137: Nine Fears Holding Female Entrepreneurs Back From Success

Welcome to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, Andrea Liebross. Each week, I focus on the systems, strategy, and big thinking you need to CEO your business and life to the next level. Are you ready? Let's go.

Hello, my friends. How are you doing? Is it a sunny day where you are? Is it hot? What's happening? Middle of summer. Today, where I am, is a clear blue sky. It is a beautiful day.

Today I want to come to a close a little bit of our Business Audit to Business Awesome Series. I want to talk about something that happens to 99.9% of entrepreneurial women. They have fear. What are the scariest things for a successful entrepreneurial woman? The scariest things fall into three major categories: fear of the unknown, fear of failing, and fear of lack of resources.

As we go through an audit your business, those three big categories of fears come up over and over again. Oftentimes when we audit, we recognize that a reason that we haven't moved forward with a project that we've been dying to do or the reason that we haven't invested in something we want to invest in is because of one of these three fears.

Now, I think these fears don't just happen to entrepreneurial women, I think they happen to everyone. We were having a discussion at my house the other day, my two kids, one is going to be a senior in college and one is going to be a sophomore. They're both in business school or the Kelley School of Business at IU. My older one knows the ropes more than the younger one, obviously, and he was advising her in a brotherly way about what he thinks that she should do next fall.

She kept coming back to him with, “Well, what if that doesn't work for me? I know it worked for you but what if it doesn't work for me?” She came back with, “Listen, I think I had a really good schedule last year. I figured out when I was going to work out, go to class, and when I was going to have some fun. I don't know if I want to change that.”

Fear of change. She said to him, “Well, I mean, should I really apply for that? What if I get in? It's going to be a lot more work.” That's fear of risk. Fear of success. It's not just us, as entrepreneur women who have these fears, it's everybody. It's everybody.

I think one thing that she does not worry about but yet he, as the older one, more in the working world worries about is fear of not having enough money or fear of lack. I don't think she's at that point where that crosses her mind, but it certainly crosses his since he has already had a gazillion job interviews and is hoping to have his summer internship turned into a job.

I don't think either of them really worries about the fear of not enough time. Because time is endless to them in this sense, although I do think they see the summer as a finite amount of time. They may not have enough time to get all the things they want to get done done in that amount of time.

But my point here is that it is not just entrepreneur women who have these fears, it is everyone. This is something that we address in coaching. This is something that we address as we audit your business and audit your life and figure out what's working and what's not working and why. A lot of times, fear rears its ugly head in that discussion. How do we change how we feel? We’ve got to change our thoughts.

Today I wanted to spend a little bit of time just digging a little deeper into each of these three major categories of fear: fear of the unknown, fear of failing, and fear of lack of resources, and spoiler alert, this is a little preview of some of the content that is in the 45,000 words in my book. I spend a small chunk talking about this, but we're going to talk about it today on the podcast.

Here's what I want you to do. If you've got a pen, I do want you to write down these nine common fears. If you have a pen, your brain, or your notes on your phone, I want you to think about what, for you, might fall into these categories. Let's dig in.

Fear of unknown. Under fear of unknown, I have put four fears: fear of uncertainty, fear of change, fear of risk, and fear of success. Let's start with fear of uncertainty. When you run a business, you want things nailed down. That's why everybody loves VIP days because we nail down a plan. You want your offers nailed down. You want your processes nailed down. You want the right people in your business nailed down.

You don't like it when you can't control what could happen. You start to fear what you don't know. What you don't know becomes this strange blank space. It's like dun-dun-dun, that’s how I picture it, when you focus on the dun-dun-dun, it grows, it takes over. It becomes heavy. Suddenly, you feel like you don't know anything at all.

Since you don't know, you don't have a plan. With no plan, you don't act. What action should you take? You don't know. You project all the horrible things that could happen into that blank space. Of course, you don't want to move forward. You just look at all the potential catastrophes waiting there. I've named this space the blank spot of impending catastrophe. When you're there and when you face it, you just shut down.

Now, fear of change, this is like fear of uncertainty, but it usually focuses on fear of a specific outcome, of an action you might take. Like, “If I change my offer, no one will buy from me. If I ask for the sale, and they say yes, how will I manage that? If they say no, how will I manage that?”

Something new is entering your world. Whether it's a new potential client, whether it's a new offer, when you raise your prices, that changes, when your number of consults changes, don't forget that there is the possibility that this change could actually be great.

