Episode 59: “I’m Not Good at It…Yet.” – A Small Business Owner’s Mindset on Why It’s Important to Keep Improving
Episode summary introduction:
In this quick tip episode with Fiona, she shares a good business lesson she learned from her son - the importance of using the word “yet” and why we need to shift our mindset to keep improving in our business.
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Fiona’s conversation with her son
On using “yet”
Improving in your business
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Episode transcript:
Hello and welcome to one of the last My Daily Business Coach podcast episodes for the year. We are up to Episode 59. Can you believe it? I just can't believe that we're here already. This podcast was something I sat on for way too long and I wish I had started sooner. But at last, I started this year, and I could not be more excited for how it's going. I love hearing from people all over the world who are listening to this. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
If this podcast has helped you in any way at all, I would love to hear from you. I just love to connect with you. I love hearing about the different people who are listening to this. Are your business, the stories, the people who have had, you know, very established businesses and the people who are just, you know, have a business idea. So thank you to every single person who has reached out, who has left their review or shared this podcast. I am just incredibly appreciative. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
All right. So today is a quick episode. And this one is you may be familiar with it if you've read my book, Passion, Purpose, Profit. And if you haven't, you know, definitely go and check out that book. But it's something that has really been a huge impact. When I've talked about it with clients or friends, they've just been like, yes, I am going to do more of that. I need to do more of that.
And I hope that it's going to be the same for you. So what is it? Well, let's find out. All right. So I have two children and my oldest started school in 2019. So he started school last year. And, you know, when I pick him up from school and I do every single evening, I will say to him, you know, how did you go? What did you love? What did you know? What was fun today? What have you learned? And, you know, having that kind of conversation in the car on the way home. And one day I had picked him up and he sort of said, oh, we learnt this new word. And I was like, yes, you know, of course they would be doing that because they're learning how to read and write. And so he said, yeah, we spent all day on one word and I was like, really?
OK all day on one word. And I was like, oh, my God, his teacher must have so much patience. But I sort of as it as the story unfolded, it came out that it was just this one three letter word. And I was like, really? Did you need to spend all day on, you know, one three letter word like what we had? Did you kind of drag that out for six hours? And he then told me that the word was the word "Yet".
And I thought, oh, wow.
And he said, yeah, all day we thought about resilience, which I was like, oh, my goodness, my six year old is using that word already. Well, but also just the power of the word yet. So he said, you know, instead of saying I'm not good at basketball, you say I'm not good at basketball yet. And, you know, you can learn you can learn to be good at anything. And I was like, yes, you can.
And it's actually been an incredible business lesson because I meet so many small business owners during one-on-one coaching. And when I do workshops and online courses, but especially with the one-on-one coaching, people come to me and it's almost like a psychology session at the start. You know, people come and they're like, this is not, you know, this isn't working. This isn't working. And often they blame themselves. They say, I'm not good at marketing, I'm crap at my money, you know, I'm crap at finances.
I must be really bad at hiring people because they never work out. It's always taking firstly an issue and making it their problem as opposed to, OK, let's put the facts on the table and see what's happened. But also, it's a very finite statement. I'm crap at marketing - doesn't leave any room for adjustment. It's I'm crap at marketing. It's also not a fact because perhaps you haven't tried every single marketing platform out there and there are thousands who possibly you know, it's just impossible for you to have tried all of them.
So when people say things like I'm crap at marketing, what I try to get them to start thinking about after I listen to my son that day was the word -Yet, you know, I'm not good at marketing yet. I'm not good at social media yet. I'm not good at my finances yet.
And what that does by just putting that simple word yet at the end of a sentence, it's allowing you room to, you know, get really curious about how are you going to change that. So I'm crap at social media becomes I'm not good at social media yet, but I'm learning. I've invested in a course. I'm reading a book. I'm practicing. I'm using the tools, understanding how they work, how they operate, why they keep people on a particular page, or why they, you know, are not inclined to get me to leave this platform.
All of those things allow you to know a bit more about social media, so then you can start utilizing it in a better way for your business. So it's a really simple tip or tool or tactic that you might want to employ.
So if you see somebody who finds yourself beating up yourself about, oh, you know, that didn't work again in the business because I'm crap at X, Y, Z, try and just reframe that sentence to I'm not good at X, Y, Z yet, but how might I improve?
And so that allows you to get really curious about what's out there. How could I, you know, change this? Or maybe it could even lead to "I'm not so great at it yet and I don't actually have the time or the want to know heaps more about it. So I'm actually going to outsource that."
But we need to veer away from this whole I'm crap at blah blah blah is a finite statement because we're not every single person in business, no matter how long we've been in business, is learning in the same way that every person has a child is learning, every person that's doing anything new or anything for the first time or even sometimes, you know, the third, fourth or fifth time, they are still learning and they still need to use that word yet because we're not at the end.
You know, it's like that. What does that quote? I think it was a John Lennon quote, and it was like "Everything will be OK in the end. And if it's not OK, it's not the end." I really like that kind of mindset.
Anyway, that is today's quick tip. I hope it helps you the power of yet try using it in a sentence.
But honestly, try and reframe your thoughts. So instead of saying I'm crap at, you know, X, Y, Z, and that being a finite statement as if it's fact, reframe it to "I'm not good at whatever it is yet."
So that is it for episode 59, of course you can find the show notes and everything we talked about today over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/59.
Thank you again for listening to this podcast this year. I'm super excited that, you know, 2020 is coming to a close.
I know it's been incredibly challenging and gut wrenching at times, but also a magnificent and I feel like it's uncovered a lot of things. It's kind of like it's when you pull up the stuff from the ocean, it kind of gets messy and the water gets murky. And then eventually it settles and you see things clearly. And I definitely think that is what 2020 has done worldwide.
So I hope you have a fantastic New Year. There is one more episode of My Daily Business Coach podcast coming out New Year's Eve. I hope you tune into that is going to be a great one. So make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss out on that episode or any future episodes of the My Daily Business podcast. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next time.
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 at @mydailybusinesscoach.
