Hint of Hustle with Heather Sager

Make this Shift With Your Language to Operate Like 7 Figure CEO

June 06, 2022 Heather Sager Episode 152
Hint of Hustle with Heather Sager
Make this Shift With Your Language to Operate Like 7 Figure CEO
Show Notes Transcript

What if I told you that the difference between business owners who create BIG impact and those who struggle to get traction, comes down to the specific language they use? Both in communicating with others, but more importantly, the words they use with THEMSELVES– out loud and IN their head. 

And if I could teach you EXACTLY what to say to change your outcomes, would you be open to getting a smidge uncomfortable?

Buckle up. Today’s episode will FIRE you up, as I walk you through how to shift from the employee mindset, into the role of a digital CEO with your WORDS (because your current vocabulary might be the very thing keeping you stuck).

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1:51  

Well, hey, friend, welcome back to another episode. Today, we're continuing the conversation that we've been having over the last couple of weeks around the business side of business, you know, we talk a lot about your voice around here, about showing up, around visibility, around becoming the face of your brand and attracting leads. But you know, none of that matters if we don't actually have a business setup a way for people to pay us money, a way to serve our clients, to help them get that transformation, and a huge part of business is understanding the role in which that we take up. 


2:25  

So over the last couple of weeks, I've had my Business Coach James Wedmore, come in and we've talked about, specifically, last week, we talked about the the mindset and the shift that we need to make from going from being an employee in someone else's business to actually stepping into the role of a CEO and all the hats that we wear, the shoes that we fill, whatever analogy works with you on that. But today's conversation, I want to really lean into one specific thing that you can do differently to adopt that business owner, ie CEO mindset. I get a lot of questions from people around like what specifically do I do? What kind of activities should I be doing? Like where should I focus my business? How should I spend my time? Or if someone's asked me about speaking, they want to know what kind of stories to tell, when to tell stories, how do you open up a talk? What do you need to know about tech? 


3:18  

We're always asking really specific questions around what to do. And while those things are important, what I have found to be more important is the thinking that precedes the question. And what I have found both in running my business but also in my career moving from an hour employee into an executive, I have found that the thinking that goes on in my head that leads to the questions or ideas that I speak into existence out loud. That's been the real game changer for me. And I know this is not the sexy topic. Everyone wants to know, Heather, what do I do? Like what are the specific things that the people that are getting success are at the place where I want to be? What are they doing? And all in all, I'll give you the same, I'll share with you what James, my business coach said yesterday. We're in the middle of The Rise of the Digital CEO training. If you've been following along, you know that I've been talking about this as attending that training three years ago was really the catalyst of helping me step into the role of CEO and out of acting like an employee like I had been in my own company, even though I was an executive. I was running a multimillion dollar training program. There's this mentality that happens is when you work for someone else, even in a leadership role, you always have that safety net you always have that umbrella if you will, protecting you from really having to drive the car and be ultimately accountable for the results of the company, and the big shift that happened for me when I became a business owner, this came out of the business yesterday. 


5:06  

What James or the training yesterday, training number one, which by the way, link in the show notes, you can get in on that replay right away. And mine, I just tell you, if you were one of the people that came to that training, you probably dodged out when he said it was the end, which his trainings are amazing. He's so generous with his time. The first training was two and a half hours. If you go back to the replay and let it go on, skip over like 10 minutes, 15 minutes to take a break. They come back for Q&A, and oh my gosh, the Q&A, he gets into specific tactics and strategies for outsourcing, when to hire team members and all that good stuff. So you can jump into the replay, you can get that link in my show notes to get access to that, but back to it. 


5:45  

What I wanted to share with you is the metaphor that he used was the metaphor of an iceberg, where on the surface is typically what we see. So think about iceberg in the ocean, back to the Titanic crashing the iceberg. They didn't see it, they didn't they saw the tip of the iceberg, but they didn't actually see how massive it was under the surface. And in business, what James shared yesterday is oftentimes, when we're building our businesses, we look to the people that are doing the things that we want to do and we see the surface level stuff. We see how they show up on Instagram, they're pretty pictures, they're pretty branding, their marketing. We see them talk about their programs, we see their materials, we see all of these things externally, and that's just on the surface. What we don't see are all the things under the surface, which include both the back end of their business, their team, their infrastructure, their systems, but also their potential hustling like crazy. They're crumbly crying in the corner because it's not working out like they want. We don't see the amount of time that they're working, how they're feeling about that work. We don't see the real picture. And most importantly, we do not see the thinking that goes on behind the scenes. 


