Ep #62: How to Accelerate Business Growth
Episode Summary
Jenna shares methods to grow your business with speed and clarity.
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Show Notes
Navigating the path to business growth can be a formidable challenge. This week, I'll unveil three phases your business must pass through to accelerate growth. Along the way, we'll delve into the significance of discomfort and why it serves as an indispensable component of any growth journey.
As the saying goes, "new level, new devil." Regardless of where you currently stand in the world of business, there will always be a new tier of growth, accompanied by its own unique set of discomforts, to confront. Join me as we explore these three developmental stages and the strategies to navigate each one effectively.
Discover the pivotal role your beliefs play in propelling your business forward, how to master the art of selling efficiently, and learn how to accept much-needed support. Let’s embark on a journey to enhance your business and bring your vision to life with the invaluable insights found within my Clarity Accelerator program.
What You’ll Learn From This Episode:
Three phases to evolve your business.
Why growth is uncomfortable.
Signs of overload or discomfort.
Why surrounding yourself with positive role models is paramount.
Why emotions hold us back when left unchecked.
How to confront inaction in your business.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Most of us high achievers would love to see our businesses grow quickly, and maybe you even get a suspicion sometimes that you're taking the long way around. Well, after years of helping hundreds of women grow all different kinds of businesses, in all different industries, I have seen some pretty clear trends about what accelerates growth. I'm breaking those down for you today.
You're listening to The Uncommon Way Business and Life Coaching Podcast, the only podcast that helps you unlock your next level in business and life by prioritizing your clarity and your own Uncommon Way. You will learn to maximize your mindset, mission, messaging, and strategy in order to create a true legacy. Here's your host, top-ranked business coach, and reformed over-analyzer turned queen of clarity, Jenna Harrison.
Welcome back to The Uncommon Way. I have a really important episode for you if you are starting out, but you want to know ahead of time what's ahead for you so that you can hit the ground running. Or you're in the thick of it right now and you are watching others around you grow more quickly, and you're confused and frustrated about what's going on for you and why it seems to be taking longer than you want. Or you're moving along well but you are always looking for ways to optimize.
I'll be segmenting out the three phases that you need to move through. Because if not, they are like business quicksand. The more quickly that you can move through these and the more thoroughly that you can focus on them, the faster your business will grow by all measures; revenue, number of clients, ease, satisfaction, recognition and acclaim, and of course, impact.
By hearing it in this way, I know that you are going to be able to zero in on where you are, and then what to actually focus on when. It'll help you see where your biggest growth opportunity lies at this precise point in your business.
Now, for those of you who are just tuning in here, maybe a friend forwarded you this episode, or you were recently looking for a business coach on Google and you found me there; by the way, I am really excited because I just hit #1 on Desktop, for Business Coaches for Women. That's a search term that I'm really excited about.
So, if you don't know me very well yet, I run a high touch, hybrid mastermind/private coaching program, and it is called The Clarity Accelerator. This is a topic that I devote myself to day in and day out. Because I'm working so closely with my clients, and I know their businesses inside and out, I'm really able to see the trends and see what's going on with women, right now, in the business landscape.
For those of you who dip your toes in the “woo” just a little bit, I am a Manifesting Generator in Human Design, meaning I am here to bend time for myself and others. So, I've got the left-brain side, where I've been studying all of the data in my own little laboratory and figuring out what really is working today, and why it is that some businesses grow more quickly than others.
On the other side, we're combining that with the things that we know to be true with the other things that we know to be huge drivers of business growth, but are a bit more intangible, like intuition, energetics, all of the counterintuitive, or at least counter logical aspects of business growth.
It was is so fun, I had a client reflecting to me the other day that she was talking about this with a friend and she said, “You know, we've always known that there is some science to the woo, and there's also some mystery in the science.”
As we're learning more about this intersection, what we're doing in The Clarity Accelerator, is we're at the forefront of really creating the craft of this new discipline. How do we combine the best of the left brain and the right brain, the masculine energetic and the feminine? How do we study that? How do we apply it? How do we test it? How do we come up with really sound working theories that we can repeat again and again?
