May 19, 2020

Part 1: Inside the Mind of an 8-Figure Entrepreneur with James Wedmore

Part 1: Inside the Mind of an 8-Figure Entrepreneur with James Wedmore

On this episode of The AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™ Podcast, stress expert and business coach Courtney Elmer sits down with famous entrepreneur James Wedmore to discuss limiting beliefs and how to shift your thoughts to reach your potential.

You’ve probably heard it said that “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.” And when it comes to thinking positive and limiting beliefs, that couldn’t be more true.

Today I’m excited to introduce you to a very special guest and good friend of mine, James Wedmore, who is here to shed some light on these things we call limiting beliefs and teach you how we create them, why we have them, and what to do to reframe any that might be limiting you.

If you don’t know James Wedmore, then you’re in for a treat. For the past 10 years, James has taught entrepreneurs and online business owners how to ditch the “hustle” mentality and create success from the inside out. 

James Wedmore and I agree that your success doesn’t depend on how much time, energy, or effort you put in.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING TO TODAY’S EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:

  • What the heck limiting beliefs even are

  • Why limiting beliefs prevent you from getting the results in life and in business that you want

  • The two types of limiting beliefs you create

  • Why thinking positive and being more productive aren’t enough to hit your goals

  • The surprisingly simple method to align your limiting beliefs with the outcomes you want in life (HINT: This is which is where things become truly effortLESS). 

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Transcript

Courtney Elmer 0:00  

You're listening to the AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™ podcast, Episode 18 with James Wedmore, where we're diving into thinking positive really means, and how to overcome the limiting beliefs that are keeping you from the success you deserve. You're in for a huge treat today, because my special guest has done not one, but two episodes for you to dive into this thing that you hear me talk about all the time here on the show that is limiting beliefs. And actually, what really happened is that when he and I hopped on to record our episode for you, we talked for so long, and the entire conversation was so amazing that I couldn't edit out any parts of it, because it's also valuable, and I want you to get it all. 

So what we did was we broke it out into two parts. This way you can listen in and let it absorb all that James Wedmore has to share about thinking positive and limiting beliefs and come back and listen again. Now, if you don't already happen to know James Wedmore, then allow me to introduce you. 

James Wedmore is the go-to expert for entrepreneurs and online business owners on how to overcome limiting beliefs and gain the mindset needed for entrepreneurship. He launched a totally woowoo podcast called the Mind Your Business podcast and his signature program, Business by Design. He helps coaches, experts, content creators and authors not only craft better marketing messages, but also shows them how to ditch the hustle mentality and to create success from the inside out. So you should be able to instantly see why James Wedmore and I align.

James Wedmore and I agree that success isn't just about thinking positive. We also agree it is possible to create a life that doesn't depend solely on how much time, energy or effort you put in. And that is why these episodes are pure magic, because what we've done is we've created them to help you take a look under the surface at these very subtle, very sneaky things we call limiting beliefs, which are always at play in your life, whether you realize it or not. It's not about the number of hours you're putting in. It's about the limiting beliefs under the surface that either empower you, or hold you back. And this is why thinking positive isn't enough to have the success you want, without overcoming these limiting beliefs too. James Wedmore drops some major insight into these things we call limiting beliefs and walks you through how we create them, why we have them and what to do to shift any that you notice, that might be limiting you. Our goal here is to help you gain a better understanding of them, get a sense of what they are, why they matter so much, and how they can really help or hinder your progress, and why thinking positive isn't enough to shift them.

Then we'll talk about how to align those limiting beliefs with the outcomes that you want, which is where things start to become effortless. While you're listening, go ahead and take a screenshot of the show on your device, share it to your stories on Instagram, and tag us both @theeffortlesslife.co and @jameswedmore. We want to know who here in our communities is tuning into these episodes. 