And James argued, well, he said, you know, the thing is, is we see all that stuff that's above the surface and we tried to mimic and copy that and keep asking questions that our surface level around what should I do? What strategy should I follow, but at the end of the day, it's not those things that are actually making the difference. The things that are underneath the surface. But because those are the things we don't see, we don't have them top of mind. And then we sit here with our own thoughts, our own doubts, our own insecurities. our own behind the curtain and we wonder what the hell are we doing wrong. 


7:27  

And what we have to start addressing, if you want to build the business that you dream about the whether, the volume that you have in mind, the impact that you want to make, you think about how you want to feel when you show up in business, you think about the kind of time freedom that you want to have, the security you have by having consistent revenue coming in over a month, whatever your picture is, for that success, that business that you want. We have to get clear around how you show up not just onstage above the surface on the tip of that iceberg. We talk about that a lot on the show. I can help you show up polished, show up personal, show up in a powerful way, that was a lot of P's, polish, personable, powerful. We got to make that a framework, trademark coin today on the show. But those things yes matter because people buy from those who show up confidently. We talk about that over and over again. 


8:23  

But at the end of the day, if you truly want that peace, that security, that freedom, and I know that can sound really fluffy, but you have your own interpretation around what that means. I mean, think about it, feeling at peace around how you're spending your time and where you're at right now. I mean, think about that. What would it feel like for you to really feel at peace around where you're at in your business. If that's something that you're really chasing, what we have to do is figure out how you operate, not just from a what to do perspective, but how you operate in your mind. There's a quote here. You can't change the world, if you can't change your mind. I know you know this, if you're listening to this show, I would imagine you have some interest in personal development. And maybe you don't consider yourself a personal development junkie like me, maybe you're just personal development kind of going through it because it's happened. You've had to learn as you're going through your business. But I know that you know that in order to change your external reality, the results that you're getting in your life and in your business, something has to change on the inside. The question that I think many of us struggle with, especially as we're doing something new is what is the thing that needs to change when it's so frickin intangible.


9:48  

Today, what I want to share with you are some insights that I've had and these are things that I share behind closed doors with my private clients often and I didn't realize just how valuable this one specific thing that I do. Naturally, I've taught myself to do it differently. I've seen in the last year transformed the lives of so many of my clients and my students. And I want to share it with you today because it really feeds into the conversation around something more specific and tangible but it impacts that intangible way that you operate as a CEO. And I'm going to replace that word today with as a leader. 


10:30  

If you've been a longtime listener to the show, you know that I often talk about leadership, and how if you want to be the voice, if your business if you want people to listen to you, if you want them to, to not only listen, but to believe what you say, and to follow your advice to create transformation in their lives. That requires leadership. And what I find so often, especially with online entrepreneurs, they don't see themselves as a leader because they don't have teams. They are individuals that maybe have a few contractors that work from them. But that idea of leadership, typically the picture in our mind is we see an executive or a director or a CEO in a big company that has teams of people behind them. 


11:14  

Well, the thing is leadership, leadership is influence. I learned that from John Maxwell years ago, when I hired him to speak at one of my conferences. I have that, not to name drop here. But this was a really special moment for me that was pivotal. We had John Maxwell at a conference and the CEO of my former company. John was there, we hired another keynote speaker that was just amazing. And my CEO was so impressed around the speaker lineup that I had brought to the event. He invited me to have lunch with him and the speakers. So John Maxwell, the CEO, Brendan Dawson, and a variety of other speakers, Seth Madison, John Maxwell's president of his company was there. And I remember was in a penthouse in Las Vegas, and I sat down with a woman in the room, and listen to these men who all had extremely successful businesses. And I remember John looking to me, and he gave me some advice around leadership. And he was the one that really taught me that leadership is about influence, it doesn't matter if you have team members or employees that are technically required to follow you. The thing is, what you want to do is be able to show up in a way where people naturally are drawn to follow you. Because they believe in your ideas. They believe in the picture that you're creating, they believe in the power of possibility, they believe that you have their best interest at heart. 


