One of the things we hear most often is that people want CLARITY in order to get started.
They feel overwhelmed and murky, like they would totally get started if only they knew what to DO! Maybe you feel like you need answers before you begin, because you have to get this right.
Today, we are flipping that. I know you think you need CLARITY in order to take ACTION.
But today, we’re out to prove that CLARITY comes from ACTION.
Perhaps the very best part is that you don’t have to buy anything to start doing this. Not from us, not from any other marketing wizards on the internet (and please don’t trust anyone who tells you otherwise.)
As you’re going to hear in today’s real life stories, you just need an internet connection and some conversation in order to make seriously meaningful progress.
“Clarity comes from action — NOT the other way around.”
Tweet This
Being an entrepreneur is being comfortable in the murkiness.
You DESERVE progress, the opportunity to learn, to get your hands dirty, to really do this.
And if you never get started, you risk giving up before you even begin.
Instead of frustration and defeat, you stand to gain traction, clarity, money and serious in-the-trenches learning to give your business wings.
The subjects of today’s podcast could have easily just stayed stuck just waiting for stuff to happen. Instead, they took action.
Today’s episode was inspired by a Fizzler named Peter. After hearing a recent Courage & Clarity episode featuring Jessica Eley, Peter realized there are actually two kinds of money to focus on earning.
“Quick & dirty” vs. “Fun & Purposeful”
When you dreamt of becoming an entrepreneur earning an independent living doing something you deeply care about, chances are you were thinking of your fun & purposeful revenue.
It’s completely possible to make money doing the work you feel called to do: it’s your big picture, passion-fueled business idea.
Fun & purposeful revenue is fantastic — it’s the dream! — but as you may have experienced, figuring out how to “make it work” is where lots of newbie business builders stall out.
Enter the “quick & dirty money” approach.
Now, full disclosure: I totally learned this from Jessica Eley. She’s a bonafide money mindset mastermind, so if you want more on this, definitely go check out the whole episode.
Chasing after your big & bold business dreams with little to no experience is kind of like trying to accelerate from 0 to 100 miles per hour. It’s the reason you get stuck before you ever start, why you chase your tail seeking “clarity” that never comes.
But since clarity comes from action, that means we have to do something.
So the question is, what are you good at? What comes to you so naturally, you could pop into a Facebook group or forum right now and start helping someone?
Sure, this might not be the kind of work you want to do forever. In fact, it might not have anything to do with your fun & purposeful business idea.
But a few BIG things can happen as a result of this action. You can make money. You can gain confidence. You can learn what you love about entrepreneurship (and what you can’t stand!)
And you can find — you guessed it — clarity.
Real life examples: clarity comes from action
Okay, onto our friend Peter. Here’s his story:
“After spending a few weeks unsure of where to proceed after I declared my previous business project a failure, I decided to take some action.
On a whim, I emailed some local yoga studio owners to ask whether I could briefly interview them about how they use email marketing automation in their business. I’ve been excited about email marketing automation for a while and I usually like yogis, so I figured why not?
One yoga studio owner responded, I met him for coffee and then another time for lunch, and now I’m doing freelance work for him for his yoga studio business and for his wife’s handmade jewelry business. My background as a consultant came in handy, because it turns out my client really wants to make analytics-based business decisions, and I have a lot of experience analyzing data, making the data easy to understand for others, and helping them make business decisions based on the data.”
I’m treating this freelance project as an experiment to figure out what kind of business would suit me.
Now, why am I so excited about this? Because I’m actually doing something. I have no idea whether I’ll continue to enjoy this sort of work, but I’m doing things, will make some money, and I’m learning about what I like and what I’m good at (and what I don’t like and what I’m bad at).
I had been so exhausted trying to plan my perfect business that I just wanted to try anything. And guess what? Jessica and Steph were right: action does result in clarity.”
Pretty compelling, right? Here’s a guy who went from “previous business project failure” (his words) to traction, progress & action just by grabbing coffee with a business he could help.
In case you’re skeptical about whether being generous with your expertise can actually lead to anything, here’s another story we had to dig up from another Fizzler, Joe. It’s one of our favorites:
“I went on 4 of the most popular subreddits and I put up a simple thread.
I essentially briefly stated my experience and qualifications and said, “I’m not here to charge anything. Just want to know what your problems are and how I can help you.”
Ho…ly…SH*T! The threads blew UP. I learned more in a day than I had in a month. Over the last 2 days since I posted, I just started working my A** off responding to every single response.
And I mean detailed responses. I put effort into these. Curating information. Giving tailored advice. Essentially giving away the farm here.
And guess what, I started noticing VERY consistent patterns. You know what a copy and paste response means? THIS IS A COMMON PROBLEM! Every person was responding back so thankful.
And then, something happened I wasn’t expecting… I started getting tons of private messages.”
Take action: what do you want to get clear on?
You haven’t forgotten the golden rule of entrepreneurship, right? Every single thing in your business is an experiment. (If you don’t know that rule yet, check out the roadmap.)
This whole thing we’re talking about is one big test. It’s important to know what it is you want to learn before you start jumping in to help people.
So what is it that you’re unclear on in your business?
What big existential questions keep you from taking action? Write them down. Make sure you know them. By taking action, you’re going to wind up answering these.
Peter was awesome enough to share his personal set of questions in the Fizzle forums. Here’s what he wants to find out during this action experiment:
- Do I like setting up email marketing automation for people?
- Do I like analyzing website data for people to base business decisions on?
- Do I like presenting myself as a freelancer?
- Do I like working with businesses, rather than consumers?
So whatever answers you seek in your business, capture them and start learning. We think you’ll be shocked at how much clarity the action really delivers.
And let us know: are you taking action with this approach? Are you ready to gain traction with your expertise, right now, today?
When you stop waiting for clarity, the only thing left do is take action.
Take Deeper Action
Many of us need extra help to get into the mode of ACTION. Many of us seem to be better at ideas than we are at execution.
For those of you who KNOW you want to become a person of action, not just ideas, we’ve made a podcast episode about this topic for you. Please be our guest and enjoy it!
from Fizzle http://ift.tt/2iYFp1Q
via IFTTT
