0:02
Word number two is hope, as entrepreneurs, the word hope it’s a death knell sound, isn’t it? I hope this works. I hope that our customer base loves our new product, I hope that the new team member is going to do well. Hope comes from expectation and desire, what it does not come from is conviction and planning. Success comes from planning and consistency, not hoping. So when we say hope, what we’re really saying is, I don’t have control in this situation. I am not planning, which is why I’m hoping that things will work out.
0:49
Hello, Elevated Entrepreneurs, a very big welcome to the Elevated Entrepreneur podcast. If this is your first time here, then thank you, thank you. And thank you, because you’ve chosen to spend time with me. And I’m so thankful for that. And if you have been listening to the Elevated Entrepreneur podcast already, thank you, thank you. And thank you, because it would not have been possible to do it without your love and support and if you haven’t already, please head on over to elevatedentrepreneur.fm and check out all of the good stuff that we have on our website together with show notes, links, and everything that I’ve talked about in every episode. Now, today’s episode is about language. As an entrepreneur, over the last many years, I’ve learned so much about productivity and operations, as well as language. But this is something that we don’t talk about as entrepreneurs and I want to address this issue today and I hope you join me and understand the meaning behind this episode because what we say, comes from within our subconscious mind. And when we think it, we become it, everybody’s heard the saying before. Our inner language plays a massive role in our success and our business’s success. And today I want to talk about the words that we should all be avoiding, especially entrepreneurs, because you’re on the elevated entrepreneur podcast. It’s all about elevating entrepreneurs. And so this episode is all of the words that I think we should avoid as entrepreneurs. So if you’re ready, grab your headphones. If you’re driving, drive safe, and turn up the volume and help me cue the music.
2:29
You’re listening to the Elevated Entrepreneur podcast, a podcast designed to help retailers, restaurant owners and entrepreneurs simplify business operations and use modern technology to elevate their business. here’s your host, Dhiren Bhatia.
2:48
Hello, and welcome again to this fantastic episode. Today’s episode is about the words that entrepreneurs should not use and when I say words, these don’t necessarily mean spoken, or the written word meaning in conversation or in emails doesn’t really matter, because these words are words that come from within our subconscious mind and the idea with this episode is to help you be aware of those words, and help you remove them from your vocabulary, as I have over the last few years. Now I can tell you from experience, it’s not easy. But hey, as entrepreneurs, our first commitment is to make ourselves better. So with that, let’s get started. The very first word or phrase that I think we should stop using is the word trying, I’m trying to do this, or I will be trying to do this. I think trying is a word that comes from the lack of many things. Mostly, it’s the lack of belief in ourselves, and our time management skills, which is why oftentimes you’ll hear me say, for example, I’ll try that trying is not from a place of conviction, trying basically means that we’re going to attempt to do something that we’re not 100% sure of already, because when we say I’m trying on I’m going to try, it already means that we’ve put the task out into the future, and it is a debatable task to begin with. It was that important, the word trying would really never come up, which is why I find that the word trying signifies lack of conviction and that we have already lost faith in our ability to do this task. So what should we replace trying with? Well, will is a really good word, I will do this or my favorite word. I will not do this and it’s okay to say no if you’ve heard me say this in a previous episode, it’s okay to say no. In fact, that’s one of the words that we don’t say, but hey, that’s a different episode. And I encourage you to go check that out. But coming back to trying, trying can be replaced with so many other words, including will, yes, no. And I think it’s an effort that we need to make because trying is such an ingrained word in our vocabulary in our subconscious mind but remember that when you say the word trying, what you’re really doing is you’re procrastinating, you’ve given your mind and your body the permission to delay the task. And when that goes into your psyche, it means you’re training your future self to do this on an ongoing basis. I can’t tell you how much of a difference this has made in my personal and business life. I used to use the word trying all the time if somebody said, could you do this? Yeah, I’ll try it. But try, like I said, means nothing. It means procrastination and when we are training our minds for procrastination, we are going to guess what procrastinate. Word number two is hope. As entrepreneurs, the word hope it’s a death knell sound, isn’t it? I hope this works. I hope that our customer base loves our new product, I hope that the new team member is going to do well. Hope comes from expectation and desire, what it does not come from his conviction and planning and as entrepreneurs, the one thing that we have all learned, success comes from planning and consistency, not hoping. So when we say hope, what we’re really saying is, I don’t have control in this situation. I am not planning, which is why I’m hoping that things will work out. So what can we replace the word hope with planning, and conviction, break your item down into the smallest steps possible, and then keep executing those steps. And success will indeed come your way. Because entrepreneurship is not about hoping it’s about planning. The third word that I hear all the time, and I used to say it is lucky, they got lucky, I got lucky, you got lucky, we all got lucky. It really just comes again from that place of the word where hope comes from its expectation, its desire. It’s this infinite, and magical force that exists. But that doesn’t exist in entrepreneurship does it? In our business, the word lucky really means nothing. When someone gets lucky, what we’re saying really is that they have taken the effort to do the same thing again and again and again, consistently, or they have taken the effort to plan and execute the tiniest steps. Because together tiny steps result in big action. So really lucky isn’t a word that we should be using in our vocabulary. It’s about “Let’s aim to succeed”, “Let’s aim to get better”, what is the smallest thing that we need to do to get better in our day to day jobs. And whether you’re talking to a colleague or even a customer, Lucky isn’t the word you should be using.
