The Surprising Secret Behind What's Actually Holding You Back in Your Business with Erin Pheil: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:02Who's ready to rock today Fire Nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like The Product Boss. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives and we'll be breaking down the surprising secret behind what's actually holding you back in your business. To drop these value bonds, we are brought to Aaron Thiel in the EO Fire Studios. Aaron helps entrepreneurs rapidly and permanently eliminate their most frustrating mental roadblocks that are holding them back so they no longer feel stuck in business or life.

0:32In today's Fire Nation will talk about quick and exponential success if you focus on eliminating the barriers and roadblocks along the way, and that the actions you're taking every day are based on your feelings, and those feelings are there because of your thoughts, and so much more, Fire Nation. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Aaron and our sponsors. Hustle and Flowchart, hosted by Joe Feer, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Join Joe as he discusses systems, mindset tweaks, reframes, and strategies to help you build a business that gives you freedom and fuel for your life.

1:03A recent episode on using AI for effortless content creation is a must listen. Listen to Hustle and Flowchart wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions. Erin, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:41Absolutely. Hello, everyone. I would say that what I believe that most people don't when it comes to being successful is that there's not that most people need to focus on subtraction instead of addition. That if more people focused on eliminating the barriers and roadblocks that were in their way, instead of trying to add more information and strategies and tactics, then they would see exponentially more success and much more quickly too. Fire Nation, that's why my favorite word in this world is focus. Follow one course until success. It's not follow 100 different courses until success. It's follow one course until success.

2:28And that happens when you focus. So Aaron, I want to dive into the meat and potatoes because this self-help and personal development industry, I mean, it does 14 billion. Fire Nation, that's billion with a B, dollars in annual revenue. I mean, people spend thousands on programs to help them improve, get better, change their mindsets, but they're not seeing lasting change. At least not all of them are. Why is that the case? I find that this is one of the secrets to our success. Most people who try so many different things go into programs, go into courses, go into coaching. And there's a part of them that in the back of their head, they're like, this isn't going to work.

3:15Change has to be hard. Change can't happen for me. I'm broken. Nothing works for me. And when you have a part of you, whether it's your subconscious, a little part in the back of your head spinning in the background going, this isn't going to work. It's too good to be true. Nothing works for you. That is almost like this invisible ball and chain that as you're trying to move forward and see success and change your life, it's pulling you in the opposite direction. And most programs, most courses out there don't do anything to eliminate that part of you that believes that change isn't possible for you or that change has to be difficult or it has to take a long time.

3:56And so what we have found is that when we address that doubt, that seed of self-sabotage at the beginning of the program, it opens the door and the likelihood that someone is actually going to experience incredible success instead of wanting success, but then having a part of them sabotage it because it's going, no way, this is impossible. This can't happen. Fire Nation, some of the best things in my life, some of my biggest successes have also been my easiest, have also come with the least amount of resistance. It doesn't have to hurt all the time. It doesn't have to always feel like the biggest struggle, obstacle, challenge to be successful.

4:36Sometimes it just works because it's the right thing. And Erin, we all know people who swear by therapy and they've been seeing a therapist for years. So can you shed some light on how someone can see a traditional therapist for literally years, but never make any progress? It's sad and it's frustrating. And I can speak from deep personal experience as someone who started going to see a therapist from when I was like freshman in high school or something and for the next three decades of my life. And I guess I also want to be very clear that before I share this, I'm not talking about 100 % of therapists or 100 % of coaches.

5:18There are some amazing people out there and I'm not sitting here to see all of them. What I do want to share, though, is that many of the old school types of therapies, the talk therapies, even what I learned about when I was an undergraduate, getting an undergraduate degree in psychology, some of the old school ways of therapy just have people sitting and talking about how they feel, which is great and makes you feel good. but so does going out for a coffee and venting with your friends. What I see a lot of therapy, especially the old school therapies doing, is helping people cope with their problems.

6:05Therapists will provide tools for, oh, you've got anxiety? Here, you're going to do this breathing to kind of bring it down a little bit. You're going to do some journaling to try and slow down those negative thoughts. Oh, you've got anger problems. I'm going to give you this tool to count backwards from 10 to one. So it's all this, like, here's another tool. Here's another layer. Here's more addition. Here's more, more, more. Here's more to do. And it's the addition of all these tools to help people cope with these problems and frustrations and challenges. And what I've found is that's just overwhelming.

