Here's Your Permission Slip

Welcome back. It's good to have you this week. Recently I presented at a conference, and afterwards, there's always a few people who hang around and want to have conversation. But this time there were a handful of people that came to me with the same question, which was, How did you get into this? They basically said, I love what you're doing and I want to know how to get started.

They were looking for advice, but instead of giving them advice, I went into coach mode and started asking questions and got a little bit curious. What I found was that these people, they were well qualified. They didn't really need advice. What they were looking for deep down was permission. One person in particular stood out.

He had a background in entrepreneurship. He had owned a franchise for a number of years that was successful. And he was now working inside of an organization. He wanted to start his own coaching business, helping people start and run their successful businesses, but he wasn't sure how to get started. So I asked him, What's stopping you?

And he looked at me for a minute and said, I don't know. And that I don't know. That deep down was him looking for permission. You see, in the franchise world, he got permission from the franchise. He had the guide that showed him the exact steps to take, and he had the okay to go ahead in the world and make it happen.

The role that he's in now, there's permission attached to that as well. Somebody has always handed this guy the playbook with a permission slip and said, It's safe, go ahead. And we're all out there seeking permission to some extent. Permission to do our own thing, start our own business, charge a charge a certain fee, permission to show up and just be ourselves. Yet as adults, we're in this weird situation where nobody actually gives us permission, even though we're seeking it.

You see, we have free range, which is so weird, right? We have the free will to do what we want. Still, we have this need for permission, and it's so real. So in today's episode, this is your permission slip. Permission to do what you want to do, build the life you want, the business you like, charge what you want, and ultimately build the business you love.

For some of you, you've already given yourself permission to start the business. For others, this may be your reminder that you can go out there and start a business as well. Now, before we get into the ways that we seek permission, it's important to remember that there's no blame here or shame attached with wanting permission. We kind of grew up around seeking permission and having it throughout our entire life, right? And then we turn into adults and we don't have the same structure.

Think about school. You had to raise your hand, wait to be called on. You waited for somebody to tell you that you did a good job. And through some of your most formative years, you are waiting on somebody else to evaluate your worth. So it's hardwired and ingrained in us.

You even had to put up your hand to ask to use the washroom. How ridiculous does that seem now? And I see this popping up every time that I work with clients and with teams. We're on a Zoom call, somebody puts their hand up or hits that virtual hand button. Yes, it's polite, but guess what?

We're not in school anymore. We're an adult. Let's speak up, let's have a conversation, let's share your opinions. We don't have to always be putting up our hand because we can contribute without interrupting and being rude, right? We don't always have to have that permission seeking, but it's so programmed in us that it's an automatic thing that we do.

And you see, the permission seeking is not just a habit. There's some real underlying psychology going on here. And I think it helps to understand it because you can see what your brain's doing and then work with it to make things a whole lot easier. First of all, your brain's number one job is to keep you safe. It's not to keep you happy, it's not to keep you fulfilled.

Your brain is there to keep you safe, and it is constantly scanning for the unknown and identifies all kinds of things as danger. Your current job, your current prices that you charge, the way you're doing things, the way you show up, your brain knows those. They're predictable. And starting something new and uncertain is your brain sounding the alarm. That knot in your stomach that you feel, it isn't a sign that you're doing the wrong thing.

It's a sign that you're doing the new thing. And your brain is telling you, hang on, you're getting away from the known. This could be dangerous. It goes way back to how we were programmed, right? Back in the day, way, way, way back, we had to worry about a saber-toothed tiger taking us out when we went out for a walk.

So our brain was constantly scanning for danger and identifying dangers around us. But today, those saber-tooth sail, those saber-toothed tigers are things like, well, what happens if somebody thinks I'm crazy for starting the business? Or what happens if my friends no longer understand me? Those are the kinds of fears that are showing up and holding us back. And that's why we're so often seeking permission.

You see, second of all, as humans, we're programmed to feel the loss more than the gains. And there's psychologists out there who call it loss aversion. There's a there's two gentlemen in particular. Um, one's name is Daniel Kahnman, and the other guy's name was Amos Traversky. And they studied it and they found that losing something stings a whole lot more than gaining something.

