Flourish & Grow to CEO: Episode 4

Episode 4 Show Notes

Welcome to episode 4 of Flourish and Grow to CEO, a podcast hosted by Pam Ivey, certified in small business management, and Jane Garee, known as the sales strategy for the non sales person. We are so glad you’ve decided to join us again for the episode.

Episode Summary:​ ​ Nothing is more important than your mindset and what you tell yourself about who you are and what you are capable of doing.  Without a strong and well-developed inner game, believing you can have a success business and actually achieving it are going to be challenging.

Pam Ivey talks about the importance of your inner game and how being prepared to handle your limiting beliefs is the most important skill you can master as a business owner. Jane Garee teaches on the necessity of a vision, what the difference is between a vision and a strategy and why creating both become the beginnings of a blueprint of a strong foundation.

Topics discussed in this episode:​ ​In today’s episode, you will hear about –

• Why limiting beliefs are the number one killer of your business and what you need to do to change them
• How your negative stories are providing a pay-off and how to change that
• Why understanding the difference between vision and strategy is so important and how to not confuse the two 

In our last episode, we gave an overview of the 7 essential business foundations or pillars to grow a sustainable and scalable business. We first talked about all of them because it is important to keep in mind that these pillars work together and they interconnect at different levels and at different moments of the business growth.

Today we want to focus on the first two foundations we talked about on episode 3: Inner game and Vision and Strategy.

Inner Game

What we call inner game, or mindset, if you will, is related to a superpower we all possess. That is the super power of changing the world around us with just a thought. No, this doesn’t have anything to do with magic, It has to do with the story we tell to ourselves about ourselves.

What we say to ourselves is powerful because of these positive or negative thoughts, which become limiting beliefs, either good or bad. Now, limiting beliefs are there as a mechanism that protects us from things we are afraid of, like failure; or they can serve us to achieve success. This becomes a problem when we let negative limiting beliefs stop us from moving forward.

So these beliefs are installed in our mind since childhood and stay in our subconscious for years as they create an image of ourselves that constantly repeats in our heads. This is like a blueprint, it’s the story of ourselves we tell to ourselves on a subconscious level, and they control our actions through those limitations.

Now, mastering these limitations can be difficult, but we can give you a couple of tips from Pam and Jane’s experiences fighting their own limiting beliefs.

• Change the script. If the story you are telling you about yourself doesn’t convince you, change it!

And no, this isn’t going to happen overnight but make small tweaks to this script every time you feel it’s not serving your purpose of achieving success, it will make a huge difference.

• Make positive affirmations. A practical advice here is to take a post-it and write down positive affirmations about yourself for those days when your negative thoughts are creeping inside your head.
• Sink into the root of that belief. Asking yourself what you are feeling and why you are feeling that way is a great exercise to find the origin of these negative thoughts. And, as you find the source, you can start working towards healing and change that perspective in the long-term.

Vision and Strategy

The second pillar we talk about today is one composed of three elements: vision, strategy and tactics, work in hierarchy, since the vision supports the strategy and the strategy is implemented through tactics. Let’s explore each element first:

Vision:

Vision is something we all naturally have. It is evident when we wake up in the morning and we think of how we are going to dress, or what we are gonna do. Now, a vision for business is taking that same superpower one step further.

All of us, as business owners, have a picture in mind of what we want our business to be. I ti is our goal. And that same vision is entwined with the vision we have for our own lives. But how clear is it? The easier it is for you to describe in detail that picture, the better of a vision you’ll have for your business. You need to be able to sketch this out, to see it, to really be able to paint the picture. And here’s an exercise for you to do: write you vision. Write it so it is ridiculously clear for you anyone that reads it.

Now, when you think about your business goal, you inevitably think of who does it affect and how will the people around you be affected by it. The other thing you think about is the why. Why do you do what you do? To maintain a specific lifestyle? To make tons of money? All of these are valid reasons you just have to make sure you know exactly what it is.

Some tips to help you here are:

• Think of what you really want, not about what others want.
• Define what freedom means for you. Being self-employed should give you a sense of freedom, but that means different things to different people, so what is it like for you?

Strategy:

Next in this triplet there’s strategy. The dictionary defines strategy as the method or plan to achieve specific goals or results. So a strategy is a plan to make your vision come to life.

This takes us to rule number one of strategy: it must support your vision.

If your vision is to, let’s say, travel around the world with your business. What can you do to ensure that happens? This is your strategy.

Another important thing about this point is: do not confuse strategy with tactics.

Tactics are the thing that you do to put the strategy into practice. They are the steps you take to implement the plan you set previously.

These first two pillars are just the tip of the iceberg of business and we will continue to explore the rest of the 8 foundations in upcoming episodes, but we would really like you to share your thoughts and doubts on this! How did you do with the exercises we proposed today? Tell us in the comment section or in our social media!

Thank you for join us today and we look forward to “seeing” you next time!