Have you ever said these words? This episode will help you overcome this as we learn practical brainstorming for business creation (3:30), overcoming limiting beliefs (5:00) and the power of fearlessness (21:00).
Audio Transcript
(5s):
The Wanderlover Podcast was created with a mission to enable travel and freedom through entrepreneurship. I’m your host, Danielle Hu business mentor, content creator, and founder of The Wanderlover tune in every week for episodes about travel online business, social media, and mindset that will inspire you to take massive action towards living the life of your dreams. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to The Wanderlover podcast. This week’s episode is called, “But I don’t know what business to start” and it was inspired by those of you who reached out to me about Momentum Mastermind.
(51s):
And many of you are wondering if it’s the right cohort for you, even if you don’t have an audience, if you don’t have an offer and if you don’t have a business yet. So in this episode, I hope to address the questions that you have about Momentum and whether or not you should join. And I also want to help those of you who are thinking about starting an online business, but something is holding you back something internally is telling you I can’t do it. How do I start? I have no idea what business to start. So let’s get started. This is going to be a really intense episode. I’m always throwing in new mindset exercises, new ways of thinking. And it’s just like sometimes a mind, fuck, but it’s going to be so great.
(1m 35s):
First of all, I want to just make it clear that momentum is not for people who have it all figured out already. There are members enrolled who know that they want to start an online business, but don’t have any assets in front of them. And the whole point of momentum is to hold each other accountable and give you the guidance you need to actually build, create and scale your online brand. So you’re going to walk out of the four months with an online business that is guaranteed and why I am so confident in making that statement is just by working with so many different clients who all come to me being like, I don’t know what to start, and I don’t know how to start. As soon as they have the clarity and the mindset shift to actually take action.
(2m 19s):
All of the progress flows. The other reality is there is no shortage of money making ideas out there in the world. We are going to shift our focus from the created. So what’s already been produced and created the ideas that are established into the world to really tapping into our own creativity and the things that are uncreated. That is where the magic happens. And it takes practice. You’re not going to enter the world of entrepreneurship, thinking that you have it all figured out, thinking that you have the best products and services and the best business, it takes time. But it also the pressure off of yourself because you’re not trying to copy someone else.
(3m 3s):
You’re never trying to look at other people and do exactly as they do because you have your own unique story. You have your own unique style, and that’s what we are focusing on. We’re focusing on making you the main character of your business. If you keep looking at other people and seeing why they are successful, it draws the attention away from you and your mind. So focused on someone else’s business, and it’s not serving you at all. So every time you catch yourself, kind of like googly eyes, looking at someone else’s content or looking at someone else’s stories, stop it, stop it, and draw the attention back to yourself unless they are inspiring you to take action and moving your business forward in the direction it needs to be going.
(3m 50s):
Let’s start off with a really practical exercise. If you don’t know what business to start, get out a sheet of paper, get out a pen or open up the notes app on your phone and make three columns. The first column is going to be labeled passions. The second column is going to be labeled expertise and the third column is going to be labeled market. So in the first column, write down every single thing that you are remotely interested in or passionate about things that you can spend hours on end researching looking into like talking to your friends about something that really pulls you in that direction.
(4m 31s):
And it doesn’t have to be, you know, you don’t have to overthink it. Just anything that you are interested and passionate about, write it down in the first column, then second column expertise, write down everything that you are an expert at. And the thing to note here is it might be a limiting belief. If I’m asking you, what are you an expert at? And the first thing you think about is I’m not an expert at it. Anything that is a limiting belief founded upon fear, fear of being judged and being seen and thinking that you know, a lot less than you actually do. So what I notice a lot of times is when you are surrounding yourself with the same social circle, the same like number of acquaintances in your daily life.
(5m 17s):
A lot of times, especially if you work in corporate, everyone’s interested in, everyone’s looking into and being an expert at such a specific skill that when you zoom out worldwide, you probably know so much more about that one topic, then 99.9% of the world. So for example, you used to work in finance. And I thought that I was not an expert in finance and personal finance because everyone around me had so many more credentials. They have their MBAs. They have had just so many more years of experience of finance that I couldn’t call myself an expert.
