The Growth Mindset – Fuel for Your Foot Care Business

In this kickoff episode of EmpowerHer Entrepreneur, we explore how a growth mindset can completely transform your foot care business. Learn the difference between fixed and growth thinking, discover how to reframe business challenges like a clinician, and pick up simple tools to help you stay motivated, curious, and confident as a nurse entrepreneur. Whether you’re just starting your independent practice or looking to scale, this episode will inspire you to see every obstacle as an opportunity to grow.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:35

Welcome to Empower Her Entrepreneur, the podcast that's empowering footcare nurses to grow thriving independent practices nationwide. And I'm your host, Janice Boudreaux, and today we're totally diving into one of the most powerful tools you have as a business owner. Your mindset. And I know a lot of us look at the mindset as, oh, I'm a positive person. Oh, that's right, I'm I'm always staying on task. Or you're looking at it going nonsense, rubbish. Um, you know, this is for the crystal people. Um, this is something that they they put aside, they don't see it as a main focus. And when I started my own practice, I quickly realized, you know what, that success wasn't just going to be about clinical skill. Because I had that. I was great, everyone loved me, my clientele built up fast. It was about how I thought, how I responded to my setbox, and how I believed in my own ability to figure things out. Um, I did. I knew that I was a force to be reckoned with, I still am to this day, and a cup of tea on my porch could give me all the answers that I needed because I sat in the quiet a lot in my mind, thinking, letting the ideas flow. And that's what we're exploring today is the growth mindset and how it can really fuel your foot care business. So let's talk a little bit about like say fixed versus growth mindset. The truth, the term, if you've ever heard of it, growth mindset, was really made famous by a psychologist. I don't know, I'm a nerd, I read a lot of books, um, Carol Dweck, and she studied how our beliefs are about our bill abilities and how they affect our success. So the short version of the two of these is a fixed mindset is believes that your skills and intelligence are totally set. You're either good at something or you're not, and that's a really sucky place to be. Whereas a growth mindset, on the other hand, you believe that your skills can be developed through effort, learning, and persistence. And I've absolutely seen this. As you know, I mentor people people privately one-on-one, and I've had people come to me desperate and figure a lot of things out, and the growth was immense. I seen people come to me that their growth was already immense, or they didn't even believe in the growth mindset, and everything changed. So let's bring this into our world as foot care clinicians. A fixed mindset is gonna say, I'm not good at business, I'm just a nurse. A growth mindset, you're gonna be I can learn this step by step, and that's where we need to be. Think about how many times you've learned new clinical skills, sterile technique, wound care, advanced foot assessments. None of us were born knowing those things. We learned practiced, made mistakes, and we all got better. Business is absolutely no different. So get out of that I'm not good at and get the I can learn this. So let me share kind of a real example. One of my colleagues, let's call her Sarah, used to avoid anything related to finances of the business. She'd say to me, Oh, I'm just not good with numbers. Her invoices were late, her books were behind. But after about a year, she decided to shift her mindset. What did she do? How did Sarah fix this? She took a short online course in QuickBooks. She watched YouTube tutorials and gave herself permission to be a beginner. Fast forward six months, she's tracking her income and expenses confidently. She's she's a person who works for herself. She doesn't have any other nurses, so this is within her scope. She's understanding her cash flow and even setting financial goals. And what's her secret? She stopped saying I can't and started saying I can learn. That's the growth mindset in action, and it's available for every single one of us. I would have to say, one of the biggest differences when they say, Janice, how did you do it? How did you build what you did? I never thought I couldn't do it. I didn't have that limitation. I told you earlier I was a nerd. Oh, I'm a nerd. I learn everything. I don't just hire out, I learn the process. If there's Google Ads, I've took a course on it. If there's actually QuickBooks Online, I took many courses and then I bought the um, oh, what it's one of those books, uh, learning for dummies with QuickBooks. I mean, I've learned every single part of my business. Well, there's a couple reasons. One of them is I'm a nerd. Number two, I'm pretty damn cheap, too. Because so if I can do something, I'm gonna learn it and it's gonna be done, and there's no the I can't do this. So let's reframe challenges, everybody. Here's something powerful challenges don't disappear when you adopt a growth mindset, but your relationship with them changes. It doesn't mean I had you know less things happen to me this year or less challenges come my way in my business. Just when I think I've got everything all set, oh my gosh, I can assure you, new and more exciting and bullshit things pop up all the time. Or I'm like, what? What happened here? But you know what? I believe in gold practice standards, I believe in being a diamond about growing, empowering myself, and I get past it. As nurses, we're already trained problem solvers, guys. We're assessing, planning, implementing, um, evaluating. So