What’s my Hangup?

As an entrepreneur, sometimes we have to be brutally honest. It is through this honesty that you can shed baggage and move towards a better place. In fact, the more I think about it, the more that this applies to everything in life. This came to mind as I was going through the 1st training lesson from the One Funnel Away challenge.

The first training day, actually considered pretraining has 2 videos. It was the 2nd video that triggered me to write this post. 2nd video I watched for the challenge is a video by Stephen Larsen where he talks about what to expect, how to expect it and how to handle it.

So one of the things he goes over is related to mindset. How we perceive the world and how we perceive ourselves and he called for us to be honest, to lay it out on the table.

Too Much Introspection?

Stephen said, be introspective. And that, that there might be my biggest hang up.

Introspection. Sometimes I overthink things, I introspect too much and that sends me down a deep rabbit hole, exploring a number of what ifs.

What if they react this way, oh, then I must prepare for that. What if this breaks, what if this doesn't work, what if I think about this again and I feel differently about it? I start thinking, oh, well I know how to do this, and this other thing so as soon as I'm finished, I'll do that.

The problem comes when it's time to do *that* then I'm exhausted from thinking about it and from planning.

I'm broken at home, where I've lost my zest for many things in life, music, fun stuff, I don't even talk to most of my friends anymore.

The only thing that keeps me going is my kids, my wife, my family.

There was also something I can relate to that Stephen, something he talked about. Money. Money is a big obstacle for me, I feel the same way he described it I feel weird about charging money or collecting money for my services.

Somehow, or for some reason, I feel like I'm just not good enough. I know this is a false belief, I know this is not true. But for some reason, when I do work for others, I just feel it isn't good enough, I feel like they could do it just as well and they don't really need me, so it's hard for me to ask for what it is owed to me.

Take a Trip Down Memory Lane

I have a memory from 13 or so years ago, when I first started doing things on the side while I still had a corporate job.

I went to service a client. I did computer work back in the day. I left the client's site, the work was pretty much like any other time. I had done a few hours of work, and the total came out to like 120 bucks. I thought I'll just go home, finish up the invoice and mail it in, collect the money in a week or so.

For one reason or another, probably because of how I feel about money, I never sent that invoice out. The days turned into weeks and then into months and I never collected on that money.

After a couple weeks I thought, what did I really do for that person? I began doubting myself.

I still remember distinctly, I replaced a hard-drive and a bad power supply, installed 2 programs and relocated a computer from a room to an office.

But for some reason, because of my hangup with money I was inclined to think "oh, she could have done that herself" I don't need to charge her for that.

I never did, this happened a couple more times.

It's Not Just About Money

This money thing that gets in the way a lot where I spend time doing stuff for people and then feel bad about charging them for it. I know I've come a long way, and I'm able to charge a lot more now and I don't have any issues charging the money. But now things shifted.

Now the issue has moved to a bit of a self-promotion issue. Where I feel like if I'm charging this much, then people are going to question it and I have to justify it.

I know I shouldn't feel this way because my work speaks for itself, but somehow it's hard to get out of my own way and it's hard to pursue the sale. When someone says "no" sometimes, I'm like "ok" and I don't pursue that sale any more even though I know they need me, and I know they know they need me, but I just haven't clarified why, I guess.