Four Ways Entrepreneurs Are Just Like Toddlers

When you have a house of rambunctious kids running all over, it doesn’t leave room for you to get any peace. If you can ask a stay at home mom what her biggest wish was, she would no doubt say having a moment to rest. The fact is, kids are a handful. I’m speaking as one who has gotten three kids ready for countless daycare visits, school drop offs and church. So I know all too well the responsibility. I even got so bold as to take a position as an enrollment director for a start up day care. There I was exposed to an army of toddlers every single day. Sometimes I loved it and other days I feared for my life.

Toddlers are such interesting creatures. They have a perception, language and outlook all their own. No two are identical, not even twins. You haven’t heard the truth until you’ve heard it through the lens of a three year old. To say their honesty is brutal is an understatement. They have unbelievable resilience and ability to live in the moment. But what I have noticed as a person recently transitioned into full time entrepreneurship, I am beginning to see some striking similarities.

I want to share four funny ways entrepreneurs are just like toddlers:

1. Just like toddlers we are having the most fun when all of our toys are on the floor: Have you ever seen a toddler in their room playing? They are masterful at taking different pieces and making them a part of the same adventure. They are somewhat connectors. They are having the best time when they can ‘see’ all of what they have. When they are playing, they are creating.
2. Just like toddlers we never meet strangers: There’s a reason we tell our children not to talk to strangers. That reason is first, strangers can potentially be dangerous. And next because they will literally talk to any and every stranger they meet! Kids don’t have inhibitors like adults. They haven’t been taught to fear everything. So they exist in a sort of free-ness that true entrepreneurs experience every day.
3. Just like toddlers we are eager to learn new things: Kids are like sponges. Whatever you pour into them will be retained and accessible later. They are hungry to sink their minds into new and exciting projects. Books, kits, models or puzzles not only occupy their hands but their minds as well. Entrepreneurs, like toddlers are always reaching, climbing and exploring for new ‘toys’ to play with.
4. Just like toddlers we don’t like sitting around in crap: There’s only a few real reasons why babies cry. First, of course, is hunger. Next on their list is what I call comfort issues. If a baby is too cold or too hot, everyone in the house is going to hear it. But let them have a messy diaper and its going to another level! A stinky bottom drives every toddler crazy, not to mention weighs them down. If you were to see an unhappy entrepreneur stuck sitting in a crappy job or at a meeting; the same look you get from a toddler is plastered onto their face.

My days of changing diapers and wiping runny noses are long gone. I made a few other career stops along my journey. Presently I look at every stage of my journey as a valuable lesson used to make me a better business person today. The daycare sticks out because of the little lives I became connected to. But more than that, I have come away with some great principles to help me coach the super creative mind of the entrepreneur.


© 2013, Early L. Jackson. All rights reserved.

How Unrealistic Expectations Can Undermine Your Vision

We’ve all done it. We have been right on the verge of something great, about to cross the threshold of a brand new opportunity or embarking on a promising relationship and BOOM! We blow it. Some call this personal phenomenon the act of self-sabotage; others simply chalk it up to approach avoidance. But however you label it, it is costing us more and more of our vision. I am a firm believer that it takes a vision for the future in order to get there. In fact, if you lack vision, chances are you won’t get much further than where you are now.

Years ago I heard my mentor say, “The one thing that will kill your dream faster than failure is the lack of a plan.” I wish I could tell you that I learned this lesson with minimum damage to myself but that would be a flat out lie. I banged my head upon this principle more than a few times. I think the issue was I always thought my sheer talent was enough to get me by. But that state of mind usually left me right around ‘average’. Before you get excited about my average existence, I also learned a long time ago that average was just a fancy way of say ‘best of the bottom;’ slightly better than the worse in your category. Who in their right mind celebrates mediocrity?

We all know that vision is simply the plan or outlook you possess that is governing your current actions and decisions. But once I became a student of successful people, I found a much deeper principle at work in my life. I was literally undermining my progress.

To ‘undermine’, according to the original Latin is ‘Labefactare’ and means to subvert by weakening insidiously or unknowingly; to cause decay from within. The key for me was it is done most often unknowingly. How much are we hurting ourselves by doing things we do not even know we are doing? We all have these blind spots that are responsible for where we are in life. The truly successful people hire coaches or have a circle of influence they are accountable to and also help identify where they are missing it. Without these ‘spotters’ we are left alone to our own devices.

