Thoughts vs. Facts

You’re listening to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast with Debbie Sassen, Episode 103.

Welcome to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast. I’m your host, Debbie Sassen. I went from being a financial adviser, author and chronic underearner to building my business to six figures as a financial planner and money mindset coach. And then, on to multiple six figures as a full-time money and business coach.

I help entrepreneurs create money making businesses and build wealth, using sales and money mindset strategies in alignment with authentic Jewish values. Now, let’s dive in to today’s show.

Hello, beautiful business owners, and welcome back to the podcast. Before we jump into today’s episode, where I’m going to be sharing with you the difference between thoughts and facts, and how that impacts your business, both the way you show up in your business and how you sell your offer, I want to let you know that enrollment for my group coaching program Wired for Wealth is now open.

I’m enrolling four new clients in the month of November, in my signature group coaching program. Wired for Wealth is a lifetime access program. Meaning, you can get live coaching every week for your business, forever. I’m never going to kick you out.

Wired for Wealth is the only coaching program that teaches Jewish women how to raise their prices without feeling sleazy. For example, my client “D.”  who signed a $2,800 client yesterday. It was the highest client offer she’d ever put out, and the first time she signed client at this level. Congratulations D.! I am so, so proud of you.

I love helping my clients make more money, and create time and financial freedom through selling. When you learn how to sell your offer, and you achieve an 80% close rate for your offers, you save so much time marketing, canvassing new clients, and showing up at networking meetings.

I want you to spend time in your business serving your clients, so that you can have lots of gorgeous time for your family. Because I know that your family is the most important thing in your life after your business and serving your clients. I don’t know, maybe that’s upside down. Maybe they’re both equally important. It doesn’t matter.

Anyway, when you join Wired for Wealth in November, you will be invited to the Sales Mastery workshop that will be held on November 28^th, so that you can hone your sales skills. Because as I said, when you can close your sales at an 80% close rate, you just get to spend so much more time doing the things that you are uniquely gifted to do.

Reach out to me on my calendar, at DebbieSassen.com/consult, to schedule a time with me. We will have an hour to go into all of your questions about your business, what’s getting in your way, what’s stopping you from growing your business, and what your next steps are.

You will have so much clarity about how to move forward, and you will know if Wired for Wealth is the next best step for you as you grow and serve your clients and make more money.

All right, let’s jump into today’s podcast. I want to talk about the difference between thoughts and facts, because I’ve been noticing that so many of my clients are getting confused in this area. Your brain offers you tens of thousands of thoughts every day. Most of them come from your unconscious mind and they live there unchecked.

When your brain is unchecked, mismanaged, you are believing that the thoughts, most of which are negative, are actually facts. And, they’re getting in your way.

For example, we’re still in this war with Hamas, living in Israel. Not all of the people in our country have children in proper schools. In Bet Shemesh, where I live, we’re a pretty quiet area. So, the schools are pretty much running as normal. The schools, that is, that have safe rooms in case there is a missile alert in our area.

My grandson who’s five, his kindergarten is meeting in a different building where they do have a safe room. Because his school, for example, is still in caravans and his kindergarten doesn’t have a safe room. So, they had to move. But he is still in kindergarten as scheduled.

But in other areas of the country, where there are continuous sirens and alerts because of potential missile attacks, not everybody has gone back to school. So, one of my clients said last week… She put this up in our Slack group. There is a Slack channel where you can get daily coaching on your mind, on your business, on your strategy.

She wrote that she cannot have a schedule because her daughter is doing Zoom school. Her youngest child is nine, so we’re not talking about a two-year-old or three-year-old or five-year-old that can really wreak havoc in your house. I know, having been a mom of many, and now a grandmother, thank God, of many more, those little guys can really get into trouble.

But even still, you can get babysitters, you can put them down for a nap, whatever. But a nine-year-old girl, already has the ability to sit and take care of herself, even when she’s not in Zoom school. So, I asked her to challenge her thoughts.

I said, “What does your daughter not being in school, but being schooled at home on Zoom school, what does that have to do with you creating a schedule?” Because she was basically telling herself a lie, that she couldn’t schedule her day. And that was getting in her way of doing things and making progress in her business, marketing, creating offers, and doing videos. She loves to do live videos, and she’s great at them.

When she all of a sudden checked her thoughts, it was like, “Oh, this isn’t true.” Then, she was able to sit down and create content. Yesterday on our coaching call, she said she actually has content now figured out. I don’t know if she’s scheduled, but she has her whole content calendar for November already worked out.