By the way, just to set the record straight, I have taken longer, in many respects, when it comes to my business so there is no shame with wherever you are at with yours. I have been open on this podcast about the mindset issues that held me back for years.
But then in other areas, I've also moved very quickly. For instance, in creating ease and automation in my business, and alignment and meaning, and identifying the energetic levers that work for me when it comes to creating different outcomes.
Over the past years, I've really opened up with my clients about that, and they have begun to really implement and test in their own way. Because it turns out, even though there are general principles, everyone's methods for manifesting are a little bit different. I'll be talking about that more in an upcoming episode.
But there's one thing that I see all of this revolve upon, both the left brain, the best practices of business, and the mindset pieces that allow you to show up and make powerful moves, and the energetics that let you create and receive. What all of those hinges upon is one thing, discomfort.
All areas of growth are uncomfortable when you're not used to them. This is why on my intake form, whenever somebody comes to speak with me, I ask them specifically, how committed are you in terms of effort or discomfort to creating this, 1 -10? Because you can't get around that if you want to be an entrepreneur.
Nobody likes discomfort, yuck. Our brains have evolved to avoid discomfort. It's how we stay safe and alive. One of my mentors, Brooke Castillo, says everybody wants to be a millionaire, but nobody wants to make a million dollars. Maybe your goal is not to make a million dollars, but I think the point stands.
Especially for women, entrepreneurship just has a way of bringing up all of our shit. Entrepreneurship doesn't mesh with safe and avoidant. Growth doesn't match with safe and avoidant. The only way we get to see who we can really be is by stretching, and that will always feel uncomfortable.
Entrepreneurship is the greatest personal development journey in existence, for women especially. But if you want to get from here to there, in the most effective and time conscious way, then you'll need to wade straight in and not tiptoe around the edge. Tiptoeing around the edge only delays the inevitable.
Now small caveat here, you do need to know your limits. Sticking with the water analogy, if the water is colder than you can handle and you just freeze up, then that is counterproductive, that sets you back. That freezing up can look like excessive time with Netflix, or business sabotaging behaviors, like strategy or niche pivots. Or maybe you just stopped selling.
I used to be famous for that, I would just stop selling. That's part of my job, as a coach and mentor, is to prime my clients about what's to come. Then get them grounded and decisive in why they're doing this. Then push them hard, but not so hard that it becomes counterproductive. That their nervous systems just freeze up and they go into a trauma response, or they just quit business altogether.
I want to be able to warm their toes, warm their toesies, and get them back on track whenever they get stuck or overloaded. But the best analogy is just to think of yourself wading in slowly and steadily with these little hops. The water comes up to your knees, and then to your thighs, and then to your hips, and then to your waist, and you just don't stop. You just keep going straight in. Before you know it, it feels delicious.
So, let's break down what that discomfort looks like, specifically in the three phases that we'll be working through, so you know exactly where you are and what you want to be working on.
The first one is, you've got to develop the belief that this will work, that you're capable, and that your visions will come to be. I'm talking about the space here, just to be clear, after you've decided to go for it in business. Not when you're waffling through, “Do I really want to do this?”
We're talking about the point that yes; you have that desire. You have decided you want to do it, and your next order of business is to really work on your belief that you're capable. Now, I've said in the past, we're raised to think that evidence creates belief for us, “When I see it, then I'll believe it.” That doesn't work for entrepreneurship because you haven't created your company. If you don't believe in it, and you don't believe in your ability to run it, then you never will create it. Or you’ll waste so much time in the creation of it. You'll be battling back and forth in your mind about if this could really work or if this is all a pipe dream.
We are not raised to believe in things we haven't seen. Maybe some of you have a strong religious background, you've been raised to believe in God, or Allah. But on a human plane, we're supposed to be able to see everything. We're supposed to be cynical, that means we're good adults. And so, it feels very vulnerable to lean into belief.
I spoke with a woman the other day who is a working actor and wants to start a different business. When we talked about this concept, she said, “Jenna, that just feels really hard for me to lean into. Because I don't come from a career where the harder you work, or the more you stick with it, you will see the results that you want to see. As an actor, there's just so much luck involved and so many unknowns. Sometimes our dreams don't come to pass.”