We don't give the great side of change nearly as much airtime as the not-so-great side of change. You've identified the threat as change and change creates an opening for new problems to enter your world and new problems create uncertainty, and so we're back to that blank spot of impending catastrophe again. Decision made in a sense.

We definitely now don't want to take any action that we were considering because we're at the blank spot of impending catastrophe, and you're used to being there, so you might as well just stay there. It's comfortable. That in and of itself is a decision. It actually doesn't create any fear because you're used to being there.

Which brings me to the third fear of the unknown, which is fear of risk. As an entrepreneur, you already carry the responsibility of running an entire business. You have no protective corporate network to shield you from your failures. I see this play out when I start to hear women say, “Oh, it'd be so much easier if I were working for someone else. Why? Because it would be them, the other people or the corporation taking on the risk.”

But as an entrepreneur, your decisions seem to carry greater weight of risk because the whole business could be at stake. You want to think more before you make decisions. Everybody's like, “I'm going to think about it.” That's a favorite line. Do you want to engage in coaching? I'm going to think about it.

Now this can be a great strategy. But when you fear taking any risk and seek only the security of what you've done before, you'll eventually cripple your success. I see this with clients on consult calls who really struggle to engage in coaching but just can't pull the trigger. What if this doesn't work? They worry. So they decided to think about it.

When I ask, “What are you thinking about?” they reply, “I don't really know,” or “I think I need to look at my bank account.” What is looking in your bank account going to do? You already know what's in your bank account in general and that changes on a daily basis, an hourly basis. Really what they're doing is just delaying risk. Next time you say to yourself, “I need to think about it,” what are you really doing? You're probably just delaying risk. This is fear of risk.

But the fourth fear under the fear of uncertainty umbrella is fear of success. Now success sounds good. But underneath all of the rewards it brings, success also brings change. I am feeling this right now as my book is about to be released. I'm feeling this is really happening. I am thinking, “Holy moly, I have gotten to the finish line in a sense. The book is complete and it is out there.”

But I don't know what's going to happen with the success of publishing a book. You could even argue, “Will the book be a success?” but I'm going to believe it will be and so what's going to happen there? That success is going to bring change and change means going back to that unknown where we can't predict things and then here we go again, it's the blank spot of impending catastrophe. Does that mean I'm not going to publish the book? No. But notice how all change brings you back to that same spot.

Let's dig into the second big category, which is fear of failure. Under fear of failure, I can talk about fear of not being good enough, fear of being seen as not good enough, or fear of letting others down. Now, fear of failure is really just another kind of confidence issue. If you haven't listened to any of my episodes on confidence, I suggest you go do that.

But fear of failure really revolves around judgment or feelings, bad feelings. I read a study recently, it's by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Of the individuals surveyed globally who believe there are good business opportunities in their local area, 19% to 60%, depending on the country, so let's just say 20% to 60% would still not start a business due to fear of failure even though they thought they could be successful and that there was an opportunity there.

It's not a baseless assumption that the same type of fear might also hamper you when you're wanting to try new things. If you judge the environment as risky or your skills as not good enough, these judgments are going to lead you to fear of failing. Fear of not being good enough, this is a self-judgment. When you look at yourself and constantly find yourself wanting new skills or knowledge, you're crippling your success.

I see this when someone's like, “Well, I just need to take that one more course,” when someone thinks they just need more knowledge, and then they'll be good enough, or they just need the certification, and then they'll be legit. I see that a lot. They're delaying their success out of fear of not being good enough and fear of not having enough knowledge.

Often this one's the default. It sounds noble in a way, “I just need to know more,” but really, what's going on is probably one of these other two types of fears: fear of not being seen as good enough or fear of letting others down. Fear of not being seen as good enough, fear of failure is really linked in the minds of women to self-worth and pride.

Thinking about what other people will think about your possible failure creates a picture of humiliation. Who wants that? If you are someone that doesn't love posting on social media, this is probably you, because you might not be seen as good enough. There's also the fear of letting others down. The unwritten rule that women need to be there for their families and to manage their homes still exists. Its validity is beside the point.

The assumption that you're going to let someone else down causes so many questions of whether or not success is even possible for women, but you're going to have to sacrifice your family responsibilities to achieve success, and being seen as someone who neglects her family does not sound appealing.

Then there's the fear of letting down people who you've made commitments to: extended family, clients, friends, neighbors, the volunteer organization that we signed up for, even your team. When we don't follow through, people will be disappointed. They judge us for being unreliable. This is going to maybe even lead to having more commitments to show others that we care, we want to help.