6:42We see people who have, who show up with like 40 things I'm air quoting they're supposed to be doing every day to manage all of their challenges and their roadblocks and the perfections and the procrastination, the anger problems, the worry, the inability to set boundaries, and all these things they're supposed to do. What we've found is if you can eliminate the problem at the root and you get rid of the issue, then there's nothing left to cope with and I have found that most old school therapies at least are more about helping cope with the challenges instead of getting rid of the challenges completely.

7:21Fire Nation go to the roots solve that problem then there's nothing left I mean just kind of picture a garden like I actually recently just got an organic garden set up here in my house and I've really been loving kind of that process and you know guess what when I just kind of like rip the weeds off like halfway down, like what happens? They just keep growing. But if I actually get down to the roots, I can remove that weed entirely. There's nothing left. When you do that with what Aaron's talking about, it's a similar scenario. But let's be honest, Aaron, from time to time, we all get stuck. I mean, we just get stuck no matter what happens in our life, no matter how great our morning routine is, our relationships, whatever it might be.

8:09So for somebody in our audience right now who feels stuck, whether it's in their career, whether it's with their income or in their relationships, what specific advice do you have for them? Great question. I want to ask them to start thinking about their challenge in a different way. When we get stuck and we can't figure a way out of our hole or our dilemma, we start feeling broken. We start feeling like there's something wrong with us. We start getting angry at ourselves for not being able to figure out a way to change on our own or even with support or mentorship or coaching. But interestingly enough, it's oftentimes because we're looking in the wrong direction.

8:55What I want to invite people to start thinking about is that we experience thoughts, feelings, and habits and actions and behaviors in our life based on what we believe to be true. And so often, if you go out and you read books or you go get coaching, you go to therapy, you go out there to try and change, you're going to get advice that tells you to maybe change your thoughts. Just think differently. Just be positive. Just write 50 things down that make you feel great about yourself. Just change how you think. Some people will try to have you change your emotions. If you just meditate for an hour every morning and an hour every evening for a year, you'll probably feel less anxious and more calm and it'll change your brain, right?

9:47There's all this work or some books like, um, there's some great books out there like atomic habits. They focus on just change your habits, just change your behaviors. And so we go and we try, we make all of this effort and spend all of this energy trying to change our thoughts, trying to change our emotions and trying to change our behaviors. And then things don't stick. Things don't work when we feel broken, but here's what's going on. And I'm really hoping this provides a lot of relief to anyone out there who's beating themselves up right now for not being able to change some part of how they are.

10:23Your actions, the actions that you're taking every day, those are based on how you're feeling, right? You're going to take different actions in the morning if you're feeling amazing versus if you're feeling a lot of anger or self-hatred or disappointment or fear. And those feelings that you're feeling when you wake up in the morning, those are there based on the thoughts that are bubbling up in your head, right? If you have thoughts of I'm a loser, I can't do anything right, you're gonna feel very different than if you have thoughts of I'm incredible, I can do anything. So your thoughts impact your emotions, which impact your actions.

10:59But trying to work on any of those and experience lasting change is the hard way. The thoughts and the emotions and the actions that you experience are there because at the root level, the root cause, what determines your thoughts and your feelings and your actions, it's what you believe to be true. And when you work on that, when you're actually able to impact and change your beliefs, all of your thoughts and your emotions and your actions will change easily, will change quickly, will change effortlessly, and they'll change permanently. So if I have a belief that cats are dangerous, this is like my favorite example.

11:38Like most podcasts, I'm like, cats are dangerous, right? And you see a cat, you're going to have certain thoughts. I'm in danger. You're going to feel a certain way. I'm anxious, right? I'm scared. And you're going to act a certain way. You're going to run away or scream. those things are all happening simply because of one belief that cats are dangerous imagine how much your thoughts feelings and actions would change if that one belief was simply eliminated and you didn't have to work hard to work walk past the cat or meditate for two hours a day or write down that cats are you know change your thoughts like when you change things at the belief level your life can drastically change and that's that's available to everyone out there Fire Nation, that last part is so powerful.

12:22When you change things at your belief level, that's where you get to the root of the issue. And we're going to be talking about permanent change. We're going to be talking about some real world examples and case studies when we get back from thinking our sponsors. The amount of software required to run a growing business can be daunting. And how do you even know if you're using the right tools? There's help desk software, payment software, email marketing tools, blogging tools, SEO tools. Well, I've got some great news for you, Fire Nation. You don't need more tools to get more out of your business.