James Wedmore is going to debunk some major mess here about what the world tells you that you need to be doing in order to be successful. And instead, he'll give you the shortcut that gets right to the heart of why we're here on the show in the first place to show you how to create a lifestyle that doesn't depend solely on your time, energy or effort which are all limited resources to begin with. So without further ado, ladies and gents I bring you the one the only James Wedmore who is about to reveal to you what the heck limiting beliefs are, why they matter so much, and how to identify them so you can find true freedom in your business and in your life.

 

Courtney Elmer 10:01

James Wedmore, welcome to the show. It is such an honor to have you here. I am so excited for what we're going to dive into today. Thank you so much for being here. I am so excited to talk about thinking positive, and limiting beliefs.

 

James Wedmore 10:31 

it took so much effort to be here. I'm sorry. I said, I'm such a smart alec. 

 

Courtney Elmer 10:38 

Perfect way to start. I’ve been teasing out today’s topic about overcoming limiting beliefs and what thinking positive really means, and we’ve got a lot of listeners excited for what you’re about to share. But for those listeners that are maybe meeting you here for the first time, tell us who you help and how do you help them? 

 

James Wedmore 11:07 

I love working with today's online entrepreneurs that are building a personal brand. And today, like no other time in history, it's so exciting to explore thinking positive, and limiting beliefs. Having an audience and a relationship with that audience is one of the most valuable if not the most valuable asset you can have. You can go wherever that audience goes and take them wherever you want to go. 

 

James Wedmore 13:07 

Years ago, I pivoted, I used to have a million plus dollar a year business seven figure business selling $97 online courses to teach people how to make videos, I was making videos, it was my dream come true. I graduated from film school. 

But then I started teaching more of what I do today, which is like how to overcome limiting beliefs, how to build your personal brand, and how to monetize it. Your audience listening to you is going to follow you because of the relationship that you create with them. Relationships are the most valuable thing you have. So I help people build that value as an asset and build a business around it, whether it is courses, coaching, etc. 

 

Courtney Elmer 14:22  

It’s the whole idea that it doesn't matter what you're doing, but it's about who you're being and how you're showing up because that's what people are connecting with anyway. So tell us, what’s the James Wedmore story?

 

James Wedmore 14:48 

I was a person that was completely imprisoned by all of my limiting beliefs. I look back and I was a scared, insecure, little introverted kid that had big dreams. I saw a big vision for my life. And I was scared to death. If you're still being driven in your life by the opinions and judgments of others, and you have millions of dollars, you're not free. You're a prisoner to those opinions and limiting beliefs, those judgments? You're not free at all, you're trapped. You’re not thinking positive.I've had to deal with all that stuff. 

 

James Wedmore 17:48 

I went on a deeper inward journey to realize that if I want true freedom, I had to free myself from the opinions and judgments of what others thought of me with very simple concepts. It's not always so easy to live your life that way. The people that you'll follow like the Courtney Elmer of the world, they're the people that took all that knowledge that most of what you already know, I don't think anything I'm going to share here is anything new. It's been spoken about for ages. But these are the people the people you look up to are the people that are living this, this becomes who they are, it's integrated into every cell of their body. And that always becomes my fascination is how do I give people more access to that? 

 

Courtney Elmer 19:24 

We're getting right to the heart of it with James Wedmore, folks on thinking positive, and limiting beliefs. It's not about how much effort you're putting in, or how much time you're putting in, or all the energy that you spend trying to achieve this version of yourself that you want to be. It's about making the choice to become that person, in order to have all the other things you want to have. Would you agree with that?

 

James Wedmore 20:43  

Yeah. And, again, this becomes one of those things that people are like, Oh, yeah, and I agree with that, too. But if we're not willing to take that hard look at ourselves and see our art, am I doing that, then we go on filling our heads with more concepts, and concepts that don't do much to change who we are on the inside, and how that reflects out and manifests out in the world outside of us. So to even use a different analogy, or to use what you take what you said and use them as a metaphor analogy that's come up for me is, it's like driving a car. 

