The Entrepreneurial Mindset: How To Turn Your Mess Into Your Message

Do you think that you have an entrepreneurial mindset?

I had an opportunity to sit down again with my good friend, Trevor Turnbull to talk about this very important specific state of mind.

In my opinion, every entrepreneur must master the entrepreneurial mindset if they want to be successful. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur who is struggling to grow your online business, Trevor's story will inspire you to not give up.

Are you ready to learn how to turn your mess into your message? This is an interview that you don't want to miss!

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

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Are you ready to grow your solopreneur business? CLICK HERE to download Trevor Turnbull's FREE SOLO Funnel PDF blueprint!

Do you want to learn more about Trevor Turnbull's work? CLICK HERE to check out his website!

Entrepreneurship can feel messy sometimes.

If you are an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I mean. It can be really stressful to juggle so many roles at one time. This is especially true if you don't already have a business background, going into the entrepreneurial game.

Let's face it… entrepreneurship also brings with it a high risk of failure. According to research by Shikhar Ghosh, a Harvard Business School lecturer, three out of four venture-backed startups fail. Despite this reality, there are still a lot of people who push through the discomfort and decide that they will not give up, no matter how hard life knocks them down. Trevor Turnbull is one of those people.

I'm sure you've had a few FML moments in your business or in life in general. When shit hits the fan, it's easy to fall into victim mode and say, “Why do bad things continue happening to me?” For the longest time, Trevor had this mindset. For many years he experienced a series of challenges, comprised of failed businesses and financial stresses. He knew, first hand, what it meant to feel frustrated, stressed and overworked as a solopreneur.

Eventually, he hit his emotional threshold (as most of us do) and decided that he was ready to change his life. In 2003, Trevor got his first sales job. Back then, cold calling was the golden ticket for generating new business opportunities. The focus was on connecting with people, in-person, at networking events. However, in the last ten years, the business game has changed.

Social media has transformed the digital landscape.

Technology has literally taken over, leaving a lot of solopreneurs not knowing how to market themselves. Many of them are wearing a lot of different hats in their businesses while trying to build a team and maintain some sort of life balance. Eventually, this way of living catches up with them. Being a solopreneur himself, Trevor experienced this frustration firsthand. He saw a need and he took action, deciding that it was time to turn his mess into his message.

Today, Trevor is the CEO of Linked Into Leads, a company that empowers solopreneurs and business leaders to generate leads and sales for their business by leveraging the power of LinkedIn. He has developed a proven system for removing the barriers that solopreneurs experience so that they feel empowered to build authentic relationships with their prospective clients. His ability to get his clients' massive sales results (who have closed millions in new business) has led to him to be known as “The LinkedIn Guy.”

Trevor is also the Founder of Expert Selling Machine, a company that empowers expert entrepreneurs to land high-value clients without having to attend networking events or get overwhelmed by technology. This allows people to work on their business instead of in it so that they can focus their time on activities that will bring them the biggest return on investment.

The acronym that Trevor used to define his life by – FML – has taken on a new meaning.

Instead of it being something negative, today it represents the words, family, mission, legacy. His mission is to inspire others to learn from his mistakes so that they can create a business and a life that is in alignment with their core values. In the words of Trevor, “It's not about feeling better. It's about getting better at feeling.” Here is a sneak peek of my interview with him, where he talks about how he turned his mess into his message. Let's dive in!

Do you mind sharing what you went through in order to get to where you are today?

Everyone will experience highs and lows in life. It's normal. Your life and your values will change over time. I've seen this happen first hand. It was really challenging for me to go through this process. I used to try and create a perfect persona of who I thought I was supposed to be. However, over time, I realized that being a vulnerable and honest person is what allowed me to attract exactly what I needed into my life.

My mess is truly my message. For the last ten years, I am best known as a LinkedIn trainer. We've had 27,000 people go through our training. I've been an entrepreneur for 15 years and I've had a lot of failures along my journey. I started numerous business ventures. Some of them were successful, while others were not.

Even though I was selling information online, people weren't getting the results that we hoped for.

About one year ago, I decided that I was no longer going to sell informational products. About two weeks later, my wife and I had a son who was born 16 weeks early. Anyone who is a parent knows that this is insane. We had been through something similar with our first child who was born six weeks early. We lost a child around the same time one year before this. Needless to say, things in my life were chaotic.

While this was all happening, I had launched a new mentoring model that I was fully committed to. My wife and I were driving to and from the hospital, spending 2-3 hours there every day. At the same time, I was bringing on new clients and moving through the growing pains of that, as well as building up my team.

