Overcoming Stumbling Blocks: Vashon Borich on the Four Beliefs That Stall a Business

You’ve been at this for months and the numbers still haven’t moved the way you pictured. Maybe you’ve quietly started wondering if the product is off, or your sponsor dropped the ball, or the timing is wrong. Vashon Borich, known inside Team Tough as the Tough Mama, opens this session by naming that exact moment and refusing to let anyone off the hook for it.

As someone who has poured real hours into a business that hasn’t paid off yet, you already know how tempting it is to explain a slow month by pointing outward. Vashon’s argument is that the explanation is almost never out there. It’s inside, in a handful of specific beliefs and habits she calls stumbling blocks, and she spends this session walking through the four that show up most in her own team.

Why do the excuses about your sponsor or your product never actually fix anything?

Vashon starts blunt: stop making excuses. If the business isn’t generating results, the product isn’t the variable that changed, your mentor isn’t the variable that changed, you are the one constant across every excuse you could reach for. That’s not meant as a guilt trip. It’s meant as relief, because if you’re the variable, you’re also the lever. Nobody else can make your dreams happen, which means nobody else has to.

She reframes the setbacks people run into as stumbling blocks rather than failures, on purpose. A stumbling block, by definition, is temporary and causes difficulty without ending the journey. Every person hits them. The people who keep moving are the ones who treat a stumbling block as something to step around, not a verdict on whether they belong in this business at all.

What is your own relationship with money quietly doing to your results?

The first specific block she names is a belief about wealth itself. Some people carry an unspoken idea that money is scarce, that someone else getting rich means less is left for everyone else, or that wealth itself is a little bit corrupt. Vashon’s answer is direct: there are corrupt poor people and corrupt wealthy people, good poor people and good wealthy people, and money itself is neutral. It amplifies whatever you already are. If you’re waiting to feel worthy of it before you go get it, that wait becomes the block.

The second is belief in yourself, and she ties it straight to your reason for doing this in the first place. Kids, a spouse, aging parents, or your own history of struggling and wanting to spare someone else that same road, whatever it is, she wants it written down so you can return to it on the days you’re tempted to quit. Her diagnostic question here is simple: is anyone else succeeding at this? If the answer is yes, and it always is, then the excuses about being less smart or less connected than someone else stop holding up.

Why does inconsistency quietly undo everything else you’re doing right?

The third block is consistency, and Vashon says this is the one she sees wreck more businesses than any other. A week of solid effort followed by a month of nothing doesn’t compound. It resets. Her fix is concrete: figure out when in the day you’re actually sharp, block two or three hours of that time every single day, and commit to specific revenue generating activities inside that window no matter what else is competing for your attention.

Or they may even go a month without doing anything in their business. And then they wonder why it’s not working and why they’re not having success.

Tied to consistency is her fourth block, focusing on the past. As Vashon puts it, “What you focus on, you will attract more of into your life.” Dwelling on old struggles or old mistakes keeps feeding the exact pattern you’re trying to break. Her instruction is to name the lesson, out loud if you have to, and then point your attention forward, because the attention itself is doing real work either way.

What happens once you decide quitting isn’t an option?

She closes on a distinction worth sitting with: the only people who fail are the ones who quit. If you haven’t hit your goal yet but you’re still moving toward it, nobody, including you, gets to call that failure. It’s simply not finished. That reframe does something practical, too. It takes the pressure off any single week or month being the referendum on whether this is going to work, because the only actual verdict comes from whether you stay in it.

Vashon closes the session with a short, anonymous mantra she’s carried with her about seeing opportunity where others see impossibility, and she challenges every listener to adopt that same posture rather than waiting for permission to call themselves an entrepreneur.

The full session covers each of these four stumbling blocks in more depth, along with more of the exact language Vashon uses with her own team when one of these blocks shows up in a coaching call. Create your free account to watch the complete session and download the audio at empowernetwork.com/watch.

The full session transcript follows below.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Bishan Borich, also known as the Tough Mama and owner of Team Tough. I'm a member of the Unstoppable Tribe and Team Love and Light. So if you're watching this today, I have a question for you. Do you feel like you're not at the level of success that you'd like to be in your business right now?

If you answered yes, then I think you'll appreciate this presentation. So let's go ahead and get started. All right, so today's training is about how to overcome stumbling blocks in your success and personal story. So let's consider this.

If your outside doesn't match what you want in your life, then I challenge you to ask yourself this question. What's going on inside? The reason I want to bring this up is because it's true. Your inside reflects your outward gifts.

So if you're not at the level of success that you'd like to be in your business right now, if you're not having that level of success you'd like, then probably it's something going inside. And I want you to consider, sometimes you may meet somebody and you may talk to them for a bit, and you don't know what's quite wrong. You can't quite put your finger on it, but you know that it's not somebody that you want to do business with. And you can't explain it.

