A powerhouse in the world of business with over 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship, Brian Ward has a wealth of knowledge to share with the masses when it comes to creating sustainable sources of income. Brian has personally built multiple businesses from the ground up and partnered with clients from across North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Today, Brian gives his perspective on the psychology behind the creation of wealth and how we can become more productive, efficient and ultimately, successful in our own business ventures.

According to Brian, launching a successful business creates wealth for everyone involved. Your psychology, or internal script, determines the level of your success. Understanding how to rewrite your inner script gives you the ability to control the success of your business as well as other areas of your life.

Brian says there are three main factors stopping entrepreneurs from reaching their full potential, which he further breaks down and explains in detail how we can both understand and improve upon each component:

Failure to understand the Wealth-Time Connection

Psychological Income Limits

Responding to the Urgent Instead of the Important

Understanding the Wealth-Time Connection

Wealth building, expansion, and preservation starts with your views on money. Money is most accurately viewed in terms of time. You exchange your working hours for a certain amount of money. Once you have saved enough money, you can stop working. Your time is your own. “Success gurus” fail to explain that time is the only thing of value. No amount of money can buy more time. It takes just as much time to earn $100,000 per year as it does to make $1 million per year.

Out of the 24 hours in a day, only a portion is productive. Here are four solutions:

Work harder. Exchange more time for more money. There are physical limitations to what can be done.

Work smarter. Apply intellect and new technology to solve time limitations. It’s impossible for anyone to constantly track, assess, and keep updating to the best technology.

Clone your efforts. Hire like-minded people to help you meet your goals and pay your employees a fair wage. The challenge – finding competent people is HARD!

The “Steve Jobs” approach – Based on cloning your efforts, but tasks are divided by complexity. Less complex tasks are assigned to entry positions, while more complex tasks are assigned to senior positions. Monitor your organization’s progress using technology and intervene where your help is needed.

Based on your situation, these solutions can be adjusted. To realize the best results, plan carefully.

Psychological Income Limits

Psychological income limits are common hurdles. When you launch a business, your subconscious financial goals need to be updated and lined up with your conscious goals. Most people expect their employer to tell them how much they’re worth per hour. It’s challenging for new business owners to break such an ingrained mindset.

Understanding the Subconscious and Income

The subconscious mind plays a major role in a business owner’s income. Your mind can only allow your income to increase by the amount it feels you’ve earned. The “employee mindset” limits most people to a yearly increase of 10%-15%. When trying to make bigger jumps, the subconscious mind finds ways to short-circuit that success.

The fastest way to break the employee mindset is by being brutally honest about your true goals. Carefully analyze what you really want, and commit to reaching your objective, regardless of obstacles. Once your goals and inner script are aligned, set incrementally bigger income goals. Allow yourself time to adjust to your new income level, then set your next goal. Without the right mental adjustments, financial independence will be harder to reach. Here is a summary of two case studies to show the power of the right mindset:

Case 1: Arthur

Arthur, a new immigrant, was working for a company, earning $30,000 - $40,000 per year. His best month was $3,500. With his wife, a young child, and no time to waste, he knew he needed help creating a business to take care of his family. He hired a coach and set a goal of earning $200,000 annually with his own business. Working with his coach, he was able to retrain his subconscious to adjust for a leap in income. Arthur understood the need to make mental adjustments, as well as being open to learning strategies to build a successful business. He consistently followed the strategies developed by his coach and was able to break his employee mindset. In 6 months, he was earning $30,000 per month running his own business. Today, Arthur has grown his company into a multi-million-dollar consulting firm.

Case 2: John

John, a self-defence expert, insisted he wanted to turn his passion into a full-time business. He’d struggled to gain traction teaching self-defence classes, earning just $2,100 per month. John reluctantly opted to hire a coach. His short-term goal was $5,000 per month. He developed an action plan with his coach. Mental changes were outlined, and he started on his journey. John’s true internal priorities weren’t in line with his perceived goals. He wasn’t able to break the employee mindset, but he was able to use his new skills to secure a $6,000 per month job. His financial situation improved, and he was happy with the results.

Responding to the Urgent Instead of the Important

“Putting out fires” is something a lot of small business owners do. Should you take the time to put out all fires, or prioritize the ones that will do the most damage? Is it smart to spend time and energy putting out a fire that isn’t dangerous, and will burn itself out?

Urgent matters regularly come up in life. Successful business owners step back and prioritize what is urgent from what is important. Important things will have a direct impact on you, your family, or your business. Urgent things create whirlwinds that don’t amount to anything and should go to the bottom of your list.

With these tips in mind, Brian is confident that new and amateur entrepreneurs can put a plan of action in place to become unstoppable business owners on the right path to success!