how to start a $100K online business in 2026 (even if you're a beginner)

Career Pathways
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Everyone says hitting six figures is hard.
It is, but also it's not, if you know what matters.
I've been behind the scenes of many, many six-figure businesses and the ones
that hit a hundred K aren't doing everything right, but they are
following a very specific formula.
So let's dive straight into the first part of the formula, which is a good
AF product or service, whatever it is you are selling.
I am shocked by how many people still rush through creating
a good product or service.
You can do all the best sales, best marketing, best everything
else in the world, but if your product is not good, everything
is a million times harder.
So I thought I would take the time and figure out what exactly it
means to create a good product.
And for me, it means three things.
It needs to check these three boxes.
The first thing is it absolutely has to solve a problem that people are
willing to pay money to solve AK.
It has to be validated, say it with me, kids validated.
And I have done this mistake so many times in the past before, where I
didn't even really think about that.
I was like, well, I want it.
I think it's a great idea.
Why when other people, because you're a very unique individual,
you are a snowflake, really?
So I'm going to start a sentence.
I don't know where it's going.
I think that's from Michael Scott.
Okay.
All right.
So class is starting.
Welcome to economics one-on-one.
We're going to do a super, super simplified economics lesson.
I know stay with me.
If you have a PhD in economics, you're smarter than all of us.
You don't need to write me a really long comment telling me about how
technically blah, blah, blah.
It's fine.
I know.
So let's just quickly look at a demand and supply four quadrant situation here.
When you create something that is in low demand and low supply.
It basically means no one cares about this thing that you're creating.
You're not going to make any money.
Chances are, if you create something that's in low demand and high supply,
that means nobody wants it, but everybody's selling it.
If your product is in high supply and high demand, it's possible that you
might be in a very, very saturated market.
And don't worry, we're going to do examples in a second.
So stay with me, please.
If your product or service is in low supply and high demand,
that is where you want to be.
That is the cash cow.
That is where you make the big bucks.
That is the quadrant.
I want all of us, all of you watching and me to go towards because when demand is
greater than supply, you get pricing power.
Pricing power basically means you can dictate what price you want to charge
because there aren't that many options on the market.
So customers kind of have to just go to you and you can be like, well, it's $300.
And they're like, okay, there are no other options.
I have to buy your $300 thing.
Right.
However, when supply is greater than demand, you are competing on price most of
the time with everybody else in the market.
I see this sometimes with beginner freelancers services is everyone's trying
to become cheaper and competing on price.
And that's just not fun.
We don't want to be there.
That's like red ocean, bloodbath, not interesting at all.
What is in low supply and low demand?
For example, a video editor that only edits with windows movie maker.
I don't think I have ever seen a job hosting for somebody to
edit with windows movie maker.
Nobody's interested.
And nobody's really offering that low supply, low demand.
Okay.
So what about high supply, low demand video editing service, editing
anything and everything for everyone.
And I will say the most cold pitches I get in my DMS in my inbox are for video
editing services, and often they use this exact language.
Like I can edit anything in any way you want with any platform you want.
And I'm like thinking, I don't want somebody who knows how
to edit absolutely everything.
I want somebody who knows how to edit exactly for what I am doing.
I want somebody really specialized and good at what I specifically want the
style and format of my content to be.
Okay.
So what about high supply, high demand?
Maybe that's for a video editor who does basic cuts for YouTube videos.
So there was a bit of specialization there, right?
They do YouTube videos.
Now let's shift into low supply, high demand video editors that do a very
specific form of editing like the one I want, which is aesthetic video editing,
which is cutesy style.
They get the vibe.
There was extremely high demand for me for a video editor.
I got tons of pitches for video editors, but the specific one I was
looking for was in such low supply.
I spent ages looking for Maya.
I swear I looked everywhere.
I was typing in all the keywords.
I was on all the freelancing platforms.
I was even on Instagram, on YouTube, looking for editors.
And then when we started publishing our YouTube videos, there started
to be a lot of comments being like, who does your editing?
I love the style of editing.
I would love to find an editor who edits in this style.
So that's when Maya and I were like, Oh, maybe there's like high
demand for the style of editing.