12:40  

And I don't know about you, but that's how I want to build my business. I don't want to be here speaking on stage and just spewing stuff at people for no reason, right? Just so it looks good to be on stage. No, I want to make an impact. And that impact requires me to have influence. It requires me to get people to think about things in a new perspective, to follow my line of thinking and see how it can work for them. I want people to believe in the power of possibility for themselves and, friend, that is leadership. So coming back to it, one of the things that I talk often is how do we have leadership from the stage, but also in our lives in our businesses, and this thing I'm going to teach you today will help with that. 


13:23  

So I want to ask you that, if you're the kind of person who really loves the tangible, practical tips, I just want to challenge you for a moment and ask the question. If you're constantly seeking the tangible, practical strategy, and you're wanting to know what should you do next in your business, how's that working for you? And I say this with all the love in the world to not to make you feel bad. But if you have been operating in your business, let's just say in the last 12 months, where you have been searching for the next strategy to launch your offer, or you've been trying to figure out what the best way is to structure your program, or maybe you're trying to make a decision between which technology platform should you put your website on or host your digital course on, or what scheduling software should you use to get your Instagram stuff up and running? It's been asking these kinds of questions. I don't want you to feel bad for doing this. These questions are necessary. But my big question for you is if you're spending your time and energy looking externally for the right way to do something, or the best way or the most efficient way, or whatever it is that you're asking about. My question is a lot of questions happening here. It's kind of circular thinking, but I hope that you're tracking with me. 


We need to start thinking about things in a different way. Because when we are posing all these questions around what is the answer, what is the tactic, what is the strategy, we're putting our time and energy into those tactics and tools and not in the real transformation of our people. Let me say that again. Another way when we're asking all these questions around tactics and strategies, what we're doing is creating busy work that is preventing us from doing the real work. Hit back and listen to that again. 


15:07  

It's preventing us from doing the real work because that busy work is safe. It's safer for us to be thinking about what's the tactic, what's the strategy, because what we're doing is we're laying down all the bricks thinking that if we get it all right, and set up the yellow brick road so perfectly, then our ideal client will happily skip down along it and buy from us. You are Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz right now, evidently, in this metaphor, here we go. But the thing is, when we are asking all these questions externally around, what should we be focused on, what's the best strategy, which one is better? What we're doing is, quite frankly, we're procrastinating because we're trying to build a perfect environment so our ideal client will buy. And the thing is, you're just kicking the bucket for selling down the road. 


15:59  

So what I want you to start thinking about today, in this thing I'm going to teach you, I want you to open up your mind to make decisions quicker by using your own judgment, exercising your own critical thinking skills. And no, I'm not saying that you shouldn't look externally for input. But I want you to start to take more ownership as the leader of your company, because ultimately, you are the only one responsible for your results. No matter what they are. Maybe your results are literally nothing right now, maybe you are in the red, because you have overspent your business and you haven't actually made offers, or you haven't been able to get someone to say yes to an offer. That is okay, I don't want you to beat yourself up on it. I don't want you to get feel bad about it. I want you to stop shaming yourself for it and just say, this is where I am. And now let's do something about it. 


16:52  

So let me introduce to you this idea, right? This idea that has really transformed the way that I operate in life and business. You've probably heard these phrases, I'm gonna say some Pinterest worthy quotes. I don't know where they came from but you're going to be familiar with these. But I want to set the context. You've probably heard this before, Where you focus your energy flows, where you focus your energy flows. Most recently, I heard Tony Robbins say this this morning. I was listening to a podcast episode. And I'm like, yes, I've heard a million people say this, where you focus your energy flows. The second thing I want you to think about is if you give your mind a question, it will answer. Pause. Chew on that for a second. If you give your mind a question, it will answer. This right here can be the most powerful thing for you as a leader. Because the quality of our life is determined by the quality of questions that we ask. And what I find is with the business owners who are struggling, who are out there looking for solutions, the quality of the questions they are asking are poor. They're poor, meaning that they're broke because of the questions. They are poor because they're low quality questions. And again, I don't say this, I've done this before. Let me just, disclaimer. I've asked him for crappy questions. I totally have asked a crappy questions. We're all gonna do it at sometimes but I catch myself and I start asking better questions. And that's what this little TED talk here that we're doing today is all about. Let's explore what exactly I mean by that. 


