Etsy Jam Episode 23: Feed the Wolf

In this episode, Richie and I talk about being self reliant – especially when it’s easier to fall into the trap of being negative. We talk about not playing the blame game but instead taking matters into your own hands and pushing forward to a solution. And feeding wolves. Just…make sure you feed the right one.

Our topic is about self-reliance, and a culture of helplessness and self-imposed limiting beliefs that smother your happiness.

Self Reliance

Self-reliance is you being accountable and responsible for where you end up in life, or in business. You are what you make of it. You are your own decisions and it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you deal with what happens to you.

The Culture of Helplessness

I was watching Tony Robbins (Salesforce) streaming from Facebook Live the other day. He is somebody that’s all about busting through your limiting beliefs; and understanding that your attitude is 80% of success.

A lot of times, it’s a matter of what happens to us. There are things that happen to us throughout the day and that’s what is holding us back. But it’s not! That’s not what’s holding us back. They are challenges that you have to overcome.

It’s easy to get in that frame of mind. When things are going wrong, it’s easy to fall into this trap of putting the blame on things and then not taking the time to reflect back on it.

Way too many people feel helpless when these things happen – that is why it is called the culture of helplessness. But hopefully our readers don’t feel that way because guess what, life has been full of challenges! Whether or not we’re talking about Google SEO, or Etsy SEO, or any market changes in general. The market and technology is changing constantly – you have no control over that. But, for every 100 people that says “Google changed their algorithm and now there’s no point!” or “Etsy changed their algorithm, they’re just gonna do it again so there’s no point.” For every 100, there’s one person out there that would say “Alright, this is just a challenge. It happened before. Let’s figure this out and see what can I do.”

The lesson, get resourceful.

How your Etsy shop can help people help you?

Don’t feel stuck. Because if you come at a problem as if you’re just completely stuck, it’s going to be really hard for someone to help you. It’s really hard to get someone unstuck when they are coming at you with a mentality of being super stuck. So, continue being resourceful and continue being positive.

To help someone help you effectively, one of the things I personally struggle with when I’m helping people is I need to know to know what you’ve tried. I need to know what directions you’ve already come at a problem with, and what you’ve already tested because I don’t want to suggest doing something that you’ve already tried.

The other thing I really like when I’m helping people, is if I come to someone and they say:

“This is the problem, these are the things I’ve tried, I’ve been working really hard at it and I have 3 more ideas that I can come to them with. I’m thinking one of these is the path to go down next but I’m not really sure. What do you think I should do?”

Now if you present people with that approach, it’s so much easier and more effective.

Whenever people are showing effort, that’s a big part. When somebody comes to you showing that they’ve put in a whole lot of effort, you’re going to be a lot more likely to be more giving with your energy and effort because you’re seeing how much that person really wants this and how much energy they are putting behind that. It’s not like they are just taking the time to type a question and hit send.

If someone doesn’t put in the effort up front to help themselves, chances are when you help them, there’s a good chance they are not going to follow through with your advice because it’s going to seem too hard for them.

A lot of times, it seems like this helplessness culture, when you’re stuck in that rut; you are not looking for help. You’re looking for commiseration. You’re looking for someone else to verify for you that life is unfair – that you have been dealt an unfair hand.

Don’t look for the things that aren’t working

It’s so easy to get negative. It’s so easy to get into a negative space and say to yourself that “I did this and it didn’t work!” Your list of things that didn’t work will always going to be bigger than the list that does. That’s how you learn.

"A master has failed more times than you've ever attempted."

Maybe you have a list of a hundred things that didn’t work, ignore them. What two things have you done that DID work? Focus on those. Find the bright spots. Even just a little bit of success, focus on those. Because you can feel good, and you can make progress forward from there.

Maybe you’ve tried 10 things and none of them worked. That’s fine too but start looking back at those and try to really figure out why it didn’t work. What are the reasons why it might not work and try if you could test those. That’s how you can learn from the failures and keep moving forward.

In Summary

It’s normal to have periods where you feel helpless. Everyone is going to get through these and you’re gonna feel overwhelmed. But it’s not about staying there – it’s about getting out. Whenever you feel stuck – it’s about keeping momentum. I guess that’s really the game, to constantly keep moving forward. There will be times where you’re going to end up slowing down and you’re going to feel like you’re stuck but just keep inching forward and you’ll get back out of it.

Look for the bright spots. Look for the positives and when you ask for help, make sure you give the person trying to help you every opportunity to help you the most effective way possible – which is to show them that you’ve really done your homework and you have come up a bunch of solutions. People will help the person that seems most ready to receive that help.

The Story of Two Wolves

This is a story of an old man talking to his grandson. The grandfather says that there are two wolves inside of us. The one is a good and caring wolf and the other one is a vile, destructive, angry wolf. He said that these two wolves are always fighting, and the fight is going inside each and every person.

The boy paused for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Grandpa, which wolf wins?”

To which the old man replied, “The one you feed.”

Whatever emotions and feelings you acknowledge and lean into are the ones that are going to perpetuate. You are gonna keep seeing those. So if you keep feeding negativity in your life, that’s all you are going to get – because that’s the one you feed.