Episode 392: How To Figure Out The Next Steps To Build Your Business

“I don’t know if I should keep doing what I’m doing OR is now actually the right time to be doing something different?”

This is a question we perfectionist business owners often ask ourselves, no matter what stage our business is at. How do we know if we should persist with the business strategy we’ve chosen or if we should make changes instead?

Using superthinking can help you figure out the answer for yourself so you can keep growing your business!

If you’ve listened to other episodes on my podcast, you might have heard me mention superthinking. Essentially superthinking is coming up with a hypothesis to solve a business problem, trusting that hypothesis, then coming up with a way to test and measure it. You then take the results of your superthinking and take action in your business.

This is a way for you to lean into your own wisdom as you build your business. It’s something we all do at some level, but it’s often easier for our brains to think the same thoughts of ‘I’m feeling stuck’ or ‘I’m feeling behind’ and coast along.

I go into more detail about superthinking, as well as how to use it to figure out your next steps, as I coach PGSDer Kristen (@kristencainstyle on Instagram) in this episode. I also share what was coming up for me in my business at that time and give you a reframe to uplevel your superthinking and how you’re showing up for your business.

If you can’t seem to figure out what to do to grow your business, this episode is for you.

Note: Thank you Kristen for giving me permission to share this call on the podcast, I appreciate you!

Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode392.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

  • Getting into self-trust mode and how it helps you show up for your business
  • What to focus on when assessing how much you believe in your goals
  • How to use superthinking to figure out the next steps to building your business
  • Why it’s normal to feel resistance to superthinking
  • Why it’s easier to take coaching on board when you’re listening to others get coached

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Introduction

Hi, and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project, a podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release that perfectionism handbrake so they can get out of that way, and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the Power Planning Course and Perfectionist Getting Shit Done, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business, you can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.

Renae
Hey, it’s Renae, Sam’s marketing manager. And I have found a really exciting coaching call that Sam did a few months ago that I’m sharing with you all, for two reasons. First, Sam discusses at the beginning, what’s coming up for her at that moment for her personally with the launch of PGSD. And she gives us an amazing reframe so that you get yourself believing, so that you can do better super thinking. And you might have heard Sam on other podcast episodes, talk about Super thinking. So it’s really awesome to hear Sam, then coach Kristen, on Super thinking, and using super thinking to figure out the next steps to build your business and activate that self trust mode. So you’ll hear Kristen, beautifully describe what’s going on for her.

At the at the time this was recorded. Essentially, she didn’t know if she should keep doing what she was doing. Or asking when is it time to actually be doing something different? To get the clients and grow her business, and to hear Sam talk about Super thinking, and how to use it to figure out your next steps in your business. I know you’ll get so much from it and hearing Sam coach someone else on it, it’s actually way easier to take on that coaching on board. When you’re not the one it’s directed at when you’re not in the hot seat actually talking about the hot seat. Yesterday, when I was at Sam’s, I got in the hot seat actually about this very introduction to the episode that I’m recording right now.

I thought it would be a good idea to ask Sam. Like, like, how would you like me to talk about Super thinking? And like, how should I define it? Thinking that, you know, there was a specific way that Sam wanted it to be and it ended up being Sam coaching me on realizing that that is my perfectionism coming up right there. How and Sam asked me well, how would you describe super thinking. And honestly, super thinking is something that we probably all do do at some level. But it’s super easy to let your brain just coast along and not do the super thinking.

And the super thinking really comes down to coming up with an I have an a hypothesis, a hypothesis, a hypothesis, and trusting it and coming up with a way to then measure it. And doing the super thinking is not just about consistently working on the personal development elements. And the limiting belief wack, it really is that you’re testing a theory and you’re like, this is my theory of the type of traffic I need to produce. This is my theory on how I’m going to get the leads, this is the traffic, this is the theory, that hypothesis, I’m testing on how I’m going to sell.

And with traffic leads and selling, you then can test it and keep testing and coming back to your hypothesis because of the super thinking. And if it’s not working, you can trust yourself to come back and do super thinking. So you’re gonna really enjoy this episode. And you’re going to enjoy hearing Sam, coach, someone else that’s in the hot seat. So you can take the lessons without having to always be in the hot seat yourself. I hope you enjoy. And I’ll talk to you again later.

Sam Laura Brown
And I just wanted to share a couple of things that have been coming up for me while I’ve been prepping for the launch, and doing that work. And then we’ll get into some coaching. So Kristen, you submitted, Bharath you submitted as well. So today we’ll do that coaching and anyone else who was here live as well just raise your virtual hand if you want coaching, and we can get to you as well.

So something that has come up to me that has been really powerful. And it’s really just in like the last 24 hours. And this is a very fresh thing. But I know that it’s something that I’m going to be continuing to do is that I was doing some peer coaching yesterday with someone who’s in the mastermind that I’m with. And this is actually what came up for me when I was peer coaching this other person and a realization I had and what could be really helpful for me is that I was coaching her on how she would need to be willing to feel in order to achieve her goals.

Specifically what we were talking about was having a financial goal that felt uncomfortable because it felt beyond the realms of what other people in her life were making. It felt like if she was making that amount of money she would be unrelatable that she would have to now start paying for everything. Because family members and friends, even though she like wasn’t actually even at the moment telling people how much she makes you was just thinking, we know we can have these thoughts how everyone’s going to know it, and they’re going to expect me to pay for things.

