What does it take to be brave in business and get beyond the self-limiting beliefs and mindsets that prevent us from achieving our best success? Simone Milasas, author, serial entrepreneur and self-made millionaire, joined editor Cec Busby on the Flying Solo podcast to reveal the real secret to resilience and success.
Opening an antique store in the small Sunshine Coast community of Peregian Beach near Noosa in August 2020 (yes, in the very midst of the global pandemic) may seem crazy to some. Still, to Simone Milasas, the leap of faith was all about trusting her instincts and experience and has brought more opportunities than she ever imagined at the time.
Where does she find the courage to back such a big (and seemingly risky) idea? Simone says it’s about setting our ‘I can’t’ mindset aside and asking ourselves, ‘What if?’ instead.
“I think many people look at the ‘I can’ts’,” says Simone. “It sounds cheesy, but you need to stop buying into everybody else’s point of view. Instead, ask yourself what you are going to choose today. What would it take for today to be greater than yesterday? What action can you take that will create something more significant? It’s a simple question.
“When you wake up each day with those questions in your mind, you create a different world than the rest of society is projecting for you. So it really is up to you. You can listen to the trauma and drama, buy into all of that – what you can’t achieve – or decide to choose something different today and have something greater.”
Listen to Simone Milasas on the Flying Solo podcast:
Changing your mindset to move forward
Simone says that manifesting your beliefs and desires is one sure way forward from self-limiting behaviours and into a more successful mindset and way of life.
“Manifestation is one of those interesting topics because I think it’s been misidentified a lot,” she says. “The actual definition of manifestation, if you look up a dictionary before 1937, is how something shows up. What I suggest is asking yourself what you want to request today? It’s about changing any area of your life that you think is not working for you – so what’s your ask? What are you truly asking for with your business or money flows, or life and relationships? And then it’s asking yourself, ‘What action can I take that would have this show up?’
“You get people who wake up in the morning and say, ‘I wish I had a million dollars in the bank account’,” says Simone. “And then the others who actually wake up and go, ‘Okay, what action will I take to allow that million dollars to show up in my bank account?’ It does take practice, and my book, Joy of Business, is all about that. The tagline on it is ‘What if business is the adventure of living?’ and it’s got a whole lot of tools to help you look at things in a different way.”
Grab your copy of Joy of Business here.
“Business success is not a given,” Simone admits. “I have lost a lot of money, and I’ve made a lot of money in different things. To me, it’s not how that shows up. You may jump over a hurdle and stumble and fall, and that’s okay. My question is, what are you going to do the next day? Are you going to not choose anything greater because you stuffed up, or are you going to think, ‘I learned a lot from that, now let’s move on … what else is possible?’
“It’s really about moving forward every single day and opening yourself up for the possibilities; so you have a bigger reality, not just the limited reality that everybody else is functioning from. Everyone always tries to fit, but you don’t fit – you’ve never fitted. So what if you start being you and create a really different world?
“I have spent the good part of my life judging so many different things that I have not done or that I have done, or I didn’t do supposedly the way it should have been done – and what I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older is that it doesn’t work. The more I have stopped judging my failures, the more joy I’ve found in my world. And with that, more possibilities show up.”
Who are you today?
Simone says we can tend to take on board the mindset and opinions that are going on around us, especially if we’re siloed in our world and not sharing our experiences with others. But if we want to move forward into a place of joy and real success, it’s time to think differently.
“We tend to duplicate and copy what’s going on around us. What if now is the time that we stopped copying and duplicating?” Simone urges. “Who are you today? And what grand and glorious adventures can you have? What’s up for you today and your business?
“See whom you can meet up with and extrapolate with. When we try and work it all out on our own, we get in our heads, and it’s a limited space in there. There are so many ideas – there’s an infinite amount of possibilities – but people choose finite. If you have anyone around you who is slightly successful, ask them, ‘Hey, can I chat to you about how you created your success? And do you have any ideas you could offer here?’
“I think now more than ever is the time that we need to start contributing to each other on what we are creating,” says Simone.
“Open it up to more people than just you – you don’t have to control everything. I know that’s breaking news for the control freaks – and trust me, I’m a control freak of magnitude – but what if you actually allowed other people to contribute?”
In this Flying Solo episode, Simone shares excellent insights for entrepreneurs keen to break out of their self-limiting mindset. Listen now!
