A candid interview uncovering the hidden strategies a successful entrepreneur uses to overcome obstacles and defy the odds of failure in entrepreneurship.
IE 401: The Secret to Crushing the Odds of Failure in Entrepreneurship with Meredith Calloway
Meredith Calloway (formerly Merideth Hill) is co-owner and Chief Visionary Office of Gifted Travel Network, a travel host agency. They host about 350 independent contractors/advisors who sell luxury travel and offer an elevated experience.
A travel host agency is comparable to a real estate agency by being an umbrella organization supporting travel advisors and creating an ecosystem to thrive in business. The agency focuses on business aspects that help maximize sales and revenue so the advisors can focus on selling travel.
Gifted Travel Network’s mission is to help their contractors build businesses and lives they love around their passion for travel.
What do you believe are the biggest challenges entrepreneurs face when trying to succeed in their ventures?
Meredith believes that fear is the biggest challenge. The truth is that the odds are stacked against you when you choose to take the entrepreneurial adventure.
She believes that most people are looking for a silver bullet when in reality, there are three engines for success in entrepreneurship.
Most people identify only one engine, “the plan” and it is the least important. Most people want a plan or to-do list and are willing to follow it step-by-step.
The reason most entrepreneurs don’t succeed is because they are missing the other two engines: cultivating a success mindset (aka emotional fitness) and community (a solid foundation that is a collaborative environment).
The biggest challenges that entrepreneurs have is thinking all they need is a plan or someone else to follow and not being aware of their mindset. Most of us have been employees and bring an employee mindset to our journey.
It is important to find your tribe/community for a collaborative environment, to hold you accountable, and to have somewhere where you can ask questions of like-minded people who are reliable and have the correct information you need.
Too often, we go into a random Facebook group that is about a certain topic and there is more of a panic mindset than a helpful one.
Finding the right people is key and being able to work together without competition and negativity is important. This is accomplished by figuring out your unique positioning.
How are you uniquely different from the person sitting next to you or others on Instagram who are talking about the same thing? The voice you bring is what sets you apart, attracts certain people, and repels the ones that are not your best fit.
Can you share some insights into why some entrepreneurs seem to consistently beat the odds of failure?
Meredith believes that mindset helps entrepreneurs beat the odds of failure. She enjoys researching the most successful, completely self-made people in the US. They are not given any extra advantage but they have figured out how to believe in something before they see it.
The contrasting reason that some people don’t succeed is because they have “what-is-itis,” their observation of “what is” dictates how they feel and their actions. For example, you start your entrepreneurial journey and are making progress with your products, assets, brand, etc. But, if the phone isn’t ringing, you feel you are not successful.
The people who crush the odds have figured out how to look at what is currently happening and not allow it to dictate what is on the way. It can definitely hold up your progress if you are constantly fearful that you cannot succeed when you are not seeing the results.
While you don’t want to continue if it isn’t bringing in any progress or leads. You just need to have the belief that you can move forward.
What role does resilience play in overcoming obstacles and persevering through setbacks in entrepreneurship?
Resilience is the opposite of “what-is-itis.” Resilience is staying resourceful even in the face of adversity.
For example, in the travel business, you might have a client that is traveling and the country they are going to starts to shut down. The agents were dealing with lots of snafus for their clients.
While it wasn’t their fault, the agents could have gone into panic mode and felt like they had to fix it. Letting the client’s fear hijack the agent is not resilience. Being able to stay present with a helpful and solution-oriented mode when the client is upset and taking it out on you is resilience.
Resilience is something that takes practice to cultivate. This is the same as confidence. It is not something you are born with, it takes practice. You continue to grow over time. With resilience, you have to fail forward and grow.
During Covid, this happened when many businesses took a hit. Those who got creative and created content in preparation for the future are the people who have been most successful in their business. Reframing the situation is important.
Reframe #1 is “The comeback is always better than the setback.”
Reframe #2 is “There are seasons in business and life.”
Some seasons are winter. In the winter, farmers fix the equipment and prepare for spring. They don’t sit around, do nothing, and cry because they have failed. They understand it is just the season. The lyrics to the Bette Midler song, The Rose, explain this:
“Just remember in the winter, Far beneath the bitter snows
Lies the seed that with the sun’s love. In the spring becomes the rose.”
What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs who are looking to increase their chances of success in a competitive market?
Competition is awesome because it makes you creative. It is an opportunity to develop confidence and resilience.
The most important thing you can do to be successful is “tuning.” This is a mindset practice of imagining everything you want in your business that you don’t have right now. It could be a consistent stream of clients that are on their way to you or something that is completely done.
Once you identify what those things are, give yourself five minutes to bathe in the emotion of having what you want. What does that feel like to have the success that you want? So many times, entrepreneurs are fear-based and not heart-based.
They are in their head and not their heart so they need the daily journey of going from their head to their heart. The only reason why we want anything is because of how we will feel when we accomplish that goal.
The thing that differentiates us as human beings from all other living things on the planet is the ability to feel the way we want to feel without any conditions changing. This is where our power lies.
There is so much focus on “doing” and the actions we need to take but it is just as important to plug in before you take action by getting yourself to feel what it would feel like when you have completed the action.
Mindset Blocks Guide
When you take the entrepreneurial journey, you have a “drunk monkey” on your shoulder. As soon as you step outside your comfort zone, the drunk monkey sets off alarm bells and loud noises while screaming every single doubt, fear, limiting belief, and story that is not productive. This Mindset Blocks Guide contains the three most common mindset blocks that stop people in their tracks and help people reframe and move past them.
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