Turn Overwhelm Into Opportunity

Are you a woman solopreneur who's feeling stuck and overwhelmed in your business?

In this episode, I sit down with Lillian Eilers, an entrepreneurial strategist and creator of the WOOOSH app, to uncover the hidden mindset blocks that keep solopreneurs stuck on a revenue plateau, even when they're working longer hours than ever before.

You'll discover:

01:04 - Why mindset is the foundation of business growth
02:05 - How Lillian tripled her revenue by reframing one core belief
04:10 - The Tabletop Technique for reframing limiting beliefs
05:17 - How to spot your limiting beliefs (they aren't obvious)
08:31 - The trick for overcoming a limiting belief
09:40 - The WOOOSH method: turning obstacles into stepping stones
10:44 - Behavior change can happen with the 21 Day Unstoppable Challenge
15:05 - Wooosh your way to a business success mindset
17:14 - How to access Lillian's tools and coaching

Key Insights: Revenue plateaus aren't always a tactics problem. They might be a mindset problem. Fix your mindset first, and everything else can compound from there to create growth in your business.

🎁 Free Resource Mentioned:
👉 The WOOOSH App: https://woooshlife.com/

Thanks for listening to the Seven-Figure Life-Fulfillment podcast.

🎁 Claim Ken's free gift — Find out how ready your business is for another $20K revenue per month. Take the Revenue Growth Readiness Scorecard.
👉🏻 https://scorecard.kensteven.com/ken-ldxawjii

Transcript

Ken Steven 0:00

If you're a woman solopreneur who's feeling stuck and overwhelmed in your business, you're going to love my special guest today. Hello and welcome to the Seven Figure Life Fulfillment Podcast, where we share strategies to help coaches and consultants grow their revenue by working less and build a life they actually enjoy. I'm your host, Ken Stephen, and my guest today is Lillian Eilers. Lillian is an entrepreneurial strategist and founder of Whoosh, helping women solopreneurs and entrepreneurs build profitable businesses aligned with their purpose and lifestyle. After 20 years of advising organizations, big organizations, including Airbus, NATO, and Honda, through her consulting business, the Blue Ocean Company, she now helps women overcome overwhelm, self-sabotage, and inconsistency using practical, research-backed frameworks that turn obstacles into stepping stones for sustainable success. Louie, I'm so happy you could join us here today. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Thanks very much, Ken, for having me.

Ken Steven 1:10

And I'm eager to dive straight into our conversation today because your expertise is perfectly aligned with the mindset and vision driver of my five business growth driver framework. And why it's so important is because mindset and vision, if we think about house construction, it's the foundation. And if you if you have a weak foundation for your house, it's not going to be sturdy, it's going to fall apart. And if you don't have a strong mindset as the foundation for your business, there's going to be some weaknesses in your business too, right? So let's let's dive right in, okay? So when you when you say you help women overcome overwhelm, self-sabotage, inconsistency, you're you're helping them with mindset to solve these problems, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Yes, absolutely. And it's all sort of backed by science and backed by my own experience. So I've been running the Blue Ocean Company for 20 years. And 10 years ago, I hit a plateau. I lost my energy, my business plateaued, and I had to do something. And I realized that I kept telling myself, I've lost it, I just can't grow my business anymore. And I had some very good truths around that. And that was that I was alone, I was a single business owner, I had 24 hours a day, I had limited funds. And so all of this was just moving in my head. And I thought if I don't get rid of this core belief that I have, which is completely true, I am one person, but there are only 24 days, 24 hours in a day. But if I don't do something about this, I can I can close the business. And so I dove into all kinds of frameworks and models that I knew my coaches and consultants were using around the world. And I came on a very, very good reframing model, which allowed me to reframe the way I was thinking about my situation. So if I can, if you imagine a wooden table with a square tabletop, my core belief was I can't grow the business. If you put that on the tabletop, I had four beliefs that were supporting this real truth for myself, which was I'm one person, I've got 24 hours, I have limited funds, one brain. And the reframing technique actually helps you to reframe, to look at the opposite of those four beliefs. And if you take away those four beliefs, the tabletop will fall down and your core belief will no longer be I can't grow my business. And I thought that was that changed my life. So I freed up 50% of my time. I realized I wasn't lonely because I hired a freelancer. I turned my business around, I tripled the business income within 12 months, and I thought this is so cool. I want to help other women entrepreneurs get unstuck in this way. So I took this reframing technique. I combined it with some other frames and I called it the refocus tool, which is a 20-minute online tool that you can use to not only work on those supporting beliefs, but to actually come out with four action points that you identify yourself that you could implement right away. So it's very exciting for me to be here and to talk about this because this refocus tool is part of the Whoosh app as well.

