How positive thinking killed my clients business.

I once coached a business owner who came to me after 2 years of gaining fantastic momentum because her company, suddenly stopped making money. 

She couldn't understand why after her initial (and impressive) success she was suddenly in a position of having to borrow money to pay her mortgage and buy food. 

Once we uncovered the problem, I was blown away.

“Positive thinking” had ruined her business. 

She had read several books and followed what the experts had told her: 

Only do what feels right. 

Follow your bliss.

You have to feel good before you take action.

Just think positively about everything you do.

Just visualizing will manifest your dreams. 

Her business tanked because she spent her time only doing things that felt easy and comfortable and more time visualizing her success than actually doing things that would achieve it.

Now these concepts are useful and valid!

But they are often taken massively out of context in order to sell them.

To get people's attention with marketing, things generally have to be made as simple as possible. 

And in order to stand out, any expert needs to have that one specific thing that they are known for, so that's generally all they will talk about. They will make it seem like it's the best or only thing, because that makes selling it easier.

Which is why when we look for business advice or experts to follow, it's easy to fall into believing that those out of context tools are the only thing we need. And then when they don’t work, we beat ourselves up and think that there is something wrong with us!

I’ve got good and bad news for you my friend. 

The good news, building a business isn't as hard as our brains want to tell us it is and we can make it less complicated. 

The bad news… There is no magic wand. 

To say that business is all strategy or all mindset is completely missing the point. 

They are the two sides of the same thing. 

If you have a great mindset, but no strategy then you don't take action because you don't know what to do. 

If you have a great strategy but a crappy mindset, you won't actually DO the things you need to do. 

Both are essential to creating a successful business that actually makes money and doesn't drive you insane.