Now, I would love to dive into that with her a bit deeper, but I think we can all relate that we all have some kind of goal trauma. We have something that we really wanted, maybe even that we worked really hard for, and then it didn't come to pass. But if we're honest with ourselves, usually when we're talking in this way, in the past tense, it also means that at some point we stopped trying.
Regardless of whether that's true or not, entrepreneurship isn't like that. Entrepreneurship is just about solving problems for people, or helping them get new results. If you have ever come up with a solution to a problem that you've had, then you can do this too if you choose to stick with it. It's not for everybody. A lot of us start down the path and then decide it's not for us. But if you want it, it's yours.
Challenging yourself to move through the discomfort on this is key for all of your later business development. You start out thinking, “I don't know if I could find one person that would pay me for this service, that would actually want this service?”
But much further on in your business journey there's going to be something else that is a way bigger and once again, your brain will bring up the thought, “I don't know if this will work. I haven't ever created this before. I have no proof of this.” And the training that you went through, the lived experience of choosing to move forward, choosing to accomplish your goal, and then seeing that happen, that will be muscle memory for you.
Today is what paves the way for tomorrow. Everything happening now is an opportunity for you to step into the “you” of tomorrow. You don't think the universe wants you to learn to believe in yourselves, or to learn to create, period?
Now, throughout this stage of belief building, you may see discomfort come to you through different avenues. By the way, this happens at all different stages of business. Just because I'm describing these as sort of chronological phases, doesn't mean that they only happen at the beginning of the business, they come back to you again and again.
I have seen, maybe people with multiple six figures, when they think about what it will take to move into seven figures, they again have gaps in their belief, and they need to start with that before they can move forward into the other areas.
So, you may notice that you are very attached to others opinions, right? Your ear really perks up whenever they're giving you any thoughts about the business that you're building or the direction that you're taking. My friend, this is so natural. We are pack animals, but it is always exposing your own doubts. If it causes a charge, an emotional charge, within you it's exposing your own doubt.
I have told a story before about how, when I was in the early stages of my business, I overheard a conversation between my husband and his dad. My husband was telling him how I was redoing my website, I forget, or had launched my website or something. I heard his dad say to him, “Well, how much is that going to cost you?”
If I heard that now, it would have rolled off my back like water on oil. It would not mean anything. I would think it was someone who didn't understand my business. But then, because I really had a lot of insecurity about relying on my husband as my seed capital, and feeling so much guilt and shame about not bringing in as much money to the family coffers as he was, that weighed on me very heavily.
Look, I'm still talking about it. Even when I tell it to you, I still feel that little charge of fire, that flush of shame, anger, all the things that happen. It was such a somatic experience, like a wave of heat through my body.
I have a client right now whose parents have very strong opinions about her business, and it weighs on her. As, of course, it all does. But again, these are opportunities for us to build our belief. This is where we need to go in order to create our dreams.
So, if you were laying with a friend of yours looking up at the beautiful sky, and your friend said, “I love this pink sky,” that would not wound you to your core because you see the sky as blue and your friend sees it as pink. You would think it was a little strange. You might wonder if she had polarized glasses that were giving her a distorted perception. Or if something were going on, who knows? You wouldn't take it personally; it wouldn't sink into you that way.
And so, when it does, you can use that as insight into your own mindset. I've also seen it where someone will surround themselves with other entrepreneurs who are naysaying. They're very negative about the opportunities for the industry. Or this one coach that they bought a program from, how it doesn't really work. Or entrepreneurship is a racket, right? The whole business coaching industry is a racket.
I found myself there in the beginning. What I now think about, in hindsight, is that all of the people that were in those $2,000 programs that I was buying at the time, those were all people who were very tentative about their business, and that's why they were investing “death by mosquito,” in little courses here and there.