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13:27So dump the disconnected tools and the chaos that comes with them. Discover what HubSpot's all-on-one platform can do to streamline your business. Visit HubSpot.com to grow better today. Do you have a message inside that you know is meant to be shared with the world? Giving a TEDx talk is one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world, and Thought Leader can help you get there. Thought Leader is a speaker coaching company that has helped over 550 and counting coaches, speakers, entrepreneurs, authors, and experts land TEDx talks. Thought Leader is not affiliated with TED or TEDx, but they're able to get these results because their founder, Taylor Conroy, is a four-time TEDx speaker himself and past EOFire guest.

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15:22Be the parent you want to be. Get up to$2 million in term life insurance coverage in 10 minutes with Ethos. Answer just a few health questions and get your free quote at ethoslife.com. slash fire. That's E-T-H-O-S life.com slash fire. So Erin, we teased a little bit before the break, experiencing permanent change. Let's talk about that. Is it realistic for somebody to expect a change in behavior and just say a few months? Absolutely. And I can say that with so much confidence because it's what I see literally day in and day out. In fact, when I started my company, I thought, okay, people are going to need to go through these six month programs or 12 month programs because we're changing things that they haven't been able to change in 30, 40 years of therapy.

16:14I'm going to need a solid half year, a year. We're finding that people are completely changed permanently. Their challenges, their perfectionism, their procrastination, their money blocks, their imposter syndrome, their confidence issues are completely gone in six to 12 weeks, you know, two to three months for the most part, the vast majority of our clients are seeing permanent change. And I can say permanent because we follow up six months later, 12 months later, two years later, and we get the same responses like, nope, still not there, not an issue. You know, of course we haven't been around for 50 years, so we can't say, you know, if it's gone after decades and decades, but all, all evidence is pointing to kind of when you get rid of your belief in Santa Claus, it's gone forever, right?

17:04Like it just doesn't come back. That's what we're seeing with our clients. When you really get rid of something at the root level, at the belief level, the patterns that were derived from it just don't return. So we love real world case studies, examples. Can you share some of real people who thought literally nothing could work for them, but they've experienced the transformation that we've been talking about here today. There was a client we worked with in Canada and she did, she was a salesperson. She did high ticket, very high end sales. She was finding that every time she messed up, air quotes messed up.

17:44And by that, every time she didn't close a sale, it was really getting to her. And I'm talking about, she wouldn't just be down for, you know, an hour or something like that. She would have almost an anxiety attack. And sometimes she wouldn't be able to work for the rest of the day. And by the time she came to us, she had had some instances where she wasn't able to close a client and she couldn't work for two or three days at a time because she was in such a panic and was feeling like she would never be able to be successful. And it was, it was totally debilitating. And she was just beating herself up every time she couldn't close a client on these sales calls.

18:22So we worked with her, I believe it was four weeks for maybe an hour a week. And when we hit week five, she got on the phone and she said, Oh my God, I, I, for the last three days, there were at least two calls a day that I did not close. And I just, I didn't blink. I didn't notice it. There was no panic. I just picked up the phone and I kept going. So we went from having someone who's having near debilitating panic attacks that were keeping her from working to didn't blink, just kept going in a matter of a month with an hour of work a week. And the way that we did it was we didn't focus on changing her actions.

19:04We weren't like, get on the phone, get back there, get back on the phone. We didn't try to change how she was feeling because the anxiety was real for her and we couldn't take that away. and we didn't try to change her thoughts. Like we didn't tell her to go in and change that, you know, she's a winner or anything like that and try to convince her of something that she wasn't thinking. We went down to the root level, which is at her belief level, which was impacting her thoughts and her emotions and her behaviors. And we found some really incredible beliefs down there. Like what keeps me safe is being perfect.

19:41We uncovered that when she was young and she wouldn't get 100 % on a test, she would come home and she would literally be beaten. Sometimes there'd be blood. And she was not safe if she wasn't perfect. And in this new role at this company, she was experiencing that rule, that program, that belief got embedded into her and she carried that into adulthood. So she was showing up, not being perfect. When she wasn't perfect, there was this sense of, I'm not safe. I'm not going to be okay. I'm going to be punished. I'm going to be hurt. And that was the kind of program running in the background that she couldn't stop.

20:17So we went in, uncovered it, identified it, found it, cleared it out. And she was able to just move forward with ease. And it was beautiful. Do I have time for a second example? Yeah, please do. Cool. There was another entrepreneur recently that we worked with, and she was experiencing seen an interesting, really interesting challenge, but not uncommon. Her business was scaling and she had a really brilliant coach who was like, you know what? It's time for you as the leader of your company to step into your brilliance. And as you start, as you start getting bigger and your company is, is scaling faster, it's time for you to start being on podcasts and on shows and being interviewed and being in the media.

