Episode 15: Tips For Small Business Owners: Managing A Small Business With A Better Mindset Using The 5-Second Rule
In this tip episode, it’s time to reflect whether you need to change your mindset as a small business owner or not. If you feel like you find yourself constantly with unfounded thoughts, it’s time you change the way you think. Listen as Fiona shares how the five-second rule by Mel Robbins has helped her improve her outlook in going after uncharted territories in her business and why you need to try this tip too!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction [0:13]
Mindset with Unfounded Thoughts [0:45]
Example: Writing my Book, Passion. Purpose. Profit. [1:43]
Mel Robbins [3:47]
The Five-Second Rule [5:06]
How It Helped Fiona's Business [7:31]
Fiona's First Example [7:49]
Fiona's Second Example [11:14]
Conclusion [13:25]
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Transcript:
Hello and welcome to Episode 15 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. It is lovely, as always, to have you here and joining me today for this really quick tip episode.
Now, today is a Tip Episode Tuesday. I'm really diving into mindset. Or rather, I guess, a quick tip that I've found super helpful when it comes to getting out of my own way. And what do I mean by that? By you know, getting out of my own way? Well, I, like I'm sure you are - whoever you are listening to this podcast, I can definitely get in my head about things and I can start going down a spiral of unfounded thoughts.
Say, for instance, I'm sending a proposal off. So I do some consulting work every so often, not that much anymore, but I still do some consulting work and say I'm sending a proposal off to a potential consulting client and I can start to go down the imposter syndrome thought path. You know, I can get aboard that train and be like, what am I doing? Why would they choose me, blah, blah, blah? Or say I'm about to run a workshop and I do that, you know, outside of coronavirus time, I would do that quite often during the year, like events and workshops publicly. And no matter how many times I've run a workshop or how amazing I know that the people who have bought it and how supportive they'll be, I can still start getting in my head about, you know, things that are wrong with me or things that, you know, maybe they're expecting this from the workshop and maybe it won't deliver. I can still get into my head with these sort of negative thoughts. Not all the time, but definitely sometimes.
Or even for instance, right now, I am recording this in July 2020 and I am right in the thick of preparing to market my first book. So I have a book coming out with Hardie Grant called Passion. Purpose. Profit that's coming out in September. It's available to pre-order now, but I'm meeting with the publisher, and their marketing team and various people, you know, the people who do the social media and the people who do the publicity and all of that. And it's one thing to write a book or a business book, but you can stay behind the scenes somewhat. You know, I wrote this book last year, so I wrote it literally this time last year. And you can stay under the radar and, you know, you can tell people I'm writing a book, but the book hasn't come out yet. So it can all kind of be behind the scenes. But once it gets closer to that book, really being out in the world, you know, you can start worrying. You can start thinking, how is it gonna be received and what are my peers going to say and what does what will my sister think of it and and what will my brother think of it and whether or not there's gonna be a backlash or negative reviews on Amazon and you can basically turn or take something that's positive and a fantastic opportunity as a small business owner.
And you can turn it into this stressful entity purely just through your own mindset. Nothing else, nothing else has changed outside the world. But you can just get in your head and just spin things. And I'm sure I'm not the only person that does that. Like I said, this doesn't happen all the time, but I can usually get on top of it pretty quickly. I've learnt certain tactics and strategies, but I think every single small business owner, no matter how successful they appear to be, still go through these kind of mindset challenges, really. So all of that what I've just talked about is really what I mean by getting in my head. And today I'm going to be sharing a tip. It's also a tactic that's really helped me get out of that mindset and be okay with doing new things or showing up in a new way in my business. So let's get into it.
So the tactic that I'm sharing today isn't mine. I don't take credit for it. I had nothing to do with this. It is actually the work of a brilliant woman out of the US called Mel Robbins. She is no relation to Tony Robbins. And if you haven't heard of her, Mel Robbins is an author. She's a TV show host. And I guess you could say she's a motivational speaker, but I actually thinks she's so much more than that title. Motivational speaker alludes alludes to, I feel like in a sea of I mean, let's just call it total B.S. and fluff. She actually legit has lived experience dealing with a lot of the stuff that she talks about. And, you know, granted, she is white and she has all the privileges that that brings with it, as I do as well. But I do think that no matter who you are, no matter what your background, no matter where you are in the world, she can be ,what she puts out can be really helpful if you're facing challenges in your life or your business. And I also need to shout out to my friend [00:04:48]Faustina, [0.0s] because she is the person who first told me about Mel Robbins. So one of the ways that Mel Robbins does this is through her tool,the five second rule, which I have found incredibly helpful as a small business owner. And that is actually what I'm going to discuss in today's tip episode.