Well, a lot of times it's because that person hasn't come into an agreement with their inside and what they stand for. We're going to go through that today. So, number one, stop making excuses. It's you that's not working.

If the business is not generating the type of success that you'd like, don't make all these excuses about the product or your mentors or sponsors or maybe you're blaming other people that aren't supporting you. Stop making those excuses. You are the variable that's the same. It's you that's not working, not the product.

You have to make your dreams happen. Nobody else can. So take control of your life and agree today that you're not going to make any excuses. You're going to press forward, press on, and have success.

So a lot of times the challenge that we run into are what I like to call stumbling blocks. Stumbling blocks, and this is the definition of stumbling block when I looked it up. A stumbling block is a… I love this definition because it tells you right there, it doesn't mean that a stumbling block is going to cause you to fail.

It doesn't end your journey when you come across a stumbling block, right? It's just something that's temporary. It's causing a difficulty. It's a challenge, but it's not something that can't be overcome.

So when you hit those stumbling blocks, and every one of you will, then you have to look at it as it's a temporary. It's a temporary thing, and you're going to press on and get around that obstacle. So let's talk about stumbling blocks, and what are some of the big ones that we often see in our business as online entrepreneurs. I'm just going to give you an overview to start with, and then from here I'm going to go deep on each one of these and how you can look at them differently so that you can quickly overcome them and get on to having that success that you deserve in your life and in your business.

So the first stumbling block is your thoughts on money. Did you know that your very thoughts on how you feel about being wealthy can actually hinder you from having success? Well, they can, and we're going to talk about that in more detail. Belief in yourself.

Okay, there's another one we're going to discuss. Consistency. Ooh, that's a big one, right? Focus on the past.

So these are some really good ones that we're going to go into. These are the four big ones that I've ran into with my own team members and even with myself, as I grew in my business in order to overcome these stumbling blocks, I really needed to focus on changing some of my beliefs about these things and evaluating my inside so that I could start manifesting success on the outside. All right. Let's talk about money.

Show me the money, right? Everybody wants that money, and when they go into business you aren't just going into business for your health. Right? Most of us are going into it because we also want to challenge people to be more willing.

Right? Right? Right? Right?

Right? All right. All right. generate income.

Your thoughts can really affect that. For instance, you need to believe that there is enough money for everyone. Some of you may have grown up in a family in which you believe that if somebody is hurting and doesn't have enough money, if you become rich, that you're somehow taking away the opportunity for that person who maybe needs it more at this point in their life. I know that may sound funny to some of you, but it's true.

Sometimes you might see someone who's really, really wealthy and you feel like, wow, I can't do that. All the money's already gone for that. It's gone to that person and I am just one of those that's meant to struggle. Change that belief by understanding there is enough for everyone.

You just have to turn on the faucet and get out there and go after it. The second thing. Some people believe that, maybe you've heard a saying, if you're a religious person, if you believe in the Bible, that it's easier for a poor man to get to heaven than it is for a rich man or woman, for that matter. If you've heard that, then you may have a subconscious belief that you are not meant to be wealthy because being wealthy is evil.

You may equate it to that. I'm just giving you an example. Really go into some self-evaluation. Look internally and realize, and this is a way to change that belief, that in order to help others, you've got to have money.

Look at it that way and I think you'll start turning things around when you realize that it doesn't mean that you're evil when you have wealth. You're not corrupt when you have wealth. There are corrupt poor people. There are corrupt wealthy people.

There are good poor people and there are good wealthy people and vice versa. You have to look at it as money. Money is noble and you can use it to help or you can use it for evil. You have to decide how you're going to use that wealth so that you can overcome your hindrances on money.

Let's talk about belief. If you don't have a strong belief in yourself, you're not going to have success. It starts with your reason why. Why are you in business?

What is your main motivation? What is your reason for having your own business? I'll give you a few examples that can really motivate people. If you have children, maybe your biggest why is helping them to have a better life.

If you're married, perhaps it's your spouse. You really want to help them so they don't have to work so hard. Or perhaps you have a big family or a mom and dad that you want to help support who's always struggled. Or perhaps you yourself have had a lot of struggles in your life and you are looking for a way that you can help.

You can help others so that they don't have to struggle as hard as you do. Whatever it is that really resonates with you, and this is personal, you have to know your reason why. I challenge you to write that down so that you can look at that and when you get down on yourself and everybody's going to have this in their business, you look at the reason why you're doing this and you start focusing on, hey, I'm doing this because of them or because of this. I'm going to keep going no matter what.

And that's helping to grow your belief. The other thing, and this is a big one, a lot of times you'll see other people having success and you start thinking, well, I'm not as smart as they are. Or I'm not as privileged, I didn't come from a privileged background. Or I don't have the education level that they have.

Or maybe they already were in another business and they brought all of those leads over. Whatever it is, those are excuses again. So here's the question that I ask. Okay.

Is someone else succeeding at this? Every one of you should say yes because there are hundreds of people within our business that are succeeding in massive ways. All right? So if somebody else is succeeding, you can too and you have to believe that.

