S12 EP37 Train Your Brain for Growth

Season 12: Mindset, Confidence, and Growth

Welcome
Welcome back to the Treat Your Business podcast. This week I’m doing something a little different with a short, sharp, high value episode you can listen to quickly, then get straight back to your busy clinical day.

Episode summary
In this episode I’m talking about why growth can feel messy, uncomfortable, and anything but linear, and why that is completely normal when you start properly working on your business. I share what I see in clinic owners who grow revenue, profit, and freedom, versus those who stay stuck, and I walk you through the first step in your roadmap to results: training your brain for growth.

I cover two common destructive thoughts that shut down progress, then show you how to flip them into productive questions that help your brain find solutions. I also share a vulnerable story from Clinic Growth Live that highlights how mindset and openness to learning can change what you take from any room, training, or coaching.

Key Takeaways

• Progress is rarely linear. Growth can get messy when you start changing pricing, systems, team structure, and decision making.
• Resilience matters. Humility, courage, self compassion, patience, humour, and a willingness to experiment help you move through the hard bits instead of retreating to what feels safe.
• Catch the thought “I know this already.” When I believe I already know something, I disengage and stop learning.
• Replace it with: What can I learn from this? Ask it with genuine curiosity, again and again.
• Catch the thought “This won’t work for me.” That belief shuts down possibility before I even try.
• Replace it with: How can this work for me? Repeating this question forces me to look for adaptations, opportunities, and new connections.
• Hearing something before is not the same as mastering it. Knowing something intellectually is different from doing it consistently and benefiting from it.
• My brain filters what I notice through my beliefs and mindset, so the questions I ask determine what I see and what I act on.

Resources and links

• Quote referenced: Shirley Chisholm, “You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.”
• Questions to practise this week:
  • What can I learn from this?
  • How can this work for me?

If things feel messy right now, I want you to know you’re not failing, you’re in it, and it is normal. Start with the first step: train your brain for growth by asking better questions. I’ll be back next week as we continue building your roadmap to results.

Treat Your Business podcast is proudly sponsored by Klatch:
Results-driven marketing built for healthcare companies. Unlock sustainable growth and maximise ROI with data-driven digital marketing tailored to your business, backed by patient tracking software from search to revenue.

Find out more at https://www.klatch.co.uk

Resources & Links:

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Website: https://Thrive-businesscoaching.com  

Free Resources: https://treatyourbusiness.com 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Katie Bell: Welcome back to this week's episode. I think I'm gonna do something a little bit different because you've heard quite a little bit from me over the last few weeks, and they've been short, sharp episodes, and people are loving them because they're just super high value, super quick, and then you can buzz off and busy off to your crazy clinical days.

[00:00:20] Welcome to the Treat Your Business podcast, the show for clinic owners who want real, honest advice and tried and tested ways of doing things. I'm Katie Bell, [00:00:30] and this is the new era of bigger insights and bolder conversations to help you grow a clinic and a life you love. Let's dive in

[00:00:38] Now, I am gonna do something where I'm gonna talk about the difference between somebody that we see who and you will see as well, who seem to be doing really well and are successful and are growing and making more revenue, and making more profit and going on more holidays and having more time [00:01:00] off, and the person that is struggling, the one that...

[00:01:05] the ones that often perhaps aren't getting the same results or feeling like it's th- that it's really challenging. And there is a quote by a lady called Shirley Chisholm, and she says, "You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas."

[00:01:26] And so I am gonna talk perhaps over this [00:01:30] episode and maybe another one, I don't know, I'll see how it goes about your roadmap to results and why some people make it work and sometimes some people don't.

[00:01:43] I want you to understand that when you start working on your business, it gets really fucking messy. There is a time when you start leaning into understanding your numbers to having to make decisions with [00:02:00] team, to have big conversations with team, to restructure your pricing and your packaging and how you do things and put systems in place, and you know what?

[00:02:08] The easy option, not the right option, the easy option is to just go back to what you were doing before because j- the idea of progress and the idea of change and the idea of making the business what you want it to be might feel like that's what you wanna do, and it might sound simple, but it doesn't mean that the road ahead is gonna be easy.

[00:02:28] And sometimes I [00:02:30] think that wrongly the picture is painted that it's just all gonna be like this linear growth, and actually it never is, and it can get really messy at times, and it can get really hard at times. And those that dig deep show resilience and are supported amongst a community of like-minded business owners and their coaches are the ones that go on to overcome those hurdles and don't just go [00:03:00] back to what feels safe and what feels comfortable.