(5m 57s):
However, once I exited that circle and I started working with so many creatives and I’m talking about investing and just really basic things that I thought were common knowledge and people had no idea how to even start retirement accounts. I was like, whoa, you know, like I have something to teach someone. And so brand yourself as an expert in things that you are really familiar with and notice that other people might not think the same and a subset of that, if you really think you’re not an expert at anything, not even like social media, you know, like, would you be able to teach your parents about social media? If you really can’t think of anything, write down things that you can learn, like take a course or invest in something to get you to an expert level.
(6m 44s):
And I’ve really want to make it clear here that no, one’s going to know everything. Like even after years of being in social media and photography and online business, you always have something to learn. So to get you to a point where you feel calm, the teach something, okay, third column is marketing. So where is there money to be made? Where is there the opportunity for a business? And the main thing to know in this column is you don’t have to be the first. So if you’re really interested in graphic design, there is a for graphic designers, right? Write that down. If you are interested in what design, write that down.
(7m 25s):
Photography, write that down fashion, write that down, travel blogging, write that down. There are markets for all of these. And so the last step is I want you to see where there are overlaps. So where your passions, meat expertise, meat market. And if you think that there’s a little lack or a little gap between these two, can you bring it up to the same level more often than not? When I make my clients do this example, there will be at least one thing that overlaps all three. So there are no shortage of ideas, right? If you have at least one thing that overlaps, you are able to create a business for it, because you’re interested in it.
(8m 12s):
You know, more about it than many other people and there’s money to be made, but let’s dive in to what I see next. So if you do have one thing that overlaps, what I hear over and over again is the market is too saturated. I can’t do it. I don’t have the time to do it. I don’t have the resources to do it. I’m not sure I qualify for this. Will people even pay me for this? And it’s just a struggle of limiting beliefs and fears preventing you from taking action. And so what this looks like is a bunch of ideas and the desire to start it. But as soon as you sit down in front of your laptop, you end up doing nothing or you open up Instagram, like waiting to share a post, but then you talk yourself out of it.
(8m 59s):
Raise your hand. If you’ve ever described something you wanted to do as the market is too saturated, it’s all raise our hand here. And then let’s talk ourselves out of that because how many new YouTube offers, how many new podcasters, how many new Instagrammers have literally started their pages within the past year? And they’ve blown up, they’ve become successful, right? It’s not like Instagram or Tik TOK or any social media app, like penalize people for starting in 2021. That’s just not true. And that fear is hold so many entrepreneurs back. It also looks like when I’m talking to people and they really want to create a physical company and then they want to create something like life-changing like Amazon.
(9m 45s):
And they’re like, oh, but like the idea of Amazon or Alibaba has already been created. And there’s nothing for me to focus on. And I’m like, but don’t you think Jeff Bezos thought that back in like the 1990s, right? Like every single decade, there’s going to be people who think that everything has already been created. Like everything that could possibly have been successful is already successful, but they don’t focus on all of the innovators in every single decade that creates something unheard of that, create something completely new. And that’s where we, we need to focus on. We need to constantly be thinking of the uncreated because there’s so much out there that hasn’t been created yet.
(10m 28s):
So you can’t always be focusing on what’s already been done. We’re not about that. We’re thinking about how we can share our story and our expertise and create something that no one else has. This will serve you so well through business. Like I remember when I first started, I was like, I don’t know if other people are going to like my book because no one’s ever written a book like that before I think about it. It’s like, why would you want to write a book that other people have already written, right. That just defeats the whole purpose. And so really trusting yourself to know what is best and also know that you can be the next Amazon and you can be the next insert your name here.
(11m 15s):
Like we’re not even going to copy anyone else. We’re just going to make you the main character. The next thing I want to address is you don’t need to have the perfect idea in order to start. And that’s another thing I see holding a lot of people back. So when I first started the wander lever, if you’ve listened to my first ever podcast episode, it addresses how I started off as a features, only page, I was free posting other people’s probl photos three times a day. And DM-ing people commenting tag your photos with hashtag the wander lover to be featured on this page. I really want it to be, you know, not visible w I wanted people not to know me.