There’s a module in Wired for Wealth, all about four types of content that sell, so you never have to be in the dark about how to create content for your people, that is going to help you market and sell your offer. That was amazing, an amazing realization. So, thoughts that you believe are facts are going to stop you from growing your business.

Let me just give you what is actually a real fact. A fact is my name, that you know is Debbie. That’s actually my nickname. By law, my name is Deborah Lorraine Sassen. Now, you know. It’s on my passport, it’s on my social security card, it’s on my identity card. In Israel, it’s what the tax authorities know me by. In a court of law, we would all agree that my name is Deborah Lorraine Sassen.

Another fact that we can all agree on, is that I’m married. Also, you can see on my identity card my husband’s name, Jonathan Sassen. We both have identity numbers in Israel. It’s also on my tax returns for the United States government.

You can prove that I’m married. Of course, I have a ketubah, which is the Jewish document that says that I’m married. So, we can prove that in a court of law, we can prove that in a Jewish court of law, that I’m a married woman. We can also prove, for example, that I have eight children.

So, those are facts that are indisputable. But most of the things that are happening in your business are in your mind. When people talk about mindset, and it’s a mindset problem, it really means that your mind is mismanaged. You are thinking thoughts. Some people call them limiting beliefs, and I call them sometimes limiting beliefs.

Limiting beliefs around money, limiting beliefs around your price, they’re basically lies that your brain is telling you, that you are believing are facts. When you can check your brain, when you can check the thoughts that your brain is offering you on autopilot, then you can decide if you like those thoughts. If you want to embed them or engrave them as fact, or if you want to change them.

So, yesterday on our coaching call, one of my other clients in Wired for Wealth said to me, for example, she has a goal of enrolling two new clients this month. I asked her what’s going to get in the way? She said her family, her community. Her husband is a rabbi in their community, and she never knows how many guests are going to have for Shabbos.

I said to her…I don’t think she has little kids. Also, I’m not 100% sure. In my family, my rule is, if it’s not blood or fire, leave me alone during my working hours. I try to keep my phone out of my office.

So, even if you want me by WhatsApp and you send me a message, when I get up to go to the bathroom my phone is in my bedroom, and I will be able to check my messages. I can also get WhatsApp on my computer, if I want to be on call and I want to be checking my messages.

But usually, my phone is off, and my notifications are off. If it is an emergency, then you’re going to have to find another way to get a hold of me. But most people who have younger children, you might have to have some doors, windows, eyes-ears open, but if your kids are 9, 10, 11, 12, you can set boundaries so that your children don’t interrupt you during working hours.

Even with little kids, you can put a clock outside your door, the door of your office. Again, unless it’s blood or it’s fire… You can have your children learn to tell time. “When the clock says four o’clock in the afternoon, then you can knock on the door. When 30 minutes pass, then you can knock on the door.”

It is possible to put boundaries in place for our children, when we decide in our minds that it’s important, and we don’t let our time get frittered away by all the things that come up in life.

Similarly, with this client who said, “Well, Shabbos, I never know how many guests I’m going to have.” There are ways around it. You can have food in the freezer. You can discuss with your husband, if it is a regular occurrence, that you’re going to have a certain number of guests. Maybe you want to say, “Well, maybe by Wednesday, please let me know.”

Or alternatively, if your husband is going to invite a bunch of guests, or you’re going to invite a guest, or you’re on a list where you invite guests, whatever it is, you can decide that you’re not doing any work in your business on Thursday.

You plan your business activities for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Then on Thursday, you have optional activities in your business, so that if there is all of a sudden a large influx of guests for Shabbat, then you know that you have time in your calendar. So, all of the things that must get done in your business, you decide that they’re getting done on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. You are not leaving them for the last minute.

But when you are believing that your time is out of control, then you won’t decide to control your time. Another thought that came up yesterday in the coaching call, one of my clients was doing some journaling, where she was observing the thoughts that her mind offered her.

One of the thoughts was, when she is selling, right now, during the war, she’s a bad person, she’s an evil person. It got all the way down to really black thoughts like, “I’m despicable for selling right now.”

Now, my inner critic can also be very nasty. I call her “Debbie the Demon,” because she has very nasty thoughts to say about me and what I’m doing and selling right now, even during a war.

But when you get all of those black thoughts out on paper, you can become an observer of your thoughts and be like, “Oh, look at that. This is what’s going on unconsciously, underneath the surface. Do I like that thought? Do I want to hold on to it? Or do I want to turn it around?”