 

James Wedmore 21:22  

Now, you don't need to be a car person to understand this. But most people will notice, maybe some people are noticing for the first time my grandfather was an auto mechanic. So I learned a lot about cars growing up. But we have like two main dials on our dashboards, right? It's like miles per hour is like how fast we're going. There's RPM, revolutions per minute. And you'll people notice it goes up, and then it goes down. And then you have people that have a manual transmission in it. And you, that's when you really have to learn it. 

 

James Wedmore 22:05 

The RPM is measuring how hard the car is putting out. And ideally, you want to keep that lower, that's efficiency. You can have two cars on the freeway going 75 miles an hour, and one car is cruising, have you ever noticed that you get on the freeway and it feels like you're barely touching the gas, you can barely hear the motor, it's humming along. It's in this flow state,it's in a much more efficient state where not much effort is required, but it's going 75 miles an hour, whereas another car might be going the same speed. But it's stuck in first gear, you feel like the car is going to explode. I remember listening to a podcast with Dr. Bruce Lipton about limiting beliefs. I'm obviously gonna botch what he said, verbatim. He said, anytime we're going towards something and it feels real, like bumpy, like real stressful, that's the indicator right there. I could not agree with this more based on my own experience looking at my own life, that's the indicator where there's that struggle, or that that constant like, why is this feel like I'm trying to jam the square peg into the round hole says that's an indicator that at a subconscious level, there's some limiting belief, right? That's not necessarily in alignment with or in conflict with the goal or outcome that you want. 

 

Courtney Elmer 25:23 

That's a great metaphor. James Wedmore you mentioned a word that I love and it integrates especially with thinking positive and limiting beliefs. It's really this idea of, like you said, not taking it verbatim and knowing it in our head, but knowing it in our heart. And there's a huge difference. So at what point in your journey did you recognize that that was the missing piece? Take us back to the beginning and tell us, how did you begin to recognize and overcome the limiting beliefs holding you back? 

 

James Wedmore 25:56

I could take you all the way back in 2007. There've been so many iterations and struggles and ups and downs on and on along the way. You can look back and realize that everything that happened needed to happen, and it needed to happen the way it happened in order to get to where you were going. Today, I have a very beautiful relationship with limiting beliefs, transforming them into more thinking positive. 

 

James Wedmore 26:57 

The biggest problem that entrepreneurs have is they think they should always be thinking positive and they shouldn't have problems or limiting beliefs. So they try to avoid problems and limiting beliefs. They don't know how to deal with problems and limiting beliefs. But problems, pain, and suffering, control, especially business can truly be such a blessing for you in your life. You’ve probably all heard that phrase, like what you resist persists, right? It'll probably get more and more painful until you'll finally say, that's not working. I got to try something else. And so for most of us, if we look at a lot of the pain in our life, in terms of like the low points, and, I'm talking from my area of expertise, which is business, right, but we could probably apply this in every area of our life. 

 

James Wedmore 28:26

But when things got bad enough for me, those are the moments that I stopped and took a deeper look. I had a moment where I broke a keyboard, because I punched it. Because I was so frustrated, I was so angry that nothing was going my way. I spent three and a half years trying to start a business and was broke as a joke still living in my parents basement. 

 

James Wedmore 29:18

I was addicted to Adderall, which is like a legalized form of speed. Which makes you productive, but being busy doesn't mean you're going to actually get results. You can spend six hours on Twitter and then six hours building a website that didn't make any money. That was the beginning of a complete transformation and shift from broke living in my parents house to growing a multi million dollar company. It started with learning what thinking positive really means and overcoming the limiting beliefs standing in my way.

 

James Wedmore 29:55

When you talk about limiting beliefs, how we show up, those two are in a beautiful dance together. Right now somebody listening believes that it's only going to get worse and the things you want are never going to happen. But how is thinking this way affecting your state in life? What actions do you take based on this limiting belief? What decisions to make? Do you begin to live a life where you're resigned and discouraged and trying to survive and get by? Now think about this, you all know the sun's gonna come up tomorrow. We know it. 