So if somebody else is succeeding, they probably have had challenges. Actually, I know they have. Everybody I've talked to who's succeeded at this business have had some massive challenges that they've had to overcome. They've also maybe had some situations in their business in which they weren't doing as well as they'd like.

So you have to look at it that it doesn't matter how smart you are, it doesn't matter where you came from. It doesn't matter your education level. It doesn't matter. What matters is that if somebody else is succeeding, you can too.

And if you have that belief, it's going to extend and people are going to see that. They're going to sense that with you when you have a belief in yourself. All right. The next one.

This is a big one, consistency. This one is, I see this a lot with my own team members, they'll be really consistent for like a week and then the next week they don't do anything in their business. Or they may even go a month without doing anything in their business. And then they wonder why it's not working and why they're not having success.

So here's the question, are you really taking daily action? Evaluate yourself. Are you doing money-making activities? Or are you just playing around on Facebook all day instead of actually doing things that are going to move the dial on your business?

And we have lots of tools within our business to help you with a daily action plan. So you're going to want to follow that. If you're not being consistent, make a commitment to follow that. And here's how.

Number one, determine when you are most focused. So are you a morning person? Are you a night person? Are you an afternoon person?

Whatever time of day that you feel really motivated and creative, write that down. And then select like two or three hours during that focused period that you're going to work on your business every day. So during that time, and mark it off on your calendar, don't let anybody overbook on top of that. You're going to do three daily revenue generating activities during that time no matter what.

When you make the decision to do that. You're going to start moving the dial in your business because it's like, you know, the Grand Canyon wasn't carved in a day, right? What's the same thing with your business? It's going to take time for that constant pipeline to start carving away and creating income for you and creating a better life.

So realize that take those action steps and you're going to start seeing better results. The next one, work like your life depends on it. I think this is really, it has to do with your consistency. Again, but if you are not working like this is your whole purpose, this is why you get up in the morning.

If you don't have that type of motivation, then it's really going to be difficult to stay consistent. So you have to think of it in those terms. What if you had a boss that was a super hard, hard boss, okay? And they were looking over your shoulder every day.

If they were looking over your shoulder, would you be proud? Would you be proud about what you did? Would you be happy that you're pleasing that boss? Because you are that boss.

So you've got to work like your life depends on it. If you can commit to doing that for 90 days straight, then you definitely will start seeing results in your business. Okay? Obviously, I can't make guarantees because I don't know your work ethic and I don't know what types of daily money making revenue activities you're going to be doing, but I can tell you that in all the people that have put forth a 90-day business.

90-day plan, they have seen some kind of result, all right? So make that commitment and that's going to help you to be consistent. Here's another one, focusing on the past. A lot of us look at things that have happened to us in the past.

Now here's a big one. What you focus on, you will attract more of into your life. If you're focusing on your bills and how many bills keep coming in all the time, you'll notice that more bills start coming in. Or emergencies will happen which cause you to have to put more money out.

If you're focusing on that, more of it will come into your life. Try it. Try it for a week or even 48 hours. Focus on something negative and then the next 48 hours, focus on something positive and you'll see that what you focus on, you'll attract more of.

So change that perception. Start focusing on the good things that are coming to your life, the abundance that's flowing, the small steps that you're taking towards success. The more you focus on those types of things and things you do want, the more of it that starts flowing into your life. Focus on your vision as well.

So where are you going? Not your struggles. If you've had past struggles, then don't look at those. You've learned from those.

Say to yourself or even say it out loud, I've learned from that mistake. I've learned from my past and I'm going to press on. In reality, it's not a mistake. Everything that happens to us happens for a reason.

So look at it as a lesson learned and it's over now and you're going to press on and start building a brand new future. And then finally, take the command of your life that failure is not an option. The only people who fail are those that quit, right? If you don't quit, nobody can call you a failure because you're still pressing towards your goal.

You may have not hit it yet. You're still moving that way. So realize that if you agree in your mind and your heart that you're not going to quit, you cannot be called a failure ever, right? And you will eventually hit your goals.

I believe that truly and fully. All right, I'm going to leave you with this. This is a quote that I picked up. It's anonymous.

I don't know who came up with it, but I believe anything is possible. I see opportunity when others see impossibility. I take risks. I'm focused.

I hustle. I know that nothing is unrealistic. I feel overwhelming love. I embrace my childlike wonder and curiosity.

I take flying leaps into the unknown. I contribute to something bigger than myself. I create. I learn.

I grow. I do. I believe it's never too late to start living a dream. I am an entrepreneur.

And I think this is a great mantra. I challenge you to do it. I encourage you to start thinking that way because you are a business owner. You are an entrepreneur.

And it's not an easy path to choose. But it is so rewarding, especially when you reach your dreams. So this is Vishan Boric from Team Tuff, also known as the Tuff Mama, signing off with this lesson. See you on the next one.