Are You Willing to Play Small to Make Others Comfortable, Or Are You Going to Go Big and Show Them What It Looks Like To Succeed?

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

One of the 8 core commitments I’ve decided to adopt in my business is to listen to empowering audio daily.  I must admit there’s been times when this commitment has not been kept, when I’ve found other things to do than listen to my audio. However, I’ve recently recommitted and I’m so glad I have.

Listening to empowering/educational audio daily is a core commitment for a reason, and yesterday was an excellent example of that reason.

Yesterday… one of my biggest fears happened.

Yesterday I cut a video talking about one of my recent wins. It was actually more than a win, it was a complete breakthrough moment. After I published the post I shared it with my subscribers, because no matter what you’re doing, the breakthrough I had was a nugget people could take and apply to anything.

Shortly after I sent the email I got a reply in my inbox.

Here’s what it said:

Hey Jackie

Love your stuff – must say though I think you are beginning to over promote empower a little too much…..

Anyway I have a quick question – when you did that last video did you have a script you were reading from an autocue or did you just read straight into camera from your head

Thanks

As I read this email my palms began to sweat, my heart began to pound, and my chest got all clenchy. It was happening… people were starting to not like me. (at least that’s how it felt in my head).

However… it was at that exact moment, a voice popped into my head. It was Tony Rush, from an audio I’d listened to the day before. He said…

You are where you are in your life because it’s where you’ve decided to be.

Then I heard another voice in my head… this time it was David Wood. He said…

Yeah, Dave’s a little hard core and a total bad ass.

Then I heard another voice in my head… this time it was Aaron Rashkin, telling a story from before he was successful. He said…

At one time he was working in a rented office space with a leader in his network marketing company. He was given a copy of the white pages and told to start calling. As he made all these cold calls he started getting ideas. He went into the leaders office and said, Hey, I have an idea. She replied to him… My ideas make me rich. Your ideas make you broke. Why would I listen to your ideas? She then went on to tell him that he needed to go look in the mirror. When he did, the face looking back at him would be both the problem, and the solution. The good news was… it was all up to him.

With all these successful voices in my head… people making multiple tens of thousands to multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars a MONTH, I was able to pull myself out of the beginnings of a tail spin and start thinking like a successful entrepreneur.

While my initial thoughts were about how I was affecting this one person, how others were seeing me, how others felt about me… I stopped that in its tracks and began to see where I’m at now.

I’m making decisions based on mentors recommendations. These mentors are doing exactly what I’m doing, and having the exact success I want to have.

I’m focused.

I’m taking action.

I’m not chasing all the shiny objects.

And here’s the biggie…

I’m finally making money.

So… I said to myself, who is it more important to make happy? This one subscriber, or my daughter when she comes to me and wants Horse Riding Lessons.

Do I want to say to this one subscriber,

Ok, I’ll play small for you. I’ll tell my daughter no, she can’t have the things she wants in life, so you’ll feel comfortable.

Um. No.

Here’s the thing I’ve come to realize, I didn’t come online to play small and be broke. I came online to play big, to make a lot of money, to have a lot of time to spend with my family, to live the lifestyle I’ve always dreamed.

I’ve had to overcome a lot of my own internal bullshit to get to this place where things are working. In the past, I’ve ignored a lot of great mentors so I could stay stuck so I didn’t have to change and grow.

But change and growth are what I had to have to start succeeding.

Because like Tony Rush says…

Your life is the product of your current best thinking.

When I finally made the decision to BE RICH, I had to grow. I had to change how I thought about things. I also had to know it was going  to turn off some of my subscribers who are perfectly happy to continue piddling with their sidebars, and trying to make their blog look perfect, instead of focusing on what makes money, and taking action that makes them money.

I sighed with relief as I went through this process, and the conversations in my head yesterday. I stepped back, realized I was doing the right thing for me, and I am who I need to worry about making happy. I need to worry about my family moving forward. Anyone who wants to come with me is MORE than welcome, and we’ll grow and change and get rich together. But those who don’t… well they’re welcome to find someone else who will make it comfortable for them to stay stuck.

As the day went on, the Universe just kept bringing me more and more positive reinforcement that I was on the right track.

I got an email from one of my favorite bloggers Ash Ambirge, of The Middle Finger Project,  saying she’d finished a great round table discussion, turns out with another favorite blogger of mine, Erika Napaletano, of Red Head Writing.

I went and listened to the interview… it was called Finding Your F-Bomb. It was awesome.

My biggest takeaway…

You can’t make people feel by being vanilla.

And if people don’t feel after reading my posts, or opening my emails… then I’ve failed.

From there I was led to watch Erika’s Ted talk I’d been meaning to watch for a while now, but just hadn’t gotten to it.

I’m so glad I did. Talk about a message from the Universe to stay the course, and be who I am.  You should watch it too.

So, what did I end up saying to this becoming-disgruntled-that-I’m-making-money-and-sharing-how-I’m-doing-it-subscriber?

Here’s my reply:

Well… if people don’t want to hear about it, they are welcome to leave. It’s completely changed my life, and after 7 years of struggle I’m succeeding, and I’ve got a whole team of people succeeding. So I’m going to keep singing from the mountain tops. AND the things I’m learning are applicable to any business… Empower just makes it easier. If people listen to the lessons, they can apply it to anything.

No I never script my videos. I just speak from the heart.  I was looking at the calendar a couple times, which is why I was looking to the side in that last video.

What about you… are you ready to decide to make your life look different? Are you ready to look yourself in the mirror and decide to be the solution. Are you ready to stop listening to the broke people telling you how to build your business and start listening to mentors who are where you want to be? Are you ready to GO BIG and succeed?

If you are…

Click the add to cart button when it pops up.

And GET IN!

You deserve it. You deserve to be living the life of your dreams… and you CAN.

Have an awesome day ~ you deserve it.