18:37  

I've seen this many, many times, again, inside Facebook groups. And again, I don't want to shame on anyone or make them feel bad about it. But I want to evaluate this. And let's talk through what it looks like. Have you ever been in a Facebook group or have you been the person doing this? I've been guilty, where you've gone to the group and said, Hey, I'm evaluating between which here's a great example, when I started, my podcast. Hey, I'm starting a podcast which podcast software do you all recommend and why? What's the best podcast software to use? Is it Buzzsprout? Is it Libsyn? Is it Anchor? Is it whatever?There's a bunch of different options? 


19:14  

And then what happens in the comments, people get very excited about their favorite tool so they make the argument for why that tool exists. Where does that leave you as the question asker? Well, now you're having to sift through all of these different opinions. And what happens when you read all these opinions and they all have valid reasons and arguments. If you're asking the question like which one is the best? What's the criteria for the best? Because here's the thing, when you're asking questions like that, you're asking it in a silo, and the people who are at answering the question are answering it from their silos. And I want you to think about, their answers really have nothing to do with you and you still have to go through and evaluate your options? 


20:01  

Now, here's the thing. I'm not saying that that question is a poor question. I'm saying that you, as the business owner have to recognize that no one else can tell you what the best solution is for you, because they don't have the full picture. They don't know what your business looks like, they don't know what your goals are, they don't know what your other technology pieces are. At the end of the day, you have to ask that question. So how do we start asking better questions? Well, a low quality question is which technology platforms is the best? That I mean, it's all relative. Relative to what? What makes it the best? Best for cost? Best for getting it out there on more platforms? Best for ease of use, like best for what? There's no metric piece. 


20:43  

So here's the thing, what you can do is ask a different question, right? And in this example, here, I mean, there's probably different ways to do it, like identify what's important to you. So for me, I wanted to have a platform that was super easy for me to be able to upload and quickly train the team member with no experience, that was my criteria. So I went on YouTube, a couple things. I think I looked at some people's answers in a group and then I came back and I made a decision. I go with Buzzsprout. I talked about it before, and I'm off on a tangent here. But the point I wanted to make was when we are asking a question like that around which blank is the best, that is a low quality question, because it loses the context. Meaning, what's the context around the question? Like, what is the relevance of best? We have to start thinking differently on that. Let me give you some different perspective here. 


21:43  

So what I find oftentimes, is when we're CEOs, when we're leaders in our company, we start thinking and ideating around where we go next. And oftentimes we find ourselves in a thought loop either in our brains or sometimes we express these things out loud. And what we'll do is we will make statements or ask questions of ourselves that actually set us up to spiral down a negative hill, like Jack and Jill tumbled down the hill to fetch a pail of water. There's the entrepreneur tumbling right after them because man, we go down the spiral loops, right? Get a sip of coffee here. So okay, so here's what I want to set up for you. I did two lives, live video streams here inside, if you've been following along. I've been doing a pop up group, which by the way, want to invite you to that we're doing a pop up group called the Digital CEO Greenroom that started on the first of June, and we're running it through June 16. And every day, I'm going live in the group and I'm sharing some of these nuggets around how to think like a leader, how to think like a CEO so that you can show up in a polished and personable way. But you also can make it sustainable, ensure that you're building a business that feels good for you. So if you want to join the recruiting room, we'll put a link to it in the bio, it's a VIP room, essentially, for those participated in the rise the digital CEO, so you're invited to both. And I'm not going to stop talking about those things, by the way. So if you're annoyed by me continuing to talk about that, that might be something for you to explore around. Why are you turned off by somebody trying to introduce you to something that's powerful. If it's not for you. just keep passing. And I hope you take note of that when you're talking about things for your business. It's totally okay to continue to talk about what you're excited about over and over and over again. 


