Self Awareness is a Virtue in Life & in Entrepreneurship

 

Two of my favorite pieces of advice to give people are…

  1. Know yourself.
  2. Own your shit.

I even started my podcast, Master Your Mission, with those five words in the first few episodes. 

Knowing yourself and owning your shit are both qualities of a person who is self-aware. Google defines self awareness as conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives, and desires.

I personally think that self awareness is one of the most overlooked keys to fulfillment and success in life and in business. The opposite, not knowing yourself, is really a liability.

Self awareness builds integrity. When you have integrity, you own your mistakes and you do what you need to do to correct any situation in which you’ve made a mistake or to avoid repeating the same mistake. You treat people with fairness and you don’t try to take advantage of people. When you have integrity, you care about your reputation and you genuinely want your customers to have...

Continue Reading...

The Ability to Achieve Success - Born With It or Nah?

You’re probably reading this article because you’re interested in self-improvement or because you are on your own personal mission to achieve some sort of success. As I’ve stated many times in previous articles and on my podcast, Master Your Mission, mindset is—in my opinion—the most important factor to your success.

But will you ever actually be able to achieve success? What you believe about your own ability to succeed may be your answer.

Enter Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University.

In her 2006 book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, she wrote that people are on a continuum based on their beliefs about where their ability to succeed comes from. Some people believe that success is innate. Those people have what she called a fixed mindset. Other people believe that success is based on hard work, learning, and their persistence. According to Dweck, those people have a growth mindset.

She concluded that, although people may...

Continue Reading...

Can't Stay Focused? This Might Be Why

One of the questions that I get from other entrepreneurs pretty consistently is how to stay focused on your goals. If you’re having the problem of constantly losing focus, you might need to do some trouble shooting.

One of the most common, and easy to identify, issues that would cause you to be unable to focus is that you aren’t really clear about exactly what your goals are. It sounds too simple to be an issue, but most of us have done it before.

Sometimes people say they want things that they really don’t want. It’s easy for someone to say that they want to own a business, but most people aren’t willing—or maybe just aren’t ready—to do the work it takes to build one. That could be because of fear, complacency, or any number of reasons.

People end up mistaking wishes for goals and then going through the motions to convince themselves that they are actually out here chasing their dreams. What do I mean by that? People set...

Continue Reading...

Be Social on Social - 5 Do's and 5 Don'ts

If you have a business, you are probably using social media to connect with your audience and market your business. If you have an online business, it’s 100% an absolute must.

Here’s why. 

According to Hootsuite, in 2019:

  • 3.48 billion people use social media.
  • 69% of adults use social media.
  • 90% of brands use social media to increase brand awareness.
  • More than 40% of digital consumers use social networks to research new brands or products.

So if you aren’t reaching people on social media, you really should be or you could be leaving money on the table—whether your business is online or not.

Most people make the mistake of believing that a large following equates to dollar signs. In other words, people think that the more followers they have, the more money they’ll make. So everyone is on this mad dash to get tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers. 

A lot of followers don’t always equal a lot of sales but it is...

Continue Reading...

Does Success Require Passion?

To grow my Instagram following without having to spend money on ads, I try to engage, as much as possible, with other pages. I ask questions on my page, I reply to comments and I regularly peruse through hashtags to comment and like posts from people I’m not following. 

Recently, as I was perusing hashtags, I came across a post from someone that said something like this…

I don’t like basketball, but I want to own a team in the NBA.
I hate watching Big Brother on CBS, but I would like to own the show.
I don’t like coffee but I want to buy a Starbucks.
The #1 rule to business is profitability. People make the mistake of thinking they have to love the business. Make the money first, then fund your hobby.

If that’s not the dumbest shit I’ve read all week! Does this fool not watch Sharktank?

First of all, if you have enough money to buy any of those businesses, then I would hope you would be smart enough to know not to buy a business you hate....

Continue Reading...

Trying to Get Chose? Let Your Purpose Choose You

 

I recently did an episode of my podcast called, The Guy Who Built 3 Houses That No One Wanted. In it, I talked about how hard it can be to choose one idea to pursue in entrepreneurship, when you’re one of those people—like me—who constantly get viable business ideas. 

