Talane’s Blog of the Week, March 6, 2006

I was just speaking with one of my clients (a seasoned entrepreneur on the cutting edge of internet business) and he gave me some really good advice. He said there was no reason I should invent a new way of doing business on the web when there are so many good business models out there. Just copy an existing model of success. (This does not mean plagiarize, but rather look at what is already working and adapt the model to your own business.) If you think about it, this is a tried-and-true method for many great companies. McDonald’s may have been the first fast food hamburger joint, but there are plenty of successful copies. Amazon.com may have been the first major online bookseller but Borders and Barnes & Noble quickly followed.

Most of my clients want pretty basic stuff in life—financial security and abundance; great relationships, maybe a home and family; and work that is personally rewarding. What do you want? Talk to someone who has it and find out how they got it. You may discover it’s your own assumptions that have held you back.

I used to think that to live in a million dollar house you had to be a millionaire. After talking to several people who lived in really grand homes, I discovered they had paid little or nothing down to buy them. This blew one of my assumptions right out of the water—you don’t necessarily have to have a big down payment to buy a big house. You can just have a big mortgage! So that is exactly what we have—a big house, a big mortgage, and a big investment for the future (property values are going up quickly here). May not be right for everyone, but it was right for us, with our growing family.

Think about what you’d really like to have or achieve. Then talk to people who have already done it. Find out what they did and how they got it, and follow their model.

That, by the way, is one of the reasons why coaching is so effective. We help you blast through the assumptions holding you back.

Warmest regards,
Talane