So what is the five second rule? Well, I mean, you can go and Google it and you can find videos of Mel Robbins describing it in detail or you can cheque out her website - melrobbins.com. But in short, it's basically about counting backwards, like literally five, four, three, two, one, and taking action whenever you feel hesitant or slightly anxious or nervous or what it's like you're procrastinating. And so Mel Robbins believes - and she has scientific studies to kind of back up these beliefs that we can literally trick our minds into taking action even when, you know, we might be hesitant to do so. So she discusses this idea that when we think about doing something, say, as a small business owner, shooting off an email to be a guest on a podcast or sending an Instagram DM to someone to collaborate or even posting on a business group in Facebook or any kind of things that could make us squirm a little bit and be like, oh, my gosh, do I really want to do this? Well, this is what Mel Robbins says our brain has about five seconds leeway before it'll kick in with all the things that could go wrong. So we'll kick in with all these kind of protective thoughts. You know, we're hardwired as humans to run from risk. And so she sort of believes that we can prevent that risk police, I guess, turning up to say, well, why would you post that in a Facebook group or why would you think that you're worthy enough to send, you know, a pitch off to be somebody's guest on their podcast? We have, she says, about five seconds to to trick the mind. So that that risk police doesn't show up. And the way that she says to do that is literally counting backwards. Five, four, three, two, one, and then taking action. And the reason for that is that she talks about this in a lot more detail. But a really short synopsis is that our brain is so focused on counting backwards because it's not something that we do all the time. You know, if we had to count forwards, we could almost do this, do that on autopilot. But to count backwards, you actually have to concentrate. And so your mind is moving away from "Tell Fiona all the reasons why she can't do these" to "I've got to concentrate on counting backwards." And so we're sort of tricking our brain for a second. And that way we will then just take action without all these negative thoughts kicking in. I hope that makes sense.
But how has this actually helped me with my small business? I cannot count how many ways this has helped me as a small business owner and also in other parts of my life. But let me tell you about two ways that the five second rule has helped me with my small business.
Okay, so the first time that I remember using this was when it came to showing up, you know, face to camera on Instagram story. So Instagram is a key platform, a marketing channel for my business, and I am on there quite often. So Instagram stories launched at the end of 2016, which seems crazy now, doesn't it? Still seems like it's a relatively new thing. But yeah, almost four years ago and sometime in early 2017, I decided that I needed to show up. It wasn't enough to just be posting things like photos and kind of graphics and stuff on Instagram stories. I needed to show up like physically - my face and put that out on a new medium. So I talk often about humanising your business and humanising your brand and putting yourself out there and understanding your why and differentiating your business because of who is behind it and the team behind it. So it's like, well, I need to walk the talk, really. But like a lot of people, I am not a 24/7 selfie queen. You know, I don't take heaps of photos of myself. If I'm honest, I'm usually the person behind the camera taking pictures of everyone else. And I just found the whole concept of putting my phone and my camera facing me and talking to a video, I found it a little bit daunting. So, you know, like I said, for I do this all the time now on Instagram. And if you follow me on Instagram @mydailybusinesscoach, you might find it strange that I'm even saying this because I'm literally on there with my face all the time. I do stories and videos and I talk to the camera at least four times a week, every single week, if not more. But back then, it was new and I was a bit hesitant and I was nervous about doing it. But I'd also just read the five second rule book because like I said before, my friend Faustina had recommended it. And so I literally did the countdown. I remember I was up early. It was in the house was quiet. It was around six a.m. and I was about to drive to Dayleford to be with my friend Natasha Morgan and visit her house. And I thought, well, I'm up and my hair is washed. I had makeup on I think. I don't tend to wear makeup much. So now when I do Instagram stories, I know I'm not like, oh, my makeup has to be done. But back then, you know, my hair was washed. I was dressed and I thought, well, why not just do it now, you know, get it over with and done. And then I go for the drive. And I knew that, you know, it's a two hour drive, roughly two Dalesman from where I live. And so I knew that while driving I couldn't cheque my phone. So I couldn't delete it. It just had to live out there and into Ibbs. So I stood there. I remember exactly where I was. I stood in the bathroom in our house with my phone camera facing me. And I counted five, four, three, two, one. And I just recorded it and I put phone down and I went on my way and it just it helped me get over myself really to get over all these thoughts. It was like, you want to do this, you've got the thought, just count backwards, get it done. And it really helped me show up. And I've had friends recently that have said I have to start doing Instagram stories. You know, you do it all the time. You look very comfortable. That has come with doing it all the time like that. You know, if I wind it back to 2017, I was nervous as hell and I just had to get over that. And I think the five second rule really helped me do that.