7:42
Another word is that is not fair. When we say something like this, and this is very common to be heard in entrepreneurship, this is not fair, or what happened was not fair. Well, again, when we are saying something like that, it’s basically externalizing the effect or the situation. And this isn’t fair basically means that we have given up control, and we are now blaming somebody else for that but really, that’s not the key to success in entrepreneurship, it’s about taking control and this is something that I talk to my team about all the time, let’s take ownership of the situation because when we take ownership, we are taking full control of the situation, we are able to then plan ahead, do the things that need to be done to get the situation resolved. And this doesn’t happen by magic, or by luck, or by fairness. It happens by controlling and becoming owners. The other phrase that I personally have a hard time giving up is the question makes sense. And I’ll tell you that usually when I’m doing demo meetings, or I’m in a training session, I use the phrase makes sense, at the end of the statement in an attempt to ask if the audience has understood what I’ve said and so it would be something like, here’s how you do this makes sense and I’ve come to realize that this is not necessarily a bad thing but what it means is it puts me on a higher level than who I am talking to it elevates my position as I’m speaking down at the audience rather than speaking to them. So make sense is not necessarily a bad thing but it’s coming from a position of authority, which is not always a good thing, especially as entrepreneurs who want to be seen as equals and who want to be good leaders need to come from a place of service and make sense is quite the opposite. So what do we replace make sense with? whether any questions that you would like for me to answer these are good examples of statements and phrases that we should use instead of make sense. The second last word on my list that I want to share with you today is the word busy. Now, what is busy, busy basically means success. While at least that’s what we’ve all been taught to understand. We all see dizziness as a badge of success. But I’m here to tell you that’s not the case. Buisiness and being busy is not a sign of success. In fact, it basically means that we have not been able to prioritize our task list, our to do list. And so when we say we are busy, it generally means, hey, look, I’m not able to manage my time, I’m not able to manage my priority list, which is why I can’t figure out where I am so I’m busy. And sure if someone asked how his work, he said, works busy again, same idea. Instead, what we could say is works good. It’s steady and this is not a bad thing either when we said stuff is steady, or work is steady, it means that I’m happy with the pace, and I’m able to manage what’s on my plate and I’m able to delegate and get my team to help me, which is what we as entrepreneurs and leaders should be doing in the first place. The last word on my list today is not bad. How are things not bad? How’s business? not bad and bad already is a connotation of pessimism. Bad is coming from a place of scarcity, especially not bad. We’re already starting from that level to say, yeah, you know, things could be better, well, things are better, things are already better and again, if we come from a place of abundance, a place of positivity, not bad, throws all of that out of the window, doesn’t it? Instead, we could say things like, I’m good. I’m grateful. I’m happy. Things are great. Things are good. Not bad, however, signifies starting from a place of weakness. It starts from a place of lack of abundance. And so there you have it, the words that I think entrepreneurs should avoid saying, and I hope this has helped you as much as it has helped me. Let me know in the comments if there are any other words that you think should be added, I’d love to hear from you drop me a message, or head on over to elevatedentrepreneur.fm/speak, and give me the words that you think entrepreneurs should avoid. And I’ll be happy to feature them here on the podcast for you.
12:00
Thank you so much for staying with me till the very end of the episode, you’ve done it. I’ve got three specific asks for you only if you think that this podcast is worthy of your support and if you’ve enjoyed the content, my first request is for you to hit the subscribe button. Actually smash that subscribe button so that you can get notified when new episodes come your way or if you haven’t already, head on over to elevatedentrepreneur.fm and subscribe to the podcast on the website so that new episodes are emailed to you right away. My second request is for you to help me spread the word with your friends and families and business owners that would enjoy this podcast and help elevate them too. You can do that either by leaving a review on your Apple device or just telling your friends how cool this podcast is. And finally, if there’s a question that you’ve been dying to ask me, or this pieces of feedback that you’d like to give me, head on over to elevatedentrepreneur.fm/speak where you will be able to record a voice message that I can listen to, and also maybe feature here on the podcast together with my answer. I’d love to hear from you. Thank you much love and I’ll see you in the next one.
