Ep 155 - Your Business Will Rise to the Standard You Hold
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[00:00:00] Your business is only going to rise to the standard that you hold yourself to. And this is really important. And, you know, I was talking to someone recently about, oh, you know, what is the work that you actually do with your clients, and where are they usually at when they come to see you? And the truth is that most clients when they come to see me have worked with a business coach previously and have ended up overwhelmed or just didn't implement anything that, you know, they were given to do.
And this is a real problem. And so ultimately when I'm working with people, we're looking at what's going on underneath the how to and working out what is the resistance, what's the conflict between implementing the things that you know you need to do to have the b- business that you want and... or staying stuck where you are, whatever level that is.
And it really comes to this big identity piece and the standards [00:01:00] and how you hold yourself and how you lead yourself that will impact everything around you, including your team, your clients, a- and everything else that's related to your business. And so it's a really important thing that we think about w- who do I need to be?
What standard do I need to hold myself? Who do I need to identify as so that I have the outcome that I wanna have? Right? Because whatever goal you have in your business, it's not a matter of that you're gonna set a goal, and then you're gonna magically achieve that goal, and then you're gonna feel like the person that has that.
Okay? So for example, if you're wanting to, um, you know, create a six-figure business, you're not gonna create a six-figure business and then go, "Oh, yeah, now I feel like someone who creates a six-figure business." It just won't happen like that. Like, you have to hold yourself to the standard of someone who creates a six-figure business to have that business, right?
Which i- And it's the same as [00:02:00] if you're getting to seven figures or whatever else it is that you wanna do. Maybe you're in a business where you've got a team and you're wanting to stop being, um, client-facing so much and focus more on growing the business and delegating and having the team run the business for you because perhaps you wanna be able to sell that business or, you know, you want to semi-retire or, you know, step out and focus on other things that you're, you know, really interested in or passionate about.
And it'll always require you to become that person. And the things that hold people back in that space is it's always identity, and it's a feeling like I can't be somebody else. And so that's essentially feeling like you've got an identity that you feel like, "Yes, this is who I am." And I'll, I'll give you another example of this.
When I first started my business- I was 100%, yes, I can be a great coach and a [00:03:00] great trainer. And so, you know, I did all of the learning study, became a great coach. I was really good at that. I could learn it really quickly. I could implement it really well. Then I became a trainer, and I thought that if I was just really good at coaching and training, that that's all I needed to do.
But the truth is that that is a job mindset, and if someone was employing me to be a coach and a trainer, oh yeah, I would've been a hugely high performer in that role, but I wasn't being employed. I had my own business, which meant I had to be, uh, a business owner. I had to take on the identity of a business owner and hold myself to that standard, which meant I had to really embrace sales and marketing, um, and having, you know, real systems and structure and strategy in my business.
And for the first couple of years, that just did not exist in my business, and it showed in my results. So I really had [00:04:00] to hold myself to a higher level for that to change, and it did, and it changed, you know, radically. And you know, now I've been in business, well, it's over 10 years now, I'll be getting closer to 11 years.
Um, my business has been supporting me full time for the last seven or eight years. Um, it pays me well. I have the lifestyle. I have it how I want, and there's always things that I'm wanting to grow and improve, and every time I do, I have to hold myself to that next level, and so it's, it's really important that we do this.
So the key thing here is that identity becomes before mastery, okay? You're not going to become really good at something that you don't decide you're gonna become good at, okay? So if you're sitting there and going, "Yeah, look, I'm a really great coach or a practitioner or a therapist, um, and, uh, and I wanna make more money, but I'm not a business owner.
I'm like business isn't my thing," then you're never going to [00:05:00] change your business. You have to decide you're gonna be really good at business. Same as if you think, "Um, I'm not very good at sales," or, "I'm not good at marketing." If you hold them as an identity, it will, uh, hold you back and stop you from achieving what you want.
So you have to decide you're gonna become good at marketing. It's the same as if, um, you know that video should be part of your strategy in your business, then you have to decide you're gonna be good at video, right? Sitting there telling yourself you don't like video, you hate video, you feel uncomfortable on video, you're not very good at video, is never going to improve your video strategy.
It's never going to improve your video skill. So for me, I was petrified when I first started doing video in 2015. Um, and I did exposure therapy. I've done 90 days of live video several times over. Like, I just did video after video after video until I became competent and confident in talking to video, right?
And talking to it [00:06:00] like I'm just talking to you, as if I'm having a conversation with somebody and not sitting here doing some kind of rehearsed, practiced thing that nobody can connect with, right? Like, it's a practice, but you have to decide at first. The same thing happened when, uh, I was learning NLP.
