The Mindset Shift That Separates Victims From Winners in Business

Most entrepreneurs say they want more freedom, more money, and more success but their language is telling a completely different story. In this episode of Success Is Not Convenient, Bernie Gallerani breaks down why victim thinking is one of the most dangerous traps in business, how to recognize it even when it sounds logical, and what it actually takes to reclaim ownership of your results. If you've ever caught yourself blaming the market, your team, your past, or your circumstances, this episode will challenge you to trade your excuses for a completely different standard.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everybody, it's Bernie Gallorani bringing another episode of Success is Not Convenient. This is going to be a fun one today because this really talks about the emotional side and the baggage that we carry into our business. I think that everybody has something going on in their life that creates them from either uh working as hard as they can or maybe that back past allows them to be exactly who um they want to be in order to get out of that situation. And so this is really gonna be a hit on your business and how you perform within your business based on what goes on inside of your mind. So um so you can't have true uh freedom if you're still playing the victim role. And so that's what we're gonna discuss here uh today is it's hard to try to forage your business if you're continuing to continue to keep using excuses in what it takes in order to run a really successful business. Let me say something that might hit you just a little bit wrong at first. You cannot have true freedom while you are still playing the victim. Not freedom in your business and not freedom in your financial position, not freedom in your mentality. You cannot have freedom in your life because the moment your results are always tied to what someone else did to you is catastrophic for your growth. You just handed your future to them too. And most people don't even realize that they're doing it. They don't realize that they're living so far in what happened to them in the past that it's hard for them to get out of what's going on in the future. You say you want more, you want more money, you want more control, more success, you want more time with your family, but your language tells a completely different story. The market is bad, people aren't buying, my team isn't strong, I don't get the same opportunities as other people do. I came from nothing, so I'll have nothing. I've been just through too much to even move forward. So let me ask you a question. At what point does that stop being the explanation and start becoming your excuse? Let me just say this to you again. When do you choose that your story is really your excuse and really stops becoming your explanation? Because we continue to keep talking to people about why we don't do things versus you continue to push that aside and say that may be who I was or where I came from, but that's not who I am today. I want you to listen to this. I'm not saying life hasn't hit you hard, because of course it probably has for a lot of people. And I'm not saying people didn't screw you around. I'm not saying that your past wasn't hard. I'm not even saying that the odds were fair. Some of you listening today, you've been through things most people couldn't even handle. Man, that's tough stuff. But here's the truth nobody wants to say out loud. Your pain might explain you, but it doesn't excuse you forever. It's just a time in your life that you have to get through. See, because if everything in your life is always someone else's fault, then nothing in life is ever fully in your control. And I love this one. It's like if you blame others for all your faults and you can actually control nothing. But if you look yourself in the mirror and you blame yourself for it all, you can control everything. And what happens is when nothing in your life is ever fully in your control as you believe, and then that's the trap for you. That's how we believe. And see, victims' thinking feels justified because it quietly removes your power. And by being the victim, you become powerless. That's not a way that you want to live your life. I wouldn't want to live my life to know that something else is in control of me, other than me being in control of the things that I'd like to accomplish in my life. Let me break this down for you because victims' mindset doesn't always look weak. Sometimes it sounds smart, sometimes it sounds very logical, sometimes it even sounds responsible. But it shows up like this: you blame the market, you blame your leads, you blame your team, you blame the timing, you blame your past, you blame your circumstances. So you just continually keep focusing on things that you can't change and then blame something for not happening because then that justifies your lack of movement. Meanwhile, there's somebody out there uh out there today in your same market doing your same thing and they're winning. They're winning every day. Same economy, same interest rates, same city, same conditions. So, what's the difference? Could it possibly be the way they look at the situation? They're in the same situation, but how they look at it could be different. I want to say something to you, everybody, so they understand this. The difference in one person studying the problem and the other person is hiding behind it all. So one is actually figuring out the solution and the other one is blaming the situation. That's not a way to live life. You can't grow from that. So we're gonna go a little bit deeper because some people say I didn't grow up uh with discipline, I didn't have support, and I didn't have any money, and I didn't even have any connections. I didn't really know anybody that knew anybody, right? I couldn't, I didn't get a leg up, let's just say. And that might be true, but at what point does that stop being your starting point and it starts becoming your identity? Because if your entire story is built around what you didn't have, you will never build anything with what you do have because you're too busy saying what you didn't have. And here's the part that's hard to hear for everybody. Some people don't let go of the victim story because it gives them something, it gives them safety to basically say, I don't have to grow. If it's not your fault, then you don't have to change. And it gives you sympathy from other people, which a lot of people like sympathy. See, people don't understand you. Instead, expecting more from you removes all