Show Notes
Last week at an event, someone walked up to Scott after his presentation. Full-time job. Side hustle. New business. All kinds of doubts. Ready to throw in the towel.
Here's what Scott told them.
12 years ago, Scott was in the same boat. VP at a Fortune 300 company. Saw the writing on the wall. Started a side hustle in real estate investing. The emotions—doubt, self-doubt, resistance—are all part of the process.
You gotta keep going. You're going to have self-doubt. Can I do this? Am I doing it right? You gotta keep going anyway.
Protect your money. The number one reason businesses fail is underfunding. Don't run out of capital. Budget for the hard times.
Read The War of Art. Stephen Pressfield wrote it for creatives, but it should be required reading for every business owner. The inner critic troll will show up. Acknowledge it. Write it down. Say thank you. And keep moving.
Pick one to three big things. Don't try to do everything. Pick the goal. Walk toward it.
The arbitrary date: The target date you picked? It's arbitrary. You gave it your best. If you miss it, don't spiral. Look at the movement you made. Measure progress, not perfection.
Give yourself grace. If it takes three years instead of twelve months—who cares? High achievers struggle with this. Keep grinding anyway.
Move your feet. (The lacrosse story.) When the player froze, the defense didn't. If you stop, the world doesn't. Do something. Find a win.
The wins journal: Every day, write down five wins. No matter how small. One person signed up for your email list? Win. You woke up and did something for your business? Win.
Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask
📜 Full Transcript (Click to expand)
Scott Todd (00:12.024)
Do you feel this way? Last week I was at an event and when I got done presenting, someone walked up to me and they said, Hey, I I I'm I'm struggling here. And I'm like, What's what's going on? And they were telling me that they have a full time job, that this is their side hustle, that their business is new, and they had all kinds of doubts. All kinds of doubts. They didn't know if they were gonna be able to make it, they didn't know how to juggle the the work, the family, the
The business, the side hustle, all of that other stuff, they were just struggling and they were ready to throw in the towel. So let me tell you what I told them, and I think it might help for you. Welcome to Fix My Business, the show that helps you do just that. I'm your host, Scott Todd. I have built multiple seven figure businesses after leaving corporate America. And this channel is dedicated to helping you do the exact same thing. Now, here's the situation.
10 no twelve years ago, 12 years ago is I was in that same boat. I had a corporate job. I I had I was a VP at a big company, Fortune 300 company, and I could see the right on the wall that I needed to get out. Like my job was gonna come to an end. I just saw the writing on the wall. I I got lucky. Okay. And I went out and I started a side hustle. I started doing real estate investing. Now, what happened though is during that process.
You're going to experience all kinds of emotions, doubt, self-doubt. The resistance of the world is going to come at you. It really is. There's going to be so many days that you're ready to throw in the towel. This is what I told them. You got to keep going. Okay? You're going to have all kinds of self-doubt. Can I do this? Is am I doing it right? Am I going to mess up? Do I have the money? You got to keep going. Now,
The whole thing here is that you got to protect your money. You can't run out of capital. You can't run out of runway. And it can't start costing you money to where like you're like, I got no money left. You gotta, you gotta, you got a budget for that. But it is possible to bootstrap a business. It is possible to do this, but it's going to take work. Okay. The more the more you're bootstrapping this business, the harder that it is.
Scott Todd (02:37.695)
Lots of companies struggle for lots of different reasons. The number one reason of failure in business is capital, underfunding. Not enough capital to sustain those those difficult times. Because as much as we want it to be, business is not always going to be the same. There's gonna be those ups and downs. There are gonna be those great weeks or great days or great months. And then it's gonna be like crickets. Okay. And, you know, right now I'd say it's super hard because
There's a lot of businesses that are struggling right now. Okay, like it's a tough time right now. But that doesn't mean that you can't do it. You gotta keep going. You gotta believe. Now, there's a book called The U, it's called The Art of No, it's called The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield. And I I gotta tell you, this book is, I think, just a must read for any business owner. It's written for creatives.
It really really is. It's written for authors and it's written for for people who have to sit down and show up all the time. But I think that it should be required reading of every business owner. It really should, especially new business owners, because there's so many days where you just wanna like deal have to deal with this inner critic troll and you don't know what to do with it. You just want to throw in the towel. Like it it's just too hard. You gotta keep going. You gotta keep showing up. You gotta tell that inner critic, that inner critic voice to shut up.