Maybe we should start packaging up how Maya edits and selling that as a product.
And that is how we tried to find a quadrant for us for this new business
that Maya and I started together.
But I have an entire video, full length, YouTube video, full feature film
about validation, where I go into way more detail about exactly how to validate.
So if you want to, and I mean, not even if you want to, you need to start there.
I will link the video down below for you.
And also at the end of this video, if you want to watch that after this one,
the next thing that makes your product or service good AF is it has to solve the
problem better than anything else on the market.
And I call this differentiation.
I mean, I don't call it lots of people call this differentiated
basically answers the question.
Why your thing?
So then often the question I get to this question is, but Dea, how do I make great
money selling something if everybody else is selling the exact same thing?
There are lots of ways to differentiate.
We're going to go through a few specific ideas that we had,
but there are lots more ways.
So let me just go through these quite quickly.
The first thing is you can sell familiarity and we see this a lot of times when
celebrities start skincare brands, makeup brands, like for example,
Chamberlain coffee from Emma Chamberlain.
I buy matcha from her all the time.
So Emma spent years building her YouTube channel.
She has millions and millions of subscribers.
There's that almost like, oh, she's my friend.
I know her.
I trust her kind of vibe.
So of course, Emma Chamberlain did not invent coffee.
There are tons of coffee brands out there in the world, but she is
differentiated because she has that level of familiarity with her audience.
She spent time building that trust in her personal brand, aka this person is selling.
They're influencing.
This is a good cup.
It's not like other cups.
This cup is better.
And if you trust me, then maybe you're like, oh, this is that cup is better.
OK, maybe that cup, I look out for it next time I'm in the store.
You know, now if you're like Dea,
but I don't have an audience of millions of subscribers, I don't worry.
Another way to differentiate is sell specificity.
That means sell something that is way more targeted at a niche market.
So essentially going all in on a very
narrow problem or very narrow subgroup of people.
And often when you do this,
the message hits harder because you're excluding everyone else.
You're saying this is not right.
This cup is not for everyone.
This cup is only for you.
If you are 30 years old, you own two cats.
You love Taylor Swift and you make YouTube videos.
That person's thinking, oh, my gosh, this was made exactly for me.
It's going to serve me better than this generic thing.
That's for everybody else.
So Black Girl Sunscreen solved a problem
for a subsection of the audience that was struggling with sunscreen
that was made for everybody.
They solved that problem by creating
something that actually blends well with darker skin tones and bam.
And I think oftentimes the issue we get
into is we think, oh, it's best if I create something that works
for everybody, because then I have the most amount of people to sell to.
Would you rather resonate 20 percent
with everybody or 100 percent with a smaller group of people?
You don't need that many people to buy from you to have a 100K business.
I think sometimes people think,
oh, billions of people need to buy from me to have a 100K business.
That's not true.
100K is having a thousand people spend a hundred dollars with you in one year.
It could also be having a hundred
people spend a thousand dollars with you in one year.
It could be having ten thousand people
spend ten dollars with you in the span of one year.
OK, so you don't need millions of people in your target group.
The next way to differentiate is sell novelty.
So that's I feel like something we think about more often.
So, for example, Liquid Death as a brand is just fascinating.
They are literally just canned water marketed like an energy drink.
OK, except, yeah, they have good branding.
It's like this really punk branding.
It looks very cool.
It makes you look kind of a badass.
I'm sure it makes you feel like a little badass when you're drinking it.
But essentially what they're selling is novelty.
It's really good marketing, really good packaging, right?
Something where people are like, oh, it's the same thing that I've always had
and bought, but there's something cool about it is could you take something
that is ordinary, but frame it in a unique way, in a new way to pique
some curiosity, open that curiosity gap of like, oh, what's that like?
I haven't seen that before.
We want to break that thought pattern so that people pay attention.
Curiosity is so priceless in a crowded market.
I mean, I'm in a pretty saturated niche
with my YouTube videos, and I think of my YouTube videos almost like little
products or services that I have to market.
Right.
And we are in a pretty saturated niche in the business niche.