I have a client who really held back on growing her business because she feared letting down her family. But here's the thing, she wasn't even having a conversation with her family to let them know what her dreams and desires were or to even pose the option of her spending more time, money, or energy on her business. What is something that you're avoiding doing because you fear how others might feel about it or how others might see you? That is all fear, my friends, of failure.

The last fear revolves around fear of lack. The last fear, fear of lack, is not having enough of something. Mainly money and time are two biggest resources. Number one is fear of not enough money. We talked a lot about this two episodes ago when we talked about what scares us. I think it's episode 135. Go listen to that.

Money gives you power to do things, especially in your business. What if you don't have enough? What if you don't make enough money to support your family's needs? What if you don't have enough to cover emergencies? It's really my hope when I write another book, the second book I write, that there's going to be a section on fear of making too much money. That'd be awesome.

But I can fall into this trap myself, fear of not having enough money. I have to admit that using the You Need A Budget software to manage cash flow has really lessened that anxiety tremendously. Let me know if you want more information about how that system works in coaching around having fear of not enough money. You can just DM me or send me an email.

But sometimes, and this happened this week, I was holding off on making a decision. I wanted to invest in my business in a way. I was holding off because I had this fear of not having enough money. But I pulled the trigger this morning actually and did it because I realized yesterday, in both looking at the data, looking at the hard facts, and examining my thinking, that I have plenty of money to do this, and I'm making more money every day.

The second fear of lack is fear of not enough time. Sometimes the fear of not having enough time to get everything done can paralyze you. If you keep measuring the time you don't have, you won't be able to choose your priorities and everything will seem super huge. What if you're doing the wrong thing with the little time you have because you haven't taken the time to figure out what your priorities are?

We talked a lot about this in Episode 135, what scares you? Go listen to it again. I used to worry about this one more when my kids were younger, not having enough time. Lately, when this fear comes up, I've been much more solution-oriented and I've been outsourcing and delegating a whole lot more.

Things around the book are a great example of that. I didn't think I was going to have enough time to really work on this book the way I wanted to with the other things that were going on in my life, namely a move and a sale of a house so I outsourced a little bit in a sense of hiring extra editors, someone to do the graphics, and having my photographer just take care of all the photography. I just trusted her and gave her [inaudible].

That's the last one, fear of not enough time. The nine fears: fear of uncertainty, fear of change, fear of risk, fear of success, fear of not being good enough, fear of being seen as not good enough, fear of letting others down, fear of not enough money, and fear of not enough time. Why I wanted to do this episode right now is I wanted to really dig deep on what is scaring you and I want you to get good at pinpointing what kind of fear you're having.

This episode is somewhat of a stepping stone to the next series of episodes we're going to do about thinking big. The title of this book that's going to be released in September is She Thinks Big. But in order to think big, you've got to make the shift from thinking small. These fears are small thinking. I was thinking small about investing yesterday like worrying if I didn't have enough money. That was totally small thinking. It was ridiculous.

I had to shift my mindset to thinking big in order to make the investment I wanted and I am so happy I did. Usually, everything you always want is on the other side of uncomfortable, on the other side of that fear. I encourage you this week to really eavesdrop in on your mind and figure out what fears you're having.

Consult calls are an amazing way to uncover what your fears really are. Even if you have no intention of working with me, I'd be happy to jump on a complimentary strategy call and help you uncover that. Wouldn't that be valuable? What can change if you really understood what you're fearing? Sometimes you can't do that yourself. You're stuck in your own peanut butter jar. You can't read the label. You can't figure out what the fears are on the outside. Let me help you do that.

Ways to book a consult call, you can just DM me, I had someone do that the other day, you can go to andreaslinks.com and book a call from there, you can click on the link in the show notes. You got lots of ways. But let's uncover those fears so that you can start to shift into that big thinking. I am thrilled to help you do that and to see the success that comes from it.

Alright, my friends, until next week. Remember, now is the time. There's no better time. You don't need to think about it because what are you thinking about? You don't really know. If you tell yourself you're thinking about X, Y, or Z, it's probably related to one of these fears. Let's tackle them. Have a great day. See you next week.

Hey, listening to podcasts is great. But you also have to do something to kick your business up a notch. You need to take some action, right? So go to andreaslinks.com and take the quiz. I guarantee you'll walk away knowing exactly what your next best step is to level up.