 

James Wedmore 31:47

There's no one who's like, oh, James Wedmore, this might be the last day that Earth has. That has a feeling associated with it. Is the sun going to come up tomorrow? There's a yes. And there's a certain way that that feels. It's so subtle, like, yeah, of course, the sun's gonna come out tomorrow. If that's how you felt about your inevitable success, of course you’ll achieve it. You couldn't have a dream born within you that you didn't already have every resource, everything within you to make that dream a reality. But when you start to look at how much how you're showing up is directly correlated to thinking positive and the limiting beliefs you have this becomes a very easy game. 

 

James Wedmore 32:44

At the risk of all this sounding far too simple, it is simple. But our limiting beliefs become the last thing we ever really look at. Why? Because we can't see them. Why? Because they don't show up like limiting beliefs. I can't go to anybody here listening and say, Tell me all your limiting beliefs, write down all your limiting beliefs. Because the ones you'd write down, aren't the ones that are really getting in the way. The ones that are really getting in the way of what you want are the ones that don't show up as limiting beliefs, because they showed up as limiting beliefs, you wouldn't believe them. 

 

James Wedmore 33:59

The tricky ones are the ones that you're like, no, James Wedmore, you don't understand. That's the way it is. This is how it goes. That's what's going to happen. It's how it happened before. It's how it's going to happen again. And when you start looking at all these limiting beliefs, you realize that they're everywhere. And then we get into a real trippy conversation, which it's really up to Courtney, if she wants to go there, which is like, well, what, what is truth? And what is a belief? Because even if you said, “Well, come on. I mean, not everything can be a belief, like the sky is blue. That's not a limiting belief.” Well, sure it is. Because it's like 30 minutes to the sunset. And it's orange right now, for me. And then in an hour, it'll be dark. And then we could say, well, what's blue?

 

James Wedmore 36:05

Where this becomes especially challenging, and why I speak to this so much, is because we spend our whole lives making sense of the world, of why things are the way they are, why people are the way we are, they are and trying to predict what's going to happen. Then one day you wake up, and you decide, I'm going to start a business. I'm an entrepreneur now. And what I learned long ago, the hard way, is that being an entrepreneur, running your own business, and everything contained within that marketing, selling team building, social media, all that stuff. 

 

James Wedmore 39:44

I mean, all of it is in direct conflict to so many of the limiting beliefs that we spent our entire life choosing to adopt because that's what we decided about the way things are. It was not until that moment where I had to take a deep look, and begin to question everything that I thought was true. About the world, about money, about success, about work, about life, about everything. 

 

Courtney Elmer 45:15  

If you need a mental picture of limiting beliefs, think of them like an iceberg. What we're seeing is only what's on the surface, that's how we go about and the course of our day, the course of our life, we often see that 1/10th of what's on the surface, but the bulk of the iceberg is underneath, it's that 9/10ths under the surface that drives where that iceberg goes, how big of a mass that it takes up. Wherever you go, there you are. Your limiting beliefs system goes with you, in fact drives you, until you become aware and learn to change it. You're not necessarily going to notice those limiting beliefs as you said. So back to the moment when you punched the keyboard and realized all this, did you physically feel a shift in your body? When that new thought popped in? Or maybe you didn't notice it at the time. 

 

James Wedmore 46:59  

100%. It was like an accidental thought that came in, “at least this will make for a good story on stage one day.” Then I was like, “Oh, wait, that means believe that this isn't going to be like this forever. That means it's going to get better.” It was enough to give me a ray of hope. I like to tell my students that there are only two types of limiting beliefs that we have, that we form. Limiting beliefs about meaning, which are like, this means that that happened, and that means this or any type of like, this is equals, I am she is right. Like, I'm not athletic. Now, that's a belief. That's a meaning, it's an interpretation. Why we're talking about this and why this is so important, is because the very good examples like entrepreneurial limiting beliefs, you got to turn everything on your head, like you've heard that phrase, Don't believe everything you think. And as an entrepreneur, you absolutely have to start adopting that and challenge and question everything. Why? Because entrepreneurs are this rare breed. They're the minority. 