[00:03:03] You need humility, you need courage, you need self-compassion. You need a massive willingness to experiment. You need a huge amount of humor, and you need patience. Lots and lots of patience. We either make ourselves really miserable or we make ourselves really strong. The amount of work is exactly the same.

[00:03:26] So I want to talk about this kind of roadmap to [00:03:30] ensure that if you are thinking about making some big changes in your business, if you are just starting out maybe with us and it feels messy and it feels hard and it feels "Oh my goodness, I'm now not in control of anything," then

[00:03:52] it's okay and it's normal. Like you, you are right where you need to be, [00:04:00] but there are some things that people do that show resilience and show that kind of ability to overcome these hurdles that others don't, and I'm gonna break those down for you. First thing is about training your brain for growth.

[00:04:19] Okay? Now, your bra- your brain is it's like an amazing computer, but it has two different systems. Okay? One system is often running for you, [00:04:30] and one is often running against you. So we often can have great thoughts, can't we? I'm gonna, I'm gonna employ some staff, and this is what we're gonna do."

[00:04:38] And then we have these destructive thoughts like viruses in a computer that come along and go, "Whoa, that's gonna be expensive. What if they don't perform? What if they're a knob? What if I'm gonna have to get rid of them? What if there's, they're gonna sue me?" And we have all of these destructive thoughts that pop up when we're about to do something new or we're learning something new.

[00:04:59] The [00:05:00] trick here is to catch these pesky things and turn them into productive questions. Okay? Because the brain is actually wired to answer questions. It needs to know the how. So no matter what question you ask, your brain will immediately start searching for an answer. So when we transform these thoughts into helpful, productive questions, you train your brain to help you learn, grow, and improve.

[00:05:27] Now, I'm gonna tell you a little story [00:05:30] here because I'm gonna get you thinking about a way that you can ask your brain two specific questions that often comes from very destructive thoughts. The first destructive thought to watch out for, see this a lot, is, "I know this already. Yeah I've listened to that.

[00:05:49] I've done that. I've tried that before. It's not worked for me." When we feel like we already know something, our minds disengage, and they shut down. The next time you hear yourself [00:06:00]thinking or saying, "I know this already," you need to immediately catch that thought and switch to a growth-minded question or mindset.

[00:06:10] Ask yourself, "What can I learn from this?" And ask it again and again with genuine curiosity. What can I learn from this? What can I learn from this? Because you can always learn new things. You can l- learn a new angle to a concept that you might be familiar with. [00:06:30] You can learn, B- because often, unless you're actually living it, knowing something intellectually is very different from doing something consistently and mastering it and benefiting from it.

[00:06:46] You've gotta be humble. If you come a- across an idea or a suggestion you may have heard before, don't skip past it and say, "Yeah, whatever. I already know this. I've been there. It's not worked for me. I've done that before." Ask the question, "What can I learn from this?" [00:07:00] And train your brain to find new opportunities for growth.

[00:07:03] The second destructive thought is that we often hear is, "This won't work for me." We're different. My clinic's different. My studio's different. Instead of saying, "This won't work for me," which instantly shuts down the possibility of anything working, you need to stop it, catch it, change it to a more productive question.

[00:07:23] How can this work for me? How can this work for me? How could [00:07:30] this work for me? Asking this question again and again forces you to look beyond the obvious and stretch outside your cognitive comfort zone. Poke holes in your own status quo. You'll train your brain then to find new connections, new innovations, new opportunities, possibilities that otherwise would've been missed.

[00:07:50] Because often, when we say, "This doesn't work for me," it can... we may have tried it before, and you know what? It might not have worked for me [00:08:00] before bec- but it might have been situational. We say things over and over again in Thrive, and people hear it at different times, in different places, in different states of their business, and they go, "Do you know what?

[00:08:10] I needed to hear that today. I've heard it before, but it didn't land." So instead of, "I know this already," what can I learn from this? Instead of, "This won't work for me," how can this work for me? And the story that I was gonna tell you is ... It is a little bit of a vulnerable story, and I guess I, I think it's important for me to share this because, you guys need to know that it, we

[00:08:29] I also [00:08:30] feel this. It's also running a business is hard, and it doesn't always go the way you want it to go. But in March we ran Clinic Growth Live, which was the biggest event that Thrive had ever put on. It was the, probably the biggest audience that I had ever spoke to in, in that f- in that way, in that format.

[00:08:48] I was on stage delivering content for close to eight hours. We had done a l- To run an event of this size, the pr- [00:09:00] preparation and the planning and the cost is astronomical, right? All for the right reason, all necessary, all absolutely what we need to do. We wanted people in the room, members and non-members, to really get out of their day-to-day and step into a new zone.