So we're always thinking, how can we drive curiosity?
How can we do something a little bit new
or fresh or novel with our YouTube videos so that people actually give us the time
of day? So, for example, this is a hat, right?
A hat is not really a differentiated product.
But I went across town to buy this hat.
Why? Because it says something really funny that called out to me.
It says, be your own sugar daddy.
And when I saw this, when I saw my friend
wearing this, I was like, where did you get that?
I have to get that hat.
I went across town to buy this hat.
Next way to differentiate is selling proof or credibility of some kind.
So, for example, Olaplex has their own patented.
Well, this is going to sound like an ad,
but it's not patented bond repairing formula that is proven to fix damaged hair
and has really good before and after results.
They're one of the most popular hair care
brands because I think they are very backed up by proof.
So that is another way of differentiation.
People want to buy something that works.
So if you have some sort of credibility, some sort of proof in some sort of way.
And I'm speaking often to my freelancers out there.
If your services have proof, you need to be differentiating with that proof.
You need to be showing people my thing works and it works so good and it works
like this and this is how it's worked and who has worked for.
Great way to differentiate.
Another way to differentiate is by selling convenience.
Make your product or service easier
to consume, to use, to buy than other options.
For example, HelloFresh.
HelloFresh, we have a delivery every single week.
This is going to sound like an ad.
It's not. HelloFresh is just groceries.
If you really think about it, HelloFresh is just pre-portioned groceries.
It's nothing new, but they are selling convenience.
They are selling the fact that I don't
have to figure out what we're going to eat every single night of every single day.
I don't know how everyone does that, honestly.
And by the right amount of portions and make sure we don't waste any food people
buy from HelloFresh because it's easier to buy from HelloFresh than it is to go
to the store and pick out a bunch of stuff and make that decision.
You know what? It's the decision making, the decision fatigue.
If you can save people decision fatigue, a lot of people will pay money for that.
Could you make your thing, your product
or service easier in any way, shape or form for your audience to use compared
to your competitors? Another way to differentiate is to sell
belonging, to sell community, to sell a sense of feeling.
So example, Digital Nomad Girls is a business I love.
I have been friends with the founder, Jenny, for years and years and years.
And it's essentially a big community for women who are digital nomads who travel
full time or have some sort of location independent business.
And I've been a part of the community for a really long time.
So most women don't really want to travel by themselves or with mixed gender groups.
Sometimes we just want to travel with the girlies.
And D&G solved that problem by creating
a like minded all female travel group situation via their retreats.
That's a great way to add on value to your
product or service is to add that sense of community.
OK, so you can think about that.
What is the feeling you want to curate with your product or service?
How can you make that feeling more intense for people?
People are lonely, so they will pay for that as well.
The third thing that makes a product good AF, it has to be so good.
People cannot shut up about it, aka it has to be exceptional.
First of all, there is like bad products
where you buy it and like, let's say if this comb broke immediately,
that would be a bad quality product. Right.
And then we get to OK products.
OK, products do the bare minimum, like they get the job done.
But that's kind of it.
Functional but forgettable.
Then we get to good products.
Good products solve the problem well, does what it promises.
We're happy that we bought it.
Now, great products.
I'm talking exceptional products.
They are high quality.
They go above and beyond the promise that was originally made.
Truly exceptional creates word of mouth.
Are people telling other people about your product or service?
If not, chances are you could be working on the quality of your product or service.
And I'm not saying that in a way to make
you feel bad, like you didn't do a good job.
No, no. I think of products and services as a continuous thing.
You can optimize. Right.
You can always make your product or service.
But there's a question that Alex Hermosi mentions in one of his books.
And I always think about this question,
which is what could you offer the person that they would be like all that?
That sounds amazing. I'm in. Right.
So that's essentially the kind of thinking I try to go to when I think about
products or services is what could I possibly put in this thing that would blow
someone's mind? And sometimes what that looks like is
just brainstorming a big bullet point list of everything that could solve this
problem for your person perfectly and then being like, what can I
realistically deliver of this big bullet point list?
I'm getting way too fired up now.
A great business is maybe a restaurant where the meal arrives early.
