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Posts Tagged ‘The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur’

This is part of an in depth review of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, by Mike Michalowicz.  This book is about being an entrepreneur and starting and running a successful business. I will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book.

Getting anywhere with your business is difficult work. Limiting beliefs just make it harder. How can you expect to be successful if you keep telling yourself that you can’t? Mike Michalowicz refers to the beliefs that hold us back from achieving success in business as “the wall of limiting beliefs.”

Basically, anything you believe that will stop you from reaching a goal is like a wall in your path to achieving that goal. You may want to get your products into grocery stores, but you have convinced yourself that you don’t know how to approach the buyers. This is a limiting belief that will stand in the way of achieving your goal until you can overcome it.

I call these limiting beliefs “The Wall.” The Wall is insurmountable and is more powerful than any physical barrier could ever be. There is no method of knocking it down or destroying it other than to vanquish The Wall by creating a channel of enabling beliefs.

Michalowicz goes on to make a point about when the wall is overcome. In my example of the business trying to sell to a grocery store, it may seem that the wall is overcome when the person receives a referral and signs up one small chain. But the wall doesn’t go away. In fact, it is reinforced, because that person still believes he cannot reach out to a buyer unless he can get more referrals.

The only way to deal with the limiting belief is to find a way around it with what Michalowicz calls an enabling belief.

An enabling belief looks at what has been limiting you and then uses that as a starting point for action. In the book, Michalowicz uses the example of not having enough money to market effectively as a limiting belief. Not dealt with, this could cause the business to fail before it ever got started. He suggests an enabling belief to combat this. That belief is that you have no money, which enables you to focus on creative marketing strategies and gives you the power to learn how to market your product better than any competitor.

Any limiting belief can be turned on its head. You just need to learn to see the positives of your current position. For my own grocery store example, the person might say that he does not know how to reach out to buyers, but he does know how to reach out to consumers. He can then put together a promotional package which has consumers asking the grocery store if it carries the product. This can roll into a presentation package for grocery stores that includes video testimonials of happy consumers.

It may take a couple of tries, but you can come up with enabling beliefs to combat any of your limiting beliefs. This will make it possible for you to navigate around all the walls that currently stand between you and your goal.

This is not a magic trick. Chances are you might make a little progress, and then revert back to old beliefs. Michalowicz refers to the new enabling beliefs as a channel. Only through repeatedly applying enabling beliefs will you build a channel big enough to get around your limiting belief every time.

When in doubt, remember all of the things that used to be impossible. Everything from human flight, to running a 4 minute mile, to a computer that fits in your pocket was once thought impossible. Become a trailblazer through your own doubts and challenge anything that you think is impossible. All you need to do is apply your brain power and your passion, and you will find channels around every wall that stands between you and your success.

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Coming next: Chapter Three: The Fire In Your Belly

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  The ideas presented here will re-frame how you think about your business and help you find your passion and put it in your business. Even if you already have a business, you can learn a lot from this book.  Buy this book at Amazon

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, by Mike Michalowicz.  This book is about being an entrepreneur and starting and running a successful business. I will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book.

Chapter 2 – A Little Peace and Quiet (In Your Mind)

Accomplish What Your Believe

What do you believe? I mean, really, deeply believe, not just think at the moment. Mike Michalowicz starts chapter two out by plumbing the depths of what belief is. He says that “belief is the inner, unswayable knowledge of what you know to be true.” In other words, its the things that don’t bend. I think that belief may be shaped over a lifetime, much like a bonsai. Thoughts, on the other hand, may change day to day.

In order to be successful in your life, let alone your business, you need to have a clear picture of your beliefs. The problem is that there is much to distract and pull you away from your inner belief. We have an amazing capability to lie to ourselves and temporarily trick ourselves into believing something that isn’t true. However, that never lasts. The deep belief will always bubble up and fight against it. That may be why you are uncomfortable working a job, because you believe you are meant to do more. The question is, how do you live out your inner beliefs?

Michalowicz makes it clear that there is a difference between beliefs and truth. Beliefs are what guide us personally. Two people could have polar opposite beliefs, but neither is necessarily wrong. With belief, you must be true to yourself. So, if I am quiet and you are loud, we shouldn’t look down on each other, but embrace our differences as different beliefs. Truth is another matter altogether, and its not covered in The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur so I won’t weigh in on it here.

