Business is just like having kids. Small business - small problems. Big business - big problems. Yet the idea of dealing with "big problems" shouldn't scare you or worse stop you from growing your business altogether.
The solution for "big problems" becoming small is to grow yourself. The more skilled you are in business and the more emotional capacity you have, the smaller the problems seem. The same way a 10-year-old will not cry over a lost popsicle the same way they did at two.
In this episode, I share with you what it takes (practical tips included) to become a bigger person, a CEO, who can handle more complex problems without stress or overwhelm.
And I invite you to work with me one-on-one to grow yourself as a CEO. Apply HERE- https://calendly.com/maggie-s2l/discovery-call
Business is just like having kids. Small business - small problems. Big business - big problems. Yet the idea of dealing with "big problems" shouldn't scare you or worse stop you from growing your business altogether.
The solution for "big problems" becoming small is to grow yourself. The more skilled you are in business and the more emotional capacity you have, the smaller the problems seem. The same way a 10-year-old will not cry over a lost popsicle the same way they did at two.
In this episode, I share with you what it takes (practical tips included) to become a bigger person, a CEO, who can handle more complex problems without stress or overwhelm.
And I invite you to work with me one-on-one to grow yourself as a CEO. Apply HERE- https://calendly.com/maggie-s2l/discovery-call
Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Your business exists because you had the idea to start it. Everything begins in our minds. That's why your business results cannot outgrow your current level of thinking. Do you want to serve more clients, make more money without working more, or burning yourself out? Grow yourself first as a leader of your business because that's who you are as a leader. Even if you're the only person in your business right now. When you lead yourself first, the business results will always follow. My name is Maggie Barton. I'm an international business and leadership coach, an expert in business mindset, strategy and high performance. I created the Diamond Effect podcast to help you elevate your thinking, expand your perspective, and through it, grow your business without overwhelm. So let's get started. Hello, hello diamond effect leaders and listeners of this podcast. Today's episode is definitely focused on mindset and it might become a little bit of a rant, so I apologize if it gets to it, but I think it's a critical mindset shift that's as a business owner, you need to do every time you uplevel, and it's a critical work that you need to continuously do on your leadership journey and the growth as a leader in order to keep growing your business.
Speaker 1 (00:01:35) - And that topic is becoming bigger than your problems. Becoming bigger of a leader, building your capacity, skill set capacity, emotional capacity, the way you think, capacity, then the problems that you have in your business that you're dealing with. I believe that business is all about solving problems. So as the service provider, you're solving problems for your clients with your services. That's why they're paying you. You're right. You're an expert in your field. And they have a problem that you can solve. And they come and they pay you. As a CEO, you're solving problems in your business that naturally happen as your business grows. It's the same, really, like having kids. I know I tell that to you guys all the time, but it's true. Small kids, as they say, small problems, bigger kids, bigger problems. We love being parents and it's amazing. But it doesn't mean it's a walk in the park all the time. When we have babies, the problems are, I don't know, changing their diapers and then pooping all the time, and maybe us having sleepless nights as they grow up and let's say go to school.
Speaker 1 (00:02:49) - The complexity of the problems rises, meaning they have challenges in establishing relationships and dealing with their friends and maybe learning in school. And whatever the case may be in your business is the same when you're just starting. Your only problem could be I don't have clients and that could seem big. But as you gain more and more clients, you're realizing that that wasn't such a big problem. Now, maybe you have to deal with client complaints or project management challenges or staffing or whatever it is, and you realize the problem of having clients was nothing in comparison to that. So as your business grows, the complexity of your business grows, the complexity of problems will grow, and especially if you don't fix them as you go, they will ten X7X to x with your business. So the key thing in business growth is solving the problems that are related to, let's say, the stage in your business you're at. So there are no longer problems, and there are just things that you do very effectively. So you also have capacity to solve for new problems that will emerge just naturally from where your business is set, rather than not solving for the little problems and keep compiling them onto new problems that come as your business growth.
