Real Talk: Why Most Entrepreneurs Quit (And How You Can Break the Pattern)

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"Real Talk: Why Most Entrepreneurs Quit (And How You Can Break the Pattern)"

In today's episode, I discuss the following:

- Revealing why most entrepreneurs quit!

- The only 2 things you have to make your dreams come true

- The single most important practice you need to do daily

- What I created that has given women $1,000's of dollars

- What impacts your energy the most & what to do about it 

and so much more!

Other episodes to reference:

• “How I Quit My 9-5” From Successful Finance Career To Spiritual Life Coach” w/ Nora Virginia
• “From Scrolling to Sold Out: How she quit her 9-5 & went all in on health coaching” w/ Sam Freed

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Transcript

0:00

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Building Her podcast. I'm your host, Kati Lillian. If you've been loving this podcast, go ahead and rate the podcast five stars and DM me on Instagram when you do that, because I want to connect and personally thank you. If you are new here, hit that subscribe button. It really helps the podcast grow, and that way you'll never miss an episode. So let's dive in. Hey, my name is Kati Lillian, and I am obsessed with all things mindset, personal development, and helping you build the best version of yourself. I'm a women's life and mindset coach and an entrepreneur who started a fun hobby of posting hashtag sweaty selfies, grew a successful side hustle, and now I run a six figure coaching business. I teach you the secret of building a life that aligns with your deepest values and one that you wake up excited for. This podcast is designed to expand your mind and. Challenge the status quo. So get ready to uplevel your life and let's start building her. This is for you if you are an early or aspiring coach or online service provider. Basically you're starting a business where you are the service and you're wanting to build your own business, or you have already started. This is for you. I have so much to share with my background and I really do try to give a little nugget of wisdom or tip or advice in each and every episode. But if you haven't listened to it in a long time or you are new here, this is the episode to listen to because this is probably the most difficult. Part of the entrepreneurship journey and the most lonely part of the entrepreneurship journey. And so I just really, really hope that this is getting into the, the ears of people that really need to hear this. Again, if you are thinking about starting a business or you have already, you might actually be in this. Area that I'm about to talk about. So if we just wanna dissect really quick, the word entrepreneur, or again, any kind of preneur you are, solopreneur, want preneur, fem preneur, mompreneur, I mean, whatever. Okay. Understand what you are doing. So if you actually look at what a entrepreneur solopreneur actually does, you are creating something that does not exist. Even if someone else before you is doing it, it's still not your version, it's still not your business. It's literally not there. It is not real. It is in your head and. The birth of your business in our 3D reality, let's call it, is something that you have to believe in so much in order to produce it and then make it visible to the 3D world. Wow. Like just understand that undertaking right there. I think entrepreneurship, we've obviously glamorized it and everyone, and their mom wants to be an entrepreneur given our digital age, and we have this app called Instagram or TikTok like, I get it, but also I think we forget what the, the magnitude of what we're actually doing. Okay. So you are creating something from your brain, from your vision. That does not exist yet in reality. So that is this undertaking that you have signed up for. Now you can view that as, holy shit, what did I get myself into? Or you can view it as such an opportunity like wow. I get to create something so special and unique that no one has ever seen before. What an incredible opportunity and blessing it is that I even have the means to do this. So there's always two ways of the coin to look at this, however. Regardless of the perspective, the start of creating something of your own can feel very scary, very nerve wracking, probably a little bit of self-doubt in there. You're unsure. Insecure and maybe thoughts of like, why me? Like why did I decide to do this? And, and even if you don't have that yet, you might have it at some point in your journey, and maybe it's a split moment, a a mere little thought that just kind of floats along in your mind, or you get hung up on that and you get incredibly nervous or you get incredibly insecure and you stop what you're doing. The scary four letter word, quit. Now, I think most of the reasons why people stay either spinning, like stuck in their situation or they do eventually quit, is, I mean, we could name them all on the list. Perfectionism is a huge one. Fear of judgment is a huge one. What will other people think? The DIY loop, as we call it. So you just continuously try to do it yourself, but you never actually make forward progress rather than just hiring someone or working under someone to learn how they do it. And then you literally just replicate that. So there, there's a couple of reasons why people stay stuck or, again, eventually quit. Now, in that area that we're talking about. Is where most people quit, and I like to call this and name this, the middle ground. Sometimes I have the analogy of a bridge and it's a janky ass bridge. There's only room enough that's only wide enough for one person to walk past. And it's like one of the old dingy ones where some of the wooden logs and planks are missing and it's. So wobbly and you feel like you're gonna fall, it's gonna snap and break and, okay, great. So that's the bridge. Now clearly it's a very scary and lonely bridge'cause you're the only