Hey, thank you. I hear you. Write it down. Do whatever, whatever's in your store, whatever story your your brain is telling you, write it down. Thank you. And you got to keep moving on. You got to keep moving on. The other thing, and this is what I told them: the other thing you got to make sure that you're doing is you got to make sure that what you're not doing is trying to do everything. You have to be selective. Pick one.
To three big things. Okay. What's the goal? Pick the goal. Pick the goal and keep walking toward that goal. Now, there's a funny thing about goals. You know, if if you've been around any type of goal planning at any given time, you've heard about SMART goals, and the you should always have something that has time to it, right? Number one, the R is realistic. It needs to be realistic.
Scott Todd (05:04.795)
But it also has to have a time constraint to it. So people love to do this, like, my gosh, I'm gonna hit this monthly income number or this profit number by this day. I'm gonna replace my income by this day. And then what happens is as you get closer to that day.
you start to miss out. You start to realize like it's not possible for me to hit that number on that day. And the inner critic troll loves that. The inner critic troll loves that. Because basically it introduces the self-doubt the right time. And the one thing I would say to that, to that mindset is, hey, timeout. Timeout. The date that you picked
The date that you picked is an arbitrary date. It's a date that you picked. You gave it your best to achieve it by that date. And even if you don't achieve it by that date, I don't want you to compare what you're lacking or how far you have to go. I want you to look and look at the movement that you have. Look at what we've done in this period of time. And that's a different mindset that's gonna
Propel you forward. Okay. Lots of high achievers struggle with this. High achievers, man, they want to hit these dates. They want to hit these targets. They want to do this. And look, if you're starting a business, you're a high achiever. That that's the reality. So this is for you. And what I want you to do is I want you to give yourself some grace. I want you to understand that it's okay if you miss this target date. Move it to the future. So what it doesn't take you.
I don't know, a year and a half or 12 months. It's gonna take you three years. Who cares? And you're like, you wait a minute, man. I want this thing now. I want this satisfaction now. I want to hit this target now. I hear you. Look, I'm a I'm a high achiever. I live this with you every day. Every high achiever does. But what you have to do is you gotta keep moving on. Keep grinding. I told this story a few weeks ago. I'm gonna tell it again now because
Scott Todd (07:19.754)
I'm telling you exactly what I told this person who walked up to me. And I want you to hear this again. And if you're a regular listener, you're gonna, you're like, I've heard this. I thank you for being a regular listener, but it's a great reminder. And here it is. You got to keep moving your feet. You gotta keep moving your feet. Remember, you can't stop. And where this comes from is years ago when I was starting my business, when I had that corporate job, my son.
Had just joined the lacrosse team. And it was the first time he had ever played lacrosse. I really didn't know anything about lacrosse. The lacrosse wasn't really that big in Florida. That's where I grew up in. Like, what is this game? I don't know anything about it. My son joins lacrosse. We're out there for a game. And as his team was running toward the goal, they got to a point where they were where the person who had the ball needed to stop, or they didn't need to stop, they actually stopped.
And they were trying to figure out like, okay, what do I do? Do I pass? Do I run? But they froze.
Scott Todd (08:25.793)
And all of a sudden, this dad from the sidelines with this deep, deep voice yells, Move your feet.
And the player who had the ball began to run. You see, when he froze, the defense didn't freeze. The defense was still moving. The defense was still coming to him. But he was on the offense. He needed to keep moving. Okay. When you stop, when you freeze up, when you lock up, when you get paralyzed, it's the worst thing for your business. It's the worst thing for you. You gotta keep moving your business.
Feet. So if you're struggling, move your feet. Do something.
Scott Todd (09:18.313)
If you don't know what to do, find something to do, something that you can mark off as a win. And here's the last thing that I said. And I hope that you hear this, and I hope that you replace this episode so many times. And here it is. This is what I did. This is the thing that got me through. Every day, at the end of the day, I opened up a notebook and I wrote wins on the piece of paper. I wrote the day of the the day.
Okay, whatever the date was, I wrote wins and I wrote one, two, three, four, five. And I sat there until I could think of every single win. Now, I have to tell you something. Some of these wins, if I look back at them today, they're comical. Like, like I I did this a few years ago. I looked at it, I'm like, huh, look at this. My win for the day was that one person signed up for my email list that day. That was the win.
