How Not Knowing What You Don't Know Hurts Your Business

This week, I'm talking about a concept that I see impacting entrepreneurs all the time. It's exactly what happens to my clients, and here's the problem that I see.

Many of my clients and entrepreneurs are what we call problem aware. If you've been in the marketing world long enough, you know that there are different stages of cognition when it comes to having something not right in your business.

The first stage is being painfully aware, where you realize that something's not working.

The second stage is problem awareness, where you figure out what problem is causing the pain.

The third stage is solution aware when we have awareness of the pain and problem that is causing the pain.

In this third phase, we've become aware of viable solutions to solve the problem. Most of the time, we can take action, make decisions, and overcome the problem that is standing in our way.

Yet, it is not always so obvious what the true problem is. We can spend a lot of time researching and exploring solutions to what is causing pain in our business.

Sometimes the problem we thought isn't the problem at all. We don't even have awareness of what the real problem is.

The reason this trips so many entrepreneurs up is that oftentimes, we don't know that we don't know what we don't know. A mentor once described this to me as being in triple darkness.

Triple darkness is when we don't know that we don't know what we don't know.

Let me slow that down for you. It's when we don't know that we don't know what we don't know.

What that means is that we don't have a true awareness of the problem.

We believe we have awareness. We are trying to solve the problem but nothing we are doing for that problem is working.

This truth became very real for me.

When my children were little, I had saved money from the profits of my E-commerce business, to take my family to Disney World.

Although the trip was going to be a surprise to my kids, I had spent a lot of time talking about it to my friends and family. I had one friend who, when I told her about this trip, said to me, "Oh, you have got to call my travel agent. She is amazing. She will help you with the whole trip. She's wonderful. You've got to give her a call. "

I remember at the time thinking about a travel agent, I don't know, I didn't want to do that. I mean, it's Disney. I had grown up in Florida, I'd been to Disney countless times as a child, I didn't see the need for a travel agent. Every time I talked to my friend, she would always ask me ''Have you called my agent yet?''

I finally decided that I would call the agent knowing that I wasn't interested in working with her. I wanted to let my friend know that I had called and tried and it wasn't going to work out. I'm on the phone with a travel agent and she's asking me a lot of questions about when we were going, where we were thinking about staying and so forth...

Then she starts telling me something that I didn't expect. She tells me "Okay, Danielle, when you go to the Magic Kingdom, get there about 30 minutes before the park opens. They'll have a neat little show where they welcome everybody to Magic Kingdom. You'll see all the characters. It's fun and cute.

Once they open the gate, go through the gate on the far right side. The very first thing you'll do when you walk in is go straight down Main Street. Turn right and head into Tomorrowland.

When you get to Tomorrowland, walk over to Space Mountain, put your tickets into these machines that are right outside the entrance."

She tells me "You'll put your tickets into the machine. Then it'll spit out a piece of the paper, that's a ride reservation where you can come back later in the day. You'll ride Space Mountain without standing in line."

Also, she tells me "So Daniel, this is important, you're going to be getting your ride reservation times. You're going to notice that there is no wait to get on Space Mountain, you are tempted to get on the ride because there's not a line.

Yet, don't do that. Instead, head over to Fantasyland and get lined up for Dumbo. The wait time will be about 30 minutes. Wait in line. When you're done writing head straight to Peter Pan and get that line, it'll be about 45 minutes to wait. Go ahead and get in line anyway. When you get off Peter Pan, that's when you head back and use your ride reservation to ride Space Mountain without waiting in line."

Of course, I was thinking to myself, Why in the world would I not ride the ride that had no line? Just so I could go stand in two lines before I could get back to the other ride?

Before I could ask her that question. She said, "It probably doesn't make any sense to you to bypass a no-wait line to go stand in two lines. Here's why you're doing that. The 30 minutes for Dumbo and 45 minutes for Peter Pan are going to be the shortest times the entire day that those two rides will have.

If you go ride Space Mountain first when there's no line, by the time you get off the ride and walk to Fantasyland, those lines will be one to two hours long. They will not get any shorter throughout the entire day.

Going straight to those rides will get you on and off before the crowds can build up."

When she told me this insider secret, I had a revelation. At that moment, I realized that the travel agent on the other end of the phone knew something that I didn't know.

She knew how to navigate the rides at Disney World to minimize the wait time and maximize the number of rides. Also, the quality of the experience that we would have.

That's when I realized that I don't know what I don't know.

By the time I would realize this, it would be too late. I would be standing in line for two hours trying to ride Dumbo with my kids.

I knew then that her expertise had value because she had experience. She had insight.

She understood the problem way better than I did.

We're not here to talk about Disney on the podcast. I'm telling you this because so often, we are like the people who go to Disney and try to figure it out. We are hoping the solutions will reveal themselves to us.

Working with an expert can help you to circumvent the problems that seem unexpected.

Yet are not so unexpected to the person who has experience and insight and a plan.

When you bring a guide on board to help you with your business.

When you can see there's a problem, but you don't know what the problem is.

An expert can guide you through that problem so that you can overcome whatever it is that is standing in your way.

I do not doubt that everyone listening to this episode when you realize there's a problem, you find a solution.

I attract high achievers and action takers. I do not doubt that that's exactly who you are.

Sometimes the problem is not so obvious. We keep trying different solutions, and not resolving the pain we're experiencing.

If you're not taking action on the things that matter in your business, there is a high probability that you have an emotional block. It keeps you stuck from taking action, making choices that move the needle towards your goals.

If your to-do list is haunting you, and cannot seem to get motivated to get going on the things that you want to do.

If the productivity tips, tricks, hacks aren't working for you, and not taking action on the things that matter.

I guarantee there's a lot more going on than you realize. However, you don't have to wait for the true problem to reveal itself to you.

I am a Christian intuitive, who uses her spiritual gifts. To uncover the exact block and area of life that keeps entrepreneurs stuck in patterns of unproductive behavior.

If you know that something is going on...

If you're starting to think that the problem is you...

Then I invite you to hop on one of my Business Breakthrough sessions.

My Business Breakthrough sessions are 30 minutes of powerful discovery. About the exact problem, the emotional block that is standing in your way from getting back on track to pursuing your dreams.

Normally, I charge $197 for these sessions. However, for my podcast listeners, this session is free as my gift to you.

The sessions are so transformative. They allow you to uncover what it is that is standing in your way.

Solving a problem requires awareness.

Yet, when the problem is a subconscious, emotional block, it can take years to figure out what's going on inside.

I take that process and I use my spiritual gifts to get answers quickly.

I invite you to finally uncover what it is that keeps you stuck in cycles of procrastination. I don't know how long I will keep them complementary to my audience, but for now, don't miss this opportunity.

Remember, success begins with it.

We can make the internal change necessary to get the results in our external world, with awareness.