AMY PORTERFIELD: “What is for me will find me, and I can't force that. I can't white knuckle everything I do. I don't chase; I attract. What belongs to me will simply find me.”
INTRO: I’m Amy Porterfield, ex-corporate girl turned CEO of a multi-seven-figure business. But it wasn't all that long ago that I lacked the confidence, the budget, and the time to focus on growing my small-but-mighty business. Fast forward past many failed attempts and lessons learned, and you'll see the business I have today, one that changes lives and gives me more freedom than I ever thought possible, one that used to only exist as a daydream. I created the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast to give you simple, actionable, step-by-step strategies to help you do the same. If you're an ambitious entrepreneur, or one in the making, who's looking to create a business that makes an impact and a life you love, you're in the right place, friend. Let's get started.
AMY: If you're looking for a new podcast recommendation, listen up. Entrepreneurs on Fire, hosted by my dear friend John Lee Dumas, offers major inspiration and shares strategies to fire up your entrepreneurial journey and create the life you've always dreamed of. John's been a guest on my podcast many times, and he always delivers. On his podcast, he recently did an episode called “How to Design, Build, Launch, and Grow a Small Company,” and it was brilliant. I get asked questions about starting and growing a business all the time, and this was a great podcast to answer that question. Find more episodes like this by searching for Entrepreneurs on Fire wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, there, friend. Welcome back to Online Marketing Made Easy.
I wanted to check in. How are you feeling? How is your week going? As for me, this week has been a little bit rough. I had to make a decision on something where I wasn't really sure if I made the right decision, and it created a lot of angst for me.
So here's the thing. As you likely already know, I am currently writing a book, and a decision needed to be made as to the pub date of this book. And I had a few options, and my publisher, Hay House, has been incredibly supportive around helping me come up with the decision on the pub date. But there are pros and cons of a few different dates that were given to me. Like, here's the dates that you could publish. Which ones feel right? And again, there are pros and cons. Little did I know, because I've never launched a book before, little did I know that there are so many different details that go into every aspect of creating and launching this book. And there's some really great times to publish a book, and then some other dates are a little bit more challenging, depending on who else is publishing at that time and the holidays around that time, and there's all these different details. So I had to, ultimately, it was up to me, to decide, when is this book going to publish based on the options that my publisher gave me?
And I went to a few of my friends, asked them what they thought. Gabby Bernstein, Mel Robbins, you guys have been amazing giving me insight. Jenna Kutcher helped me a lot as well. So we went back and forth and just, like, “What do you think? I should do this? I should do that?”
But then, ultimately, I had to make the decision. And to tell you the truth, I don't even know if I chose the right date, but I just went with my gut. But also, I used some mantras to guide me. And that's why I decided to make this episode today, because there's four mantras that I absolutely love, and they’re the unofficial rules that I live by. And I always come back to them when I find myself feeling like things in my business or my personal life aren’t happening on my timeline, or I'm feeling uncertain, or I'm anxious about something. I come back to these mantras again and again.
I'm sure you can relate because as an online-business owner, there are so many things up in the air, especially when you're just getting started. And let's be honest, you're making decisions that you're, like, “I don't know. I hope this works. Like, I think this feels right.” But we have no guarantees. And if we'd never done it before, like I've never launched a book, I don't know if I chose the right pub date or not. So as entrepreneurs, we've got to make a lot of decisions, and a lot of times we're not even sure if we're making the right one, but we're acting on courage and confidence and faith, right?
So to help you navigate some of that, especially when you're feeling anxious or unsettled, I wanted to share with you the mantras that I just swear by, and I use these mantras, and then I let go. Like, I've made the decision; the mantras have guided me to make that decision; and from there, I've let go, and I'm moving on. My mom always says, “Let go and let God,” but God, universe, whatever you believe in, you’ve got to let go, and you’ve got to give it up.
So, I used these mantras this week. I want to share them with you. I hope you write them down and use them as needed.
