So, you’ve decided to take a leap of faith and start your very own business. Excitement floods your life. Ideas overflow and energy abounds.
Then, reality sets in. Euphoria is replaced with data, dreams become processes, and ideological principles are defined by legal precedent. As a result, fear sets in.
Thoughts of purpose, vision, and hope are replaced with waves of doubt.
Questions Born Because of Doubt
Inevitably, you’re going to run into roadblocks in the form of questions. Questions you don’t have the answers to yet.
In my business working with Residential Assisted Living entrepreneurs, the questions usually sound something like:
- Will this really work?
- What do I know about the elderly?
- Oh My God, what have I done?
- I’m going to get sued, I just know it.
- What if someone dies? What if it’s our fault? What if it’s not but they sue us anyway?
There’s a resolution to these fears and others that often plague the visionaries.
One major root of fear is rejection – the perpetual insidious concern of what others think of you. Rejection for many entrepreneurs is associated with investors, banks, zoning officials and being successful. This rejection drives some entrepreneurs to extreme self-doubt and self-devalue – great many businesses never get started because of this.
You can mark an end of fear rooted in rejection.
Begin the journey of vision and purpose by owning and operating a viable and profitable business… and if I could steer you one direction I would guide you towards a residential assisted living home.
Understanding Rejection
Rejection is strong. Individuals who face rejection often build life around the experience.
Why is this dangerous? You cannot live a full version of life when negativity is rooted in the center. Sure, most people would never admit to having built a life around rejection, but millions have.
How do you know?
People who have built a life around rejection are pessimistic. They may have a great idea or a novel concept, but quickly destroy it with words like, “It’ll never work,” or “Isn’t this crazy?” or “Don’t even waste your time.” These phrases and others akin to them are evidence of a life built around a rejection experience.
These people also lack vigor or the drive for adventure, unlike children who do not harbor fear.
Children are adventurous, outgoing, daring and curious. What happened to that child in you? Do not say life. That simply is not true. Life happens to all. How is it that the adventurous child becomes a loathsome adult? Rejection.
What’s the cure? You’ve got the entrepreneurial idea, but for some reason you can’t seem to get moving? How do you resolve this?
Acknowledge the rejection experience. Sure, you may have more than one, but acknowledge the first one, the one that cut the adventure out of your heart.
Acknowledge the one that destroyed your biggest ambitions. You can use 4 steps to restore your ambition and boldness to start your new senior assisted housing business.
Four Steps to Restoration and Resiliency
- Name It
Get old fashioned about this. Get a pen and a piece of paper and write down the experience that had an impact on your life.
- What happened?
- When did it happen?
- Why did it happen?
- What was the result of it having happened?
- What did it rob of you?
Answering these simple questions may not be simple for some. Rejection is real and it hurts. Some of the answers drudge up experiences that really distorted your life – this distortion must be corrected.
You were never meant to be malformed. Malformation results in malfunctioning. Malfunctioning hampers productivity and compromises contribution.
You want to contribute to society. You want to help and aid those who have built and sustained our nation.
These seniors in need of assisted living, feisty as they may be, need you. You have the vision to support and care for them, but that rejection experience looms and lingers.
The pen and paper you used to acknowledge your first rejection experience is what you need to swat old rejections that linger like flies.
- Swat It
You have detailed the rejection experience that caused such paralyzing fear. Understand what this experience really is:
- It is an invader.
- It destroyed the curiosity and genuine nature of your heart.
- It established a dysfunctional colony in your mind.
- It demanded to be the center of attention.
- It seeks to shape your outlook and frame your actions for the rest of your life.
- It is a liar.
Now, for your own sake – swat it. That’s right. Destroy it. It has no right to rule your life. It is emotionally destructive and spiritually corrupt. You can no longer afford to foster it.
Literally, speak to yourself and disavow your unwilling allegiance to it. Take charge of your life and tell yourself what you will accomplish. Tell yourself what you are going to do.
Take that paper which now contains the rejection experience and tear it, rip it, and ball it up. This will allow you to redirect your past and take control of your future – it’s therapeutic. Afterward, celebrate.
You faced what hampered you. Mark the date and time you reclaimed your childlike curiosity, creativity, adventure and boldness. Things will be different now. How so?
Change Your Schedule
- Make sure to adjust how you function. You are no longer working around rejection but moving in purpose.
Change Your Behavior
- Literally, put a smile on your face. Incorporate activities that support entrepreneurial pursuits: exercise, reading, writing, meditation, and positive confession.
Be Resilient
- Do not allow old habits to infringe on the new you. Resist doing what you are accustomed to doing and embrace the adventure of a new life centered on purpose.
Your reality is no longer rooted in rejection.
Surround yourself with others who uphold like ideals. Give time and focus to activities which support your entrepreneurial plans and purpose.
- Be Comfortable with Discomfort
Entrepreneurs become weary of comfort. Comfort for the entrepreneur is equivalent to complacency. Complacency equates to stagnation, which does not foster growth.
Entrepreneurs are most comfortable when uncomfortable. The entrepreneur learns to crave the adventure, the uncertainty, and the unknown.
This chemistry creates an adrenalin that makes pursuing ideas and businesses even more worthwhile.
The discomfort is fuel that drives the entrepreneur forward. It is the discomfort that drives movement, causes questions, exposes concerns and issues.
Get comfortable with discomfort. It is the way forward for you, not an excuse to stop.
- Celebrate Good Times
For clarity sake, let’s be real. Here is the truth: you will be rejected. You will be denied.
What should your response be? So, what – this is par for the course.
Stay in the business. Improvement comes when vulnerability is exposed. You know where work needs to be done and the resilient fearless entrepreneur gets the job done.
Facing vulnerabilities makes you stronger.
Accepting the rejections as needed checkpoints, makes you keener and more precise. Do not allow fear to seep in because of this. Use it. It’s all fuel for the entrepreneur.
Then, once you’ve faced it, address it:
- The absence of fear.
- The thrill of thriving.
- The work you’ve done and that which is to be done.
- The people whose lives are better because you are fully functional.
- Life, health and strength.
You Are Not Alone
Rejection is rooted in fear and aims to distort, delay and destroy our lives. Rejection is an experience that becomes a method of decaying resilience.
Every industry has a network of likeminded individuals that you can surround yourself with for support.
Every industry has leaders who have done the dirty work of building a viable business plan that you can adopt as your own.
With a plan and a network in your corner, you are prepared to overcome all of the obstacles you would throw at yourself plus those you’ll encounter in the real world.
What does this network look like? Where does this viable business plan come from?
Every industry is different but I can speak to my industry of residential assisted living.
Men and women who have a heard to help those who are in need discover the residential assisted living allows them to guide that desire for impact in the direction of creating an environment where seniors can age with digity.
Swatting that rejection and allowing yourself to thrive comes through our Residential Assisted Living 3-Day Fast Track event. So if you’re intrigued by assisted living, that will be your starting point.
No matter the industry, the essence of entrepreneurship remains the same: a leap of faith supported by strategic planning, continuous learning, and an unyielding drive. With the right mindset, resources, and community, you can navigate the complexities of starting your own business and emerge stronger on the other side. Begin this journey together with a community, transforming fear and doubt into purpose and success.