23:31  

But back to one of the things that I talked about in the last couple live streams is this idea of the power of questions and asking higher quality questions. So what I want to do is actually give you three question types to think about that will help you reorient your thinking from the poor question slash poor, low quality thinking mentality into more of a leadership mentality. So here's the kind of question that we need to be very, very cautious of that I want you to catch when you're doing it. So number one, these are closed questions. This came up yesterday on a coaching call inside the Greenroom after training one. We were talking about this idea of building a business and someone had brought up this idea of do I have what it takes to make this happen? Another question, is this really feasible? Will this ever happen for me? How could I ever make this happen? For me, the thing about these questions, you can already feel the heaviness in these questions. And I would imagine that you resonate that you've probably thought these to yourself over and over again. What I want you to think about when you ask a question like this, these are called yes or no questions or closed questions, where the answer to the question is a very black and white yes or no. So can I even do this? Or who am I for thinking this? Or will anyone even listen to me? Am I even experienced enough to do this? Think about those kinds of questions? Or is this really the best way to do it? The answer to those questions is a very black and white yes or no? Am I good enough to do this? Yes or no? Is this even possible for me? Yes or no? Any of those questions is a yes or no question. What I want you to consider that is if you're asking yourself, yes, no questions, and they have a negative bias towards them. You notice how all those felt a little heavy and a little bit of a downer and they're all part of the entrepreneurial spiral we go down. Our brains are instantly going to go to the negative. Do I have what it takes? We're probably going to start questioning it because we don't have the irrefutable proof to say that we do. Who would ever believe me on this? That's not really a yes or no question but either you know someone or you don't. It's really as a yes or no question. They're closed ended questions where it's a very punctuated answer around either yes or no and our tendency is to go to the negative thinking, so it's going to pull us down.


26:13  

Reminder, the quality of our life is determined by the quality of our questions. So if we find ourselves asking these questions in a downward spiral, we find ourselves not operating as a leader. We are draining our own creative vision and our own capacity to hold space for people to want to believe and follow us. There's a second kind of question. It's not really a question. It's actually a statement that gets us stuck. So if you find yourself making statements in your business around, this won't work for me because. I can't control the algorithm, making excuses for things. Mixing things like nobody knows who I am, I'm not good enough. If you find yourself making statements like this as truth, many people reference these as limiting beliefs. These are statements. And what happens is when we start making statements, we start believing them to be true. And what happens with a period is it cuts off possibility. No ifs, no ands, no buts, no anything else it just is. And what happens is when we are in a space, as business owners, which will happen a lot, a space where we're going through challenge, we're going through struggle, growth isn't happening as fast as we want, or things are not. Things are not flowing, it feels hard, it feels sticky. The launch didn't go as well as we want. The webinar was a flop, people didn't show up, nobody's engaged on Instagram. Dang it, Instagram, change the size of the posts and now I have to go back because I had a month scheduled and now I have to go do. All these things that happen. Those were all statements. And they're all very logical. They all could be very, very true. But the thing is, that truth doesn't change our reality in terms of what we do next. And when we're spending our time focusing on these statements, or we're continuing on a loop with these closed questions that aren't serving us, can't you see here, that it does not create capacity for us to think like the leader we need to think as if we want to create a new reality and a new business. 


28:22  

If we continue to show up with these level of questions, close questions, if we come up, and we keep continuing to make statements at the lower quality, we will stay in the cycle of where we're at in business and not get anything different. Or if we do start to get a little success, we are going to retreat back in this way of thinking and this way of speaking to ourselves. Oh, there's a tie in to speaking. Did you know we talk a lot about speaking on stages, but the way that you speak to yourself is the most powerful voice that you use it all. The scary part is most of you never make that voice happen out loud and you put it in the safety net of your brain. And you have your own little greenroom in your brain, your little backstage, whatever, where do you want to put on it? And it is the it is the scariest conversation at all of all. I want you to think about that. What kinds of statements are you speaking to yourself? What kind of questions are you asking of yourself in your head and how is that impacting your external reality? 


29:21  

Let's talk about the shift that you can make to start stepping into a more powerful role so that you can show up in that more personable, that more polished way to have more power in terms of how you carry yourself and being excited about the future of success. And that one thing that you can do differently is shifting into curiosity. Curiosity. The more curious we can be as leaders, the more successful we'll, find the more influence we'll find. Curiosity. This has become the most powerful thing for me in building my career and building my rapport with clients and being so damn good at selling, being really good at launching, being good at relationship building, and being really damn effective on a stage. It's being curious. 


30:11  

What I mean by curious is not going out there and just consuming knowledge for the sake of consuming knowledge. It's being curious to find out new things to inform what we do or say next. You see, what I find so often with leaders that I work with, especially my private clients, they've experienced is really heavy, not heavy, but high level of success. And it feels heavy, because they've built that success by being the power player in the room, be the person who has the knowledge, who has the information. And the the challenge that they're faced with right now is they actually have to start becoming a real leader. And part of becoming a real leader, which is the discussion we're having right now is, you have to understand that your way is not always the best way. And even if it were, it doesn't actually matter. 


