“The secret of success is this: there is no secret of success.” -Elbert Hubbard
I’ve had a really great time as a guest on a few podcasts recently.
The question that always seems to come up during these conversations is, “What’s the one piece of advice you’d give someone starting out?"
It’s something I got asked when I was acting as well, and I’m sure it’s something I also asked at the start of my business. Because we all want to know that ‘one thing’, and we all seem to think we’re missing it, that everyone else knows what it is, and that once we know it, everything will be gravy moving forward.
Today, I want to tell you all about that ‘one thing’.
I’ve been looking at the recent growth in my business, the amazing clients I’m honored to work with, and the life I’m lucky enough to live. And I want to give you a really simple, magic-in-a-bottle answer. I want to tell you the one strategy that changed everything.
I’d love to be able to point you to that one vulnerable post I made or the interview I had in front of just the right people that catapulted my career.
I want to give you the productivity hack and the one mindset block I shifted that solved all of life’s problems for me.
I so badly want to tell you it’s just been personal development and mindset work because that’s so much of it.
Another part of me wants to say it’s all about the connection and relationship-building because that’s also the truth.
I want to give you that ONE answer so you can follow a formula. But I can’t.
I was looking at where a few new clients came from, and here’s what I can tell you: none of them came from the same place. There’s no one magical strategy that solved all my business woes. There’s no single mindset or mantra I repeat every day that opened the floodgates of clients and money for me.
Every client and sale in my business is the result of a multitude of actions, mindset work, and strategy. Yes, my strategy is pretty simple and works. (Seriously, y’all, I’m not reinventing the wheel or doing anything super-duper top secret and crazy over here.) Yes, I focus on my mindset daily and do the f-ing work. And, yes, I take action every day in my business.
But there is no ‘one thing’. It’s always a culmination of many, consistent, small steps that create the results I want.
Here’s why this is important to know: Collectively, we waste SO much time searching for the silver bullet. We lose hours, days, weeks trying to figure out what that ‘one thing’ is or what the ‘one thing’ everyone else knows that we don’t.
We download another free worksheet, test the waters in a strategy someone told us about, or give a new message or niche a spin just long enough to let the water get hot. Then, when it’s not boiling fast enough, we figure it’s not the ‘thing’, and turn the heat down…often right before we’re about to boil.
It’s that gap, that time when the water is hot and starting to simmer, where I see entrepreneurs sabotage themselves.
Here’s the ONE THING I will say works: going all in on one thing and showing up every day for it. But, see that? Even my attempt at ‘one thing’ gave us two steps because it’s never just ‘one thing’.
Business doesn’t have to be complicated. This doesn’t mean it’s always easy, but it doesn’t have to be as hard as we sometimes make it. I promise you there isn’t a secret garden out there with the ‘one thing’ everyone else knows except for you.
Just like you can’t crash diet your way to losing weight, just like gaining weight doesn’t come from ONE meal, success doesn’t come from ‘one thing’. It comes from the many things we show up and do every day.
Stop searching for the secret. Stop thinking everyone else has it all figured out. Stop making yourself wrong, and keep showing up and taking the next right action in front of you.
Don’t discount the actions you’re taking now and not seeing immediate results from. Don’t discount that call you had that wasn’t an immediate ‘win’, or that post you wrote full of heart that seemed like it didn’t do a thing.
Small actions add up over time and compound to give us massive results…such massive results, in fact, that if you keep showing up and taking those small actions, you’ll be sitting there, just like me, trying to figure out what you did right only to realize it wasn’t any one thing.
You’ve got this. Keep showing up. Trust yourself. Stop hiding in plain sight. Own your message. Believe in your worth. Make offers unapologetically. Know you are enough. And, please, stop wasting time looking for that ‘one thing’.
Wishing you your version of success,
P.S. Want to check out some of those podcasts?
The Resilient Inspired Entrepreneur Podcast with Liz Lockwood : Grit & Growth
P.P.S. Want some help building a business you’re wildly in love with that also gets you paid? I’d LOVE to support you. Hit ‘reply’ to this email or click here to book a free call to talk about what it would look like to work together.
