← The Amy Porterfield Show
The Amy Porterfield Show
#745: The Truth About Risk, Criticism, and Success: 4 Lessons I Wish I'd Learned Sooner
00:30:03
Essential mindset shifts that will help you build a business you love and enjoy the entrepreneurial journey along the way.
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When you feel like you failed, when you've messed up and you're really disappointed in yourself, speak to yourself like you were cheering up your best friend. I'm Amy Porterfield, ex corporate girl turned CEO of a multi seven figure business. But it wasn't all that long ago that I lacked the confidence, the budget and the time to focus on growing my small but mighty business. Fast forward past many failed attempts and lessons learned and you'll see the business I have today. One that changes lives and gives me more freedom than I ever thought possible. One that used to only exist as a daydream. I created the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast to give you simple, actionable, step by step strategies to help you do the same. If you're an ambitious entrepreneur or one in the making who's looking to create a business that makes an impact and a life you love, you're in the right place, friend. Let's get started. Hey there, Amy Porterfield here and welcome to another episode of Online Marketing Made Easy. I'm excited you've joined me today because we're about to dive into something a little different and trust me, it is going to be good. Today we're talking about four powerful lessons I wish I learned sooner in my entrepreneurial journey. And let me tell you, these little nuggets of wisdom have been absolute game changers for me and I have a feeling they might be what you need to hear right now. At least one or two of them. So wherever you are in your business journey, I promise you you're going to walk away from value from this shorty episode. So we're going to go quick and you're going to get a lot out of these next 15, 20 minutes together. So whether you're just starting out or maybe you're just hitting your stride or you're looking to up level, these lessons apply to all of us. They're the kind of things I wish someone had sat me down and told me when I was first starting out. But hey, better late than never, right? So grab your favorite beverage, find a comfy spot, and let's dive in. So the first takeaway is the money in your bank account is a direct reflection of the amount of risk you are willing to take. One more time. The money in your bank account is a direct reflection of the amount of risk you are willing to take. I want to share an example to really illustrate what I mean by this. So you might already know that I used to have a business partner. If you're an OG here, if you've read My book, two weeks notice. You're well aware of this, I'm going to spare you all the details. But eventually I wanted out of that partnership. I felt stifled. I felt like I had lost my voice. I felt like I had given my power to somebody else. And I just realized I. I need to take that power back. And so we started the long and really rough road of ending our business partnership. So at the time, I didn't know how to get out of the partnership. I didn't know how much I would have to pay to get out of the partnership because I was taking the business back. I didn't even know how I was going to run the business without my partner because he was a really big part of it. And even though I did not know so many things, like my friend, I did not have so many answers, which was probably why my stress level was 1 million at the time. However, even though my stress level was so high, even though I didn't have all the answers, I did something that I now encourage my students to do as early as possible. And that is I bet on myself. And specifically what I bet on myself about was I bet on myself that I could figure it out, even though in the moment I did not have the answers and I was very scared. So I bought my partner out in order to get him out of the business. And again, that was just a huge risk. But let me tell you, burning my business down in terms of what it looked like and building it back better led to substantial gains in my business. That was my biggest risk to date that I have taken. And here's what happened. So in 2017, when we were ending our partnership, we had made $5 million. At the end of 2017, in that calendar year, which is a lot of money, just 18 months later, I had generated $16.5 million. From that date that the partnership ended 18 months later, $16.5 million. And the bottom line is this. Sometimes the biggest risks lead to the biggest rewards. And it's about having the courage to bet on yourself and your vision, even when the path forward isn't clear. So this experience taught me that calculated risks combined with self belief and hard work can truly propel your business to new heights. So I want to pause here and just ask you what is a risk that you are aware of right now in your business or as an opportunity for your business that you are either ignoring, pushing off, thinking about, but not acting on, but deep down, you know, if I were to just do this, this could possibly lead to something big. Because the Thing with a risk, my friend, is the reason why a risk is so scary. We don't know. There is no guarantee. But let's be honest, there's really no guarantee to anything. So the bigger the risk, the bigger the potential for the reward. And does a risk always lead to rewards? No. I've taken many risks that haven't worked, but the ones that have, the rewards have been huge. Because for me, getting out of that partnership, it wasn't about the $16.5 million. It was my confidence. It was proving to myself I could run my business on my own. It was all the doors that opened up after that partnership ended. It was the happiness that I feel being free from that. It's a big deal. So what is the risk you're going to take? What are you willing to do? And I promise you, if it doesn't work out, you will always bounce back. You will. You're