(11m 58s):
I hated getting my photos taken, and I just wanted to be reposting and repurposing other people’s content. And that’s the direction, you know, the laundry lover first started. And that was not a perfect idea. And it’s funny because there’s been so many iterations since then of the wander lover, where, you know, you look at my page now, and it’s only about me. It’s about my life. It’s about me front and center. There’s no posting other people’s content. There’s no featuring other people’s work. It’s all of me and all of my friends work. So just think about if I were to have started that Instagram now in 2021, where I had my current idea of becoming a social media and online business coach, like if I had waited five years, I would not have the brand that I had today.
(12m 49s):
But instead I started back in 2015 and I was like, you know what, let me just try, let me get this out there. And it’s grown through so many iterations of being a repost only page to a travel influencer page to helping people with social media and now helping people with online business so that they can also travel all the world. Like I never had this idea from the beginning and you won’t either, that’s the whole point. Like you will never have the perfect idea. And that’s also fear holding you back from starting because you’re putting so much sure on yourself being like, I have to do this for the rest of my life. No, you don’t.
(13m 30s):
You can do it for a year and then take what you’ve learned, because you’re going to learn so much more from taking and then just thinking about it and ID idea ideation ideating. Okay. I think I meant to say ideating, but I’m not even sure if that’s a word, but anyway, execution over knowledge. So once I started my Instagram, what happened naturally was I started the wander lover.com and I started blogging about travel. I started blogging thinking about quitting my corporate job, and I really, I really wanted to write a lot about travel. But then what I learned from that was I wasn’t great at writing.
(14m 12s):
It was really hard for me to write really long blog posts. And I learned that I needed to find another medium to express my creativity. The other thing that happened once I took action, instead of letting all of these small hurdles and road blocks keep me from starting is when I claimed the name, the wander lover on Instagram. I wanted the domain and I wanted the Pinterest and I wanted it on all of my accounts. And what I learned was the wander lover.com was taken. And so what I did was I actually bought the dash wander lover.com and went with it.
(14m 52s):
I was like, whatever, I can’t have the wonder lover. I’m going to go with the next best thing that took maybe like a day. And then I also found out that the Pinterest account, the wander lover was also taken. And so instead I started my Pinterest account with the wander lover underscore. So I didn’t overthink it. The name I loved. And I was like, you know what, I’m just going to go with it and start creating started sharing pins, started sharing blog posts. Had I waited to think of another new, like really perfect name. I wouldn’t have learned everything about blogging, about Pinterest, about Instagram in that timeframe, because I would have been so caught up on trying to find a name that was available on everything.
(15m 36s):
And in this day and age, it’s getting harder and harder and it shouldn’t keep you from starting because starting is the most important part. And lo and behold, a few months later, I got around like two or three emails from different agencies emailing me being like, Hey, I own the domain name, the wander lover.com. Do you want to buy it from me for like $200? One email was $200. The other was like $500. And I remember thinking like, wait, how do multiple agencies own this name? And I go onto the wander lover.com and the domain had expired. And I was like, holy shit, there’s this whole like second black.
(16m 19s):
I don’t know if the black market, but secondhand market, trying to pitch people with similar domain names and seeing if they can make money, just like selling another one, that’s expired, but available. And so I hopped on that right away. I purchased it for myself. And so I now have the wander lover.com on Pinterest. I’m still the wander lover underscore, but really guys, after a few years of just working on your brand, no one is going to care. If you have an underscore or not, and your brand is going to be so big, that there’s no way people are going to go onto the wander lever on Pinterest and be like, oh yeah, that’s Danielle. It just never happens. So we’re going to focus on building yourself so bright and so big that there’s going to be no mistake that the other one shitty inactive account that you can’t get the name for.
(17m 11s):
No, one’s going to think that’s you because your page is going to be so much bigger. Another concept I’ve been sharing with my clients this week is about this made up mental barrier or this mental wall in your head about why you can’t do something or why it’s not the right time. And you know, like sometimes you can, you just really know that you have to do something like maybe go live on Instagram and your mind is just trying to talk you out of it. Like it’s not the first day of the month yet. It’s not Monday. Yeah. I haven’t gotten to this place yet. Or I need to be in a prettier location or just something that’s stopping from doing the damn thing that mental ball is made up.