Today that would be a terrible day. And it's not about that number. It's not about some big number. But looking back at the fact that I was happy that there was one win, that one person is really a way of reflecting just how far you've actually come. So write down your wins. Grab five of them. And look, don't, don't, don't, don't give up on like.
Try trying to find five of them. Whatever comes to your mind. I don't care how small they are. I don't care how silly they are. And even if that win is I woke up today and I did something for my business, that, my friend, is a win. And if you have a business question, I'm here to help you. I want to help you. You can head over to Scott Todd.net forward slash ask. Put your question there, and I will answer it on this show. And I will see you in our next episode.
Do you feel this way? Last week I was at an event and when I got done presenting, someone walked up to me and they said, Hey, I I I'm I'm struggling here. And I'm like, What's what's going on? And they were telling me that they have a full time job, that this is their side hustle, that their business is new, and they had all kinds of doubts. All kinds of doubts. They didn't know if they were gonna be able to make it, they didn't know how to juggle the the work, the family, the
The business, the side hustle, all of that other stuff, they were just struggling and they were ready to throw in the towel. So let me tell you what I told them, and I think it might help for you. Welcome to Fix My Business, the show that helps you do just that. I'm your host, Scott Todd. I have built multiple seven figure businesses after leaving corporate America. And this channel is dedicated to helping you do the exact same thing. Now, here's the situation.
10 no twelve years ago, 12 years ago is I was in that same boat. I had a corporate job. I I had I was a VP at a big company, Fortune 300 company, and I could see the right on the wall that I needed to get out. Like my job was gonna come to an end. I just saw the writing on the wall. I I got lucky. Okay. And I went out and I started a side hustle. I started doing real estate investing. Now, what happened though is during that process.
You're going to experience all kinds of emotions, doubt, self-doubt. The resistance of the world is going to come at you. It really is. There's going to be so many days that you're ready to throw in the towel. This is what I told them. You got to keep going. Okay? You're going to have all kinds of self-doubt. Can I do this? Is am I doing it right? Am I going to mess up? Do I have the money? You got to keep going. Now,
The whole thing here is that you got to protect your money. You can't run out of capital. You can't run out of runway. And it can't start costing you money to where like you're like, I got no money left. You gotta, you gotta, you got a budget for that. But it is possible to bootstrap a business. It is possible to do this, but it's going to take work. Okay. The more the more you're bootstrapping this business, the harder that it is.
Scott Todd (02:37.695)
Lots of companies struggle for lots of different reasons. The number one reason of failure in business is capital, underfunding. Not enough capital to sustain those those difficult times. Because as much as we want it to be, business is not always going to be the same. There's gonna be those ups and downs. There are gonna be those great weeks or great days or great months. And then it's gonna be like crickets. Okay. And, you know, right now I'd say it's super hard because
There's a lot of businesses that are struggling right now. Okay, like it's a tough time right now. But that doesn't mean that you can't do it. You gotta keep going. You gotta believe. Now, there's a book called The U, it's called The Art of No, it's called The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield. And I I gotta tell you, this book is, I think, just a must read for any business owner. It's written for creatives.
It really really is. It's written for authors and it's written for for people who have to sit down and show up all the time. But I think that it should be required reading of every business owner. It really should, especially new business owners, because there's so many days where you just wanna like deal have to deal with this inner critic troll and you don't know what to do with it. You just want to throw in the towel. Like it it's just too hard. You gotta keep going. You gotta keep showing up. You gotta tell that inner critic, that inner critic voice to shut up.
Hey, thank you. I hear you. Write it down. Do whatever, whatever's in your store, whatever story your your brain is telling you, write it down. Thank you. And you got to keep moving on. You got to keep moving on. The other thing, and this is what I told them: the other thing you got to make sure that you're doing is you got to make sure that what you're not doing is trying to do everything. You have to be selective. Pick one.
To three big things. Okay. What's the goal? Pick the goal. Pick the goal and keep walking toward that goal. Now, there's a funny thing about goals. You know, if if you've been around any type of goal planning at any given time, you've heard about SMART goals, and the you should always have something that has time to it, right? Number one, the R is realistic. It needs to be realistic.