This is where FML comes into play. I used to say that phrase to myself a lot. The thought was, “Why can't I just get a break?” 

I realized that this mindset was holding me back so I decided to reframe it. I started to think about how my failures were actually working in my favor. Actually, they were allowing me to take my life to the next level. When I was building my personal website, I thought about three words that define myself. The first one was “family”, the second one was “mission”, and the third one was “legacy”.

That is when I realized that it spelled out FML.

At first, I thought, “I can't use that. It's contradictory to what I'm trying to teach people.” However, I knew that FML didn't have to be a victim story. If I could help people shift the meaning behind the words, it could be a more empowering way of thinking about success.

What is your advice to someone who currently has a 9 to 5 job but that wants to build a business?

When I reflect on the path that has led me to where I am today, I realize that everything happened exactly as it should have. As an entrepreneur, you have to go through the ups and downs. It's how you see the downs that matter most. It's a constant practice of realizing that whatever path you are on, is perfect. I would recommend that you invest money into an informational product so that you can obtain the right knowledge.

Also, it's important to find great people who can help show you the way. You have to trust that you're going to get to where you need to go. I recently wrote an article for Entrepreneur.com titled, What 7 Deaths Taught Me About Living. Some of them were actual deaths that my family and I experienced. For example, my wife and I lost two babies, pre-term birth, at 19 and 23 weeks. It put us into a tailspin for a couple of years. However, now we have two beautiful children.

They wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for those traumatic experiences.

What seemed to be the most devastating thing that could have possibly happened to us turned into our greatest blessing. I wrote about other things in the article, like going through a bad divorce. During this time, everything in my life felt like it was falling apart. Even worse, I got to a point where I was sleeping on my Mom's couch at the age of 35 years old. I remember thinking to myself, “How could my life get any worse than this?” Everything that happens in your life happens for a reason.

What advice would you give to someone who is interested in finding a mentor?

One of the key things that we focus on in our program is to not constantly be talking about financial results. Instead, sharing real stories of where you started and how far you've come. Focus on a couple of people whom you admire from a personal perspective in terms of how they show up in the world every single day. Seek out your mentors, but know that they will probably change over time as you and your values evolve.

How could someone use LinkedIn to generate leads for their business?

I created a system called, the SOLO Funnel that was named for two reasons. Solo stands for solopreneur, meaning that it's built for people who run their own businesses. Typically, they are “the show.” Of course, solo also symbolizes the importance of doing one thing at a time. Don't get overwhelmed about hosting life events, joining a Mastermind Group, or writing a book. Aspire to package your knowledge and create passive income for yourself.

However, if you have expertise in a specific area, you should start with a higher ticket service.

In our program, we teach people how to use LinkedIn as their main lead source. Oftentimes, it's the one tool that a lot of Baby Boomers are comfortable using. They don't want to be on Instagram or on YouTube. Leveraging LinkedIn is all about building funnels that lead a person towards a phone call or a face-to-face connection.

We have a downloadable PDF that shows people how to break down LinkedIn from a search perspective so that you can find your perfect audience. From there, we show you how to filter people into specific types of funnels, starting with an appointment campaign. Ultimately, the end goal is to teach you how to sell whatever it is that you sell. We strive to support solopreneurs to build sustainable businesses, to the point where they are making 10k+ per month.

What is the last message that you would like to leave people with? 

Don't be ashamed to share your story of how you've gotten to where you are today. You don't need to give out the persona of perfection. In fact, people don't believe that anymore. They want to see your flaws and know the challenges you've overcome along your road to success.

I'm trying to serve as an example.

I can tell you that entrepreneurship is not easy. I talk constantly about the idea of done being better than perfect. Allow yourself and your business to grow and adapt as you go. Share your genius with the world and allow the right people to come to you. That is how you will achieve success.

After reading this, do you now think you have an entrepreneurial mindset?

As Trevor expressed, the path to building a successful business takes time. You will experience challenges and failures along the way. However, don't let them stop you. Being an entrepreneur has allowed Trevor and I to be our own bosses, travel the world, and spend more time with our families, friends and loved ones. More importantly, it has allowed us to share our gifts with the world. I hope Trevor's story has inspired you to tap into the entrepreneurial spirit that lies inside of you.

The question is…. are you ready to turn your mess into your message?

Are you ready to grow your solopreneur business? CLICK HERE to download Trevor Turnbull's FREE SOLO Funnel PDF blueprint!

Do you want to learn more about Trevor Turnbull's work? CLICK HERE to check out his website!