resilient. You know you are. Okay, the next takeaway is do not let criticism from the wrong sources hold you back. Okay? You know this one. You know this one. But I bet there are days that you're not really acting on it. And so I just want to remind you, because I have been a people pleaser since a very young age, and I struggle with it. I've gotten so much better at speaking up and saying no when I mean no, and not worrying about hurting other people's feelings. And I've gotten much better, however, worrying about what other people think of me and then going to the dark place that what they think about me must be negative. Worrying about people talking about me, worrying about people seeing an Instagram reel and thinking, who does she think she is? All of that has clouded my ability to be my authentic self. And so it's something that I want to keep talking about. It's something that is so important, and it's something that I wish someone had told me 15 years ago. You're going to be criticized if you put yourself online, especially as your business gets bigger and bigger. And that is okay. It's the price of admission. And if you get thick skin and you consider the source, you can let it ride off of you and keep moving forward. So think about it. Someone who is more successful than you. This is my favorite concept. Someone who is more successful than you. They have what you want. The money they're making, the business they've built, the lifestyle they've created, someone you admire. They are not spending time in your comment section tearing you down. They will never be there. Some of you look up to me, some of you, not all of you. And you think, damn, she runs a good business. She's done really well in the last 16 years. She has a great team. I love how she shows up in her business. And if you look at me that way as maybe a mentor or a guide, if we've worked together, if you've gotten DCA and you look at me and think like, I want a business like that, I can promise you right now, I will never, ever be in your comment section saying anything negative about you. The way you're building the business, the way you're showing up. I will never do it because I know how. How hard it is to do what you're doing. I've been there. I've been in your shoes. I still have my hard days in business. So I know what the hustle feels like. I know what the vulnerability of putting yourself online feels like. I would never tear you down for doing your thing. Even if it's cringy, even if I think it's silly, even if I think you're doing the wrong thing, like, oh, that's not going to work, or, I did that, that doesn't. I will not say a thing. You are on your own journey and I respect that. So when I think of the fact that I would never do that, I think of my mentors and think they would never do that. So why I'm really doubling down on this one is you've got to consider the source. People are going to talk about you no matter what, good, bad, and ugly. So when they do, you have to consider the source. They are either talking about you because they are envious, jealous, they have never been in your shoes before. They're not where you're at, or tearing you down makes them feel better, or they just don't want you to succeed because they haven't succeeded. Consider the source. And the kicker is that worrying about what everyone thinks, thinks about us is such a counterproductive mood. Mel Robbins has this book coming out called the Let Them Theory. And a long time ago, we went on like, a girls trip and she was talking about this, and I remember thinking, oh, my gosh, that is. It's such a simple concept and it can change your life. And I wish I had her book, the Let Them Theory. It comes out, I think, in December or January, so it's very soon. I wish I had this book 10 years ago. But in this book, basically, she talks about how to stop letting other people's opinions, drama, judgment impact you. Because when you let Them do whatever it is they want to do. It creates more control and emotional peace for you and a better relationship with the people in your life. So they don't invite you to that event or that girl's trip or you don't get in the text thread that you thought you should have let them. My mom always says it's their loss and I love that. And also things like this. Let them think that you're irresponsible for leaving your 9 to 5 job and starting a business. Let them. Let them have opinions about your business decisions. Let them make snarky remarks about your Instagram reels. Let them criticize your marketing strategies or your pricing. Their thoughts, their feelings, their emotions have nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. Did you hear me on that one? Their thoughts, their feelings, their emotions, their judgment has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. How they feel about themselves. And I think this is important lesson because I've let worrying about what others think of me get the absolute best of me. And I think it has really stunted me from showing up authentically. Now, over the last few years, I have really pushed myself to just be me. And I've gotten such great feedback about that. But for years I kept my mouth shut when I had an opinion about something or I thought I should teach it this way. But I don't want to offend that person. It was just kind of wild where my mind went. And after so many years of doing this, I've realized that it's my opinion of myself that matters most. I have to ask myself, do I think I'm a good wife? A good friend, a good daughter, a good leader on my team? If I think I am all those things, I think that matters most. And I can honestly say that looking for that external validation, it's just stumped my growth and it's kept me playing small and it's kept me going to therapy. So that external validation, if you can let that go and let judgment just kind of. What is that saying? Like water off a duck's back. If you just let it glide off of you, I think you're going to succeed so much faster. And it's a big one for me that I've