Again, that's where I started. That's where so many of us start. So, no shame if that's where you are. But just pay attention to the people who are surrounding you, that their thoughts are inevitably filtered through their own experience. And so, it is critical for you to get into a group of women…
You can build your own mastermind, or you can come into a paid mastermind like The Clarity Accelerator, but find a group of women who are making it work. Who can stand as examples for what's possible, and can help you accelerate your timeline. Can show you where they veered off course. Can help you stay the course when you are at the same point. Can show you how they skipped ahead, and can then give you the confidence and the tactics to do the same thing.
Surround yourself with the people who are going to help you further your belief. Because if you don't work through this, it's going to show up in every other arena; how you sell, how you make decisions, how you invest, how you notice opportunities around you, all of the things.
Speaking about investing, you will notice that when your belief is low your motivation to invest is also low. So, I've also told the story of how I hung out on Marie Forleo's list for four years. Every time she launched, I thought, “I really want to do this. I'm being called to do this.” and I didn't do it. Because my belief was so low, I just didn't see a course. I wasn't clear. I didn't know what type of business I wanted to do. And so, I just didn't believe that that would give me any return on my investment.
I now think of investments quite differently. I now think of that the long-term value of investments. In fact, I have a podcast on that, about switching your perspective into the long term. But people who believe very strongly in their own abilities to figure something out, to make something work, and that are very grounded, that entrepreneurship is absolutely possible for them.
They really just need to unlock that potential, and shift into better patterns or better ways of thinking. Those people are much more likely to invest, and then they're more likely to get the results because they have that belief work behind them.
I had a client once, who signed up with me and then went and threw up. It was so scary for her, because her belief was so low in herself that it felt as if she had just thrown all this money down the toilet. There was just this one little visionary part of her that was telling her, “Just do it, do it, do it.” But she was up against so much in her nervous system that it was screaming that this could just be a horrible mistake.
And so, I saw the notification come in on my phone, that she had purchased. I immediately saw a cancellation. And then a few minutes later, I saw the purchase. We were able to talk about it later, and she told me, “Oh yeah, that's because I paid you. I felt so horrible, I threw up. I canceled, I thought about it, and I repaid.”
I'm laughing just because so many of us have stories like this, where we're right on the edge of belief, and teetering on belief, and it feels really uncomfortable. All of this is just an indication for you, if you're there, that all this means is, “I have belief work to do.” If you don't choose to do the belief work, that's okay, but it might slow you down.
Because I've had clients also that have spoken to me and then not actually decided to move forward for a year, or year and a half, two years, even. What they've been telling themselves during that time is, “I should just be able to figure it out.” That's what they're saying on the surface.
Except that, if deep down you don't believe, very often you're not going to figure it out. Because you're not going to take the bold action that's necessary for you to fully figure it out. Or when circumstances come up in your life and that part of your brain is saying, “Oh, well, put that business aside, you don't really even have a business anyway. Let's focus on this.”
It seems like a very logical thing to do but all of that is pointing to your lack of belief. Because if you believed that you would have a successful business in six months, a year or even two years, it doesn't matter, and you knew you'd have your future self come back to you and say, “Jenna, if you work on this, and it's going to take elbow grease, it's going to take dedicated effort, but you will have this lifestyle in two years,” then you would make different choices.
I'm not saying you would hire an expensive coach. I'm saying that you would put everything into it and you wouldn't hold back. However, that looks for you. I also see women get hung up on believing that they have something worthwhile to say and to contribute.
If you notice yourself kind of repeating what everyone else is saying. Or on the other side, if you find yourself afraid to say anything that might have been said before, because you don't trust that your way of saying is valuable...
Basically, if you're holding back in any way for saying what you need to say and being unabashedly you, then probably your growth work is believing that you provide value. That your thoughts matter. That your opinions matter.
Further along those lines, when we talk about your offer, believing that you have a secret sauce, that you have something special and valuable. Even as I'm saying this, it might be triggering all sorts of fears for you about whether you're talented enough, smart enough, worthy enough. Again, I've seen this with women at all different levels of income in their business.
As we move into our next level, we have to rebuild all of these thoughts for ourselves in this belief again. We have to step into new levels of confidence. “Can I really do this? Who me? Who am I to do this? I'm Jenna Harrison, dammit. Damn straight, I'm going to do this.”
