Misguided positivity in online business. Why it’s good and bad.
Misguided positivity in business looks like only sharing the good stuff:
• Only talking how fun and fulfilling entrepreneurship is
• How your business needs to be fun and enjoyable otherwise it’s not aligned
• It will all work out if you just take action consistently and do the work
• Mindset work and affirmations to keep a positive mindset
• Staying positive no matter what happens
• Inspirational quotes
• The sole goal of making money is a bad thing and we should be always doing work that we love. Money shouldn’t be our main priority.
We all have good intentions. A lot of us parrot what others are sharing too.
I’ve been both the person who loves reading and sharing these posts. We share these information because we want to believe in them ourselves. To a certain degree, it does help us.
The good side to misguided positivity - that it inspires people to explore or pursue starting a business. Because a lot of us wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think this was a great idea.
However, it can become dangerous with unrealistic expectations.
We start to believe that this is how entrepreneurship really looks like and when shit happens, we’d think, “What just happened?! This wasn’t supposed to be like this!”.
Then we start to think there’s actually something wrong with us.
As coaches, service providers and leaders, I believe it’s our responsibility to be honest.
We don’t need to be fully transparent such as sharing all our figures, talking about all our good/bad experiences and every single little thing in between.
But we gotta be honest about the journey.
We should also be talking an equal amount about:
• Slow months / zero dollar months
• Fears and insecurities
• When shit hits the fan
• Lots of stress on your mental and physical health
• Anxiety
• Sometimes business gets boring and feels like a chore
• Taking responsibility
• Showing up even when it can feel physically impossible to
• Why you should be and need to be making money in your business
Let’s be good humans on the Internet.
Instead of just selling people the dream, give them the full package.
Be honest about both the good and bad stuff and all the messiness in between.
After all, life and business aren’t linear.