had to do a lot of work around. Let them. As Mel Robbins would say, hey there. A quick word from our sponsor, Shopify. If you sell digital products in your business, such as templates, planners, checklists, guides, any kind of printables, your, you should definitely check out Shopify. In fact, I just did a whole podcast about how selling digital products like printables is a great way to get a quick cash injection. So I want you to upgrade your business and get a high converting checkout when you use Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period@shopify.com made easy all lowercase. So go to shopify.com made easy to upgrade grade you're selling today. Shopify.com made easy. The next takeaway is this. The only way you will find success is if you turn your setbacks into lessons. Now again, these aren't earth shattering. You've never heard these lessons before, but I always say, but are you actually acting on them? So as you probably know, I'm quick to be the hardest on myself versus anyone else. I've talked about that before. Like if I mess up and you think you need to let me know that I messed up, it's okay. I've already totally beaten myself up about it and there's nothing you can say that I haven't said to myself. Not ideal, I know, but it's just the truth. So I've learned the hard way that doing this is not going to solve the problem. I could beat myself up all day long, but this is literally a low vibe action that is not going to serve anybody, especially me. I show up as a weaker leader. I show up in my marriage as not like the most loving wife when I'm beating myself up over something. Now these days I do things differently. So let's say that I had a bad launch. I didn't hit anywhere close to the goals that we had set. Instead of commiserating over it, I used the experience as an opportunity to learn. Now, sure, I'll have my moment of being in a pity party like, you got to give yourself a day or two, right? But then I think about, okay, that did not go as planned. I need to do an after action debrief. And this gets me more into the data, the specific details to make it better versus the emotions of I'm a loser, I can't get it together. Why did I do that? It takes the emotion out. Remember how I said in many episodes data has zero emotions or feelings? It's the data that you're getting in the after action debrief. And so Michael Hyatt has taught this to me and we do it in my business a lot. Now, basically you sit down and you think about the experience. You just had a launch that you didn't hit your goals. You ask yourself, why didn't this work. What should be done differently next time? Where did I get stuck? What's the lesson here? What would I do differently? And you really dive into the details, but just the data. Just the data. So I'm going to give you an example. So in my last launch, our webinars did not convert as well as they had in the past. And I did three webinars and we couldn't figure out like, this feels like the same webinar we did last year. I didn't change that much and it converted like gangbusters last year. So what the heck? So I did three webinars and then by the fourth, I'm like, we have to change this. And one of the big things we changed was I went live into the members area of my program to answer questions. So during the Q and A, like, do you teach us how to do xyz? Oh yeah, let me show you. It's module two, lesson three. See this PDF here, you're going to get this, this and that. What if I have questions? Are you going to help me? Oh, yeah, I've got a 12 week community. But after that, let me show you our FAQ portal and how easy it is to use. So then I would show them. So, like in real time, showing them what the course looks like and what the course will do for them changed everything and conversions instantly went up. So I realized this year our audience needed more assurance, they needed to trust me more and I needed to prove it. Where last year that was not the case. But here's the mistake I made that I put in the after action debrief and after thinking about it, that's the whole point. You're brainstorming, you're thinking, you're getting all your thoughts out and kind of leaving everything on the table after the launch. And one of the things I wrote down was I should have caught the webinar issue earlier. I shouldn't have done three webinars that didn't convert as well as I had hoped and then changed the fourth one. I should have caught it at least by the second. And so now I know, like, if it's not going as planned, you need to pause Amy, and take a beat and say, wait a second, this is not normal. We've got to change this. So I shouldn't have done three webinars like that. I should have caught it earlier. Now I know, like, that will never, ever happen again. Lessons learned. So again, I give myself a moment to be upset. I'm an emotional girl. And then I figure out A productive path forward. And that's exactly what I have done with the webinar situation that I experienced this year. And here's something kind of cheesy, but, like, incredibly powerful. And I've really been trying to do this. When you feel like you failed, when you've messed up and you're really disappointed in yourself, speak to yourself like you were cheering up your best friend. When my best friend stumbles and falls, I would never call her and be like, oh, my gosh, what were you thinking? That was a stupid move. Three webinars and not fixing them. What were you thinking? What are you, a rookie? I would never say anything like that to her. I would be like, ah, I know. You were in the moment. You had all that adrenaline going. You kept thinking the next one was going to change. You were going so fast that it was hard to slow down. That is so normal. But now you know, next time you're going to stop yourself faster to reevaluate. But also, you still kick butt on all those webinars. You still made a lot of money in that launch, and we should really celebrate that. That's what I would say to a best friend. So that's what I need to say to myself. Geez, I