So, how do you find out what you believe? Well, according to Michalowicz, “our emotions act like an invisible GPS and move us toward our beliefs every time without fail.” You will find that emotion plays a big role in running your own business. You might as well embrace it and let it do its job. If you are going to look to emotions to discover your beliefs, start by listing the things that make you really happy and the things that make you really sad.

What does this all mean? Yes, I admit that it is a bit heady and philosophical at first, but it becomes more clear throughout the chapter. For now, look at it as a starting point. What you believe truly will truly be. Its not that you can snap your fingers and it will be. Just believing something doesn’t automatically get you there. But you do need to absolutely believe something in order to achieve it. If you go into business thinking that you will never succeed, how can you? So, you need to believe that you can succeed. Its like a destination on a map. You have to know its there and believe that you can get there. If you don’t have a destination that you believe in, you will never get there.

So it seems that the path to entrepreneurial success starts right in your own head. What do you believe about your future? You are going to need the deep well of your true beliefs to get you through until you reach the destination, that sweet moment of belief meeting reality.

There is one more important point made in this section. We each have two types of beliefs, enabling and limiting. You are going to have to work to strengthen your enabling beliefs while eliminating your limiting beliefs. This isn’t positive thinking poppy-cock. Its about finding or creating beliefs that will move you forward in life. For instance, you can think everyone is out to get you, or you can think that everyone is looking for a smile. You choose. Your belief will affect your outlook and have a huge impact on where you get in life.

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Coming next: The Wall of Limiting Beliefs

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  The ideas presented here will re-frame how you think about your business and help you find your passion and put it in your business. Even if you already have a business, you can learn a lot from this book.  Buy this book at Amazon

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, by Mike Michalowicz.  This book is about being an entrepreneur and starting and running a successful business. I will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book.

Chapter 1 – Nature’s Calling

Build Your Business Around You

Mike Michalowicz starts out chapter one of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur by talking about passion. He asserts that just as the warrior who is fighting for his country will fight harder than the paid mercenary, so too will the entrepreneur who starts a business because of her passion, and not just to try to cash in on the next big thing that she may not even be that interested in.

In order to gain real success, you need to start with your own passion. Don’t make the mistake of starting a business based on what you know. Rather, base it on what you love. A business takes all of your time. Your best bet is to create one that coincides with what you already live and breath.

If you don’t already know what you love, just take some time to listen to yourself. What do you love talking about or doing? What could you spend hours on? Look at your history, too. Has it always been so, or is this just the latest thing for you. Finding that inner passion that sticks with you is the first step to starting a business that will thrive.

Michalowicz advises that before you start a business, you should stop and take an introspective look at yourself. Think through who you are and what you love and believe. Also, think about what a successful business would mean for you and what the rewards would be. You, of course, want to make a lot of money. But there is probably more at stake. You want to wake up happy and go to bed happy. You want to make an impact and be loved. Think about the end result at the beginning.

Owning your own business can sap the life from you if you are not careful. That is why it is so important at the beginning to clearly define your goals. You don’t want to have to scrap by for money. At the same time, you don’t want the money to control you. If you have a family, that is probably of primary importance to you. You need to create a business that allows you the time to enjoy your family and the financial freedom to support your family. If you are not clear about this from the beginning, it is too easy to get caught in the trap of working too hard for the wrong reasons. Your business should support your life, not the other way around.

Michalowicz asserts that your business should not start based on the markets, the latest trends, or even with what customers supposedly want. A successful business always starts in one place. It starts with you.

Build your business around who you are, and success and happiness are likely to follow. Build it on the market or customers, and aggravation and heartache will likely follow. If you are going to start a business, you might as well start something that you will be ecstatic about every day.

The simple truth is that in order for your business to survive and then thrive, it has to be the best. And you can’t be the best if your heart and soul is not in it. If you only can put in enough effort to get just enough sales to survive, you are doomed to a sad existence. Build a business on your passion, however, and you will be able to create the best, most interesting company there is. It will be an extension of your passion.

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Coming next: Destroy Your Excuses

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  The ideas presented here will re-frame how you think about your business and help you find your passion and put it in your business. Even if you already have a business, you can learn a lot from this book.  Buy this book at Amazon

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.