Sarah Nicole Nadler - The C-E-O Mindset

Most small business owners do not have access to the heavy duty analytics software used by Fortune 500 companies. As a result, business management feels very mysterious and decisions get made largely based on educated guesswork.

Not long ago I discovered a free software program that allows small businesses & entrepreneurs to see at a glance where they stand thus giving us an even playing field.

As thanks for purchasing a copy of my book, I would like to offer you my mini-course on how to use this software program to make more money in your business:

In every entrepreneurs journey there comes a point where they realize they have NO IDEA what theyre doing.

Frightening isnt it?

Your whole world depends on your success. But instead of overnight transformation (which you perhaps never expected but certainly daydreamed of) you find a struggle of limiting beliefs, and barriers that threaten to defeat you at every turn.

Entrepreneurs have big dreams! The choice to become an entrepreneur means moments of jittery excitement followed by hours of sheer terror that make you drip with sweat in ways that are very unattractive.

Building a business is not for the faint of heart.

But oh, the rewards!

In his documentary Rise of the Entrepreneur Eric Worre states: The greatest benefit isnt getting what you want. The greatest benefit is what youll need to become in order to get what you want.

As you read my book, I want to walk side-by-side with you along this entrepreneurial journey - to encourage, guide, and help you look deeper than the symptoms of your fears to the underlying root cause behind things like imposter syndrome, shiny object syndrome, fear of failure and yes - even fear of success.

Lets walk past the expectations society set for you - the expectations your parents set, your family or friends are setting for you right at this minute...but most importantly, were going to bust through the ceiling you have set on yourself.

Because thats the only one that truly has the power to change or define you.

I entered the business world at fourteen - on a mission to buy my first car by the time I got my license, and support my expensive novel-reading habit. I started At-Ease Home Help, a weekend gig, cleaning houses for my parents friends. It wasnt until my sister was diagnosed with cancer and my world fell apart that suddenly that tiny business became my lifeline.

As someone who has been through the struggles that new entrepreneurs encounter, and come out the other end of it to sell my now successful business and travel the world - I want to share the tools I uncovered to solidify your own success in business...and thereby control of your fate.

In the corporate world, CEO stands for Chief Executive Officer - the person who manages a business day to day and leads the team toward success.

But in this book, C-E-O stands for something else.

It is a method of overcoming the mental, spiritual and physical barriers to success in business. What I like to call The C-E-O Mindset. It has three components:

C stands for control.

One of the oldest pieces of written literature on Earth, the Vedic hymns of India, describes the cycle of action and life - creation, continuance and destruction or start, change and stop.

When we learn to control a car, we are learning how to start it at will, change its direction and guide its movement, and stop it easily of our own volition.

Similarly any part of life or business can be managed better, if we have the tools and skills necessary to start, change or stop it.

The most destructive mindset for an entrepreneur is not imposter syndrome, fear of failure or a know-it-all attitude.

The most dangerous mindset is DEFEATISM.

Defeatism is the attitude that it is impossible to learn to control. That it is impossible to learn how to start, change or stop the moving parts of your business.

That is a lie.

In the famous words of Marie Forleo - Everything is figureoutable.

The E of C-E-O stands for expectations.

Your expectations for yourself, other peoples expectations of your potential, societys expectations of what someone of your status or demographics can achieve...all of these affect our perception of ourselves, and for better or worse, affect our success.

In my twenties I traveled the US and Mexico as a member of multiple nonprofit organizations. Ive done drug interventions, helped end gang wars, delivered thousands of hours of pastoral counseling, done marriage coaching with celebrities & actors, and met people from all walks of life.

If there is one thing I am utterly certain of - it is that all these expectations are far, far underestimating humankind...even the ones we have for ourselves.

So how DO we correctly estimate our chances to succeed in business or in life?

Some say you should set realistic expectations (by which they mean goals based on current data of reasonable potential) and insist that aiming too high is self-defeating.

Others insist that the only way to achieve your dreams is by manifestation, vision work or prayer...and never mind any common sense or calculation of how much work a person can do in a day. While Im a religious person, laying your own success completely at the feet of the divine seems to me a lazy way to run a business. And asking God to choose you over your competitors is more arrogant than I can swallow!

As with most areas of life where a lot of controversy reigns, the truth is somewhere in between the two extremes. It takes both belief AND hard work to be a successful entrepreneur.

Without the ability to recognize expectations for what they truly are, and a system for overcoming false ones - a way to walk past humiliating, hateful or hurtful ones, and the will to exceed the expectations of our paying customers...any business is doomed.

Yes, I said doomed.

Because in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson - The ancestor of every action is a thought.

And to understand limiting beliefs or false vanity...to understand why our minds do such crazy, awful or glorious things - we need to have a clear understanding of the basic anatomy of the mind and how to deal with expectations.

That is one of the primary purposes of this book, and something you will learn in later chapters.

And lastly, the O of C-E-O is for organize.

If there is one characteristic that is close to godliness it is not cleanliness but being organized! For only with an orderly plan and an uncluttered space can we build an empire out of dreams.

The number of times I have solved a business owners sense of overwhelm or depression by simply helping them with things like time management, bullet journaling, and writing a daily to-do list...well, I could fill this book with examples and have no pages left for the rest of The C-E-O Mindset!

When you get stuck in your business and cant move forward - organize.

When you feel overwhelmed - like your mind is broken and your brain is creaking, reorganize.

If you feel your anxiety rising and tipping toward depression, do spring cleaning of your space and put things away. When you feel confused and your head is swimming, finish some action in your immediate space - stop one moving part or piece of paper and put it away. And then the next.

The ability to take many people and moving parts and turn them into a well-oiled machine that causes a transformation (one that others are willing to pay to have) is the main skill required of any business owner. And it is also a weapon against your mind when it rises up against you.