wish I learned that earlier. And then finally, this is the last one I've got for you. Do not believe everything you think, especially your first thoughts. I've realized that my first thoughts about pretty much anything are not necessarily the ones I should act on. So there's this tool that I like to use. I learned it from my dear friend Jill Staton. And this tool is Catch Cancel Correct. And here's how it works. When you find yourself with a thought that isn't serving you, you want to catch it. So catch it and think, oh, wait, that thought is not serving me. Next, you're going to cancel it by shifting your focus just by saying, okay, that doesn't work for me. I'm choosing a new thought right there. You're canceling it. And then correcting it is choosing a new, empowering thought to guide you forward. So here's the thing. I have to do this, like, 20 times a day. I've gotten better at it. So I'm like, catch, cancel, correct. So let me give you an example where I'm really hard on myself is being a leader and being too emotional. Or I'm really struggling, or I struggle with. But I'm really focused on fixing. I don't need to necessarily say everything I think. So I said, don't believe Everything you think. Well, another lesson is you don't need to say everything you think. And sometimes I do. And so I'll say something. This happens most with my CEO. She's really level headed, and so it's very clear when I'm not. Because she's never spewed anything out that she's had to take back. She doesn't get overly heated. And it's not like I yell at people or. I mean, actually it's quite the opposite. I. I feel bad and I'm overly nice in situations, but with Jaws, my CEO, I'll just tell her something I'm worried about and dump it all over her. And so let's say that I did that. Like, what about this? And have we thought about that? And are you doing anything about this? I'm worried about that versus, like, calm down, Amy. And let's communicate that in a way that is way more efficient, way more for her to take action on. And so when I spew, and I've been really mindful of it, I feel bad. And so the thought I have is, you are a bad leader. That is not an example of a strong leader. You have to do better. You have to stop making this mistake. But it's like from this very negative tone. So when I do that, I catch it. So it's okay if I spew something and I mess up, like that happens. But it's the thought I have about myself where that really turns into something negative. And so I catch it. I'm like, okay, that thought about, like, you're a bad leader. You keep doing this. You're not improving. So I have to catch it first. And then I cancel it by saying that thought is not serving me. And then I correct it. And the correct thought I use is, you are getting better and better at slowing down and communicating more effectively. Because I am. I totally see my improvement. But it's so easy that when you kind of slip back into an old habit, you're like, oh, I'm in square one again. Like, I haven't improved at all. No. So I catch it. I tell myself that is actually not a true statement, nor does it serve me or anybody else. And then I correct it with a new thought. Something around the fact that you are improving so much around slowing down and communicating more effectively. There you go. Because if I catch cancel correct, I'm literally flooding my brain with the thoughts that are going to make me better. A better leader, a better person, a better friend, a better wife, all of that. So I think this one's important. And I wanted to tell you, my team and I recently created to me one of the best guides we've ever put together. And it's totally free. It's called four Ways to Rewire your Brain, Business Vision and More for unrecognizable success in 2025. And this guide, we just created it, it's kind of like a choose your own adventure. You'll open up the guide and it will say like, if you're struggling with this, click here and it will take you to the part of the guide where we're going to work on that. If you're struggling with this, if you feel this way. So you kind of choose your own adventure and then I give you the strategy that is going to get you unstuck and make you a better business builder. And so if you want to check it out, it's amiporterfield.com NewYou amyporterfield.com NewYou it is so freaking good. It's one of the best things I think we've ever created. There's something for everyone. You'll be surprised by some of the strategies I use every single one of them and it's changed my life. I really do mean that the strategies in this PDF have changed my life. Amyporterfield.com NewYou oh, and why I brought that up is a lot of examples for Catch Cancel correct are in this guide to help you choose new thoughts and help you really identify where your thoughts are not serving you. Okay, so there you have it. These were the four lessons that when I sat down and thought if I could teach my younger self these lessons, I know I would have gotten success faster and more easily. I really do believe that. And so when I ask myself, what are the lessons that could have gotten you success faster and more easily? These are the four. And notice that they are mindset shifts. And why that's so important is I really do believe that the majority of your success is going to come from your mindset and changing your mindset, shifting your mindset, strengthening your mindset more than any strategy I could ever teach you. And you know I love to teach you strategies. But my friend, the real success is managing your mindset. All right, thanks so much for tuning in. I hope you found these insights inspiring. And if you have a friend that is in the trenches with you building their business, please grab the link to this episode, send them a text. I think it could really help so many of our peers that are growing businesses because let's be honest, this is hard it's worth it, but it's hard. And so I hope these strategies help. All right, my friend, I'll see you on Thursday for more entrepreneurial goodness. Bye for now.