Speaker 1 (00:04:19) - Because that's where stress and overwhelm coming over work and ultimately not loving your business anymore and not enjoying your life. And then when I think about it, what's the point of running it all together if it comes to that moment? So having introduced the topic, I just want to say I want to unpack that and maybe give you some tips on how to grow bigger than your problems. So then the problems feel small and it's not such a problem to fix them. Oh, that was funny I think so the problems grow in, it's not such a problem to fix them. That's what we're going to talk about today. The first question I have for you today is what if a problem that you have in your business is not an issue, and it was never an issue in the first place? Because as I said, business is all about fixing problems. It's the natural thing in business. So when we know that and we can expect that, then those problems are not an issue anymore. And what if it's always about you growing your capacity in, as I said, the way you think, the skills that you have and the emotional capacity to be able to solve different kinds of problems, different complexities of those problems without getting stressed out and overwhelmed by them.
Speaker 1 (00:05:51) - And another thing about problems or challenges, however you want to call it being natural, is that when you set goals. For your business. You have aspirations for your life and your business, your vision. And you get clear on that. And you know, and you start thinking about the path to achieving those goals. The problems and challenges that come up are actually showing you where you need to grow in order to achieve your goals. In order to achieve your aspirations. They're actually necessary. They're doing you a favor, showing you, hey, here is where you grow this and we'll help you get there. I know that might be triggering for some of you and you'll be like, Maggie, what the hell you're talking about. But I truly believe it's true. And when you adopt that mindset, you're starting off already at a better position in solving for those problems. Like, for example, let's say you've had your business for a while and you've generated the same income for the past 3 to 5 years, and you would like to grow the business more and generate more income.
Speaker 1 (00:07:03) - But you can't seem to figure it out because you keep doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. So that's the point where you got to stop and ask yourself, okay, what are the problems in my business that are reoccurring? Or what am I struggling with over and over? Because usually that is the path to my growth. So if I can solve for those problems, which usually means I need to grow more first, then I will be able to break through that invisible income ceiling. And I will give you a specific example. Let's say you've built your business to an X income, and that came with a team of five. But you have a lot of turnover in your team, or you can't seem to figure out how to engage your team members in embracing the changes you want to make and implement them, and you not having to jump in all the time and do it for them. Because even though you tried to give them the implementation of the changes you want, it never works out.
Speaker 1 (00:08:11) - So if you get circling back stuck there that whenever you try to do something and change it, it comes back to where you are and you just keep stuck at that income level. The problem you need to solve for is the performance of your team, but you can solve for it if you don't become a better leader, right? If you don't master some part of your leadership skills. Because think about it, if you already were a better leader, you would have known how to increase the performance of your team, and therefore you would have been able to implement the changes you wanted to. But because you are not, that's how the problem is showing you how to get to your goal. I'll give you two more examples. So let's say you can get yourself to do the CEO work. So working on your business. So marketing and selling and strategy to keep growing the business. If you get entangled in the day to day stuff, making small decisions all the time, telling yourself you just don't have time, you don't have enough time.
Speaker 1 (00:09:18) - And you're so busy dealing with the client work with the admin work and so on that you just don't have time to grow your business. But here, what's happening is, is that you're occupying your brain capacity and emotional capacity with a lot of small stuff that takes up all your time. Right? Because think about it. If let's say we work eight hours a day for five days a week, it's the same amount of time for a business owner who has, let's say, one hair salon and growing that and serving that. And the business owner CEO who has a chain of 30 hair salons and they work the same amount of time. And yet the CEO, who can grow a chain of 30 plus hair salons is just is a different capacity of making decisions and so on. And usually what what that means is they eliminated from their plate and their mind a lot of small decision making because they need space and room and energy to make higher level, bigger decisions. And most likely, they also developed a higher capacity for handling challenges with clients.
Speaker 1 (00:10:35) - Right. Because if I have 30 salons serving X amount of clients, naturally, even if my say, let's say client complaint rate is very low 1%, I will have more of these to deal with than one salon with the same complaint rate in percentage. The CEO with the bigger business probably doesn't sweat that stuff. They don't judge the clients. They don't. Take anything personally. A complaint comes. They impartially deal with it. They learn from it. They move on rather than spend days in hours or weeks ruminating about the complaint, taking it personally, driving them themselves sick from the stress. And that shouldn't have happened. Or why is the client telling me this or this and that? What I want to say here is that we all have 24 over seven, 365 as a time given to us, let's say, in a year. And our brain function is very similar, meaning we have similar energy in our brain. Given that you feed yourself well and you have enough sleep and you're enough oxygen in your brain, so that capacity is very comparable.
