Enthusiastically Self-Employed: business tips, marketing tips, and LinkedIn tips for coaches, consultants, speakers, authors, solopreneurs & small business owners

Using Your Strengths to Make the Shift with Dr. Brian Grossman Ep 153

• Brenda Meller • Season 1 • Episode 153

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Using Your Strengths to Transition from Employee to Solopreneur with Dr. Brian Grossman

In this insightful episode, I revisit an inspiring talk by Dr. Brian Grossman from my Shift Live-a-thon event held in April 2024. Brian, who initially approached me while seeking employment, has transformed into a successful solopreneur, inspired in part by my guidance. 

He shares his journey and valuable strategies on leveraging personal strengths to move from being an employee to a self-employed individual. The episode covers mental fitness, overcoming self-doubt, and turning life's challenges into opportunities. 

Brian introduces a six-week program designed to help listeners tackle their 'saboteurs' and achieve their best selves. I encourage sharing your key takeaways and highlight the importance of a positive mindset for personal and professional growth.

00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview

00:58 Meet Dr. Brian Grossman

02:25 The Shift from Employee to Solopreneur

04:37 Overcoming Mental Barriers

06:44 Using Strengths to Succeed

09:07 Brian's Personal Journey and Insights

11:04 Final Thoughts and Call to Action


Connect with Brian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drbriangrossman/ 


Check out Brian's resources & programs:
https://www.positiveintelligence.com/

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My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.

Visit mellermarketing.com

Let's connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brendameller
(click MORE to invite me to connect and mention you listened to my podcast)

Speaker 1:

Welcome back, my friend. In today's episode I bring you a playback from the vault, so to speak. This is featuring Dr Brian Grossman, and Brian was a speaker on my event in April of 2024. It was called the Shift Live-a-thon, and I put this together for individuals who are thinking about making this shift from being an employee to a solopreneur, or those that are already looking, are already in the business of being self-employed and just looking some strategy tips to help to expand and grow their business.

Speaker 1:

And Brian's a unique individual in that when he first came to me, he was looking for help finding a full-time job as an employee and gradually and over time, he started hearing little bits of inspiration from me about becoming self-employed and he started to lean into that and now he's got his own programs that he's doing as well. So I hope you find this talk inspirational. I hope you walk away with some new insights and I'd encourage you to check out the free resources he offers through his website as well. Go ahead and enjoy the episode. Brian is on today to talk about using your strengths to make the shift. So, brian, before we get into your talk, why don't you take a moment and introduce yourself to our audience?

Speaker 2:

So thank you, brenda, and, as you eloquently said, I started with Brenda years and years ago with find a job and then through nudging nudging, don't find a job do your own thing. So I'm Dr Brian, phd in clinical psychology. Don't let that scare you. I'm not going to analyze any of you today, but I'm going to give you an opportunity to analyze yourself for free and then schedule a call with me. So I have been a psychologist in 89 and absolutely positively want to send two messages to you. You're all doing awesome today. You may not know it, you may not feel it yet, but you're going to do awesome. Next, my passion, as we've heard from so many other speakers, is absolutely how to help you get from better to best. How do you keep moving forward? So with that, brenda, I'm going to just jump in to content and we'll go from there, and I can't thank you enough for allowing me this opportunity. So I want to help you get from better to best. You can go to positiveintelligencecom, click on the saboteurs section and just take a quick free assessment. So what am I here to talk to you all about is something that changed my life and really aligned with my passion is through 25 years of research at Stanford University, shirzad Shamim has proven that we all have these little voices in our head and I'm sure, as you're getting ready to make the shift from employee to entrepreneur, you have the judge who is telling you right now you can't do this, stay the same. You might have the hyper-controller saboteur taking over, which is telling you don't make a move until everything is aligned perfectly. You may be the pleaser, which is you want to please all the people around you and not allowing yourself to take a step up. So what I would love to share with all of you is a program that is six weeks, eight minutes a day for six weeks and 30 minutes of coaching with me. But before you even worry about signing up with that, take the saboteur assessment and let's schedule a quick call together to talk about whether this is a program for you.

Speaker 2:

But what is it? It's mental fitness, your ability to handle life's challenges and curveballs such as the power going out. If my judge and hyper-controller saboteurs took over, I would have just walked away, but no, I just reconnected. Life will continually throw curveballs at you. They will throw hardballs at you.

Speaker 2:

How do you get back up? How do you respond with what we call clear-headed thinking, sage thinking, can you respond to life's challenges with curiosity, innovation, empathy, clear-headed thinking. How do you stay calm? How do you stay calm? But, most important out of all of that, I really want to share the mindset with you of how do you look at problems and issues that may keep repeating themselves, where you get stuck in a pothole, and respond to it with positive mental attitude. How do you respond to these challenges with a clear head?

Speaker 2:

And so, when you're doing this solopreneur, or maybe with a group of people, and you're wanting to transition from an employee situation, I'll share with you in my family, my wife just retired from the same junior high school for 30 years as a school counselor. Being an entrepreneur isn't in my wife's headspace, so it's taken a while to make the shift and get her on board. And when you're making this journey alone, even though you may have friends and family and some support, three things creep in self-doubt, that lack of support on a consistent basis, and the belief or that negative thought that maybe you can't do it or won't work out. Remember, not every decision you make is going to turn out perfectly. Remember, not every customer may be for you. You are not for everybody. So what's your audience? And I'm here to share with you a way to tap into your amazing ability how to use your strengths to take the next step up. So my wheelhouse is training leaders new leaders or experienced leaders and to help them take a step up and get out of that vice, in the middle of pleasing the boss and the team. But I also help individuals take a step up.