And that gaining and feeling good is not nearly as motivating as losing something. So when you think about starting a business or raising your prices as a business owner, your brain zooms in on everything that you could lose: the steady paycheck, the client who might say no because your price has increased, looking like a fool. And it quietly shrinks everything that you could gain because it's focused more on the losses. And then we're also wired to belong. Brene Brown talks about this, but for the most part, most of human history being kicked out of a group really meant true danger, right?

You needed that group for protection, for your safety, for survival, for food, for getting through cold winters. And we still crave that approval. And when we get rejected or the thought of rejection, it hits hard. Some research found that being socially rejected actually activates some of the same brain things that physical pain does. That's why, you know, when we think out loud, like, oh my gosh, this could hurt, we can actually feel the pain, right?

Those same receptors are actually triggering off in our brain. But with all of this, there's good news. We are massively overestimating how much other people are actually watching us. I had a friend once tell me that nobody else sees the mustard on your shirt. And there's even a name for it.

It's called the spotlight effect. And in one well-known study, students had to walk into a room wearing an embarrassing t-shirt. They guessed about half the room would notice. In reality, far fewer did. People are mostly thinking about themselves and

not judging you. So when you're thinking about, oh my gosh, I need permission, remember, most people are just too self-absorbed with themselves to really be thinking about you. To put this all together, you spent years being trained to wait to get called on. And your brain is wired to play safe, to fear loss, and it wants a group's approval. Of course, you're looking for permission.

That is what feels good, but it's not necessary for you to start doing your thing. Understanding the first step that nobody's coming to tell you that it's okay is going to be a game changer for you. You are ultimately responsible for your own outcomes and your nose and your own success. You could stay in the job, you could continue charging minimal prices, but deep down, if you know that a change is needed and that you're being called for more, it's up to you to give yourself permission. It's important to have people around you as a support network, but you can give yourself permission to make the changes that you need in your life.

So if you're struggling right now and you're not sure why you can't get out of your own way and get started, you're probably looking for permission in some way, shape, or form. And it might not even be this spoken kind of permission. You see, there's all kinds of different types of permission or how permission shows up in disguise, and we're going to talk about those a little bit today. Back to the man from the conference. I said to him, You have all the skills, you're just looking for permission.

He got really quiet. He shook my hand and said, Yeah, you're right. And I said, Well, I give you a permission slip to start that business. You don't need it from me, but here it is. The permission he was looking for wasn't to quit his job, it wasn't to blow up his life.

It was the permission just to start something. So my advice to him was start somewhere. Put yourself out there. You might have to do some things along the way to just get your foot of the door. But you can build a business and you already have these skills, and here's your permission.

I kind of see four different types of permission, and we'll walk through them, right? The first one is permission to do your own thing. There are four areas. This one right here shows up over and over again. This is the person looking for permission to leave the job or to put a toe in the water or start their own business or go do the thing that doesn't make sense to anybody else.

They just want permission to try something different. Because the system we're in tells us that we need to do things a certain way, and that keeps us stuck. A lot of you listening are running businesses either part-time or full-time, or you're thinking about getting into business. You have permission. You can start.

And you don't have to jump in with both feet right away. You can do it part-time, you can start on the weekends, you can start just positioning yourself and seeing how people respond. Start posting a little content to see if you get engagement. I've heard people say, well, I'll have to wait until I'm done my job because I can't post on social media. I'm pretty sure your job doesn't control what you post on social media within within limits, as long as it's not a direct conflict or you know, something that's going to completely derail your career and your role.

There's nothing stopping you from sharing your own thought leadership. At the end of the day, you're a real human. And if you have something to share, the world needs to hear it. And your own thing doesn't have to make sense to anybody else. I have said this so many times.

My journey doesn't make sense to other people. It didn't make sense to me for a long time. And there are still days where it doesn't make sense to me, but I continue forward. I went and got my pilot's license. That made sense to nobody.

When I did it, I thought I was going to have the end of my corporate career leave business behind, and I was going into something completely different. However, getting my license was the moment that I realized that the pieces of my business experience still held true. And that's what has me doing the work that I do today. I would have never gotten here if I waited for permission for this all to make sense from somebody else. So if you're looking right now, I'm telling you, you have permission to start the thing that excites you.