one that can go past this bridge. And what the bridge is encompassing is you're going from your reality, your current. Old past reality, you have to cross this bridge in order to get to the new vision, which is your new reality, but it hasn't been created yet. So when you're on this bridge, it's foggy as fuck, and you don't see the other side yet. You hope it's there. But there's no guarantee and there's actually no guarantee of what it will look like. It's kind of like that image where you take the leap of faith and he's on the cliff, and then there's the universe's hand or God's hand at the bottom waiting for you. It's the same exact idea. You're on this janky ass bridge. And wide enough for one person. You don't see the other side because it's foggy, but with each step you take, you start to see that vision unfold and the fog starts to disappear. Before you make it to the other side, but that bridge while you're on it is known as this middle ground, and this is the toughest battle you will ever face staying in that middle ground. And here's why. It's this battle, this mental, emotional, physical, spiritual battle between you. I am sorry. Between the vision that you see in your head and the shit you see around you, which is your current reality, and for a while, those two are not going to add up. They're not going to match. And you're gonna think you're crazy, and you're also going to be found crazy by the people around you. And you're gonna have those thoughts again of why me? Why the fuck did I decide to pursue this? And why is this so hard? And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's simple. You're not where you want to be yet, but you're also not where you were. So again, it's this middle ground and there's no guarantee that it'll ever happen. And if it happens, there's no timeline. We don't know if it's a month, we don't know if it's a year, we don't know if it's five years. We have no fucking clue. And this is where a lot of people quit. I see it all the time. In my one-on-one or my CEO program, you know, everyone signs up for CEO at the beginning with so much energy and they're like, yeah, I'm gonna do this, and blah, blah, blah. And then in the middle of the program, it's a four month program in the middle, between that two to three month mark when you're on the bridge, people start to teeter off. People start to not show on the calls anymore. People start to get kind of quiet in the chat. Why? Because they're not doing shit, right? They're not putting themselves out there, they're not posting, they're not having conversations. They're not having consultation calls. So what the fuck are they gonna use the chat for? Why would they show up to the call to say, ah, yeah, I didn't do anything this week. You see, people quit, but a lot of people also don't quit. Okay. And the reason why they don't quit, and I'm going to get so much more into depth on in this episode about it, but they choose to continue moving forward from a place of blind faith and keeping that vision intact. That's it. You've got two things to go off of when everything in your reality does not match the vision, you have to keep moving with blind faith. And you have to even remember and know why you're doing all of this for when you're stuck in the day-to-day mundane task and you want to be like, why the hell am I doing this? You've got to keep that vision clear and top of mind.'cause you don't have any proof. You don't see it in your reality. But when you have that blind faith and when you keep that vision top of mind, you have a feeling deep in your soul that you are destined for more. You are destined for greatness. You are destined to go places. That's that feeling that you have to stay connected to because that will give you the drive to keep going and that feeling isn't there for no reason. That feeling is there for a reason and that feeling is drawn from that bigger vision that you have. So it's really, really crystal important, crystal important. We're gonna go with it to have that clear vision, but again, to keep it top of mind. So. One other mantra that I kept using when I was in the middle ground and I only had faith and vision to keep me going is the only way I fail is if I quit. And so there really was no option of quitting because I didn't wanna fail. I just had to keep moving forward. And what we keep moving forward, there's actually little wins that you start to collect, which does start to add your. Proof bank, your evidence bank of, okay, well, something's working. Like, I'm not there yet, but hey, I, I'm gaining some kind of traction here. And so actually the, the longer you keep working at it the stronger your faith and vision becomes because you're starting to rack up the, the evidence and proof points. Okay, so this is the, the meat and potatoes of this episode. Which is how do we stay connected to the feeling that we get from our vision? Remember I mentioned you have this feeling deep down in your soul that you are destined for more and you have this feeling of, dare I say, excitement that. Oh my God. Maybe it's possible. Maybe I really can go places. Maybe this will work out. And that feeling you have has to also you have to stay connected with that feeling. Okay. So I would say the easiest way. To stay connected to that feeling is all about the vision. And when I say vision, I'm gonna break it down for you because it's so important. But I think most people kind of like scoff and they're like, yeah, okay, vision, whatever. Like, some people don't even know what a vision means. Some people don't even know how to get the vision or dream. And so that's what I really wanna dissect here, if you're the same way. Okay. So. The vision. When I say the vision, it's, it's literally an imagined future in your mind. So I'm here, Katya. I live in Florida. I have my house, I have my daughter, I have my husband, I have my two dogs. I work for myself. I have my coaching business, like this reality currently that I'm living was a