It's like the little angel and devil on your shoulder, and each one has a strong opinion. Which one are you going to listen to? Which one are you going to direct your brain to over and over and build evidence for, so that that voice can become the stronger voice within your mind?
This belief piece is huge, and it is the first hump to move through. Now, some people seem to move through quickly, and others take longer. Both of those who are fine. Again, this isn't about judging yourself or faking your belief. But being honest with yourself and knowing that if you're still struggling here, it is holding you back.
It’s a very important conversation to have with your brain. Where you say, “Brain, I see that we're repeating the self-deprecating thoughts and my inner critic is very strong. But let's have an honest assessment of what that's costing us to stay in this place.”
“It's costing us our potential. It's costing us revenue. It's a tremendous drain on our energy. It's a tremendous drain on our time, because my thoughts are constantly doing loops when I could be focusing on something else. It's costing me in my relationships, because I'm putting myself down or I'm compensating in some way.”
It's as if you are on a boat with the anchor still grounded into the sand, and you just can only move so far. That's what it's like when your inner critic is driving the boat. This is exactly why, in The Clarity Accelerator, we start with the Know Yourself phase.
Again, there are three legs to any successful service business: Know yourself, know your people, and then articulate how those two things connect. Why you're perfect for your people, and they are a fit for you. Service businesses aren't that complicated, it's our brains that make it so.
So, that Know Yourself is all about you understanding your secret sauce, really owning it, seeing it as something that is valuable, connecting the dots to see how everything has led up to this, that this is what you're about and what you're here to do, and you have such a strong “why” that it becomes both inevitable and non-negotiable.
That is the mindset that's like rocket fuel for your business. Alright, let's talk about what happens after that. After you are in the belief stage of “Yes, I can really do this. I know I can help people. I know that they'll benefit,” then it's time to create clients.
Or we can call this “establishing market viability,” because in my book, that is what confirms viability, it is sales. If you're further along in your business, you may be bringing in clients. But what this phase looks like for you, is that you're now at a place where you're not just going to bring in any old clients that will run you into the ground, but actually your best fit clients.
If you've really done the work of knowing yourself, and then making the hard decisions about who your best clients are, now is the phase where you're doing the grunt work to actually bring those people in. This is uncomfortable if you haven't created many clients before.
It's going to trigger all your buttons about being too pushy, too salesy, too exposed to ridicule, too vulnerable to haters. You'll have to confront your fears about spending money, not having enough of it, spending on yourself, spending on something others don't get or that you yourself don't see.
These things I’m mentioning, they aren't trivial. I remember once, I was doing a big push for people to join my Facebook group, when I had a Facebook group. I was promoting it in other groups and everywhere that I could.
I remember, after doing this, I needed to take a shower. I felt so dirty and so slimy. In hindsight, all I was doing is saying, “Hey, I'm offering free value in this group. You're welcome to come.” Something about that felt so triggering to me that I literally needed to wash it off of my body.
These are the kinds of visceral reactions that can hold women back for years, again, at all different levels. It may show up for you, later in business, as having a new idea, some new venture, some new idea, that you've just stalled on actually putting out into the world.
You know it would help people. You know it would serve people. And yet, you're having to show up in this new way that's different from the way you've been bringing in income, and it feels uncomfortable. All again, it's bringing up all the things.
But remember how I mentioned before: what if your future self could come and talk to you now? Well here, imagine that your future self told you that you would need to make 100 offers, and then your business would take off. Now, 100 offer seems like… Some of you will be like, “Oh, 100 offers?!” But just imagine, what if you had full certainty that you were just getting through this process of 100 offers, and then it would all take off?
Well, if you knew that, you probably wouldn't make one offer per month because that would take forever. You would want to move through it as quickly as possible. You would want to make offers left and right just to get to the good stuff. I am not saying that you need to make 100 offers necessarily, but I think it's a really healthy thought game.
