There are good business questions and bad ones. Which ones are you asking?
I get asked this particular question a lot by newbie business owners, or people who are trying to set up an online business, and it always acts as a stumbling block for people.
The question is, “Should I build my business under my name, or a random moniker, like you have done with The Millionaire Hippie?”
It’s weird to me, how this question seems to paralyze the people who ask it for weeks, months or even years on end. I know of one friend who hasn’t been able to figure out the answer to this question, and it has been at least 8 years for her.
I want to tell you guys one thing, and only one thing (which is usually what I tell the people who ask me the question as well) – It doesn’t matter.
It Doesn’t Matter Because That’s The Wrong Question To Ask
I’m sorry to put a wrench in your question, but the reality is that the question is the wrong one to ask. It’s the wrong one, because (and this is the ultimate truth), no one and I mean, no one is going to care about your business name. They are going to care about what you can do for them, how you can help them solve their problems, and how you can be there for them.
But no one is going to remember or care about your business name even a smidgeon.
The truth is when I first started, I went through a similar kind of questioning process. But instead of letting it paralyze me, I stopped and asked myself if this was a good use of my mind space and time. The answer came back a resounding no. I decided to do a meditation and ask the universe for the answer.
The Millionaire Hippie brand name came back to me in the meditation, and rather than wasting any more time on it, I started, and that’s why I am here right now.
I could have wasted hundreds of hours on market research and pondering over whether to use my name or another name or something else. But it wasn’t a useful use of my limited time. And neither is it a good use of your limited time.
It’s not part of the good business questions list.
Stop Wasting Your Time – Ask Good Business Questions
This question and so many others like it are a waste of time. I know what these people who ask me the questions are going through. I empathize and understand.
We are afraid of the beginning. If we spend more and more time on questions like these, useless ones, but that feels like we are doing something, then we can postpone the inevitable. Postpone beginning something that is going to take a lot of sweat, blood, and tears out of us.
When I was younger, I believed myself to be a great writer. But I never finished writing a single novel. I started several, but I never finished any.
The reality is that if I finished even one single novel and I put it out there, and it was a miserable failure (which was a high possibility), then my hopes, dreams, and ideas of myself as a brilliant writer would be dashed to the ground.
But until I finished a novel, I could still pretend to myself that I was a brilliant writer.
Do you see what I am saying?
We are procrastinating because we are afraid of dipping our feet into the unknown waters. And so we avoid asking good business questions.
The Crocodiles In The Water Are Waiting For Us To Face Them
The unknown waters that we need to dip our entire bodies into are filled with crocodiles. Or alligators. Or whatever scary water creature you want to speak of.
They are there. And they are waiting for us. I know, because I have faced so many of them over the past year.
But guess what, these creatures, these monsters, these syndromes, they don’t disappear if you bury your head in the sand. They are going to wait for us forever. We can never get rid of them.
We have to face them head-on, yelling, fighting, scratching, and barely staying alive. But once you do face these monsters, as soon as you face them, instantly, you gain this sense of awesome power that you can never get rid of again.
We become better and bigger than we were ever before. But we have to face that crocodile. Its beady eyes are staring at us. “Stop staring at me, dude/dudette. I’m coming at you!”
Ask the Good Business Questions and Start Moving Forward
I am working on beginning a membership site soon, and as you guys know, I am a recovering perfectionist. I want things to be absolutely perfect before I put them out, but I am getting better at letting that part of me go unanswered. Thankfully.
But as it always happens with a new project, I got hit with perfectionism and its demon buddies, anxiety, doubt, fear, and procrastination, so hard, that I could barely get any work done.
Instead of wasting my time on social media, I did what I usually do. I overcomplicated my membership site. I was going to set up my video courses in all of these random fancy locations, and I would dress up in all of these Halloween costume-like gears.
And I would dance around and act like a goof, and make my viewers laugh. Damn it all, I was going to do it Saturday Night Live style.
Everyone around me was staring at me running around with my head cut off and wondering what the hell is going on with her. Meanwhile, I was happily wasting so much time wondering where to get these costumes, and which locations to film in, and who to hire to do all of this with me.
Thank God, my mastermind group bought me back to the ground. They told me I wasting time with this, and I removed all the extraneous and started building a simple membership site, with a simple course. Just me, talking. Imagine that.
See, they asked me good business questions.
I Was Afraid That I Wasn’t Enough
In my opinion, all of this fluffing around we do with questions, answers, procrastination, and nonsense, is because we feel like we are not good enough. That was definitely the case for me. I didn’t think that I was good enough.
I thought people wouldn’t just be satisfied at watching my face talking about my awesome course material for hours on end. I had to entertain them, or they would be bored.
Wrong!
The assumptions are all wrong. People currently watch my videos, and they do so happily. So why am I building up this facade of not being good enough?
Because we all go through this. We feel like we are not good enough.
What if I use my name for my business, and it’s not good enough? What if my name isn’t good enough? What if no one knows me and it’s not good enough?
Of course, they don’t know you now. But they will. If you keep at it, and keep going, then they will know you.
