9 Reasons Why You Aren’t Making the Impact You Want to Make

You’ve seen Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs I bet. Making the impact you want to make shows up way at the top under “self-actualization” – achieving one’s full potential. Even making a difference with a book, what I teach authors how to do, falls pretty high on the pyramid, under esteem needs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See how at the bottom of the pyramid is Physiological needs like food and water and safety needs? Until you get those needs met, you can’t make an impact. And even before you can start thinking about accomplishment, you need to feel love and belonging. And you know what all of these basic and psychological needs require? Money.

Love it or hate it – money is what is required. Now I know some people rely on the gift economy, but that approach is not going to take you to self-actualization. The only way for you to have access to unlocking your full creative potential and maximum impact on the planet is to get your arms around how money flows.

There is a magic number I have found that unlocks the freedom required to have the impact my authors want to have.

To even have a fighting chance to make the difference you want to make, I have found it requires USD $36,000 per month. Until you hit this milestone you are in the lower rungs of the hierarchy of needs still focused on your food, shelter, security, family needs, and esteem needs.

Here’s the good news:

It’s not that making $36,000 a month is difficult.

Believing you can make $36,000 a month or more, is what’s difficult.

And hey, if you are already making this much or more per month, this message probably isn’t relevant, but for those that aren’t there yet, here’s my map to getting to $36,000 a month within a year. (And I’ve had authors unlock this in as little as 90 days.)

Just remember, making this amount doesn’t solve all your problems. At $3,600, $36,000 and $360,000 a month in revenue, my problems have pretty much felt exactly the same. The problems are different, but they feel identical! The big difference for me was that when I hit that magical $36K a month number, I really started to feel like I finally had the creative space to make the difference I was born to make.

Here are the top ways I see my authors holding themselves back from making at least the minimum required to make the impact they want to make.

Reason #1: You’re Afraid to Let Go

The problem for most of my authors isn’t that they are lazy or do too little. It’s that they do way, way, way too much! To get to $36,000 a month you have to be laser focused on being the best in the world at solving one problem really, really well and you have to be willing to let go of everything else. Most of my authors are so busy trying to help everyone, they help no one.

To let go, you must identify your maximum impact zone (also known as your zone of genius) and drop everything else – even the stuff you are pretty good at.

Reason #2: You’re Afraid to Delegate

If you are truly committed to being in your zone of genius most, if not all, of the time, you have to delegate. Once you learn a task is required for your business, if it’s out of your zone of genius, you have to invest in hiring someone to do it, even if it’s painful and there is a long learning curve for that person. You will think, “No one else can do this as well as I can, so I have to do it.” But that kind of thinking will stop you from getting to the revenue required to make the impact you desire. Building a team, and investing in the team before you see a return on investment, is terrifying but essential.

Reason #3: You Don’t Have a Real Business Model

This one breaks my heart. Most people don’t understand the difference between tactics and strategy. In fact, they spend most of their time in a million ineffective tactics exhausting themselves and generating somewhere between $0 to $150,000 per year hoping next year will be better but with no actual business model to support that.

If you’re between $0 to $150,000 per year, it’s likely your real problem is a broken business model. A broken business model is one of the easiest problems to fix and the one most people ignore.

Reason #4: You Still Don’t Have A “Reason”

Once you progress through the first 4 stages of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a funny thing happens. Your “Reason” for doing what you do is to get your physical and psychological needs met. When those needs are met, a depression often comes over people. I watch my authors get so close to this goal and then utterly sabotage themselves saying bullshit like: “I just want to blow up my business.” Or “I’m not even sure I like what I do.”

This is because when the basic and emotional needs are taken care of, YOU need to be crystal clear on your purpose.

My purpose is to transfer the skills of magic. I know I have a divinely ordained task to find magical, earth-dwelling creatures who know they are supposed to heal the planet with their wisdom but don’t know how to do it and to teach those soul mate clients the ways of transformation and alchemy in this incarnation. I’m not even a little bit confused about this purpose.

If you don’t have a purpose you are crystal clear about… you’ll get burnt out and worse, you just won’t be having any fun, so what’s the point!

Further, once you make $25,000 per month, for the most part, your life becomes “good.” You won’t have much incentive to go further without purpose.

In truth, whether you’re making $25,000 per month or $250,000 per month, your “lifestyle” doesn’t change much.

However, one gives you money; the other gives you impact.

Reason #5: You Are Allergic to Money

Most people I meet are allergic to money… they feel like money is “dirty” and they telegraph to the Universe: “I don’t like money.”