Now, these people you're calling in, they could be your first clients. But they could also be your new best clients, and that can still feel uncomfortable. Because if you're in my orbit, then probably you want to create a business that is more nourishing and aligned.
You probably have some taxing clients or some situations that aren't serving you, and making the decision to work with your best clients, or work in your best way, triggers all of our scarcity, right? What if there aren't enough of those people? What if my people don't want that? What if they don't want to pay that?
I have a former client who's invited me in to do a video for the course that she's creating. To do a training on a topic that she said was so impactful for her; just one way of thinking that I presented to her that changed the course of her business. I'm so excited to do this, because I stay close to almost all of my former clients.
I love them so much. If I can contribute in any way, or spread these ideas through any means, I'm just thrilled to do so, and honored of course that she would ask me. But she was in a similar place to what I'm describing to you now.
We were on a call once, and she was talking about a conversation she was having with a client and how it was reminiscent of some of the problem clients that she'd been dealing with. They didn't want to pay as much. They were very nitpicky about what type of services, and really opening up the door to her being available for them 24/7.
She was caught up in the nuts and bolts of this offer they were discussing, and her fear that they wouldn't want to move into the new type of service that she was offering. I looked at her and I said, “Then, they're not your clients. They're just not your clients.”
This is really tough for us, when we've built our success through certain means, and then we're starting all over with a different offer, or a different group of people. But guess what? If you've done it once, you can do it again.
So, what all of this boils down to, this phase of rapid client acquisition or the rapid proving of market viability, it's really about you calibrating your nervous system for the negatives, for disappointment, for rejection, for uncertainty, financial uncertainty.
What I mean is, can your nervous system handle that? Can you continue to breathe? Can you ground yourself into what you know and what you're creating, and your value and skills, and go out there and find the people who want what you have to offer?
This is how we create the better businesses. We move towards those things that do bring discomfort, because that's how we learn what works, who we do want to work with, what messaging does connect with them, what we do stand for, and where our boundaries really are.
Obstacles or opportunities from the universe. There are opportunities for you to build these muscles, to really become unflappable. Because if you think this is scary now, at the level you're at, just wait. Just wait for two years or five years. So, let's say someone says no to you on a discovery call when you're in the early stages of business.
I remember. I remember sometimes spending two or three days in a funk. Feeling as if I've been, I don't know, rejected by a romantic partner. I know I am not alone in this. I have seen this again and again. Well, at some point in the future, in your business, you will likely have even more exposure. Maybe your rejection will be more public. Maybe you are courting some company, or some large client or something. And from more than one person you hear that no. How you move through it in the past is preparing you for the future. To handle that and be like, “Yep, it wasn't a fit. On to the next.”
Let's say you feel exposed posting some idea that you have on social media. You're imagining criticism coming from somebody lurking out there, right? But then imagine when you are well known, when you are a thought leader, if you're standing on a stage, for instance. That will feel like greater exposure than putting out one post.
Or on some month, maybe you're not sure you'll make your numbers and that feels very uncertain. But then imagine, later on, you might have a team depending on you for their salaries. Now, those may or may not be places that you're thinking about right now. You're like, “Jenna, I don't want to team. I don't want to be on stage.”
But there are going to be next levels, there are going to be bigger launches. Or whatever is going on in your business, your business will grow, and anything that you go through now that feels negative in this stage, that is giving you the skills and the tolerances for later on.
Now, if unchecked, what can happen is that instead of building your tolerance for those circumstances, and many of those circumstances, they're just part of doing business. Or building the tolerance for those emotions; which are real, they are actually happening in your body, but they're exaggerated.
So, the flood of hormones and other chemicals that get released in your bloodstream, they're from things that happened hundreds of thousands of years ago. They're not really about the event at hand, right now. Nowadays, we're not going to die on the savannah just because someone doesn't agree with us.
But they feel so uncomfortable, that instead of building our tolerance bit by bit to different circumstances and feelings, we hide behind our computer screen, or we spend time designing our websites, or watching webinars. I have so many clients say that, “I've been lurking and listening to podcasts for years and nothing's really changing. So, I'm ready.”