Speaker 2:

How do you release these negative shackles and that self-doubt? And having gone through the program myself and I will share with you have I had some roadblocks. I've had some roadblocks. I overcame my own saboteurs. I had a weight loss journey where my doctor scared the heck out of me and now, for eight years, I've kept 187 pounds off. And I've done that through tapping into what my strengths are. And I will share with you that in Brenda's coaching, she's taught me how to take a slice of social media pie. Yes, I do have her book and use her coaching often.

Speaker 2:

And, simply put, are you tapping into what you do best? Don't throw spaghetti against the wall. Your program, your business, your strengths will tap into enough people to make you more than sustainable, more than financially free, but when you're trying to be everything to everybody, you're going to wear yourself out, physically and emotionally. So what would it be like to tap into? Every outcome or circumstance can be turned into a gift or an opportunity.

Speaker 2:

That argument with your wife or spouse that may be coming up over and over that pothole that you keep falling into, the Are you running out of money before the end of the month? Does that keep happening? Most importantly, I want to share with you the tool of how do you get rid of that self doubt, because I can promise you, when you eliminate that selfoubt, when you break free from these saboteurs, when you laugh at your judge, your energy goes up, your health is better, your relationships are better and having peace of mind to handle life curveballs over and over is an energizing experience. You can wake up feeling amazing, energized and happy every morning. Or when life gets in the way and you wake up with oh, it's Monday, I'm a solopreneur, I've got to do 800 things.

Speaker 2:

Then go to my job. How do you do that? With a reboot and a positive attitude, and with that, please go to bitly B-I-T. Dot L-Y forward. Slash better to best shift. Let's just schedule a chat. That's all I'm asking you to do. Let's see if my program is best for you, and with that I'll turn it over to Brenda and say thank you again. Let's use our strengths to be best.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful, brian. Thank you. I love that quote and I wrote it down because I'm keeping track of my key takeaways for the day today and I hope all of you are as well and I want you to go into the chat, go into the comments, I should say and, for our audience, share your key takeaways. I think we, as adult learners, learn best when we're sharing with others the things that we learn, so don't be shy about sharing your key takeaways in there and, brian, I'm going to keep this up on screen so that people can download this and get to your link. But also, are you open to connecting with individuals on LinkedIn?

Speaker 2:

100%. I put my LinkedIn. I'll put my LinkedIn profile in the chat. Absolutely, you can connect with me on LinkedIn, no problem whatsoever. And, brenda, can you remind me what quote you liked?

Speaker 1:

So it's actually the one that's right up on screen right now. Every outcome or circumstance can be turned into a gift and opportunity and, brian, you've heard me tell my backstory about how I got to be self-employed, and it wasn't by choice. I admired the people that were doing this, but I would have never used my strengths to make the shift, and it was always like I admired it, but I was on the corporate path until one day I wasn't. I sat down for my annual performance review. I was told that my position was being eliminated and it ended up, in retrospect, being one of the best things that ever happened to me, because it set me on the course for a new business, for working for myself. In that case, the circumstance of going through my position being eliminated did turn into an opportunity for me.

Speaker 1:

So that really resonated with me, and I'm sure there's others that might be watching right now. Maybe they have lost their job and it sounds funny when you say lost their job, I can lose it Like your position was, like you were told your job doesn't exist anymore. You are still existing as a person, but the role that you filled for the company no longer exists. But there can be people that can take what they've gained, and that's the topic of your talk. Using your strengths, and you can powerfully make that shift. Brian, any thoughts on that?

Speaker 2:

Yes, and I just want to share Brenda not blowing the old phrase smoke up our skirts, but I was in Brenda's job-a-thon. I was in Brenda's VIP program and my mom got critically ill and needed help from family. So my brothers and I were all shifting and I ended up leaving my job as a therapist and I had to get out of the house a few hours a day. So I did food demo work at Sam's Club and then Brenda each week, without knowing it was throwing out little hints what can you do? And I'm like how can I use my strengths? So that's when I started building my business, because I could be at my mom's place. And while my wife doesn't understand entrepreneur mindset, she was very supportive of me not being home and helping to take care of my mom and that allowed me to build my business.

Speaker 2:

And that's what we mean by life's hard balls. You can take negative circumstances and turn them into an opportunity. And when you have that mindset, you stay out of woe is me victim. You stay out of letting life roll over you. And Brenda can tell you in another private chat with her she can remember me wanting to come on her LinkedIn thing and rail at companies. Why didn't my resume get thin? Why isn't this happening? And now I don't worry about any of that stuff anymore, it's just roll on. So I can help all of you tap into that. Be your best, take control. Let's eliminate those saboteurs. And I do want to thank you, brenda, sincerely. You've been a tremendous coach for me.

Speaker 1:

Oh, you're so kind, Brian. Brian, I feel like you've got a book in you. Are you a published author yet?

Speaker 2:

No, but some coach, I can't remember her name. Yes, you. So I am actually translating not translating transcribing an audio program that I created with a seminar company and turning it into a book. And the big preview, the big takeaway from this is I am writing a book. We've heard other speakers talk about it. It's called the Human App and it's all about how to stay connected, that we have become really disconnected and mostly we are social people. Whether you're an introvert or extrovert, we need the connection of gatherings and communication skills, and I am working on that. So, thank you.

Speaker 1:

All right, thank you, brian.

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