#62: Dorothy Andreas: left college at 19 to pursue the first of 9 successful businesses.
Dorothy began her entrepreneurial career in the beauty industry, but she's had many successful businesses since then, including a consulting business where she helps young entrepreneurs scale their business to the million-dollar mark. She wrote Streamline Success, which became a best-seller. She wrote her second book, Conflict Revelation, based on her 40 years of experience working with her employees, many of whom she'd had for decades.
When someone doesn't have faith in you or says they think you'll fail (like Dorothy's dad), use their lack of confidence as fuel to prove them wrong. Dorothy kept telling herself, "I'm not going to sink, I'm going to swim," and she did. The alternative is to choose to give meaning to others' negative words.
Use other people's knowledge as an opportunity to learn whatever it is you need to learn. Dorothy's client, who was an accountant, offered to teach her the ropes of owning a business.
Be okay asking people for help. They want to see you succeed b/c they're vested in you.
Commit to learning what you don't know. Dorothy had to learn about marketing. She also wanted to have an educated vocabulary, so she set a goal for herself to read one book a week. She also taught herself about business growth and leadership.
Put yourself in an environment where you'll grow. Dorothy joined a strategic coaching group; she also found a mentor and coach. She realized she had to step out of her business to really grow the business.
Figure out where the bottleneck is in your business or home life. Where do things slow down or get stuck? Find the pain point and focus on problem-solving it. Where the problems are is where growth occurs.
Dorothy deconstructed every detail of her life into 5 categories: physical, relationships, spirituality, career/career growth, financial. She realized she had to come up with hacks and weed out all the clutter in each area.
Delegate everything out that can be delegated out that you don't want to do. This led to a wildly successful time management workshop. Thetimeclass.com 6 sessions of live coaching every other week. It's deconstructing life and looking at it in a completely different way, and prioritizing the most important things.
When something in your life or business isn't working well, look at this as a chance to pivot instead of giving up.
When we make a decision to change something, communication is key, so it's not just an idea in our head. People get mad if they don't understand it. Discuss the ideal outcome, brainstorm solutions, and implement a new rule that everyone can get on board with.
Let your kids be involved in your new endeavors. Dorothy picked locations for her businesses where her kids could ski or rock climb. She put her kids in charge of laundry at the spa and licking envelopes. She actually put them on her payroll and deposited the money in their IRA. She would show them their financial statements. This led to fiscal responsibility as adults.
What's your money story? It's a story we came up with and believe based on money issues surrounding us as kids. This dictates how you interact with money as an adult.
Coaches get you out of your own way. If you want to grow, hire a coach, find a mentor, join accountability groups. You'll grow much more than you will alone.
Understand when our buttons are pushed, it's our own personal issues being brought to the surface. It's about us, not the people pushing the buttons.
Part of the recipe for success is identifying and confronting our limiting beliefs: things from our childhood we made a decision to give meaning to and live our lives like it's true.
There are things we do, things we're incompetent at, things we're really good at, and then things that are our unique area of expertise. With these latter tasks, we're the only person who does it like we do it, no one else can quite do it the way we do it. These tasks feel effortless and don't feel like work. These are the things we need to focus on and figure out how to monetize.
Website: www.streamlinesuccess.com
Email: dorothy@streamlinesuccess.com
books: Streamline Success and Conflict Revelation
People Dorothy mentions in her interview: Joel Bower, Jeff Faldalen