Using Your Strengths to Make the Shift with Dr. Brian Grossman Ep 153

Using Your Strengths to Transition from Employee to Solopreneur with Dr. Brian Grossman

In this insightful episode, I revisit an inspiring talk by Dr. Brian Grossman from my Shift Live-a-thon event held in April 2024. Brian, who initially approached me while seeking employment, has transformed into a successful solopreneur, inspired in part by my guidance. 

He shares his journey and valuable strategies on leveraging personal strengths to move from being an employee to a self-employed individual. The episode covers mental fitness, overcoming self-doubt, and turning life's challenges into opportunities. 

Brian introduces a six-week program designed to help listeners tackle their 'saboteurs' and achieve their best selves. I encourage sharing your key takeaways and highlight the importance of a positive mindset for personal and professional growth.

00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview

00:58 Meet Dr. Brian Grossman

02:25 The Shift from Employee to Solopreneur

04:37 Overcoming Mental Barriers

06:44 Using Strengths to Succeed

09:07 Brian's Personal Journey and Insights

11:04 Final Thoughts and Call to Action

Connect with Brian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drbriangrossman/ 

Check out Brian's resources & programs:
https://www.positiveintelligence.com/

**************************************
My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.

Visit mellermarketing.com

Let's connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brendameller
(click MORE to invite me to connect and mention you listened to my podcast)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back, my friend.
In today's episode I bring youa playback from the vault, so to
speak.
This is featuring Dr BrianGrossman, and Brian was a
speaker on my event in April of2024.
It was called the ShiftLive-a-thon, and I put this
together for individuals who arethinking about making this
shift from being an employee toa solopreneur, or those that are

(00:21):
already looking, are already inthe business of being
self-employed and just lookingsome strategy tips to help to
expand and grow their business.
And Brian's a unique individualin that when he first came to me
, he was looking for helpfinding a full-time job as an
employee and gradually and overtime, he started hearing little
bits of inspiration from meabout becoming self-employed and

(00:41):
he started to lean into thatand now he's got his own
programs that he's doing as well.
So I hope you find this talkinspirational.
I hope you walk away with somenew insights and I'd encourage
you to check out the freeresources he offers through his
website as well.
Go ahead and enjoy the episode.
Brian is on today to talk aboutusing your strengths to make

(01:03):
the shift.
So, brian, before we get intoyour talk, why don't you take a
moment and introduce yourself toour audience?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
So thank you, brenda, and, as you eloquently said, I
started with Brenda years andyears ago with find a job and
then through nudging nudging,don't find a job do your own
thing.
So I'm Dr Brian, phd inclinical psychology.
Don't let that scare you.
I'm not going to analyze any ofyou today, but I'm going to
give you an opportunity toanalyze yourself for free and

(01:33):
then schedule a call with me.
So I have been a psychologistin 89 and absolutely positively
want to send two messages to you.
You're all doing awesome today.
You may not know it, you maynot feel it yet, but you're
going to do awesome.
Next, my passion, as we'veheard from so many other

(01:56):
speakers, is absolutely how tohelp you get from better to best
.
How do you keep moving forward?
So with that, brenda, I'm goingto just jump in to content and
we'll go from there, and I can'tthank you enough for allowing
me this opportunity.
So I want to help you get frombetter to best.

(02:17):
You can go topositiveintelligencecom, click
on the saboteurs section andjust take a quick free
assessment.
So what am I here to talk toyou all about is something that
changed my life and reallyaligned with my passion is
through 25 years of research atStanford University, shirzad

(02:38):
Shamim has proven that we allhave these little voices in our
head and I'm sure, as you'regetting ready to make the shift
from employee to entrepreneur,you have the judge who is
telling you right now you can'tdo this, stay the same.
You might have thehyper-controller saboteur taking

(02:59):
over, which is telling youdon't make a move until
everything is aligned perfectly.
You may be the pleaser, whichis you want to please all the
people around you and notallowing yourself to take a step
up.
So what I would love to sharewith all of you is a program
that is six weeks, eight minutesa day for six weeks and 30

(03:24):
minutes of coaching with me.
But before you even worry aboutsigning up with that, take the
saboteur assessment and let'sschedule a quick call together
to talk about whether this is aprogram for you.
But what is it?
It's mental fitness, yourability to handle life's
challenges and curveballs suchas the power going out.