21:06You've been hiding and this is big. What your company is doing is big. Let's get you out there. After she got this advice, she witnessed herself for the next three, four months completely hiding, procrastinating. Every time she was invited to do an interview, every time she was invited to be in media, she would find some reason or some explanation, some excuse for why she just couldn't do it. After three or four months, she admitted to herself she had a serious problem, a serious fear and an avoidance problem where she could not show up and put herself out there to be seen. And she knew that that was really, really important for the scaling of her company.

21:48So she came to us. We worked with her for maybe five or six weeks, I think. And we uncovered a whole slew of really interesting beliefs and belief structures and programs running in the background, kind of like these voices, these things that were whispering in the background that were saying things like, you're a fraud. You are an imposter. If people find out who you really are, everything's going to fall apart. It's not safe to be seen. If you're seen, people are going to hate you. People will reject you. There was all these really interesting whispers of a really mean voice in the back of her head that every time she sat down to try and move forward, She would just go in the opposite direction.

22:32So we worked with her for a handful of weeks. And by the end, by the last week, we got a note from her. And she had booked, I think, something like eight podcast interviews. She had been in USA Today. She had been, I think, in the Washington Post. She had been in, she got an invite to be in Entrepreneur Magazine. Her business was exploding. And she was saying yes to all these media opportunities and yes to all these podcast interviews. And the fear was completely dissolved. It just simply wasn't there. She literally said she couldn't wait to be interviewed and to get her work out to the world.

23:05So those are two examples of a few clients who had come in with these problems that kept them completely frozen and not able to move their businesses forward. And in a matter of weeks, they didn't have to go to therapy. They didn't have to sit and tell the same stories over and over and over. They did some work with us. We looked at the programs that were keeping them stuck. We cleared them out and then we sent them on their way. It was really easy. Fire Nation, I hope as you're listening to Aaron here, you're picturing yourself in your personal situations and your specific situations with maybe some deep rooted truths or beliefs that you've been holding onto for a long time and saying, hey, if these individuals can do it, maybe I can too.

23:42And Aaron, you've dropped a lot of value bombs throughout this interview. So let's talk about the one thing that you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets before we say goodbye here. My passion, my purpose, my desire for the world and particularly for entrepreneurs to know is that change does not have to be hard. And change does not have to take a long time. When you do it right and you work at the root level instead of trying to cope with things and using addition, change can be easy and it can happen fast and it can happen for you. Fire Nation, powerful words. It's been a powerful interview.

24:25Aaron, how could Fire Nation learn more from you? How could we connect with you? Any call to action you have for our audience, now's the time. I invite people to join me on my social media journey on Facebook. I have a personal page. My name, Aaron File. I think I'm the only Aaron File on Facebook. And I always keep my page updated with client stories, with learnings from my life, because I'm a continual student and I continue to learn and grow and develop myself. And I love to interact with people on Facebook. If someone's really curious about what's possible, what's possible for them though, I invite them to check out our site, which is mindfixgroup.com and go straight to the results page.

25:08It's about 20 miles long. There's videos at the top. There's screenshots at the bottom. just scroll through that page and you will find people who have been who are just like you who have completely eliminated their challenges there's also a free training at the top that you can click on um that will walk you through and explain all of this in detail for the people who love to get into the nitty-gritty fire nation you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with and you've been hanging out with ep and jld today so keep up the heat head Head over to eofire.com, type Erin, E-R-I-N, in the search bar.

25:45Her show notes page will pop up with everything we've been talking about here today. Best show notes in the biz. Find Erin on Facebook. As you said, she's probably the only Erin file on Facebook. That's E-R-I-N-P-H-E-I-L, Erin file on Facebook. And mindfixgroup.com, go check out that results page. You will find somebody, Fire Nation, who is in a similar situation as you are, who has gotten massive results. And Erin, I just want to say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks for having me.

26:25Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Erin. And Fire Nation's successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals, which is why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days. And we're talking step by step. So visit thefreedomjournal.com. Use promo code podcast for a$15 discount as a thank you for listening to my podcast. And I will catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Hustle and Flowchart, hosted by Joe Feer, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Join Joe as he discusses systems, mindset tweaks, reframes, and strategies to help you build a business that gives you freedom and fuel for your life.