Because I’m one of those people, I get distracted easily and I have to really be diligent about focusing on my one business and giving it my undivided attention. A conversation I had last night with a close friend of mine made me realize that people who are multi-talented also struggle with this.

If you’re extremely gifted at more than one thing, you may find it hard to figure out which talent you should pursue as a business. The friend that I had this conversation with happens to be really talented at two different things, that are in no way related, and she’s actually making money doing each separately. 

She’s found herself in a conundrum trying to decide...

Continue Reading...

M.O.E. Money Over Everything (Except Time)

 

In this online age of one minute millionaire entrepreneurs, everyone wants to get rich. Starting an online business in the wave, so a very common question that people ask is how to start a business when you don’t have much money.

I think it’s a really good question, because it shows the desire and hunger to move on your ambitions in spite of your circumstances not being ideal. Here’s a video that I recently posted on my Instagram page about this topic.

 
 

Just to expound on my answer from the video, these days it’s really easy to start all types of businesses online. If you want to be an entrepreneur, there are endless opportunities and resources available to you that make it possible—even when you don’t have money. 

You’ll always need to weigh your options and choose the route that’s best for you. When you want to start a business but you don’t have money, you can do one of two things.

Option #1:...

Continue Reading...

Find Purpose Beyond Your Own Self Interests

 

I can’t swim. I’ve previously told the story of my most recent attempt to learn how to swim in a past episode of my Podcast, Master Your Mission, called Great Things Are Happening Just Outside Your Comfort Zone.

What you may not know about me is that I love to travel. I’ve been to some really cool places all over the world. In many of these places, I’ve found myself in the middle of the ocean on some small boat, clinching my fists with my stomach turning in fear because of the fact that I can’t swim. 

To clarify, I’ll give an example of what I mean. When I visited Puerto Vallarta, in Mexico, my travel buddies and I wanted to go on a day trip to visit the beach in a small town called Yelapa. The only way to get to Yelapa from Puerto Vallarta is a 40 minute boat ride through the choppy ocean down the Pacific Coast. Now, I don’t mean a cruise ship boat ride. I mean a small boat that can hold maybe 10–15 people max. Check...

Continue Reading...

What I Learned From a 2 Year Old

 

I recently spent a day with a friend and her 2 year old son, Martin. We went to a park that has an area with a water feature where water shoots out of the ground from several spouts, similar to the way water comes out of a water fountain. 

Of course, this area of the park stays lit with small children running around like crazy people, ducking into and out of the many streams of water shooting up from the ground. They do this as their parents sit on the chairs and benches surrounding the area and watch them play.

So we found a spot to sit, and Martin’s mom released him into the wild. I don’t have kids, so I’m not around children on a regular basis, and I’m not really sure what I expected little Martin to do, but I was actually pleasantly surprised by what he did do.

He saw the water shoot of from the ground and went balls to the wall crazy over it. He took off running into the water with all of the other kids, jumping and stomping and laughing...

Continue Reading...

Sometimes Being Stupid is the Smartest Thing You Can Do

Do you remember a time in life when you were really stupid? I mean, like you can think back to some of the things you used to do and wonder how you even survived?

I feel like that when I think back to my 20s. I want to say that I thought I knew everything there was to know about life, but honestly, I think I was aware that I knew nothing about life. That’s what inspired me.

When I was in my 20s, I had a burning desire to learn more about life. I grew up in a small city with a population of around 250,000 people, at the time, and I desperately wanted to get out of that city to see what the world had to offer. 

I wanted to experience another way of life, and not just be limited to what I knew growing up, so I decided to leave. I moved to another city. That’s pretty commendable, and I’m proud of that, but here’s the stupid part. I was flat ass broke when I moved.

I had found a job prior to moving, but on the day that I was to leave my hometown, I had...

Continue Reading...
Close

33% Complete

Get on the List

Get free tips and exclusive offers - right in your inbox - to help you start and grow the online business of your dreams!