(03:45):
If my judge andhyper-controller saboteurs took
over, I would have just walkedaway, but no, I just reconnected
.
Life will continually throwcurveballs at you.
They will throw hardballs atyou.
How do you get back up?
How do you respond with what wecall clear-headed thinking,

(04:08):
sage thinking, can you respondto life's challenges with
curiosity, innovation, empathy,clear-headed thinking.
How do you stay calm?
How do you stay calm?
But, most important out of allof that, I really want to share
the mindset with you of how doyou look at problems and issues

(04:32):
that may keep repeatingthemselves, where you get stuck
in a pothole, and respond to itwith positive mental attitude.
How do you respond to thesechallenges with a clear head?
And so, when you're doing thissolopreneur, or maybe with a
group of people, and you'rewanting to transition from an

(04:54):
employee situation, I'll sharewith you in my family, my wife
just retired from the samejunior high school for 30 years
as a school counselor.
Being an entrepreneur isn't inmy wife's headspace, so it's
taken a while to make the shiftand get her on board.

(05:15):
And when you're making thisjourney alone, even though you
may have friends and family andsome support, three things creep
in self-doubt, that lack ofsupport on a consistent basis,
and the belief or that negativethought that maybe you can't do

(05:36):
it or won't work out.
Remember, not every decisionyou make is going to turn out
perfectly.
Remember, not every customermay be for you.
You are not for everybody.
So what's your audience?
And I'm here to share with youa way to tap into your amazing
ability how to use yourstrengths to take the next step

(06:01):
up.
So my wheelhouse is trainingleaders new leaders or
experienced leaders and to helpthem take a step up and get out
of that vice, in the middle ofpleasing the boss and the team.
But I also help individualstake a step up.

(06:22):
How do you release thesenegative shackles and that
self-doubt?
And having gone through theprogram myself and I will share
with you have I had someroadblocks.
I've had some roadblocks.
I overcame my own saboteurs.
I had a weight loss journeywhere my doctor scared the heck
out of me and now, for eightyears, I've kept 187 pounds off.

(06:44):
And I've done that throughtapping into what my strengths
are.
And I will share with you thatin Brenda's coaching, she's
taught me how to take a slice ofsocial media pie.
Yes, I do have her book and useher coaching often.
And, simply put, are you tappinginto what you do best?

(07:08):
Don't throw spaghetti againstthe wall.
Your program, your business,your strengths will tap into
enough people to make you morethan sustainable, more than
financially free, but whenyou're trying to be everything
to everybody, you're going towear yourself out, physically
and emotionally.

(07:28):
So what would it be like to tapinto?
Every outcome or circumstancecan be turned into a gift or an
opportunity.
That argument with your wife orspouse that may be coming up
over and over that pothole thatyou keep falling into, the Are

(07:51):
you running out of money beforethe end of the month?
Does that keep happening?
Most importantly, I want toshare with you the tool of how
do you get rid of that selfdoubt, because I can promise you
, when you eliminate thatselfoubt, when you break free

(08:11):
from these saboteurs, when youlaugh at your judge, your energy
goes up, your health is better,your relationships are better
and having peace of mind tohandle life curveballs over and
over is an energizing experience.
You can wake up feeling amazing, energized and happy every

(08:35):
morning.
Or when life gets in the wayand you wake up with oh, it's
Monday, I'm a solopreneur, I'vegot to do 800 things.
Then go to my job.
How do you do that?
With a reboot and a positiveattitude, and with that, please
go to bitly B-I-T.
Dot L-Y forward.
Slash better to best shift.
Let's just schedule a chat.