Life's way too short not to jump in and try something that excites you because you're going to get to the end and go, oh man, I really wish I would have started that. The second kind of permission that I see often is the permission to charge your worth. Now, this one pertains really to the entrepreneurs that I work with, but it also happens in companies, right? People come into a job, they get their salary, they get their hourly pay, and then they're kind of scared to ask for what they're worth because the first thing that goes to the head is, Well, what happens if they fire me? Or what happens if the client doesn't want to work with me?

So many of you are undercharging for your services and you don't think you're worth it. You're scared. I get it. It's scary. You're afraid that somebody's gonna think, who are they to charge that much, or who are they to ask for that raise?

Remember that spotlight effect that we talked about. The person you imagine is judging you, they're not thinking about you. They're thinking about their own problem and whether or not you can solve problems for them. So go ahead and charge your worth. I'm not saying you have to charge it right out of the gate.

Sometimes you need to do things to build your credibility and your reputation. And you, if you're in a job, you shouldn't be in your job for three weeks and then ask for a raise, right? You do need to put in some time and be able to build the case for an increase, but you shouldn't be sitting there five years later saying, oh man, I really am worth more, but I can't charge that or I can't ask for that. At the end of the day, putting your prices up or asking for more increases your value to the world. It helps you show up better and it also makes you feel more valued.

You're here to build a business you love and a business that thrives and supports you financially. You shouldn't be undercharging just to win work because if you're competing just on price, it's gonna burn you out in the long run. If you find yourself in the situation where you're having a hard time charging your worth, it's time to give yourself permission for a raise. So here's your permission to increase your prices and increase them because you're worth it. You you need to do that to make this work for you and to maintain your happiness.

The next permission, permission number three, is the permission to do things your way. I see people trying to follow somebody else's path all the time and it drives me nuts. Somebody else's picture of success. It's time to stop that. If posting on social media every day doesn't feel like a thing you want to do, stop it.

Find out what works for you. If going to networking events every night lights you up, do more of it. Because at the end of the day, how you grow and build your business needs to work for you. If you're happy with a business that's doing $100,000 a year, but you feel like you have to get to a half million or a million or two million, but it really doesn't feel right to you, why are you doing it? Who are you trying to prove things to?

Give yourself permission to build your way. I'm a huge believer that there's more than one way to build a business, and there's definitely more than one way to build life. Once you start building a business in a way that feels good to you, things start to change immediately. They take off and they feel so much better. So give yourself permission to do things your way.

The fourth permission that I want to talk about is permission to change your mind. This one might be the one that unlocks all of the others. Because a big part of why we don't give ourselves permission is that we feel like things are so permanent, but nothing in life is permanent. Like once you decide, you feel like you're stuck with it forever. That's loss aversion in action.

And my friend, that's gonna make you play small. You're allowed to change your mind. I change my mind. If you listen back to episodes when I started this until now, I've changed my mind a lot. I'm always exploring, trying things on, and adjusting to make sure that I'm on course for a life in a business that I want to build.

You don't need permission to run an experiment. I look at life and business as an experiment. If you try something and it doesn't work, you can pivot, you can adjust. Nothing has to stay the same, and you don't have to stick with what's not working. You shouldn't be torturing yourself through this process.

You know, I talk a lot about business being a series of experiments. You start with a version that you're looking to move toward or hypothesis, you understand the foundations, and then you build something. You pay attention to what's working, you adjust and you keep going. I've even said in the show's trailer that now and then now and again I might change my mind about something, and you know what? It happens.

And I stand by it because I give myself permission to do it. And that's kind of the point of all of this. An experiment isn't a forever commitment. It's not you announcing to the world that I have arrived, I'm here. You're just saying, I'm gonna try this for the next 90 days to see what happens.

That's why I'm a big believer of working inside of 90 day sprints. 90 days gives you enough time to see whether or not something is working, what needs to be adjusted, and what you might need to pivot all together. It's so much easier when you say yes, knowing that you're not locked in for life. You don't have to decide that you're going to be a speaker for the rest of your life. You don't have to decide that you're only going to have one program forever.

And if it doesn't work, you're just gonna push through until it's successful. No, if it doesn't fit, change it up. Not saying that you should be changing your mind every week. That's why the 90 days is important. But if after consistently working towards something for 90 days and it doesn't feel aligned, I think it's time to ask some important questions.