If you're further along, maybe you're continuing to accept just one more client of that type, or there's one more project that absorbs you, and you don't have time to do that other thing you were planning to do.
If we think back to the rowboat that I was mentioning in the first phase, where I said, it's like you have an anchor, you're in the boat, and you just aren't going anywhere. This is kind of like, you're sitting in the boat, you have the anchor up, you have your oars there, but you're not actually rowing. Instead, you are sanding and repainting that finish, and wondering why aren't I getting where I need to be?
So, I encourage you to ask: What do I have to be willing to feel to move to the next level of my business? And then, are you willing to feel that? What are the upsides? What awaits you on the other side of this difficult part? What are the benefits to building this tolerance that I talked about? This mental toughness or mental charges, which is what I like to call it.
What would change in your life if you could tolerate these emotions, rather than resist them and run from them? How much would the world change if we women could get out of our way in this area and move forward confidently and with equanimity, into the work of actually serving the clients we're here to serve? If we could really give our businesses the fighting chance to be what they have the potential of being?
This is why I am so passionate about phases two and three of The Clarity Accelerator. Which are: Know your people, and then speak to how you and your people connect. Because they are the tactics for moving quickly. But also the mindset. In every module, we start out with mindset training that pertains to exactly what we're doing and learning in that section.
Because we don't want to spend years in this phase; We want to spend months. Knowing of course, that it will cycle back again and again; new level, new devil. But really, that first time is the hardest. Then, we want to keep being more CEO-ish with every round. I’m making up that word.
Alright, let's talk about this third phase of these discomforts, of how to accelerate your business timeline. This one is about moving through the discomfort of receiving and of being supported. Now, immediately, our brains go to “What? That's not a discomfort, of course, I want to receive. Of course, I want to be supported.”
But do you? A lot of our primary operating systems are running with code that says, “good, but not too good.” Maybe it says, “Don't earn too much, or you won't have any friends. You'll isolate yourself from your family of origin. You'll become that kind of person that you don't want to become. What would others think of me?”
Or it says, “To be worthy, you need to do at all, be hyper independent, be the overworked martyr, and definitely not one of those lazy, entitled people.” There are all sorts of weird scripts running in our heads. I've shared before, I secretly feared that my husband and I would break up if I started making $100,000. It seems laughable, but it felt very possible, and very scary.
By the way, these aren't the things that you're thinking on a logical level. I would never say, “I think this is going to happen.” But I knew deep down that it was a concern of mine. After I stopped pushing it away from me and actually looked at it, of course.
To continue with the boat analogy here, it's like you're now at the point where you have the oars in hand, but you could actually turn on a motor. Instead, you're there rowing your heart out. Because, “What if that motor isn't reliable. I'm used to doing it this way, I'm used to rowing. It's good exercise for me. I don't want to be lazy. What are the other boaters going to think if they just see me turn on my little motor and skate across the lake? I'll just keep using the oars.”
If you're at the stage in your business, where you're bringing in clients regularly, this is the piece that you'll want to be working on opening yourself to the discomfort of receiving and being supported. How do I allow that? What kind of self-love and forgiveness and tolerance is required for that? You might want to start asking yourself, do you take care of yourself?
Usually, before we can allow ourselves to receive it from other people, or to receive it from the universe, we need to do it for ourselves. Do you prioritize yourself? Do you take days off work or allow other family members to help with the kids or get a massage?
Are you holding back on hiring team members because you’ll just do it yourself? Or are you hiring people, but then spending all of your time with them in the weeds, because truthfully, that's where your comfort zone is.
Our actions toward ourselves show the universe how we're ready to be treated. And if your actions don't mesh with what you've been saying you want, you're not in alignment, my friend. You go first by supporting yourself, by giving to yourself. That's how you'll begin to allow it from others.
Because, whereas, the second point I brought up was about acclimating your nervous system to the negatives, this stage is about acclimating your nervous system to the positives. It feels uncomfortable because it's different. You'll feel unsettled or restless. You might feel like you're waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something has to happen to balance this all out.