31:09  

Let me give you an example. For this, let's say that I had, I'm gonna use an employee example because when I think about leadership employees, it's a great thing. It's a great example to use. So let's say that, I'm going to make this up. I don't actually have a Content Manager for my team but it is a role that I want to hire from and I can anticipate a challenge that's going to happen with this. So I have a very particular voice in my business, not only my actual voice, but the way that I write, the way to communicate. I mean, it kind of is my thing. So the idea of hiring a Content Manager or content writer, that can be really scary for me, because I mean, who is going to be able to write your emails, that sound like be that like in my brand voice besides me, right? Or who's going to be able to go through a podcast episode and extract all the details to get it in the right way to be able to promote, right? All of these things that we think who can do it like me? If I have a Content Manager come in, what I have to think about is, let's say I hire on this content manager and they I train them, right, I train all the things for all the things that I can train them. And they have, they write their first email and it sucks. Let's just call it what it is. Let's pretend that it sucks ass. As a leader, I can be like, damn it. Oh, I knew I knew. I knew I couldn't hire out the skill. Statement. Oh, like, what I mean, what was I thinking? What was I thinking like, with this idea of bringing somebody in? Like, there's no way I can do this. Like just series of statements rationalizing this belief that I had in terms of there's no way I can replicate my voice. Pause. Are you thinking about something right now, but this translates for you? If you have something in your business where you're resisting outsourcing or hiring because there's no frickin way somebody else could do it like you? Yeah, I mean, this is like the, like everyone that I talked to. 


32:59  

So what I could think about is, if I needed to have a discussion with this employee, well, one, I could be like, screw it, like this person is not going to work, I need to get rid of them. That's not very helpful, right? Let's say that this person had really good, there are a lot of really good assets, right, but they just weren't getting the lingo. What I could do is I could have a conversation with them and tell them the right way to do it. Like, here's exactly what I would change. Here's what I would do differently. I can tell them all the things and that is what most people do. Well, most people would just get and move on, or they would go the route of like, let me fix you by teaching you. But here's the thing, it doesn't matter how right I am and how much of a gem I am and the way that I do things. The question I have to ask myself is do I want to be right and do I want to be the best or do I want to grow a team? That's the powerful question that I need to ask myself. Do I want to be right? So this is like the the joke that people ask in a marriage? Do I want to be right or do I want to be happy? Do I want to be right or do I want to be married? Alright. It's the same thing here. Do I want to be right? Do I want to be the best or do I want to grow a business which in my case it requires a team?


34:10  

So if I operate from the way of going, well, what I actually want us to do is to hire a team. Okay, that means that I need to develop a team, which means get this one. What if I sit down and have a conversation stemmed in curiosity with that team member where I can understand what led them to make the decisions they made, so that I can help fill the gaps. Not knowing exactly what the outcome of the conversation is not knowing the exact solution will come up with, trusting myself, my leadership skills and my own curiosity to follow the intention of developing someone that can do something that I can do or do it better. It just might not be in the same style. That's an example. I've used this quite a few times. My private clients who are having team challenges is how do we come up with something from a place of curiosity. 


35:04  

So I want you to think about curiosity in conversations, curiosity in your sales calls, curiosity in our conversation here today, curiosity in your own mind. This is what starts flipping the switch between those negative statements that we make, those closed ended questions that throw us down a loop, keep us stuck, keep us frozen, keep us freaking out, and then looking on Craigslist for new jobs. People do that, is that where people find jobs these days? I have no idea. But what we have to start doing is shifting from this period, closed ended questions. I want you to visualize this. When you make those negative statements, or those absolute facts or those excuses for your reality, those are statements. And I want you to think about you on a one of those moving sidewalks at the airport, I want you to imagine that your feet are glued down to that movie escalator and it is turned off. You are stuck in place. So you have a choice to make, you can either stay in that exact spot and be pissed about your reality, be frustrated about what's happening, be angry or annoyed by the lack of progress by whether you blame yourself, and you get down on yourself or you make excuses for the external reality or both. It's not about any of these things be true or not, it's just not helpful. That's what it comes down to just making statements to stew in our challenge is just not helpful when we have other more important work to do. 


