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By Dr. Jayne Gardner

I am an executive coach, with a practice that includes many entrepreneurs. Over the years, I have noticed a pattern that surfaces for many of them and might provide insight to others.

Entrepreneurs often have one common obstacle holding them back from success: their view of themselves. Bill wanted to take his manufacturing company to the top. He owned a large cabinet making business which was number two in the U.S. industry. Bill wanted his company’s revenue to exceed that of any company in his industry. He had a specific dollar amount of sales he wanted to achieve in six months, steadily building to an ultimate figure with one-, three- and five-year goals. Like so many passionate entrepreneurs, Bill, had been working hard for years without meeting his projected goals. He was working hard making a good but not great living.

Identifying the Challenge

Bill had heard working with an executive coach could help. He and the coach went to work on achieving Bill’s goal, looking for the typical challenges companies face in the growth cycle. Did he have the right people on board? Yes, he knew his sales team was top notch. He had invested in the right assessments to match personalities to his culture. He had hired a sales trainer whose system was well known.

Could the factory maintain production if sales increased to the level his goal would demand? Bill had installed lean systems to support world-class production quality and he was confident in their stability after using them for more than a year.

Would he be able to control overhead to produce the profit margins he wanted? Bill said his finance team’s projected figures showed it was possible to make the double-digit profit margin while growing sales to a level that would make his company number one.

So everything appeared to be in perfect alignment for the company to go over the top. The question most entrepreneurs don’t think to ask is: What limiting beliefs might be holding me back?

The Power of Dad

Where do hard working successful entrepreneurs get their beliefs about themselves? Most people wire in their mental models about work and life as a result of their early life with their family and more importantly, what they learn from their parents. Bill had gotten his values from his dad about hard work and discipline and character. He had also interpreted some of Dad’s lessons into limiting beliefs about himself.

Like most entrepreneurs, Bill recalled quite quickly his most memorable father/son story. “It happened when my brother and I were in high school. Dad was the head coach of our basketball team one year. I was a junior and my brother was a senior. We were both starters. It was the last few seconds of the final game for the state championship. We were down two points. I was dribbling down the court, trying to set up a play that would tie the game, when my father called a time out. I was furious at him for stopping the momentum.

He took one look at me, saw my anger and frustration, and benched me. After the time out, the team went back in and my brother made a three pointer to win the game – while I watched from the bench. The next day, in our hometown newspaper, there was a picture of my father and my brother high-fiving it on the court. What a great day of celebration—for them!”

And Here’s the Connection

Bill didn’t hesitate a second to connect the dots in his story: “I think I’m second best, don’t I?” he asked his coach. It was obvious that he had been holding a limiting belief about himself, which also was holding back his company’s success. Bill had identified the major hurdle between he and his goal of becoming the number one company in his industry—his own limiting belief about himself.

In the next few months of coaching, Bill replaced that limiting belief with an empowering phrase that his father had also taught him: “You can do anything you believe you can.” In time, he genuinely believed in himself. Because of this shift in his beliefs, he began to act like the leader of a world class company and moved into action.

Emptying the ‘Head Trash’

The next step was to take his sales team through the same coaching process, identifying specific goals for each member and then helping them remove their mental roadblocks. Bill’s employees called these limitations “head trash.”

After taking out the head trash and replacing these limiting beliefs with empowering statements, Bill’s people began to have new, more positive energy and enthusiasm matching his passion about the company’s potential. Tossing out those limiting beliefs and replacing them with positive ones elevated his company to the status he had always wanted: Number one!

A year later, Bill’s hometown newspaper ran an article about how his company now ranked number one in its industry. Bill invited his father and brother to join him in celebrating this enormous win. He knew it was all about clearing his mind of limiting beliefs. And he also observed that when he shifted to a positive mindset, it had great impact on his employees.

Adopting New Tools

Through coaching to override his limiting beliefs, Bill gained the tools he needed to achieve a mindset for success. With empowering beliefs about himself securely locked in place, Bill knew that he and his employees could maintain the company’s status as first in the nation. What’s more, he saw no roadblocks preventing him from reaching his next goal: achieving the number one industry position in the world.