The Number One Mistake You're Making in Your Business Development It may sound like clickbait, but it's true: Most people make this singular mistake when seeking new strategies, and it is precisely why they can't break through.
By Daniel Mangena Edited by Chelsea Brown
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Do you struggle with business strategies? I know I have in the past. All it takes is hearing what Elon Musk's morning coffee routine is, and you throw everything out the window in favor of drinking mountain beans, standing on your head with a lemon between your toes.
No matter what you try, nothing seems to really work, and nothing seems to stick. Want to know what the number one mistake you're making is?
You're seeking out "cookie-cutter," "one-size-fits-all" solutions to a highly individualized problem. So individualized in fact, that it's as unique as you … because it is you!
It is something that those of us who coach business owners and sell books would rather not be the case, but the fact is that you have your own, unique abilities that need to be aligned with the right strategies for you. You can't simply do exactly what someone else did and expect precisely the same outcome as them. So … we can't sell you the same singular strategy and scale it ad infinitum. If we really want to set you up to succeed, we have to treat you as an individual.
I started looking at this years ago, because I wanted to find out why so many "fail" at getting new strategies to work for them. I put "fail" in quotation marks, because as I'm so fond of saying: You've never actually failed at anything, and this is important to understand before we go any further.
Related: The Most Overlooked Strategy for Business Development
Your mind is a perfect, manifesting machine
What do I mean by that? Your subconscious is working up to 9 million times faster than your conscious mind. It's sorting the information coming at it through your senses at lightning fast speeds. The resulting "image" is what makes up your reality.
That imperceptibly fast sorting process has to be governed by rules, otherwise, it would all be a jumbled mess. Those rules are your belief systems. Built up over your lifetime, your beliefs dictate which pieces of information are assembled as part of your reality and which are discarded.
This being the case then, you're not actually failing at something. It's just not fitting in with what you believe can work for you. But this is just part of the picture. You also have unique qualities when it comes to wealth creation that are as out of your control as your eye color. I call this:
Your "Money DNA"
Hokey name? Maybe, but it's a study in literalism. You must have encountered this before, whether in business or life in general; some strategies just seem to work effortlessly, and others feel like you're forcing something. That's because you are! You're literally going against yourself, on a deep-routed level, and that's why it doesn't work.
I always felt this, as I'm sure you do, but thanks to my Asperger's Syndrome, I needed to find a methodology that would explain it to me. That's what led me to coin the phrase "Money DNA" and develop this concept into something that I could demonstrably use successfully, in order to attract the right strategies for me.
And it worked!
It took some trial and error, but eventually, I uncovered my own "Money DNA" and began seeking methodologies, modalities and strategies that would work in alignment with it. As a result, I now live precisely how I want to, where I want to, completely on my own terms. I'm able to generate wealth with minimal effort, leaving me time to spend with my family and cultivating the life that I want.
I don't say that to brag, but rather impress upon you the power of finding your own strategy! Elon Musk isn't one of the wealthiest people in the world because of his morning routine. He found what works for him and embraced it in a major way!
It is especially acute in the area I work in (personal development and business coaching): People are obsessed with finding the next fad or hack. As soon as someone has success with one, it spreads like wildfire until the next one comes along. Folks who "fad hop" like that simply become tangled up in dancing to the tune of someone else and never end up serving themselves.
Then you get the flip side of that. The hustlers. They work their socks off, day in day out, nose to the grind-stone … but they have little to no strategy. They're also burning themselves out, and though they may be earning well, they're sacrificing too much to do it. Force anything hard enough, and you'll cause friction. Yes, you might make progress, but you're having to fight too hard to do it.
Related: 10 Steps to Achieve a Growth Mindset in Business
When a child is in the womb, you have no idea what they're going to look like. In my case, my son has a mom with blond hair, white skin and blue eyes, and a dad with dark hair, dark skin and brown eyes. We had no idea what he would look like (beautiful, as it turns out). The point being: Your DNA is inevitable. It's building your future, even when you're not attending to it. Your "Money DNA" is doing exactly the same thing, so why force something that is not properly aligned with it?
Ninety percent of startups "fail," and 77% of people say that they are experiencing burnout. This is why I say: It's the number one mistake you're making in your business development. The "cookie-cutter" approach is always doomed to fail, because unless you happen to be aligned with that strategy by chance (highly unlikely), it's not for you!
Stop seeing yourself as a failure, simply because you can't get to grips with what worked for someone else.
Take the time to understand your own, unique money-making talents (your "Money DNA")
Seek out strategies that are designed to work within the remit of your "Money DNA"
I don't want you to think that what I'm really saying here is that: You're on your own! Not at all. This is not to say that nothing can work for you if it was devised by someone else. It's just that we live in an age of easy-access information, and as a result, we have to become the filters for what is really useful for us. The same is true of your business development.
If you throw the load gates open, you'll very quickly become overwhelmed by what comes at you and end up taking no action or run the high risk of taking the wrong action. Surround yourself with aligned people, strategies and projects, and there'll be no stopping your growth as an entrepreneur.
Related: Why Continual Personal Development is Pivotal to All Business Success