36:39  

So I'm saying this with the most love, some of y'all are really not gonna like this, maybe you're not gonna come back to the show, but I'm going to call you on your shit right now. If you're making excuses. If you are reliving the same cycle of you cannot figure out how to generate money in your business where you keep falling back in the loop of I can't scale past a certain point, or you keep finding yourself burning through team members that you just can't find a VA who gets it. I'm going to tell you, what would it look like for you regardless of what's true or not in that reality? What would look like for you to actually take ownership and say, maybe, just maybe the way that I'm showing up and the quality of the questions I'm asking are not working. Do not get be feel bad for it. Do not shoot on yourself for it. It's not about now swimming in the ocean good. It's the thought of doing it wrong. Those are more pits quality questions or statements. 


37:33  

So here's what we need to do and I say this with all the love because I have to do this with myself probably at least once a frickin month because I'll find myself cycling in some bitch fest around what's not working or why are we here? What's happening? But the difference is I catch myself. And I say this is crappy line of thinking, how do we fix it? But we fix it by becoming curious with higher quality questions. And here's what that looks like. We ask exploratory questions. 


38:01  

So let's come up with the challenge here. The challenge is, let's say this, Heather, I'm doing all the things, I'm showing up on Instagram, I have the podcast, I have the free Facebook group, I started building my list, I have the lead magnet out, I even did the launch with a webinar, and and a few people showed up but nobody bought or maybe a couple of people bought. The thing is I'm doing all the things but I'm not getting traction. It's just not working. I don't, I have this ticking time bomb that I want to leave my job by x point or I only have so many more months that I can do client work. I'm trying to get traction, but it's just not working. You don't understand, Heather. I've been doing all the things I'm taking all the courses I'm showing up consistently. I even figured out their wheels. I've done all the things, it's just not working. Is that resonating with you right now? It's resonated with me many times over the last four years in my business. And here's the thing. All of that, that I just rambled could be very true. Some of it could be bullshit, I'm not gonna lie to you. Some of it could be bullshit excuses and you and I both know it. But all of it could be very true. And continuing to focus on the reasoning and the justification and the why you are, where you are, or why I am, I am where I am which by the way, so you know, I'm not as far along as I wanted to be 20 times over, right? I'm happy with my success and where I'm going but I'm still frustrated with my lack of progress and the thing is, I can come up with all that same line of excuses just like you we both can, but saying them over and over and reliving that loop over and over and over, how the hell can you or I expect to break through to that next level? It isn't about doing the things. You just told me theoretically, right? I told you but you were reflecting back at me that we're doing all the things. Is it really about doing all the things? Is it doing the right thing? Doing the start thinking about a different question. 


40:18  

So here's some questions that we could ask ourselves. What can I let go of? What am I doing right now that is not contributing to an outcome? These are open ended questions. That's the key. Open ended exploratory questions. And exploratory means that what we're doing is we're starting to literally explore the line of thinking. We're directing our mind in a different way, away from the period statements of what is which is what it is. Move on now explore. I want you to think about you're standing on that conveyor belt. Now what we did is we unglued your shoes from that little rubber piece, we've turned it back on, and now we're exploring, we're moving forward. The thing is, though, you don't quite know which direction the conveyor belts going, because here's the thing, friend, what works for my business might not work for yours. You got to get comfortable trying stuff out to see what works so we got to explore. So we can ask questions like, what is working? Where am I? When I look at all these things, I know that some is not working but what specifically is working? An example of a closed question that could work here is, is there something working in my business? Yes or no? And if you can say yes, even if it's just one thing, let's lean into that. What about this is working? How can I do more of this in my business? I'll give you an example. Someone I was talking to yesterday on one of our Speak up to Level up coaching calls. She came in on a debrief wanting to get feedback on her launch content. She was doing a three part series, a three part launch series, and she wanted to get feedback on her workshop through slides because she wanted to increase her conversion rate. This was a really good example. I asked her a series of questions before we got to the content. I said, I know you want to hear content, but can I ask you some questions to get some context? 