the pressure if you don't have any sort of level of expectation, because now success depends on someone else, not you. And the biggest one is it protects your ego. Because if you're honest with yourself, some of you don't have a circumstance problem. You just have a consistency problem. It's an issue with staying consistent. And maybe because you're too busy looking at your past and blaming your past for why you are who you are today. Maybe you don't follow through. Maybe you just quit early. Maybe you got distracted, maybe you talk more than you work. I don't know. But it's easy to blame life than face the total truth. I know this is a tough one for people. It is, but I'm gonna tell you something. There's a lot of merit in grinding it down and figuring it out and take all of the reasons why and push it aside. And this is why I respect the people who refuse to stay in the in that kind of mindset. Look at someone like Oprah Winfrey. She grew up in poverty, faced absolute instability in her life. And if anyone had a reason to stay stuck in their story, it was her. But she didn't build her identity around what happened to her, she built it around what she was going to become. Who are you gonna become? What if what if you decided? Because no matter what you decide to become, and if and you write that down and you focus on it, it's gonna have difficult times. Look at Damon Johns. Damon Johns, he started with almost nothing. He was sewing clothes out of his house. No big advantage, no perfect situation. He didn't say, I don't have enough blank, I don't have it, I don't have the right connections, I don't have enough money. He said, I'll build it with what I have. Look at Howard Schultz, the creator of Starbucks. Grew up watching his family struggle financially. That didn't become his excuse. It just became his fuel to build something bigger. Look at Chris Gardner, right? We know the great story about Chris Gardner, the great movie with Will Smith, where he was homeless, right? And became a massive success. He was homeless with a child trying to survive. Most people would have folded under that kind of pressure, but he didn't. He sat there and said, Why not me? He said, What do I have to do next? What do I have to do to figure it out? And that's the difference. Victims ask, why did this happen to me? And winners ask, What do I do now? Like, how do I keep moving forward? What's the next step for me? So let me challenge you directly. Where in your life are you still blaming others? Where are you still pointing at something instead of building something? Where are you waiting for conditions to change instead of changing it yourself? I love that one because I'm in the real estate industry and it's like, well, when interest rates change, the market's gonna be better. The market's great now. Well, if housing prices were less, the house, the housing market would be better. The housing market's great now. Well, if we we if we weren't in a war or the stock market was different or gas prices were high, that has nothing to do with the housing market. Because yes, there's gonna be trials and tribulations, but you have to continue to keep adapting. Where are you demanding understanding instead of demanding more from yourself? Why don't you get deep into understanding the situation instead of just subsurfacing saying it's not my fault? Because here's the absolute truth. You cannot heal your life while staying loyal to the story that's keeping you stuck. You continue to keep telling a story in your head, you'll buy into that story and it'll be your reason for not moving forward. Freedom requires ownership. Not when it's convenient and not when it feels good, but all the time. All the time you have to take ownership. Ownership sounds like this it happened, but I will not become it. Yeah, it hurt, but it will not define me. I may not be at fault, but I'm responsible now. Nobody is coming to save me. And that's where your power is. Your power comes in your choice of how you look at the situation. So what do you do now? You just tell the truth. You audit your language, and you stop saying I can't because, and you start asking, What can I do right now? You can take action even when it's uncomfortable. You build proof in one disciplined day, one hard conversation, and one promise kept. Because confidence doesn't come from thinking, it comes from doing. You sit down and wallow in your brain, you can get pretty depressed at times. But if you start getting excited about some of the goals you have, it gets you excited to want to make movement. So let me leave you with this. You cannot have true freedom while still needing someone else to be the reason you're stuck. Because blame feels powerful in the moment, but it actually steals all your power over time. You don't you don't move anywhere, so you continue to keep blaming other people. It makes you feel good, but your life doesn't improve. Your past may have hurt you. Your circumstances may have delayed you, and people may have let you down. Life may not have been fair, but if you keep bowing to the story, you will stay chained to the very thing that you say you want to escape. Freedom begins with the moment you say, This may be my story, but it will not be my excuse. It won't be my excuse. I defy the reason why something tells me I need to be this way. I am going to completely change the way I look at the situation to empower me. Let that sit in with you for a moment. What excuses have I repeated so many times it feels like the truth? What have you done so many times that it just feels like it's actually the reality of your life and it really isn't? Where am I asking for understanding instead of raising my standards? What part of my past am I still using as permission to stay small? Who would I even become if I stopped blaming and started owning everything? Who could you be? Do I want sympathy for my story, or do I actually want freedom for it? That's the question you want to ask yourself. Do you want sympathy for your story, or do you actually want freedom from it? Guys, I want to say this to you. You can have any life you want. Happiness is a choice, success is a choice, financial freedom is a choice, high lot of relationships are a choice, but no relationships are a choice. No freedom is a choice, and poverty is a choice. You get to choose. How do you want to live? Do you want to live in the past as a victim? Or do you want to be empowered by your story and go out and make something really powerful for your life? Hope you guys have found value with this one today. Hope everybody has a great day.