It tastes insanely good.
Server remembers your name.
They throw in an extra dessert on the house
when it's your birthday because they remember it's your birthday.
On the service side, it could be a freelancer who does everything
they promise and then goes above and beyond, delivers a little bit more,
suggests improvements that you didn't even think of.
They're like, oh, my gosh. And I noticed this opportunity.
I feel like this would work really well,
et cetera, et cetera, and organizes everything for you.
So you don't have to lift your finger to continue this on.
All right.
So that's the first part of a 100K business is a good AF product.
Now, the next thing is consistent visibility.
This is the second biggest blocker I see
all the time that people run into is they have a great thing or they have
a good thing and they just don't tell anybody about it.
They're like, well, I have a good thing.
It's on a website where the people banging on my door.
People don't know you exist.
Right. So consistent visibility is your
number one job as a CEO before you delegate it to somebody else.
Maybe people don't magically find you
and they definitely don't buy from you after seeing you just one.
Even the best product, best service in the world means
consistent visibility for people to be reminded.
Right. Because we're all in our complex world.
We have a million thoughts in our head.
So your job is to show up over and over
again, literally become impossible for them to not remember you or not find you.
So a great example is Duolingo.
Duolingo has had an insane visibility strategy on TikTok.
They hired a really great social media
manager, a Gen Z social media manager, and they are on everyone's for you pay.
Before that, I feel like Duolingo was kind of I mean, I don't want to say it,
but like obsolete, like I didn't really think of them as a brand at all.
But once they were starting to kill it
on social media, I started thinking about Duolingo regularly.
I was reminded of them all the time when they were on my for you page.
I'm not even the target audience, really,
because I'm not learning any language or anything.
But they were still so visible that maybe
if somebody had asked me about language learning, I would have been like,
oh, have you checked out Duolingo?
So how do you get consistent visibility?
Essentially, you need a marketing system.
And I say the word system very intentionally.
So a system is comprised of two things.
One, a repeatable daily or weekly system
for marketing your product and two consistent feedback to make your
marketing system better to figure out what's working and what's not working.
Right.
So the first thing is you have to find your people.
Where are your people existing?
Where do they spawn organically?
Where are they chatting?
Where are they hanging out?
Where do they spend their time?
Example, let's say you are a macho cafe.
Maybe your marketing system consists of
listening on Google Maps and posting a set of drinks on Instagram and TikTok.
Because that's where your target audience is.
Maybe you're sharing about promos and local Facebook groups because there are
local like geographical Facebook groups and you want people who are close by to come.
Maybe you sponsor local micro influencers.
Maybe you get on local blogs.
Maybe you play with some paid ads with like a geo targeting or something like
that. Let's say you're a wedding planner, maybe your target audience is
20 to 30 year old brides, then they are probably on Instagram, TikTok.
Maybe you show behind the scenes of wedding planning there.
Maybe you tag venues that are locally so
that people who are scoping those venues see the wedding planner that tag that venue.
Maybe you create wedding inspo boards
on Pinterest because, you know, your person is pinning on Pinterest.
Maybe you're listing on wedding directories.
Maybe you're providing free value in local Facebook groups for like, you know,
whether those groups like Brides of 2025, Brides of 2026, that kind of stuff.
Maybe you're running some paid ads.
So trying to be everywhere at the same
time, I feel like is the fastest way to burn out and get zero results.
I hear that from beginner business owners all the time.
And I mean, I did this as well in the beginning.
So, like, I definitely was like, I have to do everything because everyone else is
doing everything, but you can't do that consistently.
So, again, we're all about consistency.
So I always recommend starting smaller,
starting more manageable so that you're like, OK, I'm getting the hang of this.
I'm feeling good about it.
I feel like this habit is integrated into my daily routine.
And now I can, I don't know, like go and do something else now.
So I want you to pick one maximum two
platforms, commit to it and post consistently for at least three months,
actually figure out what's working well there, test it.
And then if you have like once again,
that habit is ingrained, then you can start doing more and more
things, especially if you're a solopreneur, like you're only one person.
You can't do that many things.
So let yourself off the hook for being everywhere all at the same time.
