What Will Help Your Business The Most?
One of the joys of my work as a coach and consultant is that I get to hear stories. I hear stories about:
- Why an entrepreneur is doing what she does
- Why she feels stuck in her life
- Why the growth of her business is hard to get a grip on
- Why her business is not performing the way she would like.
In each story there is always the seed of the answer to what needs to happen next. It’s sometimes difficult to find that seed in our own stories, which is why we hire someone else to listen. What we most need to hear is quite often the one thing we draw a line in the sand about. It is the thing we most resist. It is the thing we think we know all about but, in fact, we have preconceived notions that are wrong.
So often, we prevent ourselves from doing the one single action that will help us the most. We resist the one thing we need to consider. We refuse to drop our judgements and beliefs.
A few months ago I talked to a CEO of a high tech company. She is financially quite successful but she feels exhausted, overwhelmed, and burnt out. She has worn herself out trying to logically figure out, as she puts it, “what’s wrong with me.” In the conversation she told me 3 times within 10 minutes, “I am open to coaching but I refuse to do anything too far out.” So I asked her, “What do you mean by “too far out?” She said, “I can’t be taking off a week from work, going off to do yoga, or going to some kind of out there energy healer.”
About two weeks ago I listened as a budding speaker said that she knew she needed to get onto a larger platform. The next day someone called and proposed that she travel to the East Coast to meet with other speakers about growing her platform. Her immediate response? “I can’t do that, I’d have to leave my teen-aged son for one school night.”
Almost a year ago now a woman I’d worked with about 4 years ago called to say that she was drowning in financial and bookkeeping issues. She knew the key to growing her business more was to understand finances and cash flow, and to discipline herself to pay attention to them. Her business bills were disorganized and costing her several hundreds of dollars a month in interest, even though she had the cash available to pay two of them off completely. I recommended that she sit down for a single day with me. We’d organize her financials and set up a plan to find a bookkeeper for her business. She refused, actually saying to me, “I can’t afford to hire you for a day, even though I know it would take care of the problem.” A few weeks ago, I heard through the grapevine that she has closed her business and is declaring bankruptcy.
Here’s the thing – we resist what we most need to do. Because of fear, unwillingness to step up, resistance to deep change. In every single one of these examples the seed of the answer was in the story the person told.
Yesterday I received an e-mail from someone, a long and rambling e-mail in which the woman said she needed help with setting up a social media plan. She went on to say, “If you help me please don’t expect me to carry it out, because I am no good at the business end of things, I am too creative. And I don’t have the money to hire anyone, I’ve checked around and they are all very expensive.” What do you think this woman most needs to change? Here’s a hint – it isn’t her social media plan!
When we are stuck in a situation, feel overwhelmed, or feel lost it is almost always because we have told ourselves a story that prevents us from doing the one single action that would help the most. Fear and resistance are in the way. Learning to face what we resist and jump in is a key to being an emotionally mature, decisive, successful entrepreneur. But more than that, it’s a key to being a well-rounded, whole-hearted person.
Tell your story, and listen when the person you’ve told it to hands you back the seed. It’s the key to thriving. It’s the key to manifesting. It’s the key to a charmed and successful life.
I listen to women entrepreneurs tell their story and help them turn toward what needs doing. You can get the details about setting up a consultation time with me by clicking here.
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