So back in 2016, when I did all my NLP training, I did practitioner, I did master practitioner, and then I did trainer, uh, uh, trainers training, and then I decided I was gonna become a master trainer. Now, there was nothing at all about who I was or how I felt about myself that was aligned with me becoming a master trainer and being able to stand in front of a room of 80 or 100 people of, um, students from all over the globe and teach, right?
It was not aligned with me. I was still afraid of public speaking. I had so much self-doubt. There was all these things that were going on, but I chose to take the path and do the thing. I chose to become a master trainer, and I trusted the process, and so I did all the things that a master trainer [00:07:00] would do.
That meant I showed up at a lot of online trainings. I coached in training rooms. I showed up. I kept doing the development. I kept going year after year, and then within five, six years, I became certified as a master trainer, and that is someone who can train trainers. So I had mastered NLP. I could, um, teach big rooms of people from all over the globe.
I could demonstrate techniques on the spot without a script. I did all of that as the process to become that because I decided that that's what I was going to do. And so this is really important. You've gotta decide- Who do you want to be? Like, if you've got a goal that you have for your business, that goal comes along with, who do I need to be?
Who do I need to choose to be? What, what do I need to let go of and express myself as fully so that I can be that, right? And this is the important thing, is when you're wanting [00:08:00] to create a goal, you have to let go of everything about yourself that is not aligned with having that goal. Okay? So if you wanna be really good at public speaking, you have to let go of all of your stories that makes you not a good public speaker.
Okay, 'cause public speaking is just literally you stand in front of people and you speak. It's, it's... That's the facts of it. If you're telling yourself a whole bunch of other stories, they're not gonna be aligned with you being a public speaker. It's the same as if you want to level up your business. If you want to be doing six figures and working three days a week, then you have to let go of everything that is not that.
Okay, if you wanna be, um, building your team and to do, you know, seven figures or eight figures, you have to let go of everything that is not that, and to step up into it. So you might be saying, you know, "Okay, what are, what is that letting go of these things that's not that?" It'll be all of [00:09:00] the stories that you tell yourself about whether you're a leader, whether you're good at business, whether you're deserving, whether you, you know, you're prepared to be seen as being powerful and creating what you want, whether you believe you're allowed to have, um, the amount of time or money or freedom or, uh, influence that you say you wanna have.
You have to let go of anything that is not that. And that can be really difficult because your whole ego identity is built around what you've learned is the best way for you to stay safe and connected to the people that are in your life. Okay, so, uh, so an example of this is- If you, you identify as a people pleaser, it's gonna be very difficult for you to set healthy boundaries.
Okay? 'Cause healthy boundaries means that you value how you feel over how other people feel. And if you're used to having to tread around and make [00:10:00] sure nobody gets upset with you, meanwhile, holding a lot of resentment and not letting anyone see how upset you are by them not respecting your boundaries, then y- you're always gonna have that problem.
Okay? So you have to... If you wanna be someone who sets healthy boundaries, you also have to let go of being a people pleaser. Right? If you wanna set healthy boundaries, you also have to let go of worrying about if other people get upset. Right? If you wanna set healthy boundaries, you also have to let go of pretending like you don't have any needs or that you're, you know, really easy to get along with or whatever else has made it feel like that's the strategy you needed to stay connected to people.
And so these are all the things we've gotta really think about. And so this is why how you hold yourself, how you see yourself, is going to have a huge impact on your own [00:11:00] business and your ability to, uh, achieve your goals. Now, it also applies to your clients, right? It applies to your clients. So how you think about your clients will impact how they behave as clients.
Okay? So if you think about your clients as being people that, um, you know, really need you, and that you have to hold their hand, and they can't do anything by themselves, and all those kinds of things, that's how they're going to behave, and that becomes very draining very quickly. So it is also how you hold them, um, perspec- prospective clients on a sales call.
Um, if you hold them as, "You know, you seem like you're someone who knows what you want and can make a good decision," then they're going to know what they want and make a good decision. Okay? Um, if you, uh, have a client and you hold them as, "You seem to be somebody who [00:12:00] takes action and follows instructions and, uh, you know, is really committed to getting your outcome," then that's what they're going to do.
Because where we hold people to as an identity, they're driven to fulfill because they don't want to feel like they are dropping status in your eyes. Okay? If you were to say, "Oh, everything seems really hard for you," and, "I'm... Don't worry, I'm here for everything," then they're going to feel like it's okay for them to feel like everything's hard and to, like, expect you to hold their hand the whole time.
Um, and so that's not going to improve their results. Now, this also applies to your team. Okay? If you've got a team of people, then how you hold them is going to be really important as well. So if you hold them as people that, um, don't like boundaries, and don't like expectations, and that they're gonna get upset, and they're gonna feel like, you [00:13:00] know, you're picking on them or anything else like that, that's likely how they'll behave.