(17m 55s):
It’s not there. And it’s funny because recently after my hypnotherapy session, I had visions during my hypnosis and ever since then, I’ve just been drawing out all of these concepts, all of these business concepts. And if I turned on my page here, I have this like little stick figure, right? That’s stick figures. You there’s a thought bubble. So in that thought bubble, it’s the stick figure a wall and success. So you’re thinking that there is a wall between you and success. So that’s all in the thought bubble. However, in reality, the stick figure, which is you, there’s actually a paved road to success. So in reality, you just have to walk forward on that road to reach success.
(18m 40s):
But that thought that there’s a wall on that road. That’s, what’s stopping you. And it’s, it’s crazy because it’s all in your head. So sometimes there’s no excuses. Sometimes you just have to do it. You just have to go through it and be like, oh my God, I’m alive. I’m okay. No one gave me nasty comments, no one like cut me out of their lives. I’m fine. And that is the momentum you need to keep moving forward. You are the only one holding yourself back. We’ve already proven that there’s really no shortage of ideas in this world. And you probably already have business ideas that you’re not moving forward with.
(19m 21s):
Right. Don’t need to have the perfect idea to get started. That’s a mental block. There’s no such thing as perfection. And it’s going to change your businesses going to change over time. So let’s not waste any more time because that is your most valuable resource. All of this time, you’re spending, being really indecisive, like trying to be like, oh, I don’t know what to start and having all of these excuses and no that’s not going to happen. And the last thing I want to share with you guys is in momentum. So we start in September and my intention with September is going through momentum foundations.
(20m 4s):
So this, this is where we have your online business up and running within a month. No excuses. I think it’s super clear in this episode that, you know, once we have everything put together, once you see the roadmap, it gets to be really easy to decide what to move forward with. Especially if you have expert guidance and when you have accountability. So if you are really committed to pushing all that BS aside and executing with your side hustle, I really encourage you to enroll in momentum. Everyone in the group is currently making less than 5,000 us dollars a month. And we are going to build and scale upwards.
(20m 44s):
I also want to make it clear that there is very specific type of person that I am accepting into momentum. So we are all going in there with an all or nothing mentality. So we have committed to starting a business that is the initial investment that is putting yourself in that position to be coached by me and surrounded by other people on the same path, that commitment we are moving forward with. There’s no backing out of it, right? It’s not going to be like back when we were in Hawaii rags. And I were like, where should we move to next? And we both decided on Bali, but I wasn’t going to be like, actually I want to go to Europe.
(21m 25s):
Like while we were flying to Bali, we’re not backing out of decisions like that. Once you commit to your online business, your online business, we’ll commit to you. Another really important trait that I see all my successful clients have is their fearlessness in trying. So when I tell them that, you know, I encourage you to do this. They are fearless about putting themselves out there. They don’t say no, they don’t let their fears hold them back because they know it’s for their best. And so this fearlessness and putting yourself out there, even if it causes discomfort, if it causes like, you know, it’s outside of your comfort zone, maybe it’ll take some time and that’s okay.
(22m 6s):
But eventually you get over that hurdle. So if this sounds like you, if you’re ready to have your online business up and running by September, and you are fearless about it, and you are committed DM me or sign up in the show notes. Momentum is ready to welcome you in. As of now, we have three more spots left. We are going to hold your hand from September all the way to the end of the year through December and having this roadmap, you know, like if we give you a roadmap and we tell you what to do, and you can bring that all or nothing mentality and the fearlessness in trying.
(22m 51s):
I cannot wait to see you shine and succeed and just be the main character in your own business journey. So let me know if you have any questions. I hope this episode was helpful to everyone listening. I hope your fears have less of a say in your mind right now. And you can talk back to them and be like, you know what got up? I Couldn’t do this. If that is you, I’d love To hear from you and you guys, I’m always Supporting your success, had an amazing week, and I’ll see you guys next week. .
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✧ Enroll: https://thewanderlover.com/momentum-mastermind
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