And I don’t want to have to be the cash cow for the family and just different things like that. So anyway, I was coaching her on, how would she need to be willing to feel, and her brain as most brands to when to, I would need to be willing to feel fearful and maybe guilty that I’m making money, maybe undeserving and kind of like this defensive protectiveness.

And so what I invited her to explore as well was like, what are some other feelings that you’d be able to access to have you achieve that goal, that aren’t that flavor, that are the fear and the doubt and the like, I need to go into the fetal position and just protect myself and brace myself, I think we do a lot of bracing ourselves for things. And there are other feelings that are equally if not more powerful, that we just haven’t practiced being in as much.

So our brain doesn’t associate those feelings with being able to keep us safe and protect us from harm. So something that came up when I was coaching her, and that was self trust, which is obviously something we talk about a lot inside PGSD. And really just like, owning your power and who you are, and what you’re able to create. And something that came up for me when I was reflecting on this after I was thinking about, obviously we talk about self trust, as I just mentioned.

And I think until this kind of realization that I’ve had about it, I’ve been thinking about creating self trust as an ongoing state that I’m aiming to be in all the time, 80% of time or whatever. And when I think about instead, and not even instead, but when I draw my mind to telling myself, Okay, now we’re gonna go into self trust mode, and just kind of framing it like that. So there’s like, times where I’m fearful and doubtful and worried and all those different things. And then being able to just have words for myself that resonate with me.

So these words, find that resonate with you, but telling myself, okay, now I’m gonna go into self trust mode. Even just like not, there’s nothing like that I do to get into that. But in even in just the last 24 hours, when I’ve thought about like, Okay, if I have a decision to make, okay, like, my brain is doing whatever it normally does, and okay, now I’m gonna go into self trust mode, I can feel just a sense of calm and groundedness and self trust that had been there before, but was harder to access.

And so I just wanted to offer that to you as something to maybe play around with, if you have been feeling like you are trusting yourself at time spot, that’s not your default, so to speak, or that it’s still something like you’re working on, maybe you’re doing the self trust stuff at the moment. But regardless, it’s something we’re all working on through growth goal and power planning and clean rest.

So if you are finding that it is challenging for you to, at times access that self trust to just be able to have a little like sentence you say to yourself with like, Okay, now I’m going into self trust mode. That has been really, really helpful for me. And are we continuing to do that. And something else as well, that I wanted to mention is that Daisy and I have been having calls about the PGSD launch, and each day kind of assessing where our belief is on a scale of 1 to 10. And so that has been really helpful exercise.

And what I’ve realized through doing that is that when I was thinking about where my belief is, initially, I was thinking about my belief that the past work I’d done would have 60 PGSDers, which is our goal would have 60 PGSDers sign up. And when Daisy and I had been checking in on there’s always kind of like a between a seven and a nine, never had his hand, but between a seven and a nine. And like yeah, we’ve done what we can and we’re going to continue to do so.

But this kind of underlying belief that it’s ultimately not up to us that ultimately it’s about what people are going to decide and like we’re not in control of that. And we’re not going to manipulate people all of that so it’s like we can do our bit but we’ll see what happens kind of energy even though it didn’t really feel that way. And so what I’ve been reflecting on I was chatting about with Daisy this morning on our call was that it’s really about having it be not your belief and like will they come because we can get really caught up there of like well I believe it but I still don’t know but I believe it but I don’t know.

But to instead think about your belief in your have ability to problem solve to be someone who hits your goal and who is able to, regardless of the circumstances along the way, who is able to navigate towards that? Who is able to do the super thinking needed? Like, just thinking instead about like, will they come to be thinking about like, well, who am I? What kind of person am I, and your number, like, when I did that, I was like, well, I’m at a 10.

But your number might not be at a 10. And that’s completely okay. But just to make sure, like when we’re talking about believing in your goal, whether it’s a launch or promotion goal, or your overall growth goal, that it’s so beneficial to be focused on you believing in yourself. And not just like in that kind of, like vague sense. But believing in your ability to be resourceful to solution find to figure it out along the way to keep showing up to you try no matter what, obviously doing in the way that you’re not burning out.

And it’s in alignment with your values. But I think we can just get caught up on like, well, I don’t know, if they’re gonna sign up, I don’t know, if they’re gonna buy, I don’t know what’s gonna happen. And so I can hope and I can pray, and I can this is, I think, if you’re looking at past statistics, and this particularly obvious for a lot, because it’s very easy like, well, last time we did this, and last time this happened, so then probably this will happen is that we are not only in our power.

And Daisy and I were talking about how it’s easy to be at a 9 or an 8 because it feels more vulnerable to be at a 10 and to be just like I’m in belief about it and I am just gonna now instead of having this like personal development drama so to speak and like things to solve for with self coaching to do it like, no I’m actually a 10 and I’m just gonna act from that place. And my brain is still gonna want check that and still gonna want to do the thing.

But coming back to like, owning what I’m able to create and who I am. And that’s for all of us. It’s not just like when you’re at a certain point in business, now you’re allowed to do that. But for all of us, I think it can be tempting at times, and particularly in a community where we have a lot of