[00:09:18] We wanted people to ask themselves, "What can I learn from this?" We wanted people to say, "How can this work for me?" And we got the most incredible feedback from that [00:09:30] day. And okay, most people aren't gonna say if they didn't really like it. Some people are, but most people most British people don't really say if they don't like things.

[00:09:38] But we had people coming up to us. We've had conversations many conversations with many, like over 100 clinic owners who are getting stuff done and making things happen, and the difference that we have made from that one day alone is huge. However, there was one person who [00:10:00] has ... it didn't come to me directly.

[00:10:02] She didn't come to me directly. Went to somebody else within the company and said that they didn't enjoy the day. They didn't learn f- one thing. They didn't learn anything new. And that heard it all before, and she doesn't know why she was in the room. And when I heard this news 'cause I really fucking care about everybody's experience if I didn't, I wouldn't have run it like I run it.

[00:10:29] And I, [00:10:30] it really it hurt me because I was like, oh, I am really sad that, ... 'Cause I am a people pleaser. I want everybody to have a wonderful time. And for somebody to be sat there with that energy, and I was then thinking, "Oh, I wonder how that impacted the people that were sat around that person and their their view of the day."

[00:10:50] And it made me think about this, these destructive thoughts. And perhaps she didn't learn anything, but we had people in the room that are doing [00:11:00] seven figures of revenue, and they learned stuff. I learned stuff, and I was teaching it. The way to really learn something is to teach it and master it and do it consistently.

[00:11:11] My coaches learned stuff on the day because we are all able to ask ourselves, "Okay, I might have heard this before, but what can I learn from this today? Like, where am I not really living this? Where am I not doing something consistently? Where am I not mastering it?" Because I [00:11:30]would say that, often this...

[00:11:34] when you have feelings like I've not learned anything. It wasn't... there was nothing in it for me. I don't know why I was in the room," the evidence would suggest that you... that often you aren't doing things consistently. You aren't mastering it. Because otherwise, you wouldn't have been in that space.

[00:11:49] There becomes a time in your business where you're ready for the next level of coaching, of teaching, of training of of being in a different room so that you become the smallest fish in that big pond, not the biggest fish [00:12:00] in, in the smallest pond. And we, we know that.

[00:12:04] We have three different levels of programs for that very reason, but we had Ascend members there that, that got a lot from the day. And so I was sad. I felt like I'd let this person down. It really made me kind of question whether I did a good enough job, one person out of 160. But we do.

[00:12:22] This is what happens. That's where our mindset goes, doesn't it? But I've really had to look at this in, from a place of when you train your [00:12:30] brain for growth and you have a growth-minded, growth-orientated mindset, that person would have turned this into, "Okay, instead of this won't work for me, I've heard it all before, how can this work for me?

[00:12:45] What do I need to do differently? Where am I not living this? Where am I not doing this consistently? What can I take from this day?" And that would've allowed this person to really move their business to the next level. And so I wanted to share that story [00:13:00] about, like, how important this is when it comes to being open to learning and to changing and to listening to these podcasts and turning up to my masterclasses and sitting in the room on our strategy days and listening to some of our training on our portal.

[00:13:20] You're gonna hear things again. You're gonna hear things, repeated. But there's a reason for that, because I have to tell you it seven times before you hear it for the first [00:13:30] time. And hearing it for the first time does not mean that you know it. It doesn't mean that you're gonna do it consistently, and live it and breathe it, and become the master of it.

[00:13:39] I'm gonna talk in upcoming episodes a little bit more about your roadmap to results, and how you need to shift your mindset and shift your brain. But the first thing is about training your brain for growth. Asking yourself those two really powerful questions. What can I learn from this?

[00:13:56] How can this work for me? You'll train your brain then to find new connections, [00:14:00]to find innovations, to find opportunities and possibilities that otherwise would definitely have been missed because you are filtering. Your brain is filtering for you all the time. I can never remember the number. I always have to ask Philip this.

[00:14:12] But your... And I'm just gonna make it up to make it sound good. But your brain is taking in, f- four billion bits of information a second, and it needs to process, I'm making it up, 30,000 of them. It's some numbers like that. So we... Every second we're seeing [00:14:30] so much information, and our brain filters, and it filters through our beliefs.

[00:14:33] It filters through our mindset and our thoughts. So the first step in your roadmap to results is training your brain for growth. See you next week on next week's episode

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