When the Dreamstealers Hijack Your LNC Business

All you have to is announce that you’re starting a business to get a wealth of unasked-for opinions. The dreamstealers pipe up – those people who want you to fail.

The predictability and regular paycheck of a steady job can keep people in their safety zones for a long time. Some of us, though, begin to long for independence, the opportunity to make creative decisions, and to be our own bosses in a bigger way.

When we decide to do this, we’re bound to threaten at least one of our friends or co-workers—and they’re bound to comment about our decision.

• “Aren’t you taking a terrible risk?”
• “What about your 401K?”
• “The economy isn’t very strong right now.”
• “Aren’t there already a lot of entrepreneurs in your field of legal nurse consulting?”
• “Do you actually have any business experience?”

If Only They’d Stop

None of these questions surprise you. You’ve considered every one of them more than once. Daunting as they seem, you’ve decided to move beyond them, compelled by the vision of the future you want to make yours.

You try to answer their dreamstealers questions reasonably and logically, but you know that you can’t convey the strength of your vision—because it’s yours, not theirs.

It’s equally true that their fears don’t have to become yours.

Many people dream of having their own businesses, but questions like the ones above, doubts generated by fear, stop them. They stay in their steady jobs and comfort themselves with the maxim: “Better safe than sorry.”

Your Decision Disturbs The Dreamstealers

You rock their boats. You make them question the choices they made in favor of safety. You make them uneasy.

And they don’t like that.

They call themselves your friends, and they think friendship means that you will live the kind of life that they live, that you make the same choices. In the name of friendship, they want you to abandon your dream.

This is herd mentality, and it’s difficult to make the choice not to be part of the herd. To separate oneself means to give up the safety of a group and the companionship involved.

It means giving up the regular tradition of going out together and complaining about your jobs and how you wish you could do something else, but you have families to raise, mortgages to pay, retirement funds to build.

Beneath their concerns for your well-being, though, lies a darker thought. They hope you’ll fail. They’re not mean people. They care about you, but they care more about themselves and justifying the choices they made. Your failure will accomplish that.

They may have even taken a legal nurse consulting course. But when they finished, they did nothing and not surprisingly, they got no cases.

You’ll Need New Friends

It’s that simple. As any sailor can tell you, when a ship or boat is going out to sea, the anchors get pulled up. Otherwise, they’ll prevent the vessel’s forward motion.

You need friends who are not dream stealers but instead will put wind in your sails, fellow entrepreneurs. Some may be beginning at points close to yours. Others will be seasoned businesspeople.

You’ll find them in professional groups, in my LNCAcademy coaching program and elsewhere, once you start looking for them. They won’t tell you about the 401K, and if they talk about the state of the economy, they’ll add that they’ve figured out how to prosper.

Find these people. Cultivate them. Develop mutual support systems.

As for your other friends, you don’t have to abandon them. Be as kind and friendly to them as you can. But don’t listen them when they start throwing mud at your dreams.

They’re your dreams. Protect them.

Pat Iyer is president of The Pat Iyer Group, which develops resources to assist LNCs obtain more clients, make more money and achieve their business goals and dreams.

Her related websites include the LNC business coaching services offered through LNCAcademy.com, the continuing education provided on LNCEU.com, the podcasts offered at podcast.legalnursebusiness.com, and writing tips supplied at patiyer.com.