There are (3) unrealistic expectations that can undermine your vision:

1.  Unrealistic timeframes: Wherever you are right now did not unfold overnight. In fact, it took many of us years to amass the debt, weight or bad habits that currently rule our lives. It is unrealistic to believe a weekend conference or one coaching session is going to wipe your slate clean. There is no magic pill or special offer! You are going to have to work your butt off and create a new and improved version of yourself through discipline if you want to see change.

2.  Unrealistic skillsets: It always amazes me when I am in a session with someone and they yell out in frustration “Early I am doing all I know to do!” I hear them loud and clear. I feel their pain. But that is exactly the problem. They are doing all they KNOW to do. Which means the solution is they need to learn more. Think of it this way, your current skillset was useful in getting you from point A to point B. If you want to go to another point, you must acquire newer and better skills.

3.  Unrealistic support teams: You are the sum total of the people you surround yourself with. There are only a few reasons why things aren’t working for us. Right at the top of this list is our friends. Our social circles dominate our destiny. The longer you spend with people, the more your behaviors co-mingle and assimilate. It is not an issue of trying to be better than someone else, but rather becoming strategic. We must seek out and surround ourselves with people who possess the skills, relationships and resources that match the areas we want to accomplish.

Dr. John Maxwell says, “People aren’t winning simply because they do not know why they are losing.” It’s really that simple. Your vision is a living breathing part of you. If you are not nourishing it by stimulation and exposure to quality people, it is slowly withering away. Those who we admire for their successes are those who wake up every day totally aware to the endless possibilities their vision will unfold for them.

© 2013, Early L. Jackson. All rights reserved.

Unproductive Belief Systems That Hold You Back

It’s funny how our beliefs, no matter how far-fetched, are really what shape both our behavior and our future. In fact, the word ‘belief’ is defined as: Something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion or conviction. Every day we are bombarded with information, real and false, but what makes this information so powerful is when it slips into our beliefs. Instantly we attach our lives to this wagon and begin to drag it around in life.

In our early years it’s not as bad. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and so forth are easy tactics our parents used to keep us in line until those holidays passed. If you ever doubt the power of a belief system, try convincing a child that there are no monsters under the bed. Even though logic is present and facts are given, the imagination has already been loosed and until there is something new to believe, that child is going to be sleeping with you.

Such is the case when I was eight years old sitting at the lunch table. My good buddy Reggie sat next to me and was begging to trade his ham sandwich for my delicious peanut butter and jelly. Of course it was a hard sell from the start. That was until Reggie took advantage of a moment of weakness. I had bitten into the sandwich and spit out a small pit that came from one of the grapes used. He asked me if I knew what that was. I didn’t but he was more than willing to share with me it was a deadly ‘jelly-bug’. I had heard of jelly fish, but not jelly-bugs.

My friend went on to share that a jelly-bug was a poisonous bug that somehow gets into kids jelly and if eaten, can continue to grow inside your stomach. He claimed his mother warned him. After that, there was no hesitation to make the trade. For nearly a year, I was too afraid to eat jelly with my peanut butter. That means no jelly on toast, biscuits or anything! It took a lot of convincing from my mother that jelly-bugs were made up by Reggie and it was totally safe to eat. Talk about traumatic childhoods.

Unproductive Belief Systems That Hold You Back

Of course you are laughing at me, but chances are you have spent some time in your life wrapped in the bondage of an unproductive belief system; I like to call it our personal B.S. Here are some things I’ve learned in life about us and our beliefs:

• Almost all beliefs are inherited, not discovered on your own:  Go back in time and think of some things you’ve struggled with. Let me ask; where in the world did you get your information. It usually derives because someone mentions their own belief and you latch on or they have some type of authority over you and declare ‘this’ is what you will believe. Either way, you didn’t come up with it on your own. We live in a world governed by influence. From television to relationships, it’s all a play of influences. If you monitor ‘where’ your intel is coming from, you can then change ‘what’ the intel actually is.

• Most beliefs are simply someone’s ploy to control you:  Reggie did a great job getting me to trade my sandwich. This makes me wonder who else in my past has taken advantage of me in the same way. See the games change, but the motive is usually the same. Someone wants what you have or want you under their control so they go about tricking you by influencing your beliefs in some way. It sounds terrible, but everyone does not have innocent motives. Bosses do it, roommates do it, police officers do it and even your mates do it. The fact is, most beliefs are simply glorified hearsay. You alone can choose, by investigating the situation, what and whom you believe.

• Your beliefs actually dictate your level of success:  Limiting beliefs are the cause of failure far more than ability, skills or connections. How you believe directly affects how you will act. If you want to see some changes, you probably need a check-up from the neck up. We are taught what to think instead of how to think. Critical thinking skills are what drive corporate America and our military. Developing a staff filled with people who can sort out a problem and come to a plausible solution is like striking gold. To do this effectively we must address our faulty beliefs.