Which, big surprise, means they don’t have much of it and stay on those lower rungs of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

But the truth is, there is an upside to being allergic to money. When you don’t have enough money to make an impact, you don’t have to worry about the responsibility of making an impact.

When someone shows me they are allergic to money, I know they are just scared of freedom.

Just yesterday a client told me she was afraid if she had true success, she was afraid her ego would be in the driver’s seat and she wouldn’t like herself.

Money buys FREEDOM and FREEDOM is scary.

That’s why you must be clear on your mission on the planet – your authentic self — before you embark on impact. To my authors I explain this as “becoming the person who wrote the book before you write it.”

Which basically makes no sense but is the special magic that is required to cure your allergy to money.

Reason #6: You’re Afraid to Spend Money Because You Think It’s Scarce

You get that money is a completely made up concept right? It’s just a bunch of zeros on a computer at the Fed or wherever. There is nothing real about it – and nothing limited about it. It’s part of the time/space continuum which Quantum Physics has proven is also completely made up.

We live our lives – and LIMIT our lives based on stories we believe. And money is a story most people believe in. (Fellow magic-makers know how funny that really is.)

But because most people BELIEVE their money stories, they are afraid to spend money, thinking it will be gone. Your money can’t disappear, because it’s not real. When you invest well in your business, more money will be reflected back to you. When you invest poorly, less money will reflect back to you. This is how the Universe communicates with you and tells you if you are on a hot track. If you don’t invest money, the Universe can’t use that tool for communication. It’s like you are playing a game of hot or cold but you are standing in the middle of the room and not moving.

You have to invest money – sometimes money you don’t have – to see if you are headed in the right direction.

Reason #7: You Really Want to Be Saved

If you’re trying to follow someone else’s blueprint… let me give you a newsflash: it’s not going to work.

Oh, you might get to a revenue target – but even if you do, you won’t be happy.

I learned this from weight loss. All diets work, and none of them do. Because the secret ingredient to every diet is you. You can take inspiration from them, get ideas, test things out, but in the end, the only diet you will stick to that will work is the one you invent for yourself.

The same is true in business. There is no one coming to save you, except you. Yes, find mentors and coaches who have the outcome you want and study what they do, but then give yourself time to integrate and adjust those practices to what works for you. I recommend only having one mentor at a time and giving yourself a year off between working with people to fully integrate what you have learned.

Reason #8: You’re Waiting to Feel Better

If you truly want to succeed, you have to accept that a significant percentage of the time you are going to have negative feelings. There is no day coming when you are done and everything is calm. Everything is a shit-show and it’s always going to be. And everything is awesome and it’s always going to be. It’s the both/and.

One of my favorite sayings is “Life’s a journey, not a destination.” Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.”

I’m obsessed with this idea. I’m obsessed with the journey. Yeah, sure I know where we are going, but the destination is an afterthought. I am beyond willing to feel and experience everything on the journey, I am loving it. I don’t wish for any of it to be different. Without the valleys, you can’t have the peaks.
If you are going to get to $36,000 a month and unlock your impact potential, you are going to have to learn to be super comfortable with discomfort. Those are the rules of the road.

Reason #9: You Actually Already Have What You Want

When authors tell me they want to hit $36K a month and they don’t hit it, month after month – when they have everything they need to hit it, I let them in on this secret:

You want what you have right now MORE than you want to make an impact.

We are ALWAYS getting what we want most. If you want to make a difference and you want to be comfortable, those 2 things are in conflict. To find out which you want more, look at what you have. You actually already have what you want most.

To get a different result, you must get honest about your true desires. You are always spying on your own self-talk. You can’t keep secrets from yourself – even subconsciously.

The biggest threat to your maximum impact isn’t your misery, it’s your contentment.

So, how do you generate $36,000 a month?

Well, there is what happens on the surface and then the real work underneath:

20% of the Path to $36K

Solve one problem. One Way.
For one reachable, small audience.
Better than anyone else.

80% of the Path to $36K

Feel your feelings.
Manage your drama.
Be willing to suck.
Clear your money blocks.
Get so clear on your why, there is no other option.
Refuse to fail.

My authors come to me for the 20% that’s on the surface; but they leave with the 80% that matters most as well. That’s where the magic is. To write a book that makes a difference and to have the impact you know you are called to have, both are required.

I don’t usually reveal all of this because for a lot of people it’s scary stuff. But maybe this is exactly what you’ve been waiting to hear and wondering why no one ever told you this before. If that’s you, you could be one of my soul mate clients I’m looking to reconnect with to fulfill our Karmic contract. If you have that knowing feeling, head over to www.TheAuthorIncubator.com/apply.