The Hustlers, The Dreamers and Me.

By Sandenn

What's Holding you Back

We all have dreams about our lives. Many of which are influenced by television, social media and movies. But some dreams of creating something for ourselves, waking up excited and taking pride in our lives should not be considered as unrealistic as Spider-man’s latest adventure.

It doesn’t matter whether you work a 9 to 5, shift work, have an advanced degree or a G.E.D. we constantly run into forces that work to reinforce the belief that we cannot accomplish our dreams of a fulfilling life and career. I’m here to help you break that mindset. I am an overweight, hard to look at white guy with very little athletic talent and almost no reason to think that I should be a success. But the pursuit of my own success coupled with helping others do the same has led to the happiest days of my life, regardless of the struggles that come along with it.

In this post I am going to help you destroy the 4 most common reasons not to start!

Reason #1 I Don't Know Where to Start

Imagine you’re on vacation in a country where the main language is not English. Or for my Francophone friends, French. You, your significant other, or your child has just hurt themselves pretty bad. You have to get to the hospital.

Obviously, all of the planning you did for the trip did not include memorizing the route to the hospital. So, what are you going to do. You start asking for help. Communication is tough since you and the people you ask are both using the pieces of each other’s language that you know. But the sincerity of your need and their sincere desire to help somehow results in you getting a full understanding of the quickest route to the hospital and the day is saved.

When you decide to start your new business, change your lifestyle or just be happier, you’ll feel like you don’t speak the language. You don’t know the questions to ask, and your ignorance of the terminology and logistics are going to make you feel afraid to even ask. But there are many people out there who without explaining it perfectly, or using the right terms will inherently understand your intent. Why? Because they were there once too. Pretty soon you’ll have the information you need to not only save the day, but your happiness for the rest of your life.

Reason #2 Fear of the Unknown

Worrying Does Not Empty Tomorrow Of Its Troubles, It Empties Today Of Its Strength.

We evolved to love the predictable. Our brain sees shapes of animals in the leaves of trees because in the early days of humanity this would keep our children from getting picked off by lions and snakes. The shame of this evolution is, as we became more comfortable we became more risk averse. Accepting loss or personal damage in order to sustain predictability.

This fear is what keeps you in the job you hate, the town you loathe, and stops you from investing in your family and your own happiness. Watch the video on the side, the cure to this reason, is just starting. Start small and grow from there

Reason #3 The Money

I’m a new Dad and a Husband who wants to be able to support my family. You may be in the same boat, or you might be single with parents or siblings you want to help, or you could already be having a hard time making ends meet. Finances tear apart families, communities and countries, so you can’t take this reason lightly.

However, this is no longer the excuse that it was in the 90’s and early 2000’s. The maturation of the internet has allowed us to take our free time (keep your day job) and start building our businesses, brands and dreams online. We can take online training to learn how to build our e-commerce store, advertise on Facebook for a fraction of the cost that Newspapers charge. Start small and scale up as you need to. Eventually, you will reach that point where your “side hustle” can become your day job!

Reason 4
It's Too Hard.

Anything Worth Having, Doesn’t Come Easy!

Bob Kelso (Scrubs)

So yeah, this is not going to be easy. Whether you are finally going to make this diet work (trust me on this), or you are going to break away from your family’s expectations for you, or you are going to start a side hustle or business. It’s going to be difficult.

You’ll end up staying up late tweaking your website, developing proposals, trying to generate sales, or trying to keep track of remittance and CPP contributions. But that’s a good thing. If it were easy, everyone would do it. And, if you’ve made it this far in the blog, you don’t want to be just like everyone else. To paraphrase JFK, “We choose to go to the moon, not because it’s easy but because it’s hard.”

And then Tom Hanks from A League of Their Own, ” Yes it’s hard, If it was easy everyone would do it, the hard is what makes it great!”

All the great things in life, the things we hold dearest to our hearts were a labour of love and passion. But a labour all the same.

Time to move Forward

I Hope This Helped

Doing something new is never easy. And even if I’ve convinced you about how to deal with these 4 reasons today, it doesn’t mean that they won’t be back screaming at you to stop tomorrow. That’s why it is critical to find someone who can help you. Support you when the voices screaming at you to stop and apply at the Federal Building get too loud and convincing.

Aside from evolving to detect danger in the trees, our human brains also evolved to release chemicals called serotonin. These chemicals are released when we hug our children, snuggle our dogs, and help one another. It can be an immensely challenging journey but as I like to say, “The path you are on, is not the one you are bound to, and you don’t have to travel it alone!”

Cheers,

Sandenn