Speaker 1 (00:11:48) - Therefore, what you put in your brain and the decisions you allow yourself to take and the problems you allow yourself to think about and solve for or not or ruminate is the difference between being stuck, not growing your business, or overworking and being overwhelmed at the same time. And on the other hand, having a thriving, streamlined business, enjoying life and keep growing it. So now I want to give you three tips on how to become bigger and bigger person and grow so I can deal with more complex problems as my business grows, and how to grow your capacity in order to do that. So tip number one is minimize the number of small, irrelevant decisions you make every day. And I know that maybe for you for now they seem important decision. But always look at if I look a year from now at that decision was it really that important. So we'll give you the simplest example on how I do it and what I do. So for example just eating simple thing you would think or it's irrelevant.
Speaker 1 (00:13:05) - But deciding what to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, that takes our mental energy and capacity. I minimize that a I cook on the weekend for my family, and we usually eat the leftovers most of the week, and then when the leftovers are finished, we have couple of go to things that we do on a Friday or on a Thursday, like an omelet or pizza night, for example. I eat the same breakfast Monday to Friday, you guys. It's a healthy breakfast. And even if by Friday I'm kind of tired of it, I don't care because I don't want to make that decision. I spice it up on the weekend. But another thing I do in my business and what I coach my clients on, and I definitely talked about it in this podcast a lot, is I plan weekly, I make core decisions. What I'm going to do every day a week ahead. I don't spend a number of hours or time and energy every day making those decisions, because that takes away from me to be solving for bigger problems, to be solving for how do I want to grow my business, not only now, but in a year, rather than deciding, what am I going to do this very moment? Actually, I will share something with you that I'm very excited about, that it's relevant to weekly planning and really what we're talking about today.
Speaker 1 (00:14:26) - So just this week I actually brainstorm and came up with pseudo packaging of what I teach my 101 clients as a framework, and I was able to do that because I didn't need to make decisions about what I eat, what I do, and so on. I created time and brain capacity for me to do that. So weekly planning is part of that framework, a very small part of that framework. And the framework is top. So top SEO framework in one part of that is enhancing the performance of my clients as SEO. So performance enhancer top SEO. And I'm super proud of it. And I would definitely be talking more about this. But again, I was able to do that within the time that I work in my business, not somewhere after hours or on a Saturday or Sunday, because one of the things that I do is I limit the number of small decisions I take every day. The second tip I have for you is learn how to let go of small stuff. Don't sweat the small stuff no matter what it is.
Speaker 1 (00:15:39) - I see so many business owners and I definitely coach my clients on it, especially in their early journey. As entrepreneurs, usually more established SEO have learned that develop that skill because they just don't have time or mental capacity. But the sooner you start letting go of. Things and sweating small stuff. Even though it might feel big for you right now, the faster your capacity will grow. So again, thinking about if I really thought about this situation five years from now, would I really think that it's so big and so important? And if the answer is no, you can stop sweating it. So example from, you know, my businesses, I don't take my clients questions or feedback as a personal attack on me, okay? Or even if I had ever any complaint. I usually take that as constructive feedback and I think, okay, where did that come from? How can I do better? Or let's say if I'm having the same questions from a number of clients, I'm not thinking, oh my God, they should know that or why they don't know that.
Speaker 1 (00:16:48) - I'm thinking, where am I not communicating this particular thing clearly enough or frequently enough that a number of my clients are asking about it? Right? I always look about I get curious, I learn, I implement if there is something to implement to improve my performance or my business performance, and I move on. I do not spend hours and days feeling inadequate, wondering why they asked me, fearing that they're not going to like me or whatever the case may be. And I can do that because one, I always assume positive intent. That's one of the advice that I was given as a young corporate leader that I give to everybody. Always assume positive intent. People your clients, your team members, your audience. In majority, 99% of humans don't wake up every day and get out of bed thinking, I'm going to make my life miserable. I'm going to make it a mission in my life. They're concerned about them and their problems and solving for them and having a better life. So usually the questions that they ask are things they come to us with come from that, and usually they're from positive type of thinking.
