One thing that screws with my soul is the suspension of disbelief in so many entrepreneurs.

To be clear, I’m not talking about the shocked, “Wow! Can you believe he just tweeted confefe?!” disbelief that happens when something amuses or alarms us.

I’m referring to the, “Who am I to say/do…?” lack of belief of our own worthiness. It’s the brand of disbelief that stops us from making the fullest impact we’re capable of.

And it’s in opposition to the belief we had to have to even start a business in the first place.

A passage in Kyle Cease’s quirky, challenging and entertaining book, “I Hope I Screw This Up” gives an example:

…any time you have a decision to make, you’ll feel either excited in your body or scared and in your head, so just ask yourself, “Which would I rather live in?” Whatever decision you make will move you toward that reality. “I really want to do this. Yeah, but I can’t afford it.” Well, maybe you’ll be able to afford it when you decide to do it. This sounds crazy to a lot of people; that’s their “Yeah, but…” brain that they’ve trained themselves to listen to.

 

The source of the “yeah, but…” fear Kyle talks about stems from disbelief.

It’s a lack of self-trust in yourself. And it fires up fear whenever something looks even slightly risky. It’s when you stay put instead of choosing to pursue possibility.

It’s so sneaky that we often don’t notice it. But when you tune in with yourself, you see it.

I’m not immune. I’ve been there hundreds of times.

Even though I’ve been intrigued for months, I was avoiding Facebook Live like rats after dark in NYC.

(Who am I kidding, I avoid rats during the day too.)

The truth is that I was afraid people wouldn’t show up, participate or give a sh*t. And that would be a hit to my ego.

But after doing a couple, I realized I was wrong. People did show up. Some did participate. And a few even care.

I’ve seen this disbelief show up in myself and others by not publishing that blog post, not hosting the retreat that would light people up, not sharing your point of view or doing webinars that would open eyes, not joining the program or hiring the coach who would grow your business, not making the follow up call that would land the new client, not creating the program that would generate additional income, not following through on your commitments that would keep you in integrity… This list could go on for miles.

Staying suspended in a state of disbelief eats your dreams for breakfast.

And let’s not forget lunch and dinner. Although occasionally it might ease up for a snack on faith.

Even though we have control over that fear, we succumb to it anyway. And it keeps you playing small.

So I’m going to keep facing my fear of Facebook Live by doing it again.

And because I’ve got a lot to share about my observations and lessons from 15+ years of working with thousands of entrepreneurs, I’m going to work at improving the experience so people get so much value they come back for more.

This week, I’ll share the results of a simple experiment I did with a few of my clients last year that suspended their disbelief and fear — and yielded life changing results.

HINT: It was so much effing fun!

(And now I’m wondering why I haven’t done this with more clients more often! Disbelief, perhaps?)

 

If you’d like to learn about one ridiculously magical way I found to deal with Ego + Fear, be sure to click over to Facebook Live on Wednesday, June 28 at 12:30 Eastern.