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Our inner voice, our biggest stumbling block

While the “inner voice” helps us make decisions, another voice lives in our heads, one that’s evaluating our performance. It determines our value. It judges the level of optimism that is reasonable to hold regarding our future. But I believe it holds many people back.

According to Psychology Today, The critical inner voice is a point of view we internalise early in life based on childhood experiences. It can represent the way we were seen by an influential parental figure, particularly in times of stress when that person was at their worst and was mis-attuned to us in some way. As we grow up, we take on these negative views as our own and the inner voice starts to function like a disciplinary parent holding us back and keeping us in our place. By the time we reach adulthood, we perceive the negative views of us and the critical inner voice as part of our self-perception.

Often the inner voice and past insecurities hold us back in life, not a lack of intellect, knowledge or skills. And it takes a certain amount of drive, determination and perseverance to reach beyond your circumstances and rid yourself of a critical inner voice.

My advice is:

Identify the voice in your head
Start listening for the voice. The next time you succeed or when you fail, ask yourself, “what does the voice inside me like right now?” When you’re nervous or hesitant to try something new, there’s an inner narrative happening. What is it saying? If we’re going to be able to forgive ourselves and understand why we do what we do, this is key.

Establish whether the voice is helping you or holding you back
I believe the voice inside most of us is holding us back.

Avoid shame
I believe it is one of the biggest barriers to forgiving ourselves. But was is shame? According to Dr Brene Brown, “shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” When we believe we are unworthy of anything, we make dangerous choices. If we believe we are flawed and, therefore, unworthy, we will struggle to accept forgiveness for our own mistakes, and as entrepreneurs, we make and always will make mistakes.

Life should be a journey of continual improvement, discovery, and growth towards a more complete individual. Lack of growth in life and career is so often self-induced sabotage – that inner voice or thought pattern.

The only person who can change it is you.

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The role of a mentor

Ask any successful business person, and they will all admit to having benefited from the advice of a mentor at some point. Many people have achieved great things because someone else believed in them and help them along the way.

Any entrepreneur can benefit from having mentor. The knowledge, advice, and resources a mentor shares depend on the format and goals of the mentoring relationship.

A mentor may share with a mentee information about their own career path, as well as provide guidance, motivation, emotional support, and role modelling. A mentor may help with exploring careers, setting goals, developing contacts, and identifying resources. And as time goes on, the mentor’s role may change with the needs of the mentee.

Some mentoring relationships are part of structured programs with specific expectations and guidelines: others are more informal. But formal or informal, the concept of mentoring is simple, but successful implementation can be challenging. The key characteristics of an effective mentoring relationship in my mind, include the ability and willingness to:

  • value the mentee as a person
  • develop mutual trust and respect
  • maintain confidentiality
  • listen both to what is being said and how it is being said
  • help the mentee solve his or her own problem, rather than give direction
  • focus on the mentee’s development and resist the urge to produce a clone

The first step in finding a good mentor is coming to terms with the knowledge that you can benefit from having one. Understandably there’s a lot of ego, nervous energy and pride involved, but speaking from experience going it alone is admirable but foolhardy and highly flawed approach to taking on the world.

Steve Jobs’ had former Intel manager Mike Markkula. At Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin brought in Eric Schmidt (formerly of Sun Microsystems and Novell) who was appointed CEO when they realised the company’s explosive growth was exceeding their ability to manage it.

So, no matter how incredibly brilliant you think you are, every start-up needs at least one good mentor. Someone, somewhere, has already been through what you’re about to embark on.

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Mistakes to avoid as an entrepreneur

Being an entrepreneur is a place of risk and reward, and the benefits are well documented. But, there are a number of pitfalls to avoid so you can keep the level of freedom that having your own business affords you:

Chasing the wrong success
If you are not careful, you can start to believe that certain material items make you “successful” and happy. You cannot buy your way to success or happiness.

Avoid this trap by thinking about and writing down what success means to you. Be conscious about what you are aiming for, and take consistent steps to reach it.

Poor communication
It’s easy to feel confident and assume that you are communicating properly with employees, contractors and mentors. But very few of us do communicate correctly.

Think about what you intend to say, and the impact you intend to have when communicating.  Use facts and leaving out any emotion linked to them. Get to your team and know how they like to be communicated to. They may need more detail than you usually provide or less. But knowing holds a lot of power for effective communication.

The customer is always right
A common misconception that can leave you worn out and exhausted. If you were to run your business as if every customer is ‘right’ can confuse your marketing messages and almost train your customers how to treat you and your staff. Instead, take on the mindset that the customer is always honoured. Customers should be treated with honour and respect.

Chasing money not freedom 
It’s easy to think that money and freedom are synonymous, but chasing money can lead to an unlived life. Money should be a byproduct, not the focus.

If you focus on short-term monetary gains, and you will never have true freedom. Rather, focus on the strength and growth of your business, and you will have money. You will also experience freedom and finances through growth and the right training.

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Characteristics of an entrepreneur

Being your own boss is an exciting prospect. However, owning a business isn’t for sissies. To be a successful entrepreneur, you must have or need to develop certain personality traits. Here are some characteristics an entrepreneur should ideally possess to start and run their own business.

Drive
Entrepreneurs are enthusiastic, optimistic and goal-oriented. They believe they’ll be successful and are willing to take risks, and have huge levels or energy. And often impatient (just warning you!). Are you self-motivated and can remain so? And do you have ‘bounce-back-ability’?

As an entrepreneur, you are in the driver’s seat, so you must be proactive in your approaches to everything. Are you a doer — someone willing to take the reins — or would you rather someone else do things for you?

Creativity and persuasiveness
Successful entrepreneurs have the ability to recognise and pursue opportunities, and this entails being a little creative. Entrepreneurs possess strong sales skills and are persuasive and persistent. You need the energy to promote your business tirelessly and look for new ways to get the word out.

Versatility
Employees of an organisation usually rely on team members to provide support. As an entrepreneur, you’ll typically start out alone.

You may not have the luxury of hiring straight away, so you’ll wear several hats. Ask: am I mentally prepared to take on all of these tasks from the onset?

Business acumen
Successful entrepreneurs rely on their business skills, know-how and contacts. Evaluate your current talents, skills, network, and experience – are they readily transferable to the business you want to pursue?

Vision
One of your responsibilities as founder and leader of your company is deciding where your business will go. For that you need vision, without a vision, you will lose direction and become lost.

Flexibility and open-mindedness
While entrepreneurs need a strong vision and direction, there are many unknowns. Go with the flow, tweak plans and strategies as needed. Always, be open-minded and flexible even as an established entrepreneur.

Decisiveness
As an entrepreneur, you won’t have time to procrastinate and hold up progress. Be decisive and seize the moment.