Not too long ago, my wife was pregnant, and I saw her carry our child for over 10 months. Now, this was a long journey, and my wife is so incredibly strong. For all you women out there that have had children, I have nothing but respect for you.
I mean, it was a painful process. Here she is, and she’s got extra weight. She happens to be incredibly fit, but she’s got extra weight carrying around. Her hormones are changing, and now she’s going to give birth to this baby that’s inside of her. It’s just an amazing process. It still blows my mind today. Then after this birth, the love, the absolute love and admiration for our little boy, which is so huge. Right? It’s so worth it. The sleepless nights, the last month almost, where both of us aren’t sleeping much, and right now not sleeping very much as it is because we have a 14-week-old. But still, it’s just absolutely amazing. Wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
It got me to thinking about things. Right? It got me to thinking about the idea that most businesses … They say one in 100 businesses actually make it past two years. That’s a startling statistic when you think about it. I don’t know if that’s exactly right. It could be a couple more, but it’s somewhere in that ballpark. In fact, I was listening to something today that said one in 100, so I’m just going to go with that, but you get the idea. Now, what’s even more interesting and starting to think about that is, how many businesses have I built, but how many businesses have failed? Right? I built several businesses. I got five going on right now, and they’re like my kids too. The process of bringing them to fruition, to birth, is just, it’s hard. It’s arduous.
It’s a journey, but once they’re actually out there and they’re affecting people in a positive way, they’re affecting people and people are growing, whether it be my marketing agency, whether it be my coaching business, whether it be Author of Your Own Story, whatever it may be, the way it’s helping people, that is like my child. That’s where it makes the birthing process of a business or an idea so worth it, just like having a child. I mean, not as good as having a child, of course. There’s a different kind of love, but it’s similar. I mean, I’m an entrepreneur. It’s in my DNA to build businesses and help them grow and help them scale. For me, it’s just what I do. Some people paint, I build businesses. It’s just, hey, that’s what it is. It’s that birthing process, and it got me thinking, right?
It got me thinking of how many of us walk around, and this is a lot of my friends, but how many of us have an idea but never see that idea actually birth into a business, there’s not really that actual next step? I would guess there are a million ideas to the one that actually gets birthed. There’s just a million of them out there. I can’t tell you how many times I go, and this would be for you, too, right? How many times do you go get coffee with a friend, go get a drink, get a beer, or go for a run, and you exchange a business idea? Right? “I have this idea. It’s kind of crazy, but this is what I’m thinking.”
Or you hear the other thing that we all do, right? We all hear this, “Well, I had that idea that person had, and now they’re successful, but I had it as well,” or, “I had it first.” Yeah, but did they ever actually go through the laboring process? The person that made that business successful went through those 10 months or probably years of building that business or building that organization and actually giving birth to it, carrying it out, laboring day and day, now. But hopefully, laboring in a fun way, the way some of us do it, but getting it going in such a great way that they could actually birth it and bring it out to the world, and now they get to embrace that love.
You see, I think if we just had the children the way we want them, right, you just got, “Hey, you want a baby? Here you go,” we would have people everywhere, right? Because there’s no struggle. I also don’t think the love of that baby would be as intense. It’s more intense because you’ve gone through that journey, that arduous process, the birthing process, the labor. I mean, holy cow. I’m just, even thinking about it, recalling just our process, amazing, right?
But it’s very similar to a business, an organization, or an idea, and so what I want to ask you right now is, how many times do you have an idea or something you want to do? Maybe it’s a trip. Maybe for you it’s, “I want to go to Thailand.” Maybe for you it’s, “I want to grow a business,” or, “I want to start an organization,” or, “I want to get an apprenticeship,” or, “I want to get an internship. I just want to learn how to do digital marketing, but I’m too scared to ask for an apprenticeship,” or whatever it may be.
How many times do you have that idea, but you actually haven’t gone through the labor, you actually haven’t gone through the laboring process to birth that idea, and therefore that idea just dies, it goes away, and you aren’t able to reap those benefits? Now, I know this has happened way over a million times for me alone. I have ideas all the time. In fact, I have a whole folder on my computer of just business ideas where I save the business ideas, I keep, I go back to them, and I add to them as I feel inspired to, but it’s just a place where I can collect them all, with the idea that I can pick one of those ideas if I want to and go, “Hey, do I want to go through that laboring process?”
If I go through that process, and I’ve done it so many times, and probably like you moms that have had five, six, seven kids, it just gets easier, from what I hear, I don’t know how, but business gets easier too, and building organizations gets easier as well because you have a formula and you’ve kind of been there, done that. But if you haven’t, right? There are things that I haven’t done like I haven’t stepped on stage to speak to thousands of people before. I’ve never done it. I’ve spoken to hundreds, but not thousands, and so doing that, that’s a bigger process, and so I imagine that gets really easy for somebody that does it on a … Like a Gary Vaynerchuk or someone who speaks often, it’s just really easy. They’ve gone through the labor. They’ve gone through the laboring process, and they’re able to actually do it quicker. They’re able to birth the idea and the concept much faster than I would be able to without repetition.
I’m going to ask you the same thing that I’m doing. Grab your journal. Write down your Five to Thrive, your mind, your body, your soul, your relationships, and your business, and I want to ask yourself, where are you just having ideas and scared … Now that’s, maybe not scared, not the right word, but where are you just not pushing through the labor? Where are you not going through the laboring process to get what you want, the desired outcome, or the birth? Right? Remember, when you go through that laboring process, and you almost always have to, and you don’t … It can be flow and ease, and I love that idea, but my experience tells me that it usually takes some work, but most people aren’t willing to do it. Now, I hope you’re not one of those people. I hope you’re doing the work. Do this exercise.
Even if this sounds rudimentary to you, you’re going to get something from it. I coach other coaches, right? We do that because you just need to. You need somebody else to look at a higher-level perspective of your life. The other coaches I have, I work with, are very high-level, and they do the same thing. We take them back to basics, so where in your Five to Thrive are you not willing to go through the laboring process, you’re not willing to birth that idea, birth that business, really comes out of yourself, go through the laboring process, and then to receive fully all that love? Write that down and all your Five to Thrive.
Anything I can do to help you, please go to the Author of Your Own Story community, put it down. I’m happy to join in and help you as well. A lot of you are sending me messages, and I absolutely love them. It’s really difficult for me to get back to everybody … I’m getting hundreds of them coming in, so please go to the Author of Your Own Story community. Post there so I can get back to you, as well as our staff, and we have other coaches from around the world that I’m sure would be happy to jump in and help you get one step closer to being the author of your own story.
That’s it for me today. Remember, as always, go to authorofyourownstory.com, where you can have more tips, tricks, and deeper dives delivered right to your inbox. This is a fantastic resource that you should be taking advantage of because it’s free. Also, we have Author of Your Own Story University. If you’re one of those people that’s willing to take a deeper dive and to really go in and really investigate yourself and learn about that laboring process, so birthing becomes easier. It’s like getting a doula, almost, or getting a labor coach, which is what we did. It made things so much easier. That’s what Author of Your Own Story University is like. It’s where you’re going to have guided discussions, course topics, delivered right to you. We actually mail you, physically, a package along with an MP3 player so you can just listen to everything in your earbuds, keeping it simple. Of course, you can get it all digitally too.
Author of Your Own Story University. Make sure you get on that list. We only are going to open it up a few times here, just to make sure we keep it simple and we can also have that laser-like focus on each of our students. Go over there today and make sure you get signed up on that wait list so we can get you in. That’s it for me today. Remember, go out and be the author of your own story.
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