They will because that’s what life is all about. You keep hammering at a nail long enough, it will be embedded into the wall.
There Are Some Good Business Questions To Ask
Not all questions we ask are bad. There are some out there that need to be asked. And most of us aren’t asking them, because we are afraid of the answers, or we are wasting our energy on the wrong questions.
No one cares what your business name is. But they do care about what you are going to do for them.
- What problem are you going to solve for people?
- Why does the world need yet another coaching business or membership site?
- Why does it matter to you?
- Why do you want to spend all of your time and energy doing this when you could just coast?
There are other questions, of course. But I wanted to give you a sprinkling of them to make you realize that we are wasting our time on the wrong questions. And this means, we have no time left behind to ask the right questions.
Weirdly enough, it isn’t about being mega-successful at your business. There are people who are making millions from their business, but they shut it down to start something that satisfies their soul, and their ultimate purpose on this planet. Which is the more important thing, right?
So stop wondering about what your blog name should be or your business name.
Stop asking people if you should use your full name or your last name or your full name and an initial. It doesn’t freaking matter!!
It really doesn’t.
The People You Want To Serve Will Be Your Tribe
I have said this several times before to people who have asked me these inane questions. “The people who you are going to end up serving are going to be your true fans, your tribe, your fan base. They are going to love you no matter what you do. You could sell them poop or air, and they would still buy from you. Because they want to support you, in whatever way works. It doesn’t matter to them in the end how they do it as long as they are able to stay a small part of your life.”
Thus, you need to realize that you are wasting not only your time but their time as well. Imagine all of this time you could have your business running, collecting tribe members, and building your following, whatever your damn name. But instead you are sitting at coffee shops and co-working spaces asking anyone and everyone what your business name should be.
What a waste of time!
For you and your true fans.
They are waiting for you. They want you to sell to them. People want to buy from you, but instead of selling to them, you are doing nonsensical tasks that don’t really matter.
Your tribe is waiting for you, but instead you are sitting here with me, talking about your initials, and numerology. Stop with the time wastage and ask good business questions now.
Give Yourself A Hard Stop Today And Get Down To Business ASAP
Whenever I get into these random funks where I want to spend all of my time on these useless questions, once I realize that I am just procrastinating out of fear, I give myself a few hours to muddle about.
And then, I stop myself, and get back to business asap.
The only thing that matters every single day in our businesses and lives is whether we are using our unique talents, abilities, and skills to build awesome projects that change other people’s lives. Or not.
That is all, my friends. Everything else is just fluff. Everything else is just the useless, albeit delicious icing on the cake.
To me, the icing is just hiding the real cake. I don’t want to do that. I want to show my true self to everyone, and I do that by removing fluff.
Remove all fluffy ideas, thoughts, and questions from your repertoire.
How Do You Know If The Question Is Wrong Or Right?
Perhaps you are asking this question right now. How do I know if I am wasting my time on nonsense, or asking the right question? I should backtrack and say that, I believe 99% of the time I know I am wasting my time because of fear, rather than doing real work.
It’s like on my radar constantly now. I ask myself this question every few hours.
“What am I doing right now, and is this something that is going to push my business forward or is this a waste of time?”
It’s the most useful question I ask myself on a regular basis. And the horrible thing is that every single time I ask myself that question, I am trending towards wasting my time, rather than doing something useful.
So scary how much time I waste on nonsense. When in fact, there is so much work to be done, and so little time to do it in.
I ask you to do the same. Throughout the day as you go about your business, ask yourself constantly, if what you are doing is a useful use of your time or not.
We Are All Going To Die Sooner Rather Than Later
Another way to really prioritize what matters in your business and life is ask the really important question, “Will this matter at my deathbed?”
Will it matter to you at your deathbed whether your business was named after yourself or after some random brand? Will it truly matter? Probably freaking not.
In fact, it probably won’t matter two seconds after you make the decision to stick with your name rather than a brand. No one else will care. And you won’t care either.
So let’s stop wasting our time on questions and things that won’t matter either at our deathbed, or even right after we do them.
Keep asking yourself this question over and over again. It keeps you honest. It tells you if you are wasting your time, or you are actually working on things that matter.
The reality is that there are very few things that truly matter. But we have built up all of these tasks that we think matter, because perhaps we are filling time, or perhaps, we are fighting procrastination. Whatever it might be, stop yourself by asking the deathbed question.
Ready to Start Asking Good Business Questions?
One of the Stoic ways of looking at things is how death is the great equalizer. Even though Alexander the Great conquered lands, and was a great man in his time, he was probably buried in the same earth as his mule driver.
No one cares much about him now. He died the same way as his mule driver did. As we are all going to.
This really puts things into perspective for me. Most things that seem to matter a lot in the moment, won’t matter a few days from now at all. So why put so much effort into it?
My tip for you is that if you are at all wondering about something stupid like what should my business name be, or what kind of business cards should I get, then stop yourself.
Those business cards will not be taken with you into the afterworld, and neither will your business.
The questions matter, but the answers matter even more. Let’s stay in the moment, stop wasting our precious time on nonsense, and start asking good business questions.
Deal?
