The more I play in the game of business and life, the more I realize how important your mindset is about life and self.
If that stuff is on point, then you bolt on mastering skill sets and executing consistently, your dreams become your reality.
It’s not a matter of how, it’s only a matter of when.
One of the biggest blocks I had to hitting my version of success was I spent a lot of my time and energy trying to get other people’s approval.
It was a big driver of my behavior and while it was a blessing and it got me to consistently making $60,000+ per year with my personal brand, I became trapped by it.
Then I learned how to love what is by Byron Katie in her book, Loving What Is.
Her simple 4 step process changed my life forever.
In fact, I would argue it’s one of the key principles which helped my business go from around $5,000 per month consistently to finally breaking six-figures consistently.
In order for me to explain this concept and how it’s relevant to your life and business, I must tell you a personal story.
An Inner Look At Darkness
Growing up I had a really good life.
I grew up in a typical middle class East Texas family.
My mom worked at the local doctor’s office and my dad worked for his dad as a general contractor and eventually bought the family business with his brother.
From the outside looking in, our family was perfect. And honestly it pretty much was.
Keep in mind, every family has shit going on.
My dad worked out of town a lot growing up and my mom cut herself and took way too many sleeping pills at times.
All of this left me wanting to always please and have the approval of my father.
This drove me to be a high performer in every single thing I did.
From academics to sports, I was consistently in the top 3-5%.
In hindsight, I was never the best, I was really close but not the best and I’ll get into why that was later in this post.
I graduated Salutatorian from high school, graduated Suma Cum Laude from university in four years, was offered a collegiate scholarship to play soccer, received offers from multiple record labels, etc.
Yet at the end of they day, nothing I ever did or accomplished was every enough for my father.
Maybe you can relate to this?
Growing up, I did a lot of things with my dad.
I went fishing, hunting, traveling and all the typical father/son Texan stuff. I had a great time hanging out with my dad.
In 2010, my mom and dad got a divorce after 25 years of marriage and quickly he had a new girlfriend.
This caused a lot of drama in my family.
Lots of projections of what he should have done and what he should be doing.
This went on for years and despite everything, I continued to have a good relationship with him.
Then, fast forward to 2014 and my niece’s mother was put into prison for possession of methamphetamine and thankfully, my niece was removed from her household.
My brother at the time was stationed overseas on a naval battleship because he’s in the navy.
Long story short, my niece ended up in temporary custody of my mother until my brother got back from deployment and got custody of his daughter.
My father thought my mother was incapable of raising my niece temporarily due to his stories (his belief systems of her being incapable) of her cutting herself at times when raising me.
Yet since his divorce he refused to talk or see my mother and had not seen the amazing transformation she had in her life.
She took 100% responsibility for herself and went to work to create a happy, healthy, whole version of herself and life.
She’s amazing.
With this said, my dad created a story that me and my siblings schemed together to have my niece put into custody with my mother and was against him.
Which wasn’t the case at all.
Growing up Dad taught me if I ever have a problem with someone to go straight to them and discuss it with them.
So I did.
As a result, Dad victimized himself and made me a villain who was out to get him.
Not understanding this at all, and always wanting his approval, I was hurt massively.
My entire life’s work had been to have his approval.
It’s always interesting to me how the perfect books, people and opportunities seem to present themselves at the perfect time.
This is when Byron Katie’s Loving What Is appeared in my life.
The Transformational Concept
For 30 years I had blamed my father for what he should do and the reality is there are only three businesses in life.
There is my business, their business and God’s business and my job is to only take care of my business.
Her book helped me realize I was the problem and not my father.
Since 2014, I had been telling myself what he should be doing, how he should be acting, what his duties as a father should be in my life.
He should appreciate the fact that my siblings and I did our best to help my mom and my niece.
He should appreciate me and know I’m always here for him.
He should be my dad and want to come to my wedding.
He should want to hang out with me.
He should call me and ask me how my life is.
I realized with these types of thoughts I was trying to control his business.
Byron taught me a simple four step process which she calls The Work, where she encouraged me to judge my father.
Lots of people tell us not to judge people, yet the reality is we do.
So why fight it? Embrace it.
So I did.
I judged the shit out of my dad and then did The Work to point my judgement back on myself.
This helped me to stop worrying about his business and instead take control of my business (my life, my marriage. my personal brand, etc).
After doing The Work, I had control of the situation and massive amounts of guilt and shame were removed from my life.
As a result, today I have more clarity, confidence and certainty in my life which has translated into more impact, influence and income for my personal brand.
I would have you consider, you can only control your business and if you feel any guilt, shame or frustration with another human being, maybe, just maybe you are spending your energy worrying about their business.
If this resonates with you, I encourage you to pick up Loving What Is by Byron Katie.
It will help equip you with a skill set to bringing more peace into your life.
And the reality is if you have peace, clarity, confidence and certainty, it translates into your personal brand and business because you can only create that which you are.
If you are creating a business trying to prove how great you are for other’s approval, you will never receive it.
Instead, you will only receive more opportunities to continue to prove your greatness.
Yet the moment you can take control, own your greatness and create your business form a core of you are perfect, you need nothing, you have everything, you will then create opportunities to simply shine and succeed.
Once you have trust and respect for yourself, others will give it to you.
You got this.
You’re more powerful than you know.
I discovered I was.
Next Steps
Now that you understand the importance of loving what is and how by doing so it can increase the growth of your personal brand, if you want to take your brand to new levels, check out this free video training.
I call it the Creator’s Path and it will equip you with 7 steps to creating a highly profitable brand.
It will also go more in depth what the concept I have shared with you today.
Also, I’d highly encourage you to pick up Loving What Is by Byron Katie below.
