Welcome to the Unshackled Owner Podcast. Your host is Aaron Young, a business owner, an entrepreneur of the last 34 years. People, despite having tremendous successes in their life, they come up against the new thing that they’ve never done before and they think, “Why would anybody listen to me about this? Maybe I really should back off and stick to what I’ve done before.” This business ownership thing is a gigantic, grand, epic adventure. With all kinds of challenges, all kinds of adversaries, all kinds of danger. There’s this giant treasure at the end of it.
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Get Over Yourself With Aaron Young
Hello everybody and welcome to The Unshackled Owner podcast. I’m Aaron Young. This is episode number two. I saw a quote today that was by Maya Angelou that said, “When you know better, you do better.” That made me really think about something that I’ve been noticing lately with some of the people that I’ve been working with, with some of the projects I’ve been involved in and even in my own life. This whole idea of you can do better once you know better.
Here’s the thing. We’re here to talk about becoming an unshackled business owner. An unshackled person. You can be unshackled in a lot of ways. Even though I’m specifically talking to business owners, this really applies to anybody who’s out there and they’re looking to grow their life. They’re looking to expand their world.
Get Over Yourself: “Maybe I really should back off and stick to what I’ve done before.”
One of the things that we struggle with and that I hear all the time from people has to do with, I guess you’d say, their worthiness. That is to say, I meet people all the time who, despite having tremendous successes in their life, despite having great education, despite having what seems like everything going for them, they come up against the new thing that they’ve never done before and they think, “Oh my gosh. I don’t think that would work for me. Why would anybody listen to me about this? Why would anybody follow me? Why do I think I’m competent to do this? Why do I think that somebody will care that I’m doing this? Maybe I’m going in over my head. Maybe I really should back off and stick to what I’ve done before.”
I had a conversation with somebody about that just today. One of my private clients who was talking to me about, they have this bigger visions of what this fellow wants to do. His this big dream but yet he said, “I’m willing to step out and be more entrepreneurial but I think I should stay in the industry that I’ve always been in.”
I said, “Is that what you would love to do?” He said, “No, it’s not but I feel safer there because I have connections already and I know the lingo. It just seems like that would be a smarter thing to do.” I said, “Okay, but what do you want to do?”
When he started to tell me what he really wanted to do, it became evident that he didn’t think he was qualified. He didn’t think he was ready. He didn’t think he was worthy to do something that he was really much more fascinated with. To his credit, he had several ideas that were safe, one idea that wasn’t safe, and then his other idea was, “I don’t know. I’d love to be open to something but I think I probably ought to stick to what I’m familiar with.”
When a lot of us get up against this problem, and it’s a big problem and it shackles us to old ways of doing things. It keeps us in a rut. It keeps from becoming fully realized as a human being. When we get stuck in a rut or we stay where we’re safe, you’re okay, you’re fine. You’re in familiar ground. As soon as you step out of that familiar ground and you go into uncharted territory, you become terrified. You could blame you? Who could blame you for beings cared of something new?
In our family, my wife always would tell the kids, “Come on, we’re going to go on an adventure.” They say, “What are we going to do?” She says, “An adventure is something that we don’t know how we’re going to like it. Maybe we won’t like it. But we’re not going to know until we try it. That’s what makes it an adventure.” We’re going to go do something we’ve never done, we don’t know if we’re going to like it. That’s what makes it an adventure.
Get Over Yourself: This business ownership thing, this entrepreneurial journey, is a gigantic, grand, epic adventure.
This business ownership thing, this entrepreneurial journey, is a gigantic, grand, epic adventure. With all kinds of challenges, all kinds of adversaries, all kinds of danger. There’s the opportunity to lose everything. You’re putting it all on the line. There’s this giant treasure at the end of it, this reward that could be wealth or it could be fame or it could be freedom or it could be whatever it is that you measure as your treasure is all there for you.
How many potential heroes shrink from the challenge? They back off because they think, “I’m not worthy.” If you go back to the Old Testament, Moses, who was really the most revered of all the prophets in Judaism, for instance. Of course Christians love Moses and we’ve watched Moses in lots of movies. Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt and against the Pharaoh and all this kind of thing.
But you remember, when Moses was first offered the epic challenge by the Lord, he said, “I’m slow of speech. Who’s going to listen to me? I’m not a young man anymore.” Excuse, excuse, excuse. If he had shrunk because of his perceived inadequacies, if he had shrunk because he thought, “I don’t think I’m really cool enough for this. I’m not tall enough. I’m not skinny enough. I’m not eloquent enough. I’m not rich enough. I don’t have the education.”
Whatever. Whatever little excuse Moses or we decide to invoke to give us a reason why we should not pursue our quest, whatever that excuse is, the thing that keeps you on the sidelines, it’s just a bunch of BS really.
The fact is, everybody is imperfect. Everybody is weak in some ways. Believe me, we are way more aware of our weaknesses than anybody around us is. We’re way more focused on where we’re crummy or where we’re sloppy or where we don’t know than anybody else. Everybody is worried about their own inadequacies. They’re not really spending a lot of time measuring yours.
If you have the opportunity to go on a little quick journey down to 7/11 or you can go on an epic quest, first of all, which one captures your heart more? Then, which one do you think has the likelihood of a great treasure? Running down to get a Slurpee or going out to change the world, going out to change your life, going out to provide in ways as yet unrealized, a different kind of future for your family?
