You started your business because, and I’m taking an educated guess here, you want to have flexibility, create a lifestyle uniquely yours and make a positive impact through your work. Is that right? or close?

If you’re aspiring to or on your way towards something bigger and you feel there’s more to go and not quite there yet, amidst the strategies and the tactics, I’m inviting you to consider another aspect that will help you increase your success rate to achieve big goals.

Your energy: the mental perspective you’re bringing to your goal achievement.

Waking up each morning, one of the first things so many of us do is check our emails and messages.

What is the day shaping up to be?

What did I miss?

What am I going to be faced with when I get to work?

We look at our calendar and see the meetings, administration and other commitments that are required to run our business.

We have aspirations for greater sustainability and perhaps growth, but how does one achieve this amidst the running of the business?

…when so much of our energy and time is already wrapped up in what we do every day?

How easy is it for you to find time and space in your calendar to work on the really important things to you?

You know, the things that will advance your business or improve how you work?

Here’s a thought.

What if the act of creating space for meaningful work is just as powerful as the space itself?

If creating space in your business feels like a big lift, I want to invite you to think about how the practice of creating time and space for important initiatives is a fundamental skill a founder and owner can cultivate.

We can all relate to the owner that wears all the hats. Bookkeeping, Sales, Customer Service, Leader, HR, Manager, etc. You may be at this stage right now.

Even when you have team members occupying these roles, the work of an owner and founder is rarely a calendar of open space.

However, the owner and founder that is able to create some white space is the one that goes farther. Their companies seem to advance, evolve and grow further…

Our vision is to see more purpose-driven companies excel and sustain through generations, making a positive lasting impact on the world.

How does my company contribute to this?

We coach founders & owners to grow by adding transferrable value, create a succession platform and take a vacation.

Part of lasting through generations is capturing the brilliance, savvy and know-how of you, the founder and owner, to ensure you don’t leave a knowledge gap when you decide not to be directly involved in your business anymore.

Your knowledge is gold and is the foundation of how your company started and what contributes to its ongoing success.

Even if you are aren’t thinking about passing your business to another in the future, or at the point where this has even entered your mind; capturing and transferring knowledge is a skill that takes practice and planning. It’s possible and it doesn’t have to be perfect or complex. And, it can be a process that evolves.

When I was younger I loved to dance. (Well I still do, but I actually took lessons and performed in my youth). What I admired about professional dancers was their athleticism, their grace and their superb amounts of skill. The way they could capture an audience and tell a story through movement.

What I learned was in order to get to be so skilled and master their craft, they practiced all the time and often practiced the basics. Like a musician mastering and warming up with scales. It’s the foundational steps and method that help them to hone their craft. It’s focussing on the foundations of their craft that built the muscle memory and capacity that they have today. The ballet dancers always came back to their pliés.

When I hear and speak to business owners and founders today who want to grow their companies, some of them have all sorts of plans and initiatives. I always love hearing about their plans and vision. It’s inspiring. Until I hear about their method…

I came across a quote that grabbed my attention and it’s aligned with some themes I’ve been noticing lately. Themes such as: putting time and effort in for a future reward, making commitments, and decision-making.

“Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation.”

― Robert H. Schuller

I think of the athlete winning their race and how that’s accomplished on the heals of thousands of hours of early practices, doing drills over and over again until the movements are ingrained into their muscle memory.

The artist creating their beautiful piece only after years of perfecting their various brush strokes and meticulous mixing to achieve the perfect colours and shades.

The ballet dancer who makes a leap or a pirouette look as graceful as can be, like they’re floating across the stage; perfected after years of doing daily barre exercises.

What motivates a human to do those daily or regular, sometimes grueling or methodical behaviours and practices to move them forward to a goal, a vision, or a destination in the future?

There’s a power and practice we all have access to that I would say is one of the most underutilized tools in our everyday toolbox….and I would venture to say, also in life.

First, here are some questions to consider:

Do you ever feel like your business or work is happening to you - a force unto itself and you’re not really in the driver’s seat?

Have you often wondered about the next step to take or how to navigate tough decisions?

Do you feel regular swirling thoughts of uncertainty and lack of direction or lack of focus when you think about your work or business?

Do you find yourself off course often - realizing that what you were doing all day or all week isn’t getting you closer to your goals or aligned with your vision?

Here’s the thing: I know how it feels to be uncertain about the next steps, to feel like it’s ‘hard’ to figure out what’s next or to wade through the noise and chaos of what comes at us daily.

I have found a simple tool and practice helpful and I wanted to share it with you today.

What kind of impact on the world are you aspiring to make through your business?

Companies who are moving towards their vision and accomplishing big things through their businesses are very thoughtful about WHO they need to communicate to (and with!) in order to get their message to the right people so they can fulfill their mission and purpose.

Having a big vision and achieving that is largely about getting your message to the people who need to hear it.

The question here is: HOW do you get your message to those that need to hear it?

Growing a business and leading your organization can be fraught with ‘what-if’s’ and ‘maybe’s’ and general unknowns.

Deciding which way to go can feel like you’re at the fork of multiple paths.

So, how can you create certainty, when you don’t feel at all certain?

First, what creates certainty?

Is it more information?

Knowing you couldn’t fail?

Knowing if someone will buy?

So consider this, does having more information really create more certainty? Perhaps in some cases….but we can never really have ALL the information. Can we?

Have you ever heard the quote:

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” by Albert Einstein?

Einstein suggests that shifting how we look at things provides us with the clarity to find solutions. In order to shift our thinking though, understanding our behaviours can help identify how we think or feel about things. So, let’s look at your leadership behaviours.

First, what do I mean about next level behaviour?

This is the higher level behaviours we use when we are at our best selves and step into a more evolved or expanded version of the role we are striving to inhabit.

As an example, for the business owner, next level leadership behaviour may come when you consider what you would do if you thought about what your business needed from you. Or, what you would do if fear wasn’t in the way?

What behaviours would you need to lean into more fully in order to execute in a critical area? This could be what your business needs to enhance it’s marketing or sales process, for example. Or, it could be what’s needed to improve any process in your business, for that matter.

As a business leader there are behaviours that contribute to the success of your business and there are behaviours that are neutral (may not have an impact either way) and then some that may even put up challenges to achieving success.

Here are some behaviours I have observed that can prevent us from evolving in our leadership effectiveness:

Time, Stress and Money

These three power-hungry forces show up everywhere. They’re sneaky and like to assert their power over everything.

And, when it comes to running a business, this is no exception.

And, every business has had to deal with these power vortexes at some point. Some have battled back and have asserted their control over the 3 forces…and others are still battling valiantly.

The analogy of a ‘battle’ can be fitting because when you’re dealing with lack of time, lack of money and an overabundance of stress, it can feel like an uphill battle to grow your business.

The fatigue, the overwhelm, and loss of confidence can be crippling to a small business owner who has big dreams and wants to provide a secure financial future for their family.

So, we need to shift the power dynamic.

We need to rise up and establish who’s boss….a rising of the defenders and protectors of sanity, confidence, and calm presence. An anti-dote, if you will, to the power-hungry forces that want to dominate.

What makes someone successful in their career or business?

If you were to ask several people about their key to success, you'll get a lot of different answers (many of them about strategies and tactics), but what I've noticed is that a few consistent responses tend to surface.

In my years of working as a sales professional and teaching sales at a Fortune 500 company, I've seen people held back by their own self-diagnosed assessments that they 'can't sell' or don't know 'how to sell'. 

I now coach people who are promoting their small businesses or in career transition and I've seen trends that can make a big impact to your personal sales process (whether selling your skills, product or service).