(08:55):
That's all I'm asking you to do.
Let's see if my program is bestfor you, and with that I'll
turn it over to Brenda and saythank you again.
Let's use our strengths to bebest.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Wonderful, brian.
Thank you.
I love that quote and I wroteit down because I'm keeping
track of my key takeaways forthe day today and I hope all of
you are as well and I want youto go into the chat, go into the
comments, I should say and, forour audience, share your key
takeaways.
I think we, as adult learners,learn best when we're sharing
with others the things that welearn, so don't be shy about

(09:28):
sharing your key takeaways inthere and, brian, I'm going to
keep this up on screen so thatpeople can download this and get
to your link.
But also, are you open toconnecting with individuals on
LinkedIn?

Speaker 2 (09:39):
100%.
I put my LinkedIn.
I'll put my LinkedIn profile inthe chat.
Absolutely, you can connectwith me on LinkedIn, no problem
whatsoever.
And, brenda, can you remind mewhat quote you liked?

Speaker 1 (09:53):
So it's actually the one that's right up on screen
right now.
Every outcome or circumstancecan be turned into a gift and
opportunity and, brian, you'veheard me tell my backstory about
how I got to be self-employed,and it wasn't by choice.
I admired the people that weredoing this, but I would have
never used my strengths to makethe shift, and it was always
like I admired it, but I was onthe corporate path until one day

(10:18):
I wasn't.
I sat down for my annualperformance review.
I was told that my position wasbeing eliminated and it ended
up, in retrospect, being one ofthe best things that ever
happened to me, because it setme on the course for a new
business, for working for myself.
In that case, the circumstanceof going through my position
being eliminated did turn intoan opportunity for me.
So that really resonated with me, and I'm sure there's others

(10:38):
that might be watching right now.
Maybe they have lost their joband it sounds funny when you say
lost their job, I can lose itLike your position was, like you
were told your job doesn'texist anymore.
You are still existing as aperson, but the role that you
filled for the company no longerexists.
But there can be people thatcan take what they've gained,

(10:58):
and that's the topic of yourtalk.
Using your strengths, and youcan powerfully make that shift.
Brian, any thoughts on that?

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yes, and I just want to share Brenda not blowing the
old phrase smoke up our skirts,but I was in Brenda's job-a-thon
.
I was in Brenda's VIP programand my mom got critically ill
and needed help from family.
So my brothers and I were allshifting and I ended up leaving
my job as a therapist and I hadto get out of the house a few

(11:31):
hours a day.
So I did food demo work atSam's Club and then Brenda each
week, without knowing it wasthrowing out little hints what
can you do?
And I'm like how can I use mystrengths?
So that's when I startedbuilding my business, because I
could be at my mom's place.
And while my wife doesn'tunderstand entrepreneur mindset,
she was very supportive of menot being home and helping to

(11:55):
take care of my mom and thatallowed me to build my business.
And that's what we mean bylife's hard balls.
You can take negativecircumstances and turn them into
an opportunity.
And when you have that mindset,you stay out of woe is me
victim.
You stay out of letting liferoll over you.
And Brenda can tell you inanother private chat with her

(12:18):
she can remember me wanting tocome on her LinkedIn thing and
rail at companies.
Why didn't my resume get thin?
Why isn't this happening?
And now I don't worry about anyof that stuff anymore, it's
just roll on.
So I can help all of you tapinto that.
Be your best, take control.
Let's eliminate those saboteurs.
And I do want to thank you,brenda, sincerely.

(12:40):
You've been a tremendous coachfor me.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Oh, you're so kind, Brian.
Brian, I feel like you've got abook in you.
Are you a published author yet?

Speaker 2 (12:47):
No, but some coach, I can't remember her name.
Yes, you.
So I am actually translatingnot translating transcribing an
audio program that I createdwith a seminar company and
turning it into a book.
And the big preview, the bigtakeaway from this is I am
writing a book.
We've heard other speakers talkabout it.
It's called the Human App andit's all about how to stay

(13:09):
connected, that we have becomereally disconnected and mostly
we are social people.
Whether you're an introvert orextrovert, we need the
connection of gatherings andcommunication skills, and I am
working on that.
So, thank you.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
All right, thank you, brian.