What You Can Learn From Your Kids About Your Business Fears – (Ronan Kilroy FocalPoint)
Fears are not unique to the limited few. They are pervasive and hold most of us back from our goals at some point in our lives. Fears are mostly irrational but nonetheless they are very real. And destructive.
So how can you learn from your kids about fears? Well firstly you don’t have to have kids to learn from them.
I have two kids. One three and the other five years old.
It may be anecdotal but I talk to a lot of parents of two and they confirm my own experiences.
Generally the second child has less fear. And in my kid’s experience I get 100% validation of this theory.
Why because they leverage the experience of others (in this case, his older brother) and learn from them.
Let me explain by using a simple example. My eldest son when we first started taking him to a playground was terrified of most of the rides. Even a slide was a major obstacle. His fears were so strong that he’d hurt himself, that he wouldn’t participate. It took a huge amount of cajoling and nurturing to enable him to take the first leap of faith.
Not so my second son. And I firmly believe that he looked to his older brother, realised he wasn’t phased or fearful. And simply accepted this as the norm. So he just got stuck in.
This type of incident has been replayed over and over again in our household where the younger son has leap frogged his older brother’s progress at an earlier age. He simply has had less fear, because in effect he had a mentor.
So how does this relate to you and your business.
In a word Leverage.
For every challenge you have had in your business, someone has overcome it before.
For every fear you have about the future of your business, someone has overcome it before.
For every personal fear you have about your own future, someone somewhere has overcome it.
All you need to do is emulate them. Just find out how they did and copy the steps. Not only can you be assured with full confidence it can be done. You’ll have the proof it works, by either reading about it, or better still talking directly to the person who have done it.
Leveraging other people’s knowledge. And other people’s failures can give you enormous confidence about moving forward. Just as my youngest son, simply followed in the footsteps of his older brother. You can follow in the footsteps of those before you.
You have NO reason to feel alone or alienated. You just focus on finding the proof that what is seemingly impossible, can be done.
As you know I am a great admirer of John Boyle of Boyle Sports. He has built a €1billion business from scratch. And he is unashamed in admitting that he did so by following the structure others taught him. He looked at what successful people did. Emulated them step by step. And got results.
You can do the same.
Actions;
Write down now your main fear.
Now challenge that fear directly and with determination. Argue against it. Find the evidence of people and businesses before you who have overcome that fear or obstacle. And simple disprove your own doubts with hard evidence.
Follow in the footsteps of those who’ve done it.
Yes learn from your kids. You were a kid once. Who did you emulate?
Best of luck.
Ronan
Ronan Kilroy Certified FocalPoint Business Coach
Profitability, Productivity, Possibility.