OK, so here's the step by step marketing system.
Figure out where your target audience is, where are they hanging out?
Where are they chilling? Pick one to two channels to start.
Build that daily and weekly routine.
What are you going to do every single day?
What are you going to do every single week?
So, for example, if you're like, I'm going to go all in on Instagram.
OK, so what are you doing every single week?
Maybe you're working on Instagram 20
to 30 minutes every single day, depending on your time budget.
Do it for a few months.
Track what's working, what's not working, what and then learn.
So important, learn about the platform that you are committed to.
Right. Just posting is not enough learning.
Like, for example, if I just kept posting
YouTube videos without learning about YouTube packaging, YouTube content,
you have retention, all of these things, my YouTube videos would be getting zero views.
It's very important to dedicate time and learning to the platform of your choice.
Test, tweak, keep going.
That is how you get consistent visibility.
Amazing. We did it.
OK, let's get to the third part of this formula.
The third part of this formula is a funnel that converts.
OK, so convincing someone to buy something from you is a process
and a process can also be called a sales funnel.
I know sometimes the idea of a sales funnel can feel intimidating.
So I'm going to try to not make it intimidating.
A sales funnel is essentially like dating.
When you first meet someone, they have no clue who you are.
You can't straight up be like, let's go to Vegas, let's get married.
Let's elope. Right.
That's too big of a step.
It's like meeting somebody who has no clue who you are,
no trust built on me, like buy my product.
It's a thousand dollars. It's great.
I promise you'd be like, huh?
You're actually going to lose. Right.
So sales funnel, first step awareness.
They become aware of you. They're like, oh, interesting.
Period. Next one is interest.
Oh, that's kind of interesting.
Evaluation.
Oh, OK. I'm deciding between a few options.
I'm curious about your thing.
What kind of proof do you have?
What's your offer?
Blah, blah, blah. Then buy.
Right. So it really helps people go from who's this?
Who are you? Why should I care?
To I trust you enough to give you my hard
earned money, which is the biggest commitment somebody can give you.
So, example, let's say your service based business.
Right. Let's say you're a freelancer.
You sell some sort of service.
You're a hairdresser. You are a social media manager.
Whatever service based businesses.
Maybe your first step of awareness is
sending a cold pitch about something specific you could help with to somebody
that you think you could really help and add some proof.
Right. And maybe the first step you take to
build some of that trust is to offer a mini trial, a low commitment,
something easy for them to say, yes, use it.
I would love to help you with this like
small thing for like maybe fifty dollars or one hundred dollars or something
like that, just to show you what I can do, because I would love to work with you.
OK, and then maybe once that works well, then you pitch a long term proposal.
And if you're like, yeah, that could never work.
It works. It works all the time.
And actually, Kirsten on my team,
who I've been working with for over a year now, this is exactly the funnel she
used on me when I had no clue who she was.
I had no clue who she was.
I didn't get a referral from anyone about her.
I didn't know anything about her.
She just appeared in my inbox.
Great pitch, great mini trial offer.
I took her up on it. She was amazing.
Now we've been working together for a year.
I've paid her thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars.
Really, I don't want you to get fussed with the technicality of the funnel.
I want you to be thinking, how do I build trust with someone step by step?
Another example, let's say you have a product based business.
So let's say the visibility strategy you
pick is you're going to go all in on YouTube.
So you post helpful YouTube videos that solve specific problems for your person.
And in those videos, you mention your freebie, your lead magnet.
In the video, you share the link down below.
People who are curious can go to it, right?
They sign up for the freebie.
They get your email sequence.
They're starting to get nurtured.
They're like, oh, this is what this person's about.
Oh, interesting. And then, oh, that's her story.
OK, interesting. And this is how she helps.
Oh, and she's like really qualified, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Right. Building trust.
And then slowly you invite them to purchase your product,
whether that's a digital product like a program or a workshop or actually a
product, like maybe you then sell them this cup.
So my super important note here, if it wasn't obvious by now, is you cannot
and should not promote your products or services right away to a cold person,
to a cold stranger. People need to trust you first before
they will hear what you are saying.