I was in a mastermind where we worked on building a 15-hour workweek. I remember doing the work of “not doing.” I remember sitting in my son's room and just thinking, “I would feel so much better if I just got up and folded the laundry that’s sitting there.”
It was hard to sit. Especially in this day and age when we're so used to constant stimulation, and the dopamine hit we get a crossing off items on those lists. But you won't get there, to the life you want that has a balance, that also allows you balance, without going through this.
You need to get skilled at recognizing the discomfort that's coming from patterns that don't serve you. Then sit with it and process it and breathe through these urges to buffer against it, with doing this or with self-deprecation or working more, or whatever else takes the sting off.
How good are you really willing to let it get? These are the kinds of things that I think are really important to start working on, sooner rather than later. I always help my clients start very early on, because I attract a lot of high achievers and they need extensive felt experience to settle into this new normal.
But wherever you are, start now. Even just in little bits. It will help you when you get to this stage. I'm sure you've heard this before, but work on treating yourself the way you would treat your best friend. Work on talking to yourself the way that you would talk to your best friend. And then slowly, you'll stop creating the circumstances that are recurrently making life difficult, that don't allow you to relax.
I have a client who is heavily in this work right now. She's created a four-hour workweek. What's happened, she's realized, is after having that luxurious time to really disconnect from business, and ground and center herself, she comes back with such clarity that she realizes her old patterns would have created so much more work for herself. Now, she comes in and sees how that's not necessary. It condenses her work, but raises her productivity so significantly.
We know this. We know this is how it works on a logical level, and we're always being provided with opportunities to learn these damn lessons, which are so hard for us because of how we've grown up and everything we've experienced. No shame.
But unfortunately, some of us just keep repeating and repeating, because that patterning runs so deep, rather than doing the work to create change. Especially when our nervous systems are just sounding the alarm and putting out fires, it's hard for us to step back and get that clarity about what's going on.
We often live our lives thinking that we're swimming in the ocean of possibility. But really, we're in a fishbowl in the ocean, and that fishbowl is our mind, right? The fishbowl is all of the ways of thinking that keep us actually limited in our possibilities.
I had a client who wanted to expand her retail store, but found that she was always so in the weeds with her workers, that she really had no availability to do that and to think strategically. As we worked together, we realized that truthfully, she was afraid of the responsibility of thinking strategically. She really felt in her zone, and very, very competent, being in the weeds. And so, that was her fishbowl, right?
She really couldn't see the possibilities for creating space and creating time for herself, and even seeing what an amazing, visionary thinker she was, and how she actually did have these strategic thinking skills, because of this container that had been created.
These are topics that I work with my VIP private clients on. When we are reinventing. When we are absolutely changing who we are. When we're changing from just another one of the retail workers to somebody that is the CEO of a national brand. Or somebody that is the overworked, best-kept secret to someone who was extremely valued for her insights, and knows that that's enough.
Getting there requires that you see it for yourself. You understand what it's costing you to be here, what's available to you on the other side, so that you can commit to the process of reacclimating yourself to a new normal, and going through all of the discomfort that exists there. And also seeing yourself as worthy of it. Worthy of support, worthy of abundance in this beautiful life, even if some alarm bells are ringing on a primal level.
This is the work that changes our world. I am so passionate about these topics. About not recreating old toxic patterns that have kept us living sub-optimally. And I really hope this episode has touched you and will serve you so deeply.
All right, you all, remember, you know who you are, and each day, you're stepping further into what you're here to create. Have a great week.
Hey, if you want true clarity about your secret sauce, your people, your best way of doing business, and how you talk about your offer, then I invite you to join us in The Clarity Accelerator. I'll teach you to connect all the dots, the dots that have always been there for you, so that you can show up like you were born for exactly this.
Come join us and supercharge every other tool or tactic you'll ever learn, from Facebook ads to manifestation. Just go to TheUncommonWay.com/schedule and set up a time to talk. I can't wait to be your coach.
Thanks for joining us here at The Uncommon Way. If you want more tips and resources for developing clarity in your business and life, including the Clarity First Strategy for growing and scaling your business, visit TheUncommonWay.com. See you next time.
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