when a client's say wound wasn't healing, we don't give up. When a client isn't following our instructions and they're not following our foot care plan, we don't give up. We change the dressing trait, we review their footwear, we look at different ways of teaching them, giving them pamphlets, maybe they need reminders. Um, we're always doing all these extra things. So now imagine applying that same systematic approach to your business. Let's say your client isn't growing or going as fast as you hope. So your client list isn't growing. Sorry. Instead of saying, I guess this just isn't working, ask what can I learn from this? Because you know what? There are so many things I tried and then I said it's either a yay or nay, and what did I learn from it? And I put it on a shelf. I don't throw it in the garbage because sometimes it's just not right for me in the moment. And it could be a product, it could be an extra thing you want to bring into your business, it could be an extra service, it could be hiring. Oh my god, that's the biggest thing I see that people are afraid of in this business is growing and growth and even adding a team member because they don't think their clients will like it. Well, you know what? I have you know moved on from personal care, and I was able to do that. There are so many things that we can't limit um what we're doing and what we're going to expand to. We've just got to learn from it. So maybe your referral system, you know, wasn't clear. That's why you're not getting that client. Maybe your local marketing needs more consistently, maybe your message isn't really getting to the right audience. Every single obstacle is feedback, and that feedback helps you improve. I'm just gonna share a quick story. When I first launched my clinic, I had quite a few regular clients. I was very fortunate. I was always um, I called myself starting out with a bag in my trunk, and I had my home care. But I do remember sitting at my desk one night feeling extremely discouraged, thinking maybe this was a mistake, but instead of giving up, I treated the problem like a freaking case study, and I asked myself, what's working, what's not, what can I test next? I didn't fold it in, and thank God I didn't. I have four, you know, wonderful clinics, home care division, facility division, freaking over, I think, 30 contracts. So had I given up that night, I didn't. I said, what's working, what's not, and what can I test next? I started experimenting, creating quite a few educational posts for Facebook, networking with local diabetic educators, and offering free talks at community centers. And you know what? Within three months, referrals started trickling in. Within six, I had a full schedule. And from there, I realized you know what? That's when I learned my favorite mantra. Every setback is data. When something doesn't work, it's not a failure, it's feedback. That's how growth-minded entrepreneurs think. That's how I think. So, tools for developing a growth mindset. So, how do you build and maintain a growth mindset day-to-day? Here are three simple practical tools that I think you can start using this week. One, journaling for reflection. Can you ask yourself, what did I learn this week? Where did I get stuck? And what did it teach me? Writing these down helps your brain focus on progress that rather than your perfection. So, you know what? If you literally got um, get out your computer, print out a sheet, separate it into those, you know, three sections. What did I learn this week? Where did I get stuck, and then what did it teach me? Print out maybe 30 of those sheets, do it for a month. It'd be so interesting to see how the journaling goes. Two weekly reflection time every Friday, take 10 minutes. This is I do this all the time to review your wins and challenges. I actually on our VIP Footmasters group, which is a group we have for all of you that either have taken a course, a workshop, or purchased a form, we ask that every Friday in that group. And I love to see the answers that are popping out. So, what moved your business forward this week? What can you do differently next week? This keeps you basically in a learning cycle, just like continuing education and nursing. And three, most importantly, surround yourself with growth-minded people, join professional networks, you know, foot care nursing mastermind groups, or even a few fellow foot care nurses who share your business goals. Like when you're spending time with people who believe in growth, that energy rubs off. Choose carefully, pick wisely. Again, you know, sometimes you can scope a few people out. Check out their social media. Are they positive or are they on there slamming clients and unhappy, whatever? Look for attitude. Look for where and the type of people that you want to follow. And remember, growth is absolutely contagious, but so is fear. So choose your circle extremely wisely. A growth mindset, guys, is gonna transform how you're gonna lead, how you're gonna serve your clients. It will turn challenges into opportunities, and fear is gonna turn totally into what? Cure curiosity. So start small this week, try one new thing, learn one new skill, or take one step towards something that intimidates you. You have the clinical skills, the compassion, and the courage. All that's left is you're gonna keep growing into the business leader that you're meant to be. So, everyone, thank you for listening to Empower Her Entrepreneur. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow or subscribe and share it with another foot nurse who's building their own business. And join me next week so we talk about letting go of just getting by and how to move from survival mode to sustainable success. Cheers, everyone, and have a very productive week.