So there are lots of ways to build trustworthiness, right?
Giving genuine value before promoting
your product, a great way also to show your credibility,
to show like you know what you're talking about.
You're not just in it to try to get money from them ASAP.
Showing up consistently without disappearing every other week or month.
Again, time, I think, is one of the biggest factors to build trust.
Like if you think of any good relationship
in your life, the ones you trust the person the most, it's probably a factor of time.
And it's also why it's so important not
to burn yourself out trying to do absolutely everything,
because when you burn yourself out, you can't be consistent.
We're playing the long game.
I want you to build a sustainable business
where you can show up every single week and be excited about everything you're
doing, OK? Oh, my God, my throat.
I'm sweating. Oh, my God.
It was at this moment that he knew he f***ed up.
Oh, my God. Can you see that?
Oh, my God, Maya.
Maya, you didn't tell me.
Oh, my God, I'm scared.
Could you see that the whole video?
I'm actually scared. I shouldn't have worn this shirt.
I should have worn a black shirt.
I'm just not going to move my arm anywhere.
Another way to build trust is to give
them a chance to test a small part of your offer before they commit.
Right. So that's like the free trial thing.
We see all the time replying to DMs and
inquiries and emails without treating them as leads that you now have to convince
to buy, right, just genuinely helping them and being like, let me figure out if this
is actually a good fit for you, because maybe not.
And I would just tell you that honestly.
And I do that all the time.
And my emails is when people email me and they're like, they tell me all this stuff.
I'm like, actually, I don't think my product or service is right for you.
And I think that's really important.
Show your legit post case studies, post
reviews, post testimonials to show people like I'm not lying about what I am saying.
I actually know what I'm talking about.
OK, show behind the scenes.
Be real, be authentic. Don't over curate everything.
My hands glued to my side now.
I'm not lifting up this arm.
Sometimes I feel like over curation leads
to a sense of distress because I'm like, oh, I feel like you're trying to be too
perfect, like too polished, too put together.
I don't know what's real or what's not.
And I think that's why it's important to show the behind the scenes.
So making sales is not magic, it's math.
And when I learned this, it kind of changed everything for me
because it started to make things less personal.
Like if I wasn't getting sales, it's not, oh, something is wrong.
Something's wrong with me. Something is really wrong with me.
I'm doing something bad. It's just math.
You look at the funnel, you look at where people are dropping off.
There are standard industry benchmarks for conversion rates,
conversion rates every step of the way.
That's what we want to look at.
So work backwards, for example, you want to make a hundred K,
like I was saying, that is a thousand people spending a hundred dollars with you.
What would it take to get a thousand people to buy from you?
You work backwards by figuring out
your sales conversion rate every step of the way.
Let's say, you know, your sales conversion rate is two to three percent.
That means of a hundred people that see your offer, two to three people buy.
OK, so if we now need to get a thousand
people to buy, how many people would need to see our offer?
Let's do the math.
I'm so proud of myself for doing that math backwards.
OK, so if you need a thousand people to buy from you in a span of a year
because your offer is one hundred dollars and you want to make one hundred K
and you have a two percent conversion rate,
then you need fifty thousand people in the span of a year to see your offer.
Fifty thousand divided by twelve is four thousand one hundred sixty six point six.
Infinite, right?
So the math tells you if you get four thousand one hundred sixty six people
seeing your offer every single month, then you can hit one hundred K.
If your product is one hundred dollars
and your sales conversion rate is two to three percent.
So check your funnel.
Two things you could do if things are not happening the way you want them to happen.
You're not getting enough sales.
You're tons of people are seeing the offer, but they're not buying.
Number one, improve the conversion rate
of every step of the funnel, figure out where people are dropping off.
If people are hitting your freebie page, but nobody is opting into your freebie.
Big issue. Freebie might not be interesting enough.
Work on the freebie first.
If people are opting into the freebie,
they are during the email series, but they're not opening the emails.
Emails are probably the problem.
Work on your emails.
If people are clicking on the emails and going to your sales page,
but they're hitting the sales page, they're not buying.
Sales page is probably the problem.
If they're on the sales page, they hit the sales page.
