The Success Mindset in Action

Last week I wrote about the success mindset, and the most important elements that I feel go into creating it.

This week I’m going to go in-depth into how three members of the Free Agent Collective (my self-employment growth group) acted on one of those elements, and how that action has changed their respective businesses.

All three members are in the employment/career coaching field.

·         Gary runs a job finding service. He specializes in finding job openings that are of interest to his clients.

·         Lynn teaches career courses on the topic of interviewing and application skills.

·         Kevin is a career coach who specializes in helping people create better resumes, and improve their interview skills.

Several months ago, these three began meeting informally to discuss possibly collaborating with each other, given that they were all in the same general field.

They met several times and threw around a lot of different ideas. They shared their experiences, discussed their challenges, and brainstormed together. And, through it all, they each did one very important thing: they kept their mind open.

Let’s take Lynn as an example. Lynn was fairly new to self-employment, having been in business for only a couple of years, and she was still in the early growing stages. Gary and Kevin, on the other hand, had been in business for many years.

So, for Lynn in particular, she knew that the other two had lots more experience and knowledge about building a business than she did. And so, she went into their meetings with a completely open mind, willing to listen to any ideas the others might suggest.

She confessed to me that there were some ideas she wasn’t immediately sure about. However, she decided that she would give them some honest thought and consideration, and try to learn more about what they might all entail.

For example, when Gary suggested she use the online event platform Eventbrite to advertise her courses, she was initially skeptical. She had always thought doing everything through her own website was the way to go. But, she listened attentively, asked questions, and did some further research of her own. And she discovered that Eventbrite had a lot of great features that would make the technical side of selling her courses way easier. And so, she saved hundreds of dollars, a lot of time, and a lot of headaches by using that platform to sell courses, instead of building a selling platform on her own site.   

Now, this is exactly what I was talking about in last week’s newsletter. If you remember, that article talked about the elements that make up a success mindset, and one of those elements was: be open to new ideas.

Lynn is a perfect example of this. Although some of the ideas Gary and Kevin came up with were foreign to her, she made it a point to listen and learn from them.

So, what about Gary and Kevin? Well, they also heard some ideas, from Lynn and from each other, that were new to them. Some of those ideas had to do with marketing. As it turns out, Lynn has skills in that area, and made a lot of suggestions to Gary and Kevin about how to write effective sales and marketing emails.

At first, these ideas were new to the two men. Lynn was telling them about approaches that were different from what they had traditionally done. But, each kept his mind open, and listened as Lynn explained the processes she recommended, and the logic behind them. And soon, Gary and Kevin started using the skills she taught them in their own campaigns.

Throughout their conversations, all three kept their minds open and tried to focus on possibilities, not doubts. And each is in a somewhat difference place in their business now, because of their willingness to listen and learn.

·         Lynn created a new course that focuses on career skills for a specific industry. She developed that course with the ideas, help, and support of Gary and Kevin, and because she was open to the new ideas they put forward.

·         Gary and Kevin also have a new course which they offer jointly. It is a based on material that Kevin previously taught, but with tweaks developed through their collaboration. And, since Lynn had previously taught courses via the web, they learned some best practices for teaching online, and are reworking some of their existing courses to follow Lynn’s model.  

·         Gary and Kevin now know how to write sales and marketing emails that are more effective than the ones they were using previously.

·         Lynn has added new business skills to her toolbox, ones she learned from listening and learning from Gary and Kevin.

·         All three now have new streams of revenue that they didn’t have before, streams which have generated tens of thousands of dollars in new income.

So, is that the end of the story? Heck no! These three continue to meet and brainstorm, and are open to still more new ideas about services and products they can develop together in the future. In fact, they are currently discussing just exactly what that “next great collaboration” will be.

I share this story today because it is a great example of people living a success mindset. They are open to new ideas, new growth, and new possibilities. And this isn’t an isolated example. I see collaborations and learning like this happening regularly in the Free Agent Collective. Members get to know each other, support, and learn from each other, and, in cases like, Gary, Lynn, and Kevin’s, even collaborate and grow with each other. 

I hope that I have provided you with some insight and inspiration to continue building and growing your own success mindset. In today’s story, I focused on just one of the elements I mentioned in last week’s article, but it’s a great example that shows you what can be accomplished when you put one (or more) of those elements into action.