42:16  

So I started asking questions around what was your lunch conversion? How many people showed up? Of the people that showed up to workshop one, how many of them bought? Like, what do you attribute your launch conversion success to? Where do you think the gaps are? What I started doing was asking exploratory questions. This is a lot of what coaching is y'all. Asking exploratory questions and here's what we found. We found that one of the things that she offered in her launch when she did complimentary one on one calls before the three part video series even started, just 15 minutes quick check on the calendar, her to get to know people. And she found that that the conversations that she had that had a really high correlation to people that purchased. Cool, interesting. So it directed our conversation around that. How can we do more of that? And then the, well, we know one on one is time so it's not as scalable. How can we take elements of that and infuse it into other ways in the launch? 


43:17  

At the end of our conversation, where we got was at the end of the day, it really didn't matter if she touched the content in workshop three because the reality is most people were not even making it to workshop three. So why spend any time or energy adjusting the slides, adjusting the content, if very people are going to see it? This is a really powerful example. I hope you're following me with this as the we often come to the conversation, whether it's with ourselves or to our business coach with one thing, we have a problem, right? It's surface level. I want to fix this one thing. But really, the thing that's coming up is not the thing. That workshop free content was not the problem, that was not going to be the linchpin to improve the launch output. What we have to do is step back at a bigger picture and say, where are things falling and ask higher quality questions that lead to higher quality outcomes. 


44:08  

What we have to do as CEOs, this is what we do, this is what I do as a coach, a speaking coach, a high performance coach. What I do with people is I get very curious around the thinking, around the context, the problems so that we can problem solve in a more effective way. This is what a leader does. This is what you must do in your role as business owners. You must get present. Get curious. And let me tell you here that being curious exploration can feel a little frustrating because we don't actually know what the right answer is, and that in itself is the point. What if there wasn't a right answer? What if it's explored enough so that you can just make a decision and keep moving? Because what I have found when it comes to creating success in your business, it comes from you just taking the next action, learning from it, and then getting yourself back up and acting again and again. That is the job for you. If you're gonna step into becoming the CEO and leader of your business and create that life and business that you dream of.


45:26  

Friend, we covered a lot today,. This was my mini TED Talk. Thanks for coming. I hope that this lit a fire under your ass, I hope that you are, I hope you love, I get comments from you all the time that I'm your coach that kicks you straight up square in the ass and that you love it and you come back for it every week and I want that to be your relationship. I'm never going to blow smoke around all the cool things that you can do when I just kind of a sexy surface level conversations. We're going to get real because that's what it takes for you to have great transformation in your life and in your business. And I hope today's discussion got you fired up to start having a higher expectations for yourself in the best way. And hear me when I say this loud and clear, you better not. You better not get down on yourself and have any guilt for where you are. I want you to know this, you are exactly where you need to be in your journey to learn the lessons you must learn to go where you're going next. So the only thing I want you to have for yourself and the experiences you have. and the reality you have in this moment is gratitude. Because it is a teacher for you, these experiences the struggle that you're in right now, these goals that you haven't achieved yet it is a gift, because it's perfectly preparing you for what comes next. 


46:40  

I'm so freaking honored. I'm so grateful to be your coach on this journey. Thank you for coming back each and every week to the podcast. And hey, if you want me to be your actual business coach to help you with this, come join us inside the Greenroom. You can check it all out the link in the show notes. Join us inside The Rise of Digital CEO and I have coming out next week y'all for the first time ever, I'm releasing a bonus package for those who choose to enroll in James Wedmore's program, Business by Design. I'm going to tell you this, the bonus package is going to be friggin amazing. Yes, it's going to help you with the showing up in a polished way. But I'm also for the first time ever introducing some things in the bonus package that are going to be me helping you in your business with the things that I'm talking about today. Actual coaching to help you step into the role as a leader, get tangible, but also start shifting the way that you show up so that you can be more powerful with your influence. I can't wait to tell you more about it, that bonus, all that stuff will be coming out on Saturday, June 11. So if you are not on the waitlist to get it, be sure to send me a direct message on Instagram. And hey, if you have no plans of joining Business by design, I love you too. I'm cheering you on. Can you do me a big solid though? If you hear any of your colleagues or peers in the online space talking about joining Business by Design and you think that I would make a great coach for them? Can you please share this podcast with them? Can you please share my information with them? Have them reach out because if they enroll in Business by Design through me they'll also get access to that bonus package. Thank you so much for helping me share the word. Thank you so much for believing in yourself because I believe in you. And I think together we can do some incredible things. Alright, friends, I'll see you on the next episode.