dream of mine five, 10 years ago. And now it's reality. Now it's like it's in my life. It's proof, right? But. When you get to your dream and you fulfill it, it's not really about stopping anymore, right? Because now you're like, holy shit, this, like, this works. This is real. And so now you're like, well, what's my next dream? Or what's a bigger dream for myself? And so now I'm living in my current dream, but I have also grown and I have also expanded, and I have also lived and learned. And again, I had a daughter, which is such a. Crazy rebirth for me I think for women in general, but now I'm sitting here in my current dream, but it's like, well, I have now another dream and it's not like different per se, but it's just bigger and better and larger and all that stuff. So I keep practicing it myself. Now, when I think of my vision today, I think of. I think of a bigger house. So I'm in a three, two right now and it meets our needs for now, but we are quickly outgrowing it with the introduction of our daughter. And we also want a second child eventually. And so. We have baby girls nursery and then we have a shared office room for me and Burt'cause he works remote as well. And then we have our primary bedroom. So we already don't have a guest bedroom, so that's missing. And then when we have a second child, eventually they'll get to an age where they want separate rooms, right? So quickly outgrowing our current space. And so because we're outgrowing our space, I am dreaming of a bigger house now because I know the shit works. I am dreaming of a dream home. I love a coastal, modern vibe. We already have that inside, but I just want bigger and I want more modern, and I want indoor outdoor living. And I just want it all basically, and I feel like it's so possible, but I also don't know when it's going to happen, right? I'm taking my steps of inspired action, but at the end of the day, I don't really know when, so I'm practicing myself. How to imagine this. But here's the thing. I gain energy from that vision. So when I picture my dream house and when I see myself walking through the halls and when I see baby girl maybe growing up a little bit, right? Like two, three years old, and when I see I have my own office building as like a detached part of the house, and I have clients coming. Over for our sessions, or I have a guest coming for a podcast recording. That shit makes me excited today. So although it hasn't happened yet, I believe that it's possible with every cell in my body, and therefore today I get excited about what is to come. And that excitement keeps me going and taking action here today. So although I don't have it yet, although I don't have any guarantee, and although I don't have any timeline for this thing, just the pure imagined vision in my head makes me excited. Today. Now this is really, really important for you guys to, to let this sink in because here's the, the crazy truth of our imagination. Okay? So let's get rid of the word vision for a minute, and let's just look at imagination. Everyone always thinks when they start something new or when they, again, are putting themselves online or basically any kind of like unknown territory, usually we first go down this route of what if. And then that worst case scenario. So what if I launch my podcast and no one listens to it? What if I launch my podcast and everyone thinks it's really bad? What if I start my coaching business and I get zero clients? It's just crickets. What if I even separate from business? What if I move to Florida? And I hate it. What if I end this relationship and then, oh God, I don't find anybody else. What if I ask for a promotion and or a raise at my job and they fire me on the spot? Most of the time we always have like this doomsday worst case scenario in our head. Now, this is not because we're just horrible batshit crazy. It's because our brains are literally wired that way to keep us safe. That's what our brain thinks it's doing. When it looks at the worst case scenario, it's just trying to protect you, especially from the unfamiliar. Our brain does not like unfamiliar. We like familiar, right? Even if it's actually not safe, even if it's not what we want, even if it's not in our best interest, we choose to stay in that situation just simply because it's familiar. Okay. So when you have that doomsday scenario, how does that make you feel today? So if I say again, what if I launch a podcast and no one listens to it? That feeling tied to that made up imagined scenario that is future based. The feeling is worry, stress, fear, anxiety. I don't know. Oh shit, whatever. But it, but it's not a, a nice, attractive feeling. Hence then why we probably will not take action to launch the podcast because again, of that scenario in our head. So just recognize how powerful that is. It has not happened yet. Nor do we have any guarantee of that happening, but just the thought of this future-based scenario makes us feel so strongly about it that it will actually prevent us from taking action today and therefore affect the result. Okay, so now let's flip it. So instead of thinking what if, worst case, what if we flip it to what if best case, and sometimes this is harder for people, but just stick with me here. What if we launch a podcast and people. Love it. What if we launch the podcast and people can't wait to listen to it every single week? What if we launch a podcast and there is someone listening to the episode on the other side and they actually get positively? Impacted by your message and it impacts their life in a positive way. What if you launch the business and you do get a coaching client? What if you do pack up your bags and move from California to New York and you love New York and you think it's the best decision you've ever made? I could go on and on. What if you leave this shitty relationship and you open yourself up to more dating opportunities and you meet the love of your life and you get married and you have three kids? Okay, that's