Ken Steven 4:38

Okay, we're going to be talking about your Whoosh app later. It's great that you you hit you hit some key points here, which are really, really relevant to why I call Mindset Envision a business growth driver. You said it helped you grow your revenue. Remember what I said. I mean, this this podcast is all about helping coaches and consultants figure out how to grow their revenue while working less. And that's exactly what happened to you. You figured out how to grow your revenue while working less, and you created a better life for yourself as a result of doing all that, right? So this is good. So you say it's all about you talked about limiting beliefs and these in these supporting beliefs. Can we give people an example of like a limiting belief that maybe could be holding them back? And maybe they don't even realize. We were talking before we recorded here today that a lot of people don't even realize what their limiting beliefs are. Maybe we start there. How can people identify that they may have some limiting beliefs?

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Yeah, that's I think I've I've listened to a lot of webinars and I've seen a lot of motivational speakers who say what you need to do is you need to transform your limiting belief into an empower belief. And that will drive new actions. But I think what's missing there is how to find your limiting beliefs. Because as far as I was concerned, again, I had 24 hours a day. That's the truth. I was one person, that's the truth. So there was no way I was thinking even that I had a limiting belief. And that's that's why this refocus tool can actually help. I think if you are able to say I can't, and then a verb, and then support it with four beliefs that you can switch off, then uh that's your limiting belief. Your limiting belief is the core belief that you're saying I can't grow the business, or I can't be as good as XYZ, or I just don't have enough time to be as successful as ABC. Once you get that I can't thing going, and then you can support it with really four solid, solid uh supporting beliefs, that's when you have a limiting belief that you need to deal with. So yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I was gonna say, can we take it? I think that's missing is a lot of people are talking about the traditional model for change, and they say as long as you know how to change your behaviors, what to change, and why it's important to you, you're gonna be able to change your behaviors. You're gonna be able to change your actions and get new results. I believe that there's a fourth element missing, and illustrate this with a real medical study that was made with heart patients that were at such high risk that they would die in six months' time if they didn't do what their doctor asked them to do, which was to make a change in their behavior, either diet-related or stopping smoking or exercise. So they knew what to do, they knew how to do it, and they certainly knew why it was important to them, because it was their life dependent on it. And still, out of seven patients, the first study, only one patient made a change in their behavior and lived. And that is just scary. When I talk about this, the hair on my arms is coming up, and that's all because they had stories in their heads that were just telling themselves that they didn't have the ability to make the change. For example, I've tried to stop smoking, it didn't work, I'm not gonna try it. And so it's these stories in our heads that even when we know what and how and why they're important, that's not gonna make the change. It's a scary example, but it's it hits the mark.

Ken Steven 8:31

Can we pick one limiting belief? And can you walk us through the process you just explained and how you would turn that limiting belief into an empowering belief, but using your process and not the one that that everyone else suggests?

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yeah, I think that there's a we use certain columns, we talk about what do you want to achieve, what is your I can't statement, and then we look at the actions that you are taking right now that are actually hindering you from a successful outcome. And we look at the actions that you're taking right now that are supporting that. And the trick is to become aware of this. And this is this is when you do need a coach to help you through this process. It it can be very deep, you know. It can be, you know, I've never thought of myself as a as a leader or a coach, and that's why I am sabotaging myself. And the the trick then is to create new behaviors, the ones that you that will support your your outcome. And what I've done there actually, I've created another method. I call it the WHUSH method, which is the name of the app. And it helps you to actually turn obstacles into stepping stones for success. Very very often we talk about obstacles as roadblocks and things you need to overcome, you need to jump over them or something. And I have adopted a science-backed technique that talks about the fact that yes, you can dream or wish for something to happen, but you have to pair it up with reality. And reality is whenever you do something new, whenever you want to achieve a new goal, you are going to get into your obstacle zone. You're going to leave your comfort zone and you're gonna get obstacles. And if you can identify those obstacles before they happen, then you can create a strategy to take care of those obstacles before they even happen. And that just increases your success by 99%.

Ken Steven 10:43

So, what everything I'm hearing you say right now is it's not one of those things where you simply say, look, just identify your limiting belief, and then you know you'll you'll know how to fix it and everything's gonna be fine. Everything you just described, I mean, even going back to those medical studies, it's like even when you know what it is you need to do, it's major behavior change that's required. And that's why you shouldn't try this alone at home. You really should reach out to someone like you who specializes in helping people work through this because it isn't just it's just it's a behavior change. And behavior change is not one of those things you wake up in the morning and just do.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Yeah, I've I've on the WUSH app, I have a 21-day The Unstoppable Challenge. And the the first week is all around identifying your your core belief. So that's where we use the refocus tool. The second week is all about managing your time and your energy because if you decide to take on a new goal and you your glass is already filled up to the top, it's not going to happen. So, how do we lower you know our workload? Where can we find white space to then add this new goal into our lives? And the third week is all about staying on track. So that's when you get your self-doubt and your imposter syndrome and your procrastination. And what are some of the techniques that I use that work for me to get over that? So yeah, it is a it is a process, it's not just a click, oh, this is a limiting belief, and I'm just going to turn it around and do my thing.