The first one is “I don't chase; I attract. What belongs to me will simply find me. I don't chase; I attract. What belongs to me will simply find me.” Now, this one is so incredibly important to me because sometimes when I want to make something happen, I mistakenly think that I control everything about that. So if I have a goal—and I’ve talked about this in my goal-setting episode. If you missed my goal-setting episode, I'll link to it in the show notes. I feel like you’ve got to listen to this one because I talk about this concept of trusting and letting go. And I learned from my good friend Mary Hyatt that she gave me this piece of advice that I adopted, which is I control 10 percent of what's going to happen, and the universe has got the other 90 percent.
Now, in that episode about my goal setting, when I talked about this, I kind of laughed at that, like, “No, no, no. I control 100 percent.” But when I sat with it, I thought, “No, I don't. I really, truly can't control everything that happens in my business and in my life. But I can do my very, very best at that 10 percent and then let go.” And so for me, I've realized that I'll do whatever I can to make the best decision, to get all my facts together, to ask some friends for some insight. I'll do my work to show up as my very best self and make the very best decision I can, but then I’m going to let go, because what is for me will find me, and I can't force that. I can't white knuckle everything I do. I don't chase; I attract. What belongs to me will simply find me.
And here’s my challenge to you. The next time you feel like something must happen or you must make the right decision, maybe you're dead set on landing a certain podcast sponsor or getting fifty people to join your mastermind or whatever it means, if it doesn't happen, let's say you don't get that one sponsor you wanted so badly or you only get ten people in your mastermind, slow down a minute and tell yourself, “I'm not going to chase this. I'm not going to let this overwhelm me or stress me out. What is meant for me will find me. So I did my very best, I left it all on the field, and I'm walking away.” And I do believe magic happens from that.
Okay. So, mantra number two is “I step back and let the universe lead the way.” Now, of course, this one ties into the first one, right? But I want to get into this a little bit more. “I step back and let the universe lead the way.”
Now, if you listen to that episode where I shared with you about all the goals that I'm setting, I also shared the word that I’ve chosen for 2022, which is trust. And so if you know me, you know I'm Type A, right? So when things feel out of my control, I tend to feel very anxious and scared. So when I can't make everything happen exactly how I want it to, those feelings of anxiousness or fear come rushing in. However, because I don't want to be that person, I started to use this mantra, “I step back and let the universe lead the way.”
So when I made the decision of the pub date, which is a really important decision, or when other things are happening in my business that don't actually turn out the way I wanted them to—like last year I had a launch where I didn't hit my goals—I have to get to a point that I say, “Okay. I did my very best. I'm going to step back and let the universe lead the way.” And in my opinion, what that does is it allows new doors to open up, because if I'm so tied to something that I didn't get; or I'm so scared to make that wrong decision; I'm white knuckling it; I am so focused on that, I see nothing else around me. Doors could be opening left and right, and I don't even see them because I'm so hyper focused on what I'm not getting. And so when I make a decision or something happens and I've done my best, I step back and I let the universe lead the way.
So here's an action for you. Give that little voice inside your head a name. Make it the most annoying name you can think of. And every time that little annoying voice pipes up, because you know it will, address them by name and just tell them to be quiet. I know it sounds silly, but trust me. Try this one. So you pick a name for that voice. Like, what if I don't meet the goal? Or what if I mess this up? Or what if I just made the wrong decision—not right—wrong decision? You name that pesky voice, and then you say, “All right. It’s time to be quiet,” and then you say the mantra, “I step back, and I let the universe lead the way.”
Which brings me to mantra number three. So when things don't go as planned—and I think it's always important to remember because I love when my mentors say this as well, I'm thirteen years in, and there are many things that don't go as planned in my business. And I know a lot, and I have a good track record, and I still crash and burn—so when things don't go as planned, but that thought of what went wrong keeps spinning in my head—so for those of you who have anxiety, you'll probably understand this term of thoughts that are on a loop or it keeps spinning in your head. You get fixated on one thing, and then you can't stop thinking about it over and over and over again. I don't know if everyone with anxiety feels that way, but that's how mine manifests. And so it’s this thought loop, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning. What I tell myself in that moment is this: “If it's out of my hands, it should be out of my mind. If it's out of my hands, it should be out of my mind.”