Another time that this five-second rule concept, I guess you'd call it, has helped me in my business, is when I sent off the first chapter of my book. So I have a book. Like I said before, it's coming out in September. And I needed to send a first chapter to my publisher, my editor at Hardie Grant. And this is back in September 2019. And I had a deadline I needed to hit, but I could have dissected what I'd written further. You know, I had written it and I had looked at over and I was thinking, you know, should I spend more time? Should I rewrite parts? Should I take that bit out? And I was kind of just overthinking it. And I could've spent longer finessing it. But I thought this is done Fiona. It's done. And the sooner I send it off to my editor, the sooner I'll get feedback and then I'll be able to continue writing the rest of it because it was due at the end of November. This was September. I literally had two months then throughout the rest of it. So I remember adding the Google Drive link for that sample chapter to the email. I had rewritten this email a few times to the editor and then I just thought, just send it Fiona and I just send it. And I was getting into my own head. And so I just counted five, four, three, two, one. And I hit send and it went off and, you know, got the sample chapter back, got the feedback back and it helped me then write the rest of it.
So I have used this rule literally thousands of times since discovering Mel Robbins in early 2017. And I cannot recommend that enough. I mean, I know it's not the only thing like this. I know it's not, you know, revolutionary. There are other people and other methods that sort of talk to this. But I really think that this is one of the most useful. It's I mean, it's very simple to remember. The instructions are basically in its name, the five second rule. And you can use it anywhere, anytime, in any kind of situation. And literally it takes five seconds. It's not like, oh, you need to open a Google doc and write these things down or answer these particular questions or talk to a friend. It's just an action that you can take and a tactic that you can use any time, any where.
So I hope that if you are currently sitting on things or you're finding yourself overthinking things, like I was with that sample chapter that you perhaps take a little minute or a few moments, I guess, to do some research on Mel Robbins and the five second rule, and that ultimately it starts to help you move a little closer to taking action in your small business. And like I said before,you can Google it, you can find her videos, or you can head over to Mel Robbins dot com to find out more. If you are listening to this podcast on the go, so you're in the gym or you're on a walk or you're driving or basically or anywhere else, that you can't pause and take notes, please remember that, as always, the show notes, including a full transcript of this episode and all the links can be found at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/15 as this is episode fifteen.
And like I said in the beginning, I have my first business book coming out in physical format, in bookshops and everywhere else on the second of September, that'll be coming out in the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia, of course. And it's called Passion. Purpose. Profit. Sidestep The Hustle and Build A Business You Love. And right now, if you're listening to this before September 2020, you can pre-order that on most bookseller websites and at a bunch of beautiful small business stores. If you run a bookshop or you have a shop, either online or physical or both that sells books anywhere in the world, I would be so honoured if you might consider including Passion. Purpose. Profit. in whatever it is that you sell in your store or on your online shop. If you want to do that, anyone to talk to me about that, you can get in touch by email, which is just hello@mydailybusinesscoach.com or you can always hit me up on Instagram at @mydailybusinesscoach.
So I really hope the five second rule helps you overcome some mindset issues. And I hope that, as always, if you found this episode useful, please leave a review on iTunes. It just helps me get found by other small business owners so they too can find out about these tips and help grow and enjoy running a small business. Thanks again, and I'll see you next time.
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Thanks for listening to My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you want to get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram - @mydailybusinesscoach.
You can Google it, you can find her videos, or you can head over to melrobbins.com to find out more.
The show notes, including a full transcript of this episode and all the links can be found at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast15
You can pre-order that on most bookseller websites and at a bunch of beautiful small business stores.
You can get in touch by email, which is just hello@mydailybusinesscoach.com or you can always hit me up on Instagram at @mydailybusinesscoach.
And I hope that, as always, if you found this episode useful, please leave a review on iTunes
If you want to get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram - @mydailybusinesscoach.