called what if best case scenario. Now recognize these two worlds. The What If Worst case and the best case. These two imagined worlds are both not real. They are both made up. They're both an illusion that are based and rooted in the future. We can decide, do we want to give more energy and belief to the worst case, or do we wanna give more energy and belief to the best case? Now again, they both have not happened, nor do we know will they happen. There is no guarantee with either. It's a 50 50 choice here. But recognize how much better you feel today by focusing on the best case. If I'm thinking, oh my gosh, if I launch a podcast, it might actually resonate with someone and positively impact their life, do you think that I am more likely to launch the podcast? Yes, because I feel excited. I feel hopeful. I feel optimistic. I feel like, oh my God, can this really happen? And those feelings want or push me to take action and therefore I have the result. So it's really, really, really important to. Choose your focus, and if you focus more often than not on the best case, that is called your vision, you gain energy from that vision. Remember, you gain the feelings of optimism and excitement and hopefulness and gratitude and abundance, right? We get to live with that type of energy today, although it has not happened yet. That vision is not here yet, but just thinking about it in our head gives us enough energy today to actually then take the inspired action, which will then undeniably lead to the result that we want. I just let that sink in and be honest with yourself as you're listening to this. Which one do you focus more on? Do you focus more on the worst case or do you focus more on the best case? Now an easy way to determine which one is worst case and best case.'cause I know I've, I've laid it out here pretty simply for you. But in the moment, and when you're in your thoughts, and if you haven't practiced this it, the worst case might feel very normal to you. So you might not even recognize that that's worst case. But what you can start recognizing is your feelings, your emotions. So if you're feeling. Pretty overwhelmed. Pretty sad, pretty, I would even say tired. I would say maybe moments of depression, disbelief, anxiety, worry, those feelings, they don't lie. And so then you could sit back, recognize how you're feeling, maybe journal. Maybe meditate to really connect and raise the awareness of, okay, I'm feeling a certain way. Then well, what is the thought? Like, what am I thinking of that's actually creating this feeling? And when you can detect the thought, that's when you can switch the thought over to. Best case. Now, I know in the beginning it might be really hard to do this'cause again, it's just normalized for you. It's familiar. Remember, our brain likes familiar. But the more you do this like a practice, literally like you go to a gym, I. Right, and you, and you lift weights and you have X amount of reps and you show up every day, your body gets stronger. The same thing happens with your mind. Your mind is a muscle. So the more you practice this with your mind, the stronger your mind becomes. And the scientific term for this is called neuroplasticity. So it does not matter where you come from, how you've always. Been who your parents are, how they've been, how you think you're wired and genetics, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Neuroplasticity actually claims when you work on your mindset, like this little activity that I'm telling you to do. Shifting Thero focus from worst case to best case. Your mind gets better and better and better at focusing on the best case first. So then you don't have to constantly catch your thoughts and swap them over, change the focus to your second thought, right? To the best case. But now that best case scenario becomes automatic. Just recognize that. So the more time you put into this and do the mindset work as if you were going to the gym for your physical body, the stronger your mind becomes now, just let that set in because. Imagine that day when you don't have to switch your thoughts back and forth as much. You're still human, so you do have to do it, but majority of the time you live, you get to live in that Best case scenario. Oh my gosh, your life becomes like a playground. Truly. It feels so much fun to do shit that you've never done before. You're like, oh, you wanna go here? Let's go. Oh, you wanna launch this? Let's launch this. Oh, you wanna do this? Let's do this. Because you live in that best case scenario, and that's when everyone talks about delusion, right? It's like you gotta be de Lulu before it becomes tr lulu. That is what we're talking about. You have to be so delusional that everything is going to work out in your best. I was gonna say behavior. Everything is going to work out for you. You have to be that delusional until it actually becomes reality. Now. The quickest way to do this,'cause obviously you could try doing it by yourself. And again, there's podcast episodes like this. There's meditation practices free on Spotify, on YouTube. Dr. Joe Dispenza's really good. I personally did Tony Robbins when he had his audio CDs. I mean, there's so much free resources out there, but you have to be incredibly. Accountable. With yourself and I guess radically honest with yourself in terms of how you behave. So are you someone that maybe has read the books, listened to the podcast episodes, but you're still so negative, you're still living in the worst case scenario. You still don't have the results you want, you still aren't taking the action you want. Well then guess what you are getting in your own way. And if that is your truth and you're like nodding your head right now, you're like, fuck, that's me. Well, then I would advise you to get help. I. And all I mean by that is have someone in your corner where you get to share like, Hey, I really wanna do X, but there's just something in the way because I, I can't get there. And I've been