So if you want them to step up as leaders in your business, and to take responsibility for their results and to have, you know, key performance indicators or ways that they can be measured that they are actually performing, then you need to be able to define what that performance looks like, and provide feedback that helps them develop, and also reinforce positively that in-- that they are someone who does those things well.
Okay? So you wanna be able to give people enough responsibility to build ownership and, uh, and to give them that, um, feedback that you believe that they're someone who can do that really well, and that that's how you see them as. Okay? So recognition really shapes identity, and when we [00:14:00] think about holding at a higher standard, it doesn't just mean just pushing, and pushing, pushing, right?
It, it's also gets rewarded and, uh, so reward and recognition are really an important part of holding a higher standard, and this applies to yourself as well. You want to give yourself reward and recognition for the standard that you hold for yourself. Um, and also it's important for others because people need to know when they are meeting or exceeding that standard.
So recognition gives them positive feedback on their identity. So you can name things for them. So, you know, you can say to people, "You handled that conversation with real maturity." So you're enforcing that that is their behavior, rather than, "Oh, don't you feel like that was a conversation that you handled maturely?"
Because y- asking them, they c- they can have the opportunity to say no. But telling [00:15:00] them that is then giving them that that is the standard of where you're seeing them at. Um, you can, you can give them that identity of saying, "You're someone that I can really see has the qualities to lead really well," or, "You're someone I can see has really strong instincts when you're working with your clients.
I can really see that you're someone who has the ability to make the right decision and without needing, you know, external feedback consistently." Uh, and so you can r- that recognition can really strengthen someone's self-belief, and it then gets them to step up to that level because they're already feeling like, "Somebody sees me as this, so I must be this."
And that's really important. So when we're holding these standards, [00:16:00] it's really important that you've got, uh, clear expectations, whether this is for yourself or your clients or your team, uh, that you have appropriate support and useful feedback, um, and encouragement and r- reward and recognition around that as well, and really room for people to learn and to improve.
And so if something needs addressing, you keep it to the behavior, um, not about the person's identity, right? And we get them to, um, agree that this is the behavior that is required. And that consistent leadership then also lets people know exactly where they stand, right? They know where that they stand, and it gives them clarity and direction moving forward.
They know what they need to do. And so when people have a, um, a, a leadership container that is really stable, then they perform more confidently in that. Okay? People always [00:17:00] perform better when there are really clear boundaries and expectations because there's no second guessing about what it is they should be doing or shouldn't be doing.
It's clear, it's set out, and they can act within that. And that can be something that, you know, people-- Like I said, if you're feeling like you're people-pleasing and you're worried what people will say or worried about getting people upset, when you leave things too loose, they will naturally start responding in a way that creates more issues for you.
So having those real clear outcomes from the start is the best way to go and a real way that you can help people be rewarded and recognized for the standard that they, um, at-attain, that they maintain, um, and that they fully take ownership of. Right? And that is where people feel like they have a lot more, um, also self-trust and self-belief because they've been able to raise to something and that they feel [00:18:00] like they have some level of ownership of it.
So this is the thing that we've really gotta think about in your business, whether you've got teams or whether it's in your clients or if it's with yourself. Really having a honest look, uh, and assessment of what's going on in your business and really seeing what standard are you holding yourself to.
You know, what are the challenges that you're having, and what are you perceiving about them? What are you perceiving about yourself, and how can you raise that standard so that it's a match for what you actually say that you want? And that's when everything really changes and, and this is really the deep work that I do with my clients, is always looking at that.
What's the gap between what you're saying that you want and what's actually going on? And it's always the people problems that are underneath. It's people that make business more complicated than what it needs. Most of the stuff that you need to do is very factual and [00:19:00] straightforward. It's how you're perceiving yourself and how you think other people are going to perceive you and respond to you, uh, that makes things compli-complicated So that's the thing that I do a lot with is helping people uncomplicate things and get back to the straightforward facts of it so that they can perform at the level that they want to in their business.
And then ultimately, that allows you to use your business as the vehicle that does create the life, the experience, the impact, the time, the money that you actually want to have in your business. So, uh, I'd love to know what resonated with you from this episode. So of course, reach out to me, send the messages.
I love reading your emails, uh, and your texts, and, um, DMs, uh, about what really resonated. Share this with somebody that you think this would be helpful for as well. And, uh, there are a couple of spots open this week for my three-day business accelerator. [00:20:00] This is three 30-minute calls with me where we get to look at deep dive at your five, uh, revenue drivers in your business and see where the real bottlenecks are, and create some clarity in you moving forward over the next 12 months towards your goals.
So if that sounds like something that you need now, then, uh, go to the show notes and send me an email. Um, accelerator, put subject line accelerator and let me know what's happening in your business and why a three-day business accelerator, three 30-minute calls with me is just the thing that you need right now.
So that's it for this week and, uh, I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