Ken Steven 12:18

No, you're right. And you mentioned self-sabotage there. I think that that's an interesting one because that's another thing where I don't think anyone realizes that they are self-sabotaging, right? So can you help someone maybe understand who's listening today how they could recognize that they may in fact be self-sabotaging, I could use your help.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Yeah, I've I've had it myself as well that suddenly, you know, I want to get a task done, and then I I think, well, you know what? I should clean the kitchen because that we haven't done that for a while. Or so you you find things to do that have nothing to do with what you need to be doing. And once you see that pattern and and it's it's tomorrow and it's next week, and you realize you still haven't moved forward, I think that's when it when you realize that you're self-sabotaging. And there is a there are ways to get out of that, which is to, for example, if you have a huge task, break it into smaller bits, or even doing a committing to a two-minute or a five-minute task. And then what often happens is once you take that step for this two-minute commitment, you may get into the flow and you may just find out that you you're working on something for 30 minutes instead of two. So there are ways to just take a deep breath and just get started, but with tiny steps.

Ken Steven 13:45

When you work with someone, is it is it like, look, there's just there's one thing, but when you is it one of those things where you uncover one thing that's a bottleneck and then that exposes the next thing that's a mental bottleneck, and the next thing that's a mental bottleneck. In other words, it's a it's like peeling the layers of an onion. Is that what you is that how it's working?

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Yeah, yeah. Because because we're all struggling with our limiting beliefs, the first thing you think is the first thing that I do is have them go through the refocus tool because that's a a very clear way of finding out, oh my goodness, I've been thinking that I only have 24 hours a day. And I can I can hire somebody to do some of my stuff. Or in my case, I had at that time 50 consultants working for me. I was not alone. I could reach out to these people. It's just amazing what the refocus tool does. It it it opens up pathways that you just that have been right in front of you, but you've been blind. You just have been blind because of this core belief that you had. So the first thing is the refocus tool. They it they also come out with these action steps that they can take right away. So it's a very action-oriented type of outcome. And then they start moving forward, and then you start seeing the obstacles creep in. And that's why the WHOSH method is actually, I'll tell you what the WHOSH stands for, actually. So it's W-O-O-O-S-H. And it's uh sort of a kind of a worksheet that you fill out. So W, the first W is for wish. What is your wish? What's your goal? And the O is for outcome. What would success look like? And then I put in something that is very important to me, and that's called output. And that is output is the actions that you will take towards achieving that goal, but they are the actions that you control. It's your output, and it doesn't mean that you will be successful in the outcome. The Stoics had a wonderful analogy there. They called it the archer's strategy, whereby they said you should focus on what you can control and not on what you can't control. So the what you can control is waking up early, eating uh correctly, practicing your archery. But once that bow bow leaves, once the arrow leaves your bow, you're no longer responsible for the outcome, which is pretty amazing. But of course, a bird could fly past, the target could have moved, the wind could have picked up. And so when I learned about that strategy, it helped me to be less fearful because it was just a matter of doing my best with whatever I had, and then increasing my chances for the outcome. The third O is the obstacles, and then we have the S is the strategy to overcome those obstacles, and the H is to hone, to see what strategy worked for you and what you can implement next time, or if the strategy wasn't working, then how to adjust that next time.

Ken Steven 17:03

Well, that's great that you've got these tools. Now, how can people reach out to you to get a hold of these tools and maybe talk to you about working with you?

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Well, my website is called whooshlife.com3Os, w o-o-s-h life.com. And there you can find out all the different aspects of the of the app. You can download the app for free. There are productivity boosts that are really inspirational. There are online courses or master classes. You can also sign up for individual coaching, and there are also networking opportunities that we have. So it's it's kind of your go-to place to make sure that you continue learning and continue growing and use some of these very practical productivity boosts to keep going.

Ken Steven 17:55

That's great. I am definitely going to put that link to whooslife.com in the show notes. I encourage everyone to check out Lillian's website and download that app, check out our refocus tool. I think it's pretty clear from listening to our conversation today that mindset and vision as a business growth driver. I think Lillian has given us really good evidence how it is so important to ensure that we, in fact, can have sustainable revenue growth and we can reclaim our time instead of becoming a prisoner to our own business. And certainly all of that can help us design the life that we want to live. So, Lillian, I just want to thank you once again for being such a great guest. I think you've shared some incredible insights here today. And like I say, I will put all those links in the show notes below. And I will see all of you again on the next episode of the Seven Favorite Life Fulfillment Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Thanks very much, Ken.

Ken Steven 18:57

Thank you, Lillian. Bye for now.