trying this for years, or, or I just started this and gosh, it's really not fun and it's so negative and I feel really alone and I don't know how to catch my thoughts, even though I've listened to all the podcast episodes and I've read all the books and. If that's you, then I would recommend finding someone that can lovingly call you out and lovingly point out, Hey, you just said this. That didn't feel very positive. Did you detect that? Did you notice that? They work through it with you. They catch those limiting beliefs. They catch the worst case scenario thought. They catch the feeling that you have tied to your business and they help you. Change your mindset, change your perspective, raise your awareness of what your current thoughts are. Now, is that therapy? Is that coaching? You have to determine that for yourself. I am biased. I, of course am a coach, so I would say coaching because therapy I know is healing and it's talking and it's raising awareness for sure. But I know some clients who do therapy. And all of it is good, believe me. But you get to a certain point where they're like, okay, well, like I have the awareness now and I have the healing and I have all this stuff. So it's like, well, like now what? Like what do I do with this information now? What do, like, where do I go? And if you're at that point, then I would highly consider coaching because coaching is all about moving forward. Coaching is about what are the goals you have? Let's get you there. Because even if you have the goals and they're lofty, you still will have limitations come up. You still will have fears come up because again, it's unknown territory and that's just how the human brain works. So I would recommend finding help, and if you're in that forward motion place and you want to make changes. Then I personally believe hiring a coach is the best way and one step further, if you don't even wanna work one-on-one with someone.'cause I do know that's high ticket. There are group programs that are out there, which sometimes based off of where you're at in your journey, could even be more effective for you because now it's not just the coach that you're learning from, but you, you get to be seen and get to be surrounded with other like-minded individuals when you're in a group. And I remember my own investments into group programs and masterminds where I was just floored with how many other girls were in the group that were doing things like me, but also some were light years ahead of me, and it was so expansive for me because I felt less alone. I'm not the only one in my world now who wants to be a coach and build this crazy successful business. I also felt less crazy because in your head you're like, oh, why me? Am I good enough? But then you just have this coach and other coaches and you ask a question. They don't think about your certification. You're background, what makes you good enough. They're just like, oh yeah, well, you gotta do this. And it's just like fucking go. And it expands your mind to what's possible when you sit in a mastermind and a girl is like, yeah, I just signed a one-on-one client for$15,000 and you're over here with like$5,000. You're like, I'm sorry, what? You just charge someone$15,000 to work with you one-on-one? They're like, yeah. And they're like neutral about it. They don't think anything of it because that's their norm. That's their reality. It's like. Oh, got it. Cool, cool, cool. Another girl had a launch of a$222 course, which I would consider pretty low ticket in the world of coaching, and she made$10,000 off of that in one day. One day, had a 10 K day. Yeah, that was so expansive to me. I was like, what? And she said it again like it was normal. That wasn't even like the win for her for that week, right? Because that's like her baseline. Now, 10 K days are normal for her, but do you recognize how expansive that can be for someone else who has not had that, has not tasted that level of success yet? So that is the power of putting yourself in the room with other like-minded people. The, it keeps the vision clear for you, but I would even say expand that vision even more because like I said, with my house, my house was the vision back in the day. But now that I have the house, well now this is my new normal. And so now this house doesn't feel so expansive for me anymore. But the, the bigger, better coastal, modern dream house now that feels expansive to me. You see what I mean? So there's different levels of your vision that you can have, and as you continue to grow, it is ever evolving and ever expanding there. There's levels to this shit. Okay. So to, to wrap it up. Keep the vision big and exciting so that you can feel excited and hopeful and optimistic. Today. Therefore, you are more likely to take inspired action, which will lead to the desired results you want. You have to move in that blind faith because your reality does not match your vision. That's that middle ground we talked about, but what what will help you get unstuck and, and move faster is getting a coach, getting in the room, investing into a group that are surrounded with other women doing the same thing that you want to do. So other episodes to reference that can really help with this is hearing it from other people's experience. So, Nora, Virginia, I have a interview with her, how I quit my nine of five. She moved from her successful finance career to become a spiritual life coach, and then Sam Freed. From scrolling to sold out, how she quit her nine to five and went all in on pre and postnatal fitness. So I'm gonna link those two episodes down below so you guys can also check those out to hear more of their story and how they made it happen. So that's what I got for you this week. If anything about this episode resonated with you, please do me a favor and take a screenshot of this podcast, post it on your stories, and tag me at Katya Lillian. I would love to connect with you. So thank you in advance and I appreciate you. Until next time.