 

James Wedmore 50:00 

So when things happen like big problems, economic issues, economic downturns, whatever, it's a very defining moment for an entrepreneur because everyone else is screaming problem with their hair on fire. It's the entrepreneur that sees opportunity. So who's right? The person that says, hey, there's a recession is a problem, or the entrepreneur that says, I see an opportunity, same situation, different interpretation. So who's right? And the answer is, they both are right. Someone isn't incorrect in saying the cup half empty. That's not incorrect. It's a different perspective. One perspective is going to probably help you get where you want to go. One perspective is more thinking positively. And by positive, we mean, outcome oriented, and one isn't so much. But one isn't right and one isn't wrong. But how much of our life is spent in the right or wrong things? How much of our life is spent getting other people to agree with our limiting beliefs? With us not even recognizing their limiting beliefs, right? 

You can fight and argue all day long with somebody who believes that the cup is half empty, and you believe it's a cup is half full. But what a silly, silly waste of your personal power and your energy because you're both, right. We create limiting beliefs about what something means. This means bad, this means wrong. And the second type of belief, we create our cause and effect limiting beliefs, which is saying that one thing causes another. Or if you do one thing, it will cause something to happen. That's you predicting the future. 

 

James Wedmore 52:06

The only thing we can all say about the future is one thing. It's not certain. So if I go live on Facebook, no one's going to show up. That's not a fact, you act as if it's affecting who you are in the moment and what decisions you make or don't make. But the truth is, that's a belief. And it's a cause and effect belief. If I show up on Facebook Live, then no one will show up. So two types of limiting beliefs, and they're pervasive everywhere in our life. And they are coloring and shaping your reality. They're, they are in a beautiful dance with your being your internal state, how you show up. 

 

James Wedmore 54:01

If someone told you, hey, tomorrow, the world's gonna end, that would affect how you show up in the moment that would affect your state today. Limiting beliefs drive so much of our behavior, and color so much of how we see the world. How you see business will determine what's possible for you. How you see anything, is not what that thing is. It's your perspective of it. It's your filter, it's the lens through which you experience it. 

 

James Wedmore 55:07

Successful entrepreneurs have a lens of I see opportunity. I see success, I see a bigger, better, brighter future. I've been called crazy by so many friends and family growing up because everywhere, I had all these ideas, I learned how to stop limiting beliefs where other people stayed in their misery because they never learned how to become aware and shift their limiting beliefs. So is this making sense?

 

Courtney Elmer 55:31  

I love this. Thinking about our thoughts is something not many people ever do. James Wedmore, what are the keys to thinking positive, and stopping limiting beliefs? 

 

James Wedmore 56:31 

We correlate our life and our actions to our limiting beliefs. It feels comfortable. It’s what we know. We stay there to avoid pain. But really, limiting beliefs can cause you pain. These are the areas where we may find a limiting belief that is not in alignment with or correlated with the actions that are required to get us the results that we desire. That's when we stop. Look deeper. 

 

James Wedmore 57:03

Everyone can begin to be their own Sherlock Holmes and investigate and analyze those thoughts that we think all day long. Not not to the point of going crazy, but analyzing those thoughts, which are almost always limiting beliefs, and challenging them. That's what I began to do. Found out that a lot of what I was believing, I don't believe anymore. A lot of ways, I found out that a lot of what I was thinking was nothing more than limiting beliefs.

 

Courtney Elmer 1:00:11  

Okay, so we are going to pause right here because I want to give you a chance to let all of this sink in. Next week, James Wedmore will be back with part two of this episode, where we'll talk about how to start identifying the limiting beliefs that keep you stuck, and what to do with them next. Join us back next week on the AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™ podcast for more on what thinking positive really means, and recognizing and overcoming limiting beliefs. Until then go live your EffortLESS Life®.