The Rules Do Not Apply: Questioning Well-Intentioned Advice, and Other BS
We live in a world of shoulds. We live in a world of experts who are full of well-meaning advice about what works and what doesn't. And some of those experts are legit and really know their stuff and can help you move your business forward and others are less legit.
You know the type of expert who's done a thing once and now they teach other people how to do it, no matter the experts status. I do believe it would serve you and me well to start questioning the advice we hear, questioning all of the shoulds you see on social media, even question the thoughts that are in your head about what you believe is true. Heck, feel free to question this podcast, although I create this content to be valuable and of service to you at the end of the day, I don't know you as well as you do and I don't know your business as well as you do and I'll recommend to you that you should try it out.
Try on the advice, the should, the beliefs that are in your head and see if it works for you. Experiment with what you hear, but if it doesn't feel right, then you're always free to toss it. Why?
Because I firmly believe the rules do not apply in a one size fits all fashion.
Yes, so many of us are looking for that blueprint to success, that magic bullet that will cure oh of our business challenges. But today what I want to talk to you about on this episode of the Rebel Rising Podcast is how to question the should, how to question the advice and figure out what really works for you because it doesn't matter what works for me, it matters what works for you.
Tune into the audio:
I had this epiphany that the rules don't apply in a one size fits all fashion.
When in the middle of the night, my 18-pound orange fluffy Maine Coon jumped on my stomach because that cat needed snuggles and he needed snuggles immediately. And when my eyes popped open, the first thought in my head was, the rules do not apply.
I've always been a bit of a rebel. If you're a longtime listener of the show, you know that about me. If you tell me to get up at 5:00 AM in order to be more successful and more productive, I'll tell you where to go and also tell you how important my sleep is to me. There are so many things that I am an active rebellion against. Yet I realize that I'm walking around with a set of rules that I am operating from.
And honestly, some of those rules don't serve me and I bet they might not be serving you.
Now, some people would call these limiting beliefs, but that term has always felt so abstract to me.
Rules are concrete. I know exactly what they are. And I realized that one of the rules that I had been following unconsciously for ages is that I should never, ever, ever under any circumstance, talk about my business on Facebook. I think I heard this from a social media expert that if you talk about your business on your personal Facebook page, the Facebook police will put you in Facebook jail and let's face it, that rule, it's kind of B.S.
I see people talking about their businesses every day because it is what they do. It is personal for them and the Facebook police haven't shown up at their house to arrest them yet and they aren't coming for me either. I realized that this rule that I picked up from some social media person doesn't serve me. It's black and white interpretation doesn't serve me.
It's actually prevented me from talking about the amazing work I do, from being the best steward that I can be of the 3 Word Rebellion. And let's face it, it costs me impact and income because I thought I could never talk about my business on Facebook. It was too black and white because I shouldn't be afraid of Facebook jail. That is so lame. And I realized that this rule doesn't serve my clients because the people that I work with are up to the most amazing things in the world.
You listen to the podcast, you've heard some of them right here, and I should be amplifying what they're laying down, not worried about that. I might get put into Facebook jail.
What is the process of questioning what you believe to be true?
How do you go about questioning the rule, the well-intentioned advice, the shoulds, the other B.S. thoughts we have.
Step number one: question.
Now, this is going to sound a bit like Byron Katie's The Work, but I believe the most fundamental question you can ask when someone lays down the rules on you or tells you what you should do is, is it true?
Recently I was working with my coach and my Stacy Fisher, who I interviewed about her 3 Word Rebellion, Create How You Feel, right on this very podcast and I was telling her about raising my prices. One of the reasons I was raising my prices is because ever since the 3 Word Rebellion book has launched, my one on one schedule has been booking up for at least one to two months in advance and it's booking up with amazing people that I love to work with. I was telling her that I was going to raise my prices so more people started saying no to working with me and she paused for a second and said, what if that isn't true?
What if more people want to work with you after you raise your prices? What if the same amount of people say yes? And crap, I never thought about that before. Literally, I heard this advice about raising your prices so you get more no's from so many different business coaches throughout the years that I never thought once to question, is it true?
Sure, it makes logical sense, right? But that doesn't mean it's actually true.
Step number two, does this rule serve me?
Sometimes advice, rules and certain thoughts just work for you, right? You follow something, you follow the formula, you get great results and you should keep going with it if works for you.
However, evaluating it is the key in the instance of the belief, the rule.
If I raise my prices, fewer people will work with me. That's not a helpful thought. It actually holds me back from building my business. The work I do with clients is deep and meaningful. I am setting them up with their messaging, just not for today, but for the next three to five years and beyond in their business.
That piece of advice, that well-intentioned piece of advice wasn't serving me, It was holding me back from finding the people that I could make the biggest difference to.
So step number three, what if you're unsure if the rule serves you or not?
So step three is all about trying these rules, these shoulds on for size. If you're not sure a belief, a formula works, conduct a little bit of an experiment, just try it on, follow it for a while and then go back and evaluate and see if it helps you or not. I for one, am all for experimenting with feedback and guidance.
That's how I have built my business. I've taken the feedback in, I play with it, I experiment with it.
I toss out what doesn't work and keep the rest because I know that I can always go back to the way I was doing things before if that worked better. The bottom line is to stop following the rules, the advice and all of the shoulds, especially when we are should-ing on ourselves.
So who is with me on this? Who is with me that they are going to start questioning all of that well-intentioned advice?
I'd love to know what rule you decided to stop following, so use this process. Then hit me up in the DMs on Instagram (and you can actually see you some cute pictures of that big orange cat I described earlier) and let me know what works for you and what doesn't. I'd love to get the conversation going on over there.