What is the treasure that lies out there and how are our feelings of inadequacy keeping us from pursuing the thing that we would love? Are we willing to give up our future, are we willing to give up the treasure, are we willing to give up the fame and the opportunities that come along with going on the big journey? Are we willing to give it up to safely on the sidelines?
Because that’s what most people do. They wuss out. They chicken out. They go, “I was stupid to ever try this.” I talked to another person today who explained to me that they really want to be entrepreneurial but they have a really good job. They think that in three to five years, they’ll probably have enough money saved to start to pursue their dream and they’re going to just do it on the side and read books and stuff.
Get Over Yourself: Business owners, people that really love the quest, they’ve always been out there looking for adventure.
That’s fine. Good for that person for taking care of the family. I think that’s a noble, a good way to behave. I’m just going to tell you, entrepreneurs are, I think, not made. They’re born. I think that business owners, people that really love the quest, they’ve always been out there looking for adventure. They’ve been trying to figure out what it is.
When they get their eye on a target, they pursue it aggressively. When they decide they’re going to go into uncharted territory, they don’t shrink from it. They gird up their loin, they get their crew, they get their vessel. They get a sword or a shield at least to protect themselves, and off they go. Off into the future, off into the dark, off into their own, I don’t know, their own legacy.
I just want you to think, as you think about being unshackled from your business, as you think about being an unshackled owner, if that’s what’s drawn you to this podcast, I want you to think about, how am I going to get to the place where I feel like I’m up to the battle, that I’m worthy of the battle?
I just want to tell you, write this down, no one can set your level of worthiness except you. Now, I’ll tell you, I meet people regularly. I have dear friends who have unbelievable success. They’ve done things that most people just read about in magazines. They’re just super accomplished. Have created household name brands, have made millions and millions of dollars, have traveled the world, have been recognized on multiple continents as a huge leader and a thought leader in their industry and a success in the business world.
When you give them a new thing to, if they go, “What I was doing before isn’t working anymore, what I’m going to do?” They start freaking out. They get all upset and they all anxious. It’s like, “Dude, what would you love to do? What’s in front of you right now? What could you do? What if you did this?” They go, “I don’t know. I don’t know if that would ever work for me.” All those excuses come out.
When I’ve challenged people and said, “But you have no evidence to show that you can’t do this and you have tons of evidence to show that you are competent and capable. Would you be willing …” Here’s the point, guys. Get ready. This is the punch line.
Get Over Yourself: Are you willing to experiment? Are you willing to try?
Are you willing to experiment? Are you willing to try? Are you willing to test all the stuff that you’ve done before, all the competency that you had to make those millions and be acknowledged and be the speaker and be the subject of the magazine article or whatever?
Are you willing to say, maybe that person, or maybe it was the person who was the PTA president or was the leader at their church or who was voted best coach in our league or somebody just said, “You’re an awesome dad. You’re an awesome mom. Thank you for changing my life.” Whatever it is, whatever the past acknowledgements have been that showed that people thought you were freaking worth it. You were cool. You did something for them.
What I want you to do is to think what I’ve challenged some of my friends and my clients and said, “Look, are you willing to believe in whatever people saw in you before and just say, maybe this person this new guy, this new woman who’s getting ready to start this new adventure, is actually competent, is actually worthy? Are you willing to just experiment on that idea and test it?
When people will experiment, I really want you get that word locked and burned in your brain, experiment. You don’t have to do it forever. You just have to play around with it. Just experiment with it. When they do the experiment, they are blown away by how quickly the success comes. By how quickly people go, “Oh my gosh, I’ve been looking for you. I’ve been waiting for you. Thank you for showing up.”
One of my mentors, her name is Mary Manin Morrissey. She says that when you feel a call inside of your soul, when you feel there’s something in there that you should be doing, a message you should be taking to the world. When you’re feeling it inside but then you start feeling that sense of unworthiness. Maybe nobody wants my message. Nobody wants me. Maybe I’m not the ideal messenger. Whatever. You get all these fears and excuses in your mind.
She said those feelings that you have inside are actually the manifestation of all the voices out there in the world that are looking for and asking for and praying for you to show up with the message.
Folks, if you’re feeling something inside, quit disquali
Get Over Yourself: Quit disqualifying yourself because you wonder if somebody else will think you’re unworthy.
fying yourself because you wonder if somebody else will think you’re unworthy. No one can set your level of worthiness except for you. That’s the beginning of becoming unshackled, is having the courage to step into what you’re great at. To step into your super power. To step into some new, epic journey.
Something that people are going to write about, they’re going to write songs about, they’re going to tell stories around the campfire about you because of the way you changed their life. You changed their child’s life, you came up with an idea, you solved a problem, you invented something new, you did something that made a real difference to somebody.
If you can live a life where just one person’s life is really changed for the better, then you’ve been successful. If you do, like so many people I’ve met, by going out and overcoming your own feelings of unworthiness and stepping into what you’re great at, you will change hundreds, thousands of lives. Maybe a lot more. Many of them, you’ll never even know were watching you.
That’s my message today here on The Unshackled Owner podcast where we’re working with you, we’re working together to teach you the things that I’ve learned over 34 years of working with business owners and of owning my own companies and singing my own paychecks.
I want to be here for you a couple times a week as we launch out this information and give you things to think about and hold on to as an anchor as you pursue this epic quest, this fabulous journey, this unbelievably cool thing that we call business ownership, that we call entrepreneurship, that we call leadership. I look forward the being with you again really soon on the next Unshackled Owner podcast.
