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Jeff Munn, Creating Extraordinary Futures

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The Three Mistakes You Must Avoid to Build a Sustainable Business

founders, business owners, ceos
The Three Mistakes You Must Avoid to Build a Sustainable Business

The first step, the leap of faith, is the scariest one.

I coach founders on the internal work that helps them stand, scale and sell their businesses with more impact and less stress. Often, my one-on-one clients have a business in the 8, 9, or even 10-figure range before they think about selling or going public. Growing a business at that scale is thrilling.

But to me, the most audacious moment of the entire journey is that leap of faith at the very beginning. The idea, for example, is that someone could leave the corporate world, leave a 6 or 7-figure job and make it on their own as a coach or consultant and NEVER GO BACK.

My own journey to that place has been thrilling and I love supporting others in theirs. I’ve learned a lot since going out on my own and building a business that exceeded my prior income, but in this article, I’m going to focus on three mistakes that I see founders make over and over again right at the beginning.

Don’t Start Scared

A lot of the founders I see simply aren’t ready for the break they are going to have in earnings while they build their businesses. While they might catch a break early, most businesses take some time to start generating revenue. For example, in the coaching world, I suggest someone have EITHER savings that will cover two years of expenses, OR have a job that covers their expenses while they are building the business.

What happens if you don’t have that? Unless you have done a lot of deep work (which I think is essential for coaches, by the way), it is very hard to have a conversation from a place of needing to sign the client to feed your family. Clients can sense that. No one hires someone who is needy or scared. Do what ever you need to do to come from a place of confidence.

Don’t Start with Strangers

When I started my coaching business, I was very uncomfortable talking about coaching, simply because I had no idea what I was doing. I still remember the first time someone asked me about how I work with people—at a party about a month after I started. I broke into a sweat, quickly excused myself, found a restroom, and hid the rest of the evening!

It can be easy to think that you can find clients through Clickfunnels and social media ads, but at some point, you’re going to have to talk to them and convince them that you can deliver something of value. In my experience, it was much easier building a business by networking with people I knew, reeducating them (and coincidentally, myself) on what I was doing, and asking them who else I should be talking with. Having conversations with real people will build your business much faster than getting “leads” from services, and then talking to them without any kind of established social capital.

I’ve been posting on LinkedIn quite a while now. But even today, most of the people who reach out to me after a post are people I already have some kind of relationship with. At the beginning at least, social media REINFORCES the connection rather than ESTABLISHING it.

Don’t Stay Superficial

This is the one rule that you might want to think about breaking. Because it is true that people will absolutely pay you for things like business coaching, time management coaching, and other ways to execute on doing more things more efficiently.

You can build a decent business doing this, but you will likely exhaust yourself and your clients in the process. And you will have a very hard time distinguishing yourself from other coaches and consultants who do the very same thing that you do.

But there is only one way that I am aware of to build a business where you have no competition, and where a small number of people will pay you very high fees.

To do that, you have to be willing to go deep. You have to be able to be comfortable in silence with no agenda. You have to have nothing on your mind.

When you are able to do this, you might see a possibility in the person in front of you that they haven’t even seen for themselves. And from that place, you can be the person who can help them be the person they need to be to reach their dreams.

When they see what you have opened up for them, there is no way they are going to go to someone else.

The right people will fully commit to their dreams, and any fee will seem like a bargain. Go deep, and your clients will follow.

How to Start

If a sustainable business, on your own, outside the corporate world, is calling you, here are three steps you CAN take—

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And when you’re ready to go even deeper, send me a message.

leapoffaith coach founder founders

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Success is Meaningless

Most people take the idea of success, of arriving “there,” as something that means something really important about them.
That they have “made it.” That they are finally “somebody.”

Let us ponder the concept of success. Success is something we are taught to strive for. But what does success really mean? It can become the focus of an individual’s career, identity, and even self-worth. However, despite its perceived importance, success itself is completely imaginary. It is a concept that is unique to each person and has no objective, external reality. Therefore, the very ideas about success can get in the way of us achieving it.

There are three main things that most people think look real about success: the solidity of success, the importance of what success means, and the significance of not having success. Yet when we look at them closely, we can see very quickly that they are one hundred percent made up.

First, people treat success as real and solid, when it is only made of thought. There is nothing that you can point at in the outside world and get uniform agreement that it is success. Therefore, success is a subjective experience that is unique to each person.

The second thing is, people believe that success means something important. However, this is also something that is made up. Success is not imbued with the mystical ability to make us feel whole and happy with ourselves. The symbol of success only feels good for a little bit and then loses its significance.

Finally, the third thing that people think looks real about success is the significance of not having it. The idea is that if we do not get success, it means something, too. This is also something that is made up. Failure is not a tangible thing but rather just a story that we tell ourselves.

What all of these point to is that success is but a subjective experience that is unique to each individual. Its reality exists solely within our own minds. Thus, we find that the very idea of success can often hinder our pursuit of it, as we cling too tightly to a figment of our own creation.

The joy is only in the doing, in the creating because that’s the only place it can be. The joy is in whatever is emerging for you, right now. Now is the only thing you’re not making up. Therefore, the easiest way to achieve success is to let go of the idea that success has any tangible, external reality. Instead, focus on the present moment and the joy that comes from creating and doing. This is the ultimate success.

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The Virtue of Being Selfish

Many of the founders that I work with struggle with boundaries, with self-care, with delegation.

And I have to explain to them why something that looks selfish can actually be the best thing they can possibly do for themselves, their families, and their business.

Take one healthy habit as an example—

When you get enough sleep, you make better decisions.

When you get enough sleep, you are more likely to exercise.

When you get enough sleep, you don’t crave bad food.

When you get enough sleep, you are nicer.

When you get enough sleep, you live longer.

Taking care of yourself means you have more to give—more creativity, more presence, even more love. And it also means you are more able to receive.

You started this business because there was something about it you loved.

Does it look more like hate, or fear, or exasperation some days?

Time to look at your own habits and see how they might be contributing. How simply getting out of overwhelm can make everyone, and everything, look more like it did when you started this.

Creating and holding those boundaries is good for everyone.

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Every Day You Make a Choice

Will you do more of the same, or try something new?

Will you strive to get better, or accept the status quo?

Will you try to stay comfortable, or try to get uncomfortable?

Will you trust that the universe has you, or fear that it does not?

Will you live, or will you, day by day, slowing but surely, die?

If 𝘆𝗼𝘂 don’t know which choice you are making, I’m afraid 𝗜 do.


Contact Information

Phone: (970) 922-9272
Email: jeff@jmunn.com