventually your mind will catch up and it will stop having those thoughts that provoke the anxiety and the fear we waste a lot of time trying to change our minds when changing your behavior is much easier I think a lot of people get into business for the wrong reasons they don't want to be the one that makes the calls they don't want to make the decisions they don't want to have to guess what to do next and they want someone else to tell them what to do it's like well if you want to do that then you should have a job and there's nothing wrong with that that's fantastic there's so many happy people have jobs probably happier than people have businesses having a business gets romanticized people don't understand that there's nobody holding you accountable there's nobody to tell you what to do there's nobody that holds all the answers and you're never going to have a sense of complete certainty of any decision you make it sucks a lot of the time I think early on what I realized was no one person has the answers lots of people pretend like they're experts in all areas but you know tend to only be really world class at a couple things and so I would rather consult with somebody on the one thing they're world class with and then consult with somebody else's world class on the other thing than try to get everything from one person you know I think we have to be really careful of who we seek instructions from you know I use a lot of books um and like self-guided courses when I was first getting into business because most of the people who I really wanted to be mentored by like I have no idea why they would want to Mentor me what evidence is there to support that I'm like the next anything the best mentors often pick the people that they Mentor the mentores do not pick their mentors assuming that you're special and that you're different and they should give you a shot very entitled mentality but I think a lot of people waste a lot of time you know trying to find a mentor rather than being resourceful reading books studying courses you know gaining skills and and it's like all that time that you go wishing for a mentor you could have just been bettering your skill set there's probably a million things you're bad at if you're just starting business like pick one to start with you know it's like trying to decipher like which information is the right one it's like when you're sucking so bad that you can't even decipher then it's like anything is better than nothing I think a lot of it comes down to proximity and luck it's not like a mentor is going out like seeking the internet looking for like the next you know predecessor whatever Jesus they're just like if you happen to stumble in their area they find you interesting and like you have a lot of potential you respond to their advice they're probably like yeah I'm going to invest in this person there's this quote and I've heard it so many times which is like the goal is to be respected not liked I think a lot of people misus the quote a lot of people what they really mean is like you need to be feared not liked and I think that the term respect I think of left alone as in your team respects you enough to like let you be let you have your space you know not constantly be on you bugging you all the same I think a lot of people they use that quote because they actually just want people who do exactly what they say and are scared of the of what will happen if they don't I think it's important to be respected and liked if you want to access discretionary effort from people then it would make sense that they would not provide that unless they also like you people do more of what they like and less of what they don't like they also spend more time with people they like and less time with people they don't like if you're their boss and they don't like you they will try to spend less time with you which means spending less time working so I don't really see how having people that don't like you equates to getting better performance from your team I think I did a fairly good job with my communication to my team as I got really big when we had 100 some people at the team I really was rigorous with my communication you know I would spend every night Sunday night two hours working on what I called like the Weekly Newsletter which was like the newsletter from me and it I would get something from every leader get something from departments put in there like what's top of mine for me add in some resources for people what it's podcast books I'm reading whatever because I wanted people to feel like they still personally knew me what did I do this weekend you know what was mind for me what was I working on in the company but I also wanted to have them to have concrete updates of what was happening across the entire company not just what the department that they're working on and so I think I realized that the things that we do that we say aren't scalable it's just a cop out like everything we do can be scaled to some degree and so think about the personal conversations you have what knowledge is exchanged when people have those personal conversation okay well how can I share that knowledge on a group level does it feel the same no but will they feel like they know you better yes and so I think that there's always creative ways to scale communication it's just that often we say that it's not possible and so that prevents us from even having a bad idea let alone a good one and so I think I did a good job of scaling the communication what I probably dropped the ball on for the first couple years was scaling the knowledge that I had to my leaders you know I think I probably hired too many people in the beginning that were had too little experience and I just truly didn't have the time to pour into all of them that they needed and that was on me because I should have recognized that I needed people with a little more experience because I didn't have the time to do my job and also train all of them to the degree they needed it if I were like looking back at my younger self I would say like there's nothing wrong with recruiting more help business is hard enough on its own you don't need to make it harder on yourself what was interesting about that moment for me was that it was when I finally realized I wasn't