They go to checkout.
They're not buying. Checkout is probably the problem.
So two things you can do,
improve the conversion rate of every step of the funnel or bring more people
into your funnel by increasing traffic, by consistent visibility.
OK, visibility strategy system.
So that's really the only two things you need to be focused on as a CEO.
Make sure your funnel flows, make sure the conversion rates are good.
Then visibility, bringing people in to the funnel.
Amazing. OK, now you're like, damn, I have a good product.
People are seeing it. My funnel works.
What else could there be?
What else could I be missing?
Arguably the biggest thing, which is the inner work.
And I don't want to lose you at this stage.
I don't want people clicking out because this is the biggest problem,
honestly, that I have seen from business owners who are not hitting 100K.
They are not doing the inner work that they need to
to help themselves get through the mindset hurdles that they are crossing.
And it makes everything a million times harder.
If you are not on top of your mindset, oftentimes your biggest blocker is not
time, it's not money, it's not procrastination, laziness, world life,
the biggest blocker most of the time in my experience for me as well.
It's me. I'm the problem. It's me.
So odds are you already know what you need to do,
especially if you watch this video this far.
You know what you need to do next.
So why aren't you doing it right?
There's some sort of mindset block there.
It could be fear of rejection, fear of being cringy,
fear of visibility, fear of success, the pressure to keep up,
fear of disappointing people, fear of wasting your time.
Perfectionism disguised as over planning, fear of change.
So many things.
There's this great quote from a great book,
Brianna Waste the Mountain as you have a whole video on it.
I highly recommend going to watch that because that one dives into way more
detail about all of this stuff.
If you know that this is your biggest blocker.
This great quote is self-sabotage is
what happens when we refuse to consciously meet our innermost needs,
often because we do not believe we are capable of handling them.
So often how we protect ourselves is we'll do a bunch of this,
like not real work that doesn't move the needle to protect us
from doing the work that's actually important.
So we might over plan the vision of our business for the 100th time.
We're setting up notion templates to organize our business,
redoing our website, our portfolio a million times,
overanalyzing the strategy, spending way too much time making the logo,
the branding, everything, all this stuff that's like it feels productive.
But it is not when you actually need
to maybe learn a skill that makes you a little uncomfortable.
So you know how to do something.
Maybe it's emailing five potential
customers or leads about your offer called pitching.
Maybe it's pitching your offer in a private community.
Maybe it's making your sales page, even if it's not perfect,
even if it's a little bit messy, maybe it's setting up a payment link
and actually sending it to that person who was interested in your offer.
And then you go to them.
So here are two exercises that really helped me work through mindset blocks.
The first exercise is I call the I reckon exercise.
So basically what I do is I write down
absolutely everything that's currently holding me back, all the fears,
anxious thoughts, all the what if questions that are like ruminating.
And then I go through each one and I ask
myself what's probably true or most likely to happen.
OK, I reckon blank will happen. Right.
So, for example, if I write down something like fear of judgment,
like I'm really afraid that my friends and family are going to cringe at what I'm
doing and gossip about it amongst themselves, then I would write underneath that.
I reckon people realistically are too busy
with their own lives to really be paying that much attention to what I'm doing.
I mean, do I pay that much attention to what other people are doing?
Like if some random person starting a business, am I like obsessed with them
being like, that's so embarrassing, blah, blah, blah.
And if I'm doing that, it's a projection.
Second of all, they're probably too worried
about their own business to care about what I'm doing and putting all the energy
into judging me. And you know what?
I also reckon if they are that obsessed with me starting a business,
it's something about them and has nothing to do with you.
None of my business.
I reckon my dreams for my life are maybe more important than what they have to say.
Maybe your fear is imposter syndrome,
fear of like actually landing a client or customer and not knowing what the heck
to do. I hear that all the time.
Fear of success is actually a huge issue.
I mean, for me as well.
So I reckon most people who start their
businesses don't know everything in the beginning.
They don't.
You heard it from a credible source.
Most people who start businesses have no clue what they're doing.
They are just figuring it out along the way,
just like you and learn during the process because they're giving themselves a chance
to even try things and learn. That's the only way you can do it.