This relates directly to my last mantra. So, say you don't meet your goal, or you do mess up something that you've been working on and you feel embarrassed, or you feel like a failure for whatever reason, you have to get to a point that says, I've let it go. So since I've let it go, it's done. It happened. It's out of my hands now. I can't go back and change it. It happened. So it's out of my hands so now it's out of my mind.
And you have to tell yourself this. That's the power of mantras. The words actually matter. So for me, these are on Post-it Notes. For me, these are things that I say over and over again so I can memorize them and use them when I want to. And think about this one logically. Why waste your time and mental space on worrying about something that is no longer in your control or already happened? It already happened. So you have to say, “Okay. If it already happened, I made the decision. The decision didn't pan out as I planned. I'm moving forward, making new decisions. But that one decision that didn't work out as planned, it already happened. So it's out of my hands, which means it's out of my mind. I am moving on.”
And this one has helped me a lot because those thought loops do not serve me. They literally make me less creative, and they make me depressed. So I have to be very mindful of this one.
So the next time this happens to you, instead of replaying whatever went wrong in your head, over and over and over again—you said something wrong. You did something wrong. You embarrassed yourself—whatever it is, instead of replaying it over and over again, think about how it's going to play out the next time, and put that thought into the universe. So say, “Next time that happens, here's how I'm going to do it.” You put that thought out into the universe.
Now, speaking of the universe, here's mantra number four. “Everything is happening around me, and I am fully taken care of. Everything is happening around me, and I am fully taken care of.” So this one came from my girl, Gabby Bernstein. And it reminds me that I don't always have to be doing for good things to happen in my life.
Did you hear that one? If you’re multitasking, you come back to me right now because I bet you are a doer and action taker, a busybody like me, where you’re like, go, go, go; hustle, hustle, hustle; action, action, action. And I have a belief, or had a belief, that if I’m not doing; if I'm not in action; if I'm not moving and shaking, nothing's happening.
And Gabby gave me this mantra that has slowed me down in a good way. Everything is happening around me. Like, even if I'm doing it or not, it's happening. What needs to happen is happening. Everything is happening around me, and I am fully taken care of.
I hope this one hits you in the gut because I know it did for me. It can be hard for me to sit back and relax and let the universe do its thing. But because I chose the word trust this year, I have to let go, and I have to trust that everything that needs to happen is happening around me, and I am safe and taken care of. That one is really powerful. So can you see why I made trust my word of the year? I needed it.
All right. I hope you love this Shorty episode. And here's what I want you to do. I am @amyporterfield on Instagram. That's what I am, @amyporterfield. I want you to share your mantra with me because I could really use some extras to help me get through the tough times that happen when you're an entrepreneur, right? So post about it on social, and tag me. Tag me with your favorite mantra. Or if you don't want to post it publicly, DM me on Instagram. But you could help a lot of people if you post your favorite mantra on social media, like in Stories on Instagram, and tag me so I can repost a bunch of them on my channel as well. So go do it right now. What’s your favorite mantra, post it on social media, tag me, and I can repost it. And if you do it on Instagram Stories, that’s the easiest way for me to repost your stuff. All right. I want to hear all of your mantras.
So, again, I’m going to run through them, and I’ll put them in my show notes, but here you go. The first mantra I live by, “I don't chase; I attract. What belongs to me will simply find me.” Number two, “I step back and let the universe lead the way.” Number three, “If it's out of my hands, it should be out of my mind.” And number four, “Everything is happening around me, and I am fully taken care of.”
I hope these mantras help you as you navigate through being an entrepreneur, no matter what season you are in. And if you think these mantras might help a friend, I hope you grab the link to this episode, text it to a friend to share it as well. I would be so very grateful.
Thanks so much for tuning in. I am so very lucky that I get to do this with you every single week. And I'll see you on Thursday for more entrepreneurial goodness, same time, same place. Talk to you soon.
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