I am almost ashamed to admit that Reggie was not the last person to get over on me by affecting my beliefs. At least with him the only damage was eating a lot of peanut butter with no jelly. But think of how our beliefs have robbed us of so much more. Where could we be, what could we have accomplished if our beliefs weren’t contaminated? Now that you know what the issue is, my final question is simple; what belief will you let hold you back next?

Early Jackson

© 2013, Early L. Jackson. All rights reserved.

10 Commandments of a Go-Getter

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.  If you're tired of a life full of unlimited potential and you're ready to experience a destiny shift, Life Coach Early Jackson can make it plain in this workshop.  Pooling from statistics, direct coaching and personal experiences, Early lays out 10 commandments for anyone ready to innovate.

10 Commandments of a Go-Getter!

I'm Not Afraid of Jelly Bugs.....Anymore

It’s funny how our beliefs, no matter how far-fetched, are really what shape both our behavior and our future. In fact, the word ‘belief’ is defined as: Something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion or conviction. Every day we are bombarded with information, real and false, but what makes this information so powerful is when it slips into our beliefs. Instantly we attach our lives to this wagon and begin to drag it around in life.

In our early years it’s not as bad. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and so forth are easy tactics our parents used to keep us in line until those holidays passed. If you ever doubt the power of a belief system, try convincing a child that there are no monsters under the bed. Even though logic is present and facts are given, the imagination has already been loosed and until there is something new to believe, that child is going to be sleeping with you.

Such is the case when I was eight years old sitting at the lunch table. My good buddy Reggie sat next to me and was begging to trade his ham sandwich for my delicious peanut butter and jelly. Of course it was a hard sell from the start. That was until Reggie took advantage of a moment of weakness. I had bitten into the sandwich and spit out a small pit that came from one of the grapes used. He asked me if I knew what that was. I didn’t but he was more than willing to share with me it was a deadly ‘jelly-bug’. I had heard of jelly fish, but not jelly-bugs.

My friend went on to share that a jelly-bug was a poisonous bug that somehow gets into kids jelly and if eaten, can continue to grow inside your stomach. He claimed his mother warned him. After that, there was no hesitation to make the trade. For nearly a year, I was too afraid to eat jelly with my peanut butter. That means no jelly on toast, biscuits or anything! It took a lot of convincing from my mother that jelly-bugs were made up by Reggie and it was totally safe to eat. Talk about traumatic childhoods.

Unproductive Belief Systems That Hold You Back

Of course you are laughing at me, but chances are you have spent some time in your life wrapped in the bondage of an unproductive belief system; I like to call it our personal B.S. Here are some things I’ve learned in life about us and our beliefs:

• Almost all beliefs are inherited, not discovered on your own:  Go back in time and think of some things you’ve struggled with. Let me ask; where in the world did you get your information. It usually derives because someone mentions their own belief and you latch on or they have some type of authority over you and declare ‘this’ is what you will believe. Either way, you didn’t come up with it on your own. We live in a world governed by influence. From television to relationships, it’s all a play of influences. If you monitor ‘where’ your intel is coming from, you can then change ‘what’ the intel actually is.

• Most beliefs are simply someone’s ploy to control you:  Reggie did a great job getting me to trade my sandwich. This makes me wonder who else in my past has taken advantage of me in the same way. See the games change, but the motive is usually the same. Someone wants what you have or want you under their control so they go about tricking you by influencing your beliefs in some way. It sounds terrible, but everyone does not have innocent motives. Bosses do it, roommates do it, police officers do it and even your mates do it. The fact is, most beliefs are simply glorified hearsay. You alone can choose, by investigating the situation, what and whom you believe.

• Your beliefs actually dictate your level of success:  Limiting beliefs are the cause of failure far more than ability, skills or connections. How you believe directly affects how you will act. If you want to see some changes, you probably need a check-up from the neck up. We are taught what to think instead of how to think. Critical thinking skills are what drive corporate America and our military. Developing a staff filled with people who can sort out a problem and come to a plausible solution is like striking gold. To do this effectively we must address our faulty beliefs.

I am almost ashamed to admit that Reggie was not the last person to get over on me by affecting my beliefs. At least with him the only damage was eating a lot of peanut butter with no jelly. But think of how our beliefs have robbed us of so much more. Where could we be, what could we have accomplished if our beliefs weren’t contaminated? Now that you know what the issue is, my final question is simple; what belief will you let hold you back next?

© 2013, Early L. Jackson. All rights reserved.

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