I reckon anything I don't know, I can probably Google and figure out.
I reckon I can ask people for help if I
bump into something that I don't know. Right.
So that's one thing.
And the point there is to be really kind and compassionate with yourself.
Right. It's not to say I reckon you're going
to fail and this will be the worst thing in the world.
That's not the point. That's also not realistic.
Right. That's not a realistic, compassionate voice.
The next exercise is my is it worth it exercise?
So I take a piece of paper, I divide it into three columns.
On the left, I put the fear that I have
in the middle. I put the likelihood of it happening.
So low, medium, high. And on the right,
I put what success could mean if I work through this fear. Right.
So on the left, I might have like fear.
I'll waste my time on it and it won't work.
Likelihood. I'm like low because I think I'm still
going to learn a lot and I can apply that for the future.
So if I succeed at this thing, I get to travel the world.
I get to work from anywhere.
I get to live my best life, live my dream life.
OK, and then the question you want to ask
yourself is, is the risk of whatever you're doing and the likelihood of it
worth the rewards, the right side, and only you can answer that.
And if you're like, actually, no,
the risk is not worth the reward, then maybe you don't do it.
Or maybe your fear is you'll get bad feedback.
The likelihood of that, if you're just getting started, maybe is medium.
Maybe you will get that feedback.
But if you succeed, you might have the chance to make a lot of money.
As a freelancer, you will allow you to hire others and help them.
You will be able to build a completely
location independent business is the potential reward worth the risk
of potentially getting some bad feedback, dream life, a little bit of bad feedback.
I think, yes, but again, up to you.
There's no right or wrong answer.
Let's say you have a fear that no one's going to buy the likelihood of that
happening if you didn't validate it, if you did validate it, maybe it's low
or medium because this is your first time trying to build a business
and you just don't know until you try things.
If you succeed, maybe you have the business of your dreams,
the life of your dreams, you get to inspire others.
You have great impact.
You get to make the money that you know
you deserve to make to have financial security.
Is that potential reward worth the risk?
I think sometimes we just get so sucked up in the risk and the what if we forget
to weigh both equally, we're just looking at this and that's not really fair.
So the big lesson here is you have to do it scared.
I know you think there's going to be some moment where you're not scared anymore.
You're 100 percent certain, 100 percent clear on what you're going,
what you're doing, that moment does not exist.
It's not going to happen.
I do everything that I do in my business for YouTube scare.
Lots of business owners do lots of things scare.
It's kind of like expecting yourself to be ready to be a painter when you have
never picked up the painting paintbrush.
It's so important to show yourself that it is safe to try.
OK, even if you fail, you still try.
That's a huge one. Pick yourself back up.
That is a learning.
And that is the only way to make any sort of progress.
So build proof you're capable of doing this.
Take one tiny step every single day.
Take action despite the fear, despite the doubt you are proving to your brain.
Like, look, I can do this.
This is not the end of the world.
I know you think we're being hunted by a lion.
I know you think we're being hunted.
I was trying to say lion and tiger at the same time.
That's why I wasn't coming up.
I know you think you're being hunted by a tiger right now,
but actually we're going to survive if somebody doesn't buy our product.
We're just going to use that as data to make a better decision in the future,
to make the product better, to make the offer better.
So tiny steps.
This is exactly how I've started almost every single one of my businesses
for my digital product business, January 2020.
I told myself every single day I was going to work 15 minutes on my business,
whatever that looked like, again, tiny steps.
You want it to feel easy.
You don't want it to feel like now I have
to do a four hour time block every single day because you're probably busy.
Probably have a lot going on.
That is how progress happens.
Those tiny steps.
That's the formula.
And now if you're getting stuck on any
of the mindset blocks I just talked about, you're afraid of starting.
You're afraid of failure. You're afraid of succeeding.
You're afraid of being judged, cringy, whatever.
Go watch this video.
This is one of the best books I have ever read.
I buy it for everyone.
Normally I'm like no pressure, but now I'm like pressure.
And again, as always, thank you so much
for watching and I hope to catch you in the next one.
Bye.