You don't have to decide whether or not you want to be a full-time coach or a full-time advisor today. You can just start working with some, you know, easy-to-access clients in your network and figure it out from there. You can decide to have three conversations over the next day that will help you get clarity. And if you learn something that changes your mind, great. That's not failing.

That is experimentation. And I believe it's the best way to build a business and to build your life. So, all of this to be said, what does permission really look like? Well, the truth is nobody's coming to save you, and they're not gonna invite you in or tell you that you should do a certain thing. Nobody knows what you truly want besides you.

You have a desire that only you know deep down. Nobody's even gonna tell you that it's okay. Yeah, your friends and family might say, you know what, it's okay, but nobody really knows what you're going through when you're making these big changes in your life, and definitely not when you're starting a business. When you give yourself permission and step into it, it's scary. That's your brain doing its job.

It's trying to protect you, saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, something's not right here. What are you doing? Time to get you back into your small little box. That's when you have to give yourself permission. And here's what I've learned: permission, it's not a feeling.

It is a decision, it's intentional, and it's always followed by a small action. Give yourself permission by saying, I'm doing it. And then take one small action. It doesn't have to happen all at once, but those small actions, they stack up and they make a huge difference. And every small action shows your brain that it's safe and that it's okay.

And your brain begins to rewire itself and give you more and more permission without putting up those safety alarms every single time. I did an episode a while back, I think it was episode 21. It was called Stop Waiting to Feel Ready. And in it, I said that ready is an action. There, ready is an action.

It is the same idea. Don't wait until you feel ready or feel like you're allowed. Decide, and then do one small thing that moves it forward and proves that you're okay to yourself, to your brain, to your beautiful brain that's trying to keep you safe all along. Don't wait for other people to tell you it's going to be okay. Because most of the time they won't.

Because in their brain, they're also kind of boxed into this safety zone. You have to be brave and step up on your own, but you don't have to step up on your own and blow your entire life up. Step up with one small step. I mean, I'm a student of giving myself permission. Right now, I give myself permission all the time.

I have been building a business, it's a journey. And oftentimes I don't feel qualified to do something. This podcast, for example, I've been off and on with it because sometimes I don't feel qualified, but I'm giving myself permission to do an episode each week. And some of these episodes will land with a bunch of people. Some of them might not hit at all, but it's my permission to do this.

I gave myself permission last week to get in front of a group of people, and I didn't necessarily feel qualified to speak, but my message hit, and I had people reaching out to me after saying, Hey, that message really meant something to me. That's the permission you give yourself. And then your brain will kick in and say, Who do you think to be doing this? You will want to seek that permission from somebody else, but it's okay just to say, you know what? I'm qualified to do this.

I'm giving myself permission. And doing all of these things, it builds your confidence muscle and it quiets that safety feature of your brain. If it's something you've never done before, your brain will get really loud. But once you give yourself permission to do it and you've gone through it a couple of times, things get a whole lot quieter and you start to think, hmm, what else can I take on? It's it's really, really cool.

That's the permission that you need to give yourself. And you can't create a business that you love or an awesome life without giving yourself permission to try things. And when you do the permission, you gotta show up, you gotta take small steps, and you need to do it consistently. I know it's painful, but I guess what I'm saying here is this episode is your permission slip. I give you permission to do the thing.

So let's get out there and make it happen. Permission to start the business, permission to do something new, permission to charge your worth or ask for a raise. It does not have to make sense to anybody else. If you're struggling right now, listen to this one again. And if you want to have a chat, reach out.

I'd be happy to have a chat with you because I am a total believer that you are have way more potential than what you're giving yourself credit for. And it's just your brain trying to keep yourself, keep you safe. You have permission to do things your way. And if all of the gurus are telling you to do it a certain way and it doesn't feel good, stop because there's more than one way to build a life in a business. You have permission to change your mind.

Remember, you're not locked into anything. You can adjust, pivot, try something new, become a skydiving instructor. I don't know. Whatever lights you up and makes you happy. I think people who switch things up throughout throughout their lives are some of the most interesting people.

And the people who are in their 30s, 40s, and 50s who are still figuring it out, my goodness, I love having conversations with those people. I hope you found some value in this week's episode. If you did, please share it with a friend. It would mean the world. And until next week, get out there and grow your business, and I give you permission to make things happen.