With a world of information at our fingertips and a huge increase in connection via online platforms such as private groups and online communities, it can suddenly seem like everyone considers themselves an expert, or experienced enough to give you advice on what you should be doing in your business. 

If you ask 3 different Dr's, mechanics, financial planners, marketing experts, occupational therapists or any other service based profession for an opinion on something, even when they're a fastidious evidence-based practitioner, you're likely to get three somewhat different answers.

If you ask strangers or even connections online or at business events for an opinion, well, you'll get a lot of different people telling you a LOT of different things. 

So how do you keep your conversations valuable, and avoid overwhelming people with bad, unhelpful, or half-baked advice? Here is my tip:

Ask people to only give advice based on their own lived...

When we decide to pivot and carve out our own path there’s a period of adjustment as we say to people whose opinions matter to us: I’m not going to be the person you thought I was. I’m not going to take the path you hoped I would take.

In choosing freedom, we are choosing anxiety, because we can't see the pathway, we can't predict the outcome.

Feeling some anxiety is normal, but not comfortable.

There are periods where we bravely take action and cast our work out into the world. Then we have the anxious wait about how people will react to it, whether they will react to it at all, and how we'll react to their reaction.

We create things worth sharing, and then doubt their value, and experience the resistance of putting it out there. 

We wake in the wee hours worrying about how much money is going out, and whether enough will come back in. 

When it all gets too uncomfortable we dip back into safety. To remove...

When we're looking for answers on how to do business, marketing, audience building, parenting or lifing in general, we think we're looking for the best way, the fastest way, or the most effective way.  

Logically we know there is no one best way.

What we're trying to figure out is OUR way.

We won't listen to the person who tells us the best way to build an audience is blogging if we've no interest in writing.

We won't listen to the person who tells us the best way to make money is to sell laxative tea for weight loss if it's not in line with our values.  

We're looking for the best way to use our own strengths, skills, interests and values even if we're not yet able to name what they are. 

The reality is that we're going to do business in a way that no-one else does.

To do that we're going to try a lot of different things, we're going to collage together a lot of different advice and training, we're...

When we're trying to create a significant change in our lives, our level of motivation to make the change happen is likely to be impacted upon by our hope story - our level of hope that this desired change is actually possible.

So what impacts on our hope story?

Someone who has been trying to give up smoking/drinking/excessive shopping/overeating may have tried unsuccessfully to give up these habits loads of times before - without success. Every time they don't succeed, their level of hope is eroded a little more.

People who are trying to build their business or their side hustle and have had several failed launches, or are stuck in that cycle where they seem to be taking two steps forward and three steps back, are likely to have their hope story eroded over time. 

Someone who has been trying to have a baby without success for 5 years and then had 3 IVF attempts that haven't worked - well, you can imagine how difficult it is to have hope that...

Today I was told by a service I use multiple times per week for the last 5 years:

"When we have more numbers, and they are gradually going up, we'll be able to provide the consistency you're looking for."

"I'm one of your most consistent and long-term current 'numbers', and I'm feeling very undervalued. Right now I'm ready to run."

If you wait until you're ready, you might not have a business. Regardless of your current numbers, the most effective way to increase them is to take those you do have (I like to call them 'people'), give them the best POSSIBLE service you can provide, and then provide some more.