Welcome to the Paulvette podcast. I'm not going to talk about how things should be done, but mainly about who you need to be. I challenge you to become the owner of your true identity. Time for your breakthrough and joy in your business. I am a fat person in the body of an Adonis, Ronald good mouth.
But it's really true, it really has been true. I once weighed 120 kilos, so when I walked past a shop window and I looked at the glass, I literally saw a fat person too. I was just fat. But did you know that once I had lost 40 kilos, only weighed 80 kilos? When I looked in shop windows in the months or even years after that, I still saw myself as a fat person.
Then my brain automatically made that image with that reflection, which of course isn't completely clear, of me into that fat person. I was just used to thinking that I was a fat person. I was used to seeing that I was a fat person. So my brain just held on to that old thought, to that old truth, to that old reality. It didn't see me yet as that fit, almost thin guy, mainly thin compared to how I was.
And this happens very often with entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs who are so used to thinking 'hey, this is how I am', while that maybe 9 out of 10 times no longer matches reality at all. So I once had a client who had a fear of heights. I helped him with that. And during that period I would occasionally call people when they were confronting what they came to me for.
And this time I had him on the phone and he was walking up a bridge. And he said 'Yes Paul, I just don't dare to walk to the edge. And I asked him, but is that a thought or a feeling? And he said to me, I don't feel it, so it's maybe a thought. I said, That's right, you're just used to thinking that.
And if you're used to thinking something, then that thought just remains present. Because you're used to thinking that. But if that feeling isn't there, then that fear isn't there anymore either. So while I was on the phone with him, he walked to the edge of the bridge and he said, I'm just looking down, I don't feel anything about it, but a voice in my head is still saying hey, I'm afraid of this. And that's what happens very often with entrepreneurs, that they still have a voice in their head, a story in their head that tells them 'hey, you're afraid of this, this doesn't suit you, this isn't meant for you, soon you'll be exposed' or whatever stories.
And we've become so used to thinking that, that that thought automatically appears in our head, while you may have long since gotten over that problem. Truly, it can really be that you think you're experiencing problems in your head while they're not there at all anymore. A very simple exercise to do is that you're going to write down 10 things that you know if I were to take that action, then that would mean something big for my business, but I normally don't dare to write them down, let alone execute them. But write down 10 of them. What you'll notice is that when you've written down 10 things and you go through them one by one, that you can check 'is this still true what I think?
Is it still true what I think? Because maybe 3 out of 10 are no longer true, or 5 out of 10, or maybe 7 out of 10. And how cool is it at the moment when you write down 10 things that you know hey, if I were to execute that action, that would make a big impact on my business. And maybe you've told yourself the story that you don't execute those actions for a certain reason. Because I say you're afraid of them or you experience that you think it's not meant for you or that you can't do it or whatever.
You write down those 10 and you check, is this true? And you discover with 5 of them, hey, that's not true at all anymore. Congratulations, you've grown. As entrepreneurs we grow enormously, because you constantly face all kinds of challenges and you fix them, you tackle them. So you grow, you become a better person, your potential becomes greater, your identity has changed to the person who you are now.
But if your thoughts still tell you that you're still an old you, then you're stuck on that. By doing this exercise, you discover for example 'hey, 5 out of 10, I could actually execute those'. Then go and execute them over the next 3 months. And then you do these exercises again in 3 months. What happens then is that you suddenly start to gain much more confidence in yourself.
The nice thing is that in 3 months you've executed those 5 things, probably achieved successes, maybe also learned a lot of lessons. So you've grown again as a person and as an entrepreneur. You're standing even higher, your identity has been transformed again, into something good. And then you discover hey, the remaining 5, I can cross off 3 of those too, because they're no longer true. I'm just still used to thinking them, but they no longer match who I am. So I will execute them.
And then you make that impact. What you'll notice is that suddenly 5 new things come up. Things you don't even dare to think about today. They don't even occur to you, but they will in 3 months because you have success stories. You grow and in 3 months you do write down those 5 other things.
What happens then is that things that are so big in terms of impact that you don't even dare to think about today, in 3 months those are suddenly on paper with you. You suddenly have them in your thoughts. And then that doesn't necessarily mean that those 5 can immediately be tackled too. That you think wow, of those 5 I dare all of them, I can do all of them or are they all meant for me? Maybe 1 of those 5 new ones, maybe 2, maybe none at all and you still do 1 or 2 because you look at yourself with more self-confidence.
Because you've grown and the more you can trust yourself, the more you also dare to do what might be scary. So suddenly you go from those 5 things you don't even dare to think about today, you're also going to execute them. What would that mean for you and your business? Some people just think they're mentally still fat, while they're not at all anymore. You're just super lean, super fit, you've grown as an entrepreneur, you're at a certain point, you still see yourself as an Audi A1.
If you just solve that gap, you don't have to do anything for it, because it's just not true anymore. You're no longer that old you. You're already that you that you are today. You just have to see that, just write down those points and check them. Is this true?
A number of those things are no longer true. You're the new you. You'll notice that at the moment when you start executing those things that you thought hey, my old self didn't dare that, but I do. Well, that gives such a boost. I'm sure it will immediately increase your potential and you're going to make more impact.
You're going to generate more revenue and even better, it all becomes easier because you keep moving more towards that core of who you are at your core. And that's what it's about. Because you increasingly start to tune in with who you are at your core and that you remove all blockages that prevent you from being at your core that entrepreneur that you feel deep inside. But this is really meant for me. That's really the intention.
This is something I could actually make happen. The closer you move towards that, the easier everything becomes, but the further you will also go as an entrepreneur. That's cool. So I would say try it. Write down those 10 things and I'm curious which of those things can you simply cross off because they're just not true anymore.
Your growth has been further ignited. Ready to take full ownership? Then check the link in the show notes.
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This transcript has been translated from Dutch.