Speaker 1 (00:18:05) - It's just not everybody is skilled in communication, and sometimes the questions come out awkward, or they might have a bad day and they don't know how to regulate emotionally. And they without personal attachment to you, we're angry talking to you or whatever the case may be. I always come from that assumption because that allows me to be compassionate to the other person, no matter how they show up to me. And then, as I said, the second thing that allows me not to sweat the or the small stuff is I get curious from that compassionate places like where's this coming from? Why they're asking it. Is there something I didn't communicate clearly? Is this something I could do to help them or improve or whatever? Even in my personal life, I can take a lot. I don't get offended by anything. I don't look for some underlying meaning in whatever people tell me, even if it was one. I just very often move on from even unpleasant situations very quickly because I don't sweat that. I don't have time.
Speaker 1 (00:19:11) - Life is too short. Everybody. I really believe that. Okay, the last step, the third and last step is have a predetermined intentional filtering system in your mind for your business that will help you very quickly make certain decisions in your business. The faster you make decisions, the more progress you create, the faster you grow. One of those filtering systems is your mission, your vision, your personal and business values, especially into your goals. Right? Because if I know all that, and let's say I go to a networking event where 30 people have opinions about what I should be doing in terms of marketing and sales or my time management and so on. I can quickly determine if out of those 30 opinions or advice, whether there is one that could maybe help me achieve my goals based on that, on my values and my plan and everything else, rather than not having that and now telling myself, oh my God, maybe I should try all those 30 things because they work for others and spending days or if not months trying them, wasting time on stuff that it doesn't even align with me.
Speaker 1 (00:20:33) - Our brain is really created this way. It's a filtering system. But the problem is that if you don't give it a goal and certain criteria to filter, it will filter on. It's old caveman times programming, which is survival and avoiding the threat. So it will look for things to be scared of and filter this way. You don't want that. You want it to give it direction and help you make fast decisions by filtering the opinions, the information you get out there in your business to just pick things, very little amount of things that could serve you. So I will give you an example from my coach. So my coach and my mastermind lately has been really putting out a lot of value for her clients, organizing a number of workshops and really valuable trainings from bringing in other experts. And that's all on top of the regular curriculum and the coaching calls that we have and all of that. Right. So it's already with the regular curriculum and the coaching calls and other things that are happening. That's already taking my time.
Speaker 1 (00:21:44) - But this is what I paid for, right? This is why I'm with her. And now there's a bunch of extra stuff. If I didn't have my goals and my mission and my vision and knowing what's working me and so on, if I wanted to now to attend to all the extra stuff, I wouldn't have time to even run my business. So I don't do that. Let's see. She had lately a workshop or some training on how to take three weeks vacation a year. I'm already take four four weeks vacation and then occasional days here and there. Therefore, for me that was a quick decision. I don't need that. I'm good. I'm good with taking four and if I ever want to take more and I don't know how to do it, then I'll look for a resort. But then she had out of all those, I picked one that was teaching a tool that will help me enhance even better my strategizing and my planning. So I thought, okay, I'm curious about that. I went to the workshop, I thought it was great, and the next day I implemented the tool.
Speaker 1 (00:22:41) - I didn't spend time thinking, should I do it? How should I do it? Is it going to work for me? I took what worked for me out of that. I adapted it to the way I run my business and the next day it was implemented and it's already serving me. It was that quick and I can make such quick decisions. Runs very high quality, high level decision because I've created that filtering systems for my brain, one of them again being my mission, my vision, my values, knowing exactly where I'm going this year and more or less, at least directionally in 3 to 5 years. That's what high performance is all about. My dear listeners, one of the key components is growing yourself and becoming a bigger person than the problems that come up naturally on the way of growing a business and being a business leader. So that's what I teach my clients. And that's why, of course, I want to invite you to work with me. This is how I also help you double your business without adding more work, and rather eliminating overwhelm and stress and creating more balance in your life.
Speaker 1 (00:23:54) - As usual, I'll put a link in the show notes where you can apply to work with me. Thank you. Have a wonderful week. Bye bye. Thank you for listening today. If this podcast resonated with you, please come back. Also, you can leave a review on whatever platform you're listening, and if you have a suggestion, question or a topic you would like me to talk about, let's get in touch via email or email me at Maggie at Stairway to Leadership. Com. See you in the next episode.