So, my thought, for example, right now. My thought, all the time, about selling, is selling is serving. If I’m not selling my offers right now, if I’m not selling my coaching program right now, it is doing absolutely nothing to solve this war. I’m not on the front lines. I’m not a soldier. Thank the good Lord, that that’s not where I am.

I get to show up in my business. I get to help other women grow their businesses and make money. And in fact, when I make money right now, I have more opportunities to give more tzedakah. We have been blessed and merited to give more tzedakah, donations, this month.

Just in the last few days, one of the women in our synagogue put out in our WhatsApp group, that her son’s army unit, which had been serving for 30 days without a break, those young men hadn’t changed their uniforms and hadn’t changed their boots.

I cannot even imagine what it would be like to wear the same clothes for three days running, the same pair of underwear for two days running. I’m not so good with my sheets, those I don’t wash every week. That was a thought that I grew up with, that you need to wash your sheets every week. But I’m not so good about that; two weeks, three weeks, I’m totally good with that. It’s not a fact that you need to wash your sheets every week.

But back to my story. When I make more money, I get to give more donations. I made a bank transfer to this mother of this soldier, and others in his unit, so they can have a second pair of boots. So, they can have a second shirt, a second pair of pants, a second undershirt, a second pair of socks. Whatever they need, so that they can keep showing up and serving and being our physical protective force on our borders.

God is in the heavens, he’s protecting us. And our soldiers are doing the manpower work and womanpower work that we need on the ground protecting us.

So, really check your facts if you are hesitant to be out in the world selling right now. People need you. People want your offer. People want to pay you money. As I said right in the beginning, my client signed a new client this month, and I am so proud of her; just this week actually, just yesterday; at her new price.

People do have money. They want to grow their businesses. They want to pay you. People do have health care concerns; they want to pay you money. So, please keep showing up for your business. It is not a fact that people don’t want to pay you money.

Do your own work every single morning. Do a brain dump with all of those black thoughts that are getting in your way, and choose which ones you want to keep, which ones are facts, which ones are thoughts, and which ones are not serving you.

I want to end this episode with something that I read recently by Danny Gold. Danny Gold is the scientist, the inventor of the Iron Dome. This was actually an interview from 2014, nine years ago, and I can’t even imagine where we would be in Israel today, if we didn’t have the Iron Dome missile defense system that intercepts missiles.

In the interview, Danny said that when he first introduced the idea of the Iron Dome, meaning a missile that intercepts other missiles, the entire scientific community looked at him like he was crazy, like he was Don Quixote fighting windmills. They thought it was science fiction. It was almost like, “Yeah, when pigs have wings and can fly, then there can be an Iron Dome system that will intercept missiles.”

But Danny kept believing. He didn’t believe that it was a fact that we could never have a missile that would intercept other missiles. Danny believed that he could invent a thing called an Iron Dome, or whatever it was called back then, that would work.

There have been thousands and thousands and thousands of missiles that have been launched from Hamas on our southern border, and Hezbollah on our northern border. Unfortunately, a few missiles have gotten through the systems, but we have intercepted thousands and they have saved civilian lives.

I’m so grateful, and so thankful that Danny Gold didn’t give up on his dreams. That he didn’t believe that it was a fact that we could never create such an invention. In fact, any invention that anybody has ever created, anything that the human mind has ever invented, whether it was a motorcar, a train, an airplane, an iPhone, a way that you guys can listen to me over the airwaves on this podcast, right? I’m not speaking to you in an auditorium face to face.

The Iron Dome? It’s because people didn’t believe that it wasn’t possible. People believed in possibility. I believe in you, and I believe in the possibility of you growing your business. I believe in the possibility of you charging higher prices. I believe in you selling your offer with an 80% close rate. That is my goal for every single person in Wired for Wealth. Because you want to work with your clients, and spend more time with your family.

Alright, my friends. If you want to check out my program Wired for Wealth, please schedule a consultation with me, DebbieSassen.com/consult, and get on my calendar. The Sales Mastery workshop is happening November 28th, and I want you there.

Have a beautiful day, and I will speak to you next week. Bye-bye. BODY

Thanks for listening to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast. If you want to stop underselling and underearning and close more sales, you need to clear the limiting money beliefs that are sabotaging your business growth.

Head on over to DebbieSassen.com/mindset and download my free Money Mindset Workbook. Uncover and dissolve money blocks, like hundreds of other entrepreneurs who are now building six-, multi-six-, and seven-figure businesses and creating true financial freedom.