Hello my Entrepreneurial Community!
Welcome to my Newsletter. I hope to bring insights into business basics and current trends that inspire you (and me) to find more ways to use the best of our talents for the most good and the most profit. With a growth mindset you can fulfill your purpose and have small business growth that defies your old scarcity mindset.
How Scarcity Mindset starts
Let’s start at the beginning. You start your business because you have a gift, a talent, an idea, or a dream. Maybe you’re burnt out from working for someone else or think you can do it better and achieve better outcomes. You picture a life doing what you love most, free from the limits of an employer’s agenda. You dream of small business growth and success.
In the beginning, it was just you. You might still have an employee mindset, where investing in your own success feels unfamiliar or even scary. Spending money on marketing, business coaching, or hiring consultants might feel like too big of a risk.
Maybe you’ve been living paycheck to paycheck or working with a tight budget, hoping to grow organically by relying on your skills. You might even believe you’re the best person for every job; after all, it’s your dream. Who would try harder than you to make it happen?
You start doing everything yourself; designing your website, answering calls, running operations, opening accounts, booking clients, posting on social media, and more. At first, it’s overwhelming, but once a few systems are in place, things feel manageable. You start seeing patients, booking clients, or making sales.
As your business grows, simple tasks like answering phone calls start taking over your day. Responding to texts, emails, DMs, and reviews while still doing your actual job becomes impossible. All those good intentions begin to feel like a pipe dream.
Soon, you miss a few calls or leave a negative review unanswered. You start working later, sacrificing time with your family; or with yourself. Operations become overwhelming. What was once easy, like ordering supplies, now turns chaotic. You throw away expired products or run out of ingredients mid-shift.
You start to feel stressed, inadequate, and tired. Your confidence fades, and the thing you once loved becomes another chore. What used to excite you now feels heavy and full of dread.
Founder’s Syndrome Creeps In
This is called Founder’s Syndrome, and if it sounds familiar, you are not alone. Many of us, myself included, fall into this trap. Women are especially vulnerable because society expects us to manage everything; family, work, appointments, schedules, shopping, and more. If you’ve escaped this, please share your secrets! Of course, men can experience it too. Passion and purpose often get buried under the daily grind. The truth is, you may not be the best person for every job; even if that’s what you’ve come to believe.
You may have heard of opportunity cost; the value of the best alternative you give up when making a choice. Take LeBron James, for example. He’s paid over $11,000 per minute of game time. He’s athletic and competitive, but does it make sense for him to mow his own lawn? Of course not. His time is worth more elsewhere.
You are the LeBron James of your business. Your talent, skill, and passion are irreplaceable. You are the most valuable asset your business has.
Moving Into Growth Mindset
If you could design your dream business, wouldn’t you spend most of your time doing what you love most? If you’re an integrative practitioner, that might mean seeing patients, reading labs, creating care plans, or learning new research. If you’re managing your schedule, running ads, updating your website, and tracking inventory, your talents are being wasted.
Ask yourself: in the time you spend doing administrative work, how many more clients could you see? How much more could you learn? How much more impact could you make?
More importantly, how would it feel to spend your time doing what you do best? You may be capable of handling many tasks, but there are professionals who excel at managing operations, ordering efficiently, scheduling strategically, and preventing burnout. Hiring the right support is the difference between living your dream and being trapped by it.
This might sound like a marketing pitch; hire me, I’m a coach and consultant; but that’s not the purpose of this message. This is meant to be a mirror for you. Here is the truth small business growth relies on going from a scarcity mindset to a growth mindset. Relieving yourself of Founder’s Syndrome and embracing an entrepreneur mindset.
If you’re not ready to invest in a consultant or marketing firm, start small. You can delegate in baby steps.
Step 1: Hire a virtual assistant through Fiverr, Upwork, or Freelancer. Have them handle simple tasks like data entry, writing website copy, or creating forms and spreadsheets.
When you pay someone to handle basic work for a few hours, you gain back precious time; to read, rest, spend with family, or dive deeper into your craft.
Step 2: Delegate a little more. Track how it impacts your productivity and profits. When you see how much more efficient and profitable you become with support, you’ll start to feel more confident investing in staff, coaches, or consultants to help your business grow; even if it means opening a line of credit.
The saying “you have to spend money to make money” is true for more than just financial reasons. When you invest in your business, you stop operating from fear and open yourself; and your business; to abundance.
Research shows that a scarcity mindset, the belief that resources like time, money, or opportunity are limited, narrows focus, increases stress, and leads to short-term, reactive decisions that hinder growth (Mullainathan & Shafir, Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, 2013). In contrast, a growth mindset, the belief that abilities and outcomes can improve through effort and learning, fosters adaptability, innovation, and resilience in both individuals and organizations (Dweck & Yeager, Annual Review of Psychology, 2019).
In business, mindset and structure go hand in hand.
When you let go of scarcity thinking and invest in support, you open the door to abundance, sustainability, and joy.
Hopefully, this inspires you to recognize where Founder’s Syndrome or scarcity thinking has crept in. Now you can take small, intentional steps toward building the life and business you truly want.
When you are ready to invest in the support your business needs schedule a discovery session to learn how I can help you get back to your Joy!
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