Scott Todd (05:04.795)
But it also has to have a time constraint to it. So people love to do this, like, my gosh, I'm gonna hit this monthly income number or this profit number by this day. I'm gonna replace my income by this day. And then what happens is as you get closer to that day.
you start to miss out. You start to realize like it's not possible for me to hit that number on that day. And the inner critic troll loves that. The inner critic troll loves that. Because basically it introduces the self-doubt the right time. And the one thing I would say to that, to that mindset is, hey, timeout. Timeout. The date that you picked
The date that you picked is an arbitrary date. It's a date that you picked. You gave it your best to achieve it by that date. And even if you don't achieve it by that date, I don't want you to compare what you're lacking or how far you have to go. I want you to look and look at the movement that you have. Look at what we've done in this period of time. And that's a different mindset that's gonna
Propel you forward. Okay. Lots of high achievers struggle with this. High achievers, man, they want to hit these dates. They want to hit these targets. They want to do this. And look, if you're starting a business, you're a high achiever. That that's the reality. So this is for you. And what I want you to do is I want you to give yourself some grace. I want you to understand that it's okay if you miss this target date. Move it to the future. So what it doesn't take you.
I don't know, a year and a half or 12 months. It's gonna take you three years. Who cares? And you're like, you wait a minute, man. I want this thing now. I want this satisfaction now. I want to hit this target now. I hear you. Look, I'm a I'm a high achiever. I live this with you every day. Every high achiever does. But what you have to do is you gotta keep moving on. Keep grinding. I told this story a few weeks ago. I'm gonna tell it again now because
Scott Todd (07:19.754)
I'm telling you exactly what I told this person who walked up to me. And I want you to hear this again. And if you're a regular listener, you're gonna, you're like, I've heard this. I thank you for being a regular listener, but it's a great reminder. And here it is. You got to keep moving your feet. You gotta keep moving your feet. Remember, you can't stop. And where this comes from is years ago when I was starting my business, when I had that corporate job, my son.
Had just joined the lacrosse team. And it was the first time he had ever played lacrosse. I really didn't know anything about lacrosse. The lacrosse wasn't really that big in Florida. That's where I grew up in. Like, what is this game? I don't know anything about it. My son joins lacrosse. We're out there for a game. And as his team was running toward the goal, they got to a point where they were where the person who had the ball needed to stop, or they didn't need to stop, they actually stopped.
And they were trying to figure out like, okay, what do I do? Do I pass? Do I run? But they froze.
Scott Todd (08:25.793)
And all of a sudden, this dad from the sidelines with this deep, deep voice yells, Move your feet.
And the player who had the ball began to run. You see, when he froze, the defense didn't freeze. The defense was still moving. The defense was still coming to him. But he was on the offense. He needed to keep moving. Okay. When you stop, when you freeze up, when you lock up, when you get paralyzed, it's the worst thing for your business. It's the worst thing for you. You gotta keep moving your business.
Feet. So if you're struggling, move your feet. Do something.
Scott Todd (09:18.313)
If you don't know what to do, find something to do, something that you can mark off as a win. And here's the last thing that I said. And I hope that you hear this, and I hope that you replace this episode so many times. And here it is. This is what I did. This is the thing that got me through. Every day, at the end of the day, I opened up a notebook and I wrote wins on the piece of paper. I wrote the day of the the day.
Okay, whatever the date was, I wrote wins and I wrote one, two, three, four, five. And I sat there until I could think of every single win. Now, I have to tell you something. Some of these wins, if I look back at them today, they're comical. Like, like I I did this a few years ago. I looked at it, I'm like, huh, look at this. My win for the day was that one person signed up for my email list that day. That was the win.
Today that would be a terrible day. And it's not about that number. It's not about some big number. But looking back at the fact that I was happy that there was one win, that one person is really a way of reflecting just how far you've actually come. So write down your wins. Grab five of them. And look, don't, don't, don't, don't give up on like.
Try trying to find five of them. Whatever comes to your mind. I don't care how small they are. I don't care how silly they are. And even if that win is I woke up today and I did something for my business, that, my friend, is a win. And if you have a business question, I'm here to help you. I want to help you. You can head over to Scott Todd.net forward slash ask. Put your question there, and I will answer it on this show. And I will see you in our next episode.