invincible to the normal mistakes people in business made because I think the success the business had was so fast and so abnormal I assumed that I was doing things also in a way that like wow I probably will also get to avoid a lot of the common pitfalls that people experience when they get into business and I realized that was not the case I actually just delayed the pitfalls and then got to deal with them all at once later I think you're not really an entrepreneur until you get slapped in the face like either you lose a ton of money you make a huge mistake you really hurt the business like everyone that I know that's a great entrepreneur has had like they've at least had their one giant slap in the face and then they've gotten through it and I think that was my first one and it shows you that you're not invincible and that you're not the smartest person in the room cuz I think a lot of people when they're young especially and things are unusually successful you think your doesn't stink and it just ends up biting you in the ass later on I would say that if somebody's early in their career and they experienced lot of success there's probably a lot of things that they know they need to get to they've been avoiding because their success has overom ated for some of the areas of deficiency in the business rip them out from under the rug right now and work on them because the moment that your what I would say is probably like success Arbitrage dissipates those things will be why your business goes down usually there's the success is caused by one or two things that are unusual right so it's like this huge distraction but then there's all these things over here that are up but people have so much success it overcompensates for all the deficiencies but once this starts to naturally like everything does come down because everything that goes up comes down uh these things become exposed and they start to heighten and the importance of fixing them starts to increase do not treat these deficiencies like they are small problems treat them like they are about to become big and attack them in that manner and Shore them up and then you will be set once this starts to decline because you'll have a solid base I think it's just bringing yourself to a level of awareness to understand like why does my business even work and then okay well that's why my business Works what are all the things that aren't making it work and that's probably everything people are avoiding people assume that like everything's always going to get better and I'm like a lot of stuff just gets worse and you have to get better in the other areas of your business otherwise you're never going to compensate for this other piece it's interesting cuz when I was younger I built the business from the bottom up like I hired customer success reps before customer sux manager I hired salese before a sales manager and you know I don't know if I would have done it differently because I learned the pros and cons of doing it that way but I do it differently now if the business can stomach it financially I think it makes a lot easier in the long term to hire the leader first I also think that the reason that's hard in the beginning when you're inexperienced is you're also not good at hiring leaders so it's really easy to hire somebody who sucks so I mean there's pros and cons of both it's like if you have the money and the skill of hiring leaders it makes sense to hire them first and I have both of those things if you don't have the money and you don't have the skill maybe it doesn't make sense you know because if you have a great sales system going and then you hire a leader who sucks and the business doesn't have enough margin that's it you're done I think that a lot of the times people seek to have a business because they want freedom if you really want freedom then just like become an affiliate marketer or something you know what I mean like build a business that is very little fulfillment you know maybe you're just marketing for another company like that's what I would do if I really wanted Freedom um because the thing is if you build a business you have people whose livelihood you are responsible for and also who people who are paying you money who are expecting a certain outcome and that is responsibility like with great Freedom comes great responsibility you know at the then it's like okay well now do you really feel free because like yes you could go off and vacation for these 4 days randomly spontaneously but oh you know what's going to happen I've got that big project for that client I probably have a different motivation which is impact rather than Freedom like I definitely feel free to a degree but also feel very much like I have things I am responsible for that prevent me from like doing anything I want at any time you just need to know what your goals are and if you're leaving your job because you want complete Freedom then why are you taking on you know customers that are incredibly demanding that you're promising a lot to I think that the way that you know that you're on the right track with making an impact is through the feedback loops that you create in the business one of them is financial yes that's a measure but you can make money and not be getting client results so it's like okay let's make money let's also measure client results okay well you can be making money and getting client results but what if your employees H their lives the way that you measure the impact is look at all the parties involved and put in place metrics to measure is this number going in the direction we want that's how I measure it and that tells me if we're having the impact we want to have and not everything's always going to go in the right direction all the time but generally over like the span of a year is it all trending in the right direction week over week months over months even sometimes quarters aren't going to be always going the right way but it's like over a long enough time Horizon are things trending how you want them to Trend and if they're not let's revisit the plan we have so what I would say to younger Lela that if you're thinking of starting a business and you're feeling afraid just remember that courage is only possible in the presence of fear not in the absence of it