How you frame your thinking about things informs your verbal and non-verbal cues and affects those around you. Worse, if you repeat certain words often enough, what began as self-limiting beliefs can become accepted wisdom. It’s at that point that people stop railing against the ‘facts’ and effectively, give up.
Here are two examples of what I am talking about:
- I can’t get good people. Yes, you can. You’ve probably got some of them already. What you really mean is “it’s really hard to find ‘em and keep ‘em” or “I haven’t yet worked out how to get ‘em”. And that’s a good thing. Why? Well, in that scarcity is your advantage. Work out why a good ‘un would want to work for you. Write a list then market it to your recruiters. Then go forward and collect the good ‘uns. Because when you’ve got ‘em, nobody else can have ‘em.
- We can’t compete with them – we’re only a small business. Well, at the risk of repeating myself, there’s your advantage. That size means that in many ways, they actually can’t compete with you! So, like the mouse that slips away from the cat, work out where you’ve got an advantage and exploit the daylights out of it.
I recognise that these things may seem counterintuitive. But there is a process by which you can challenge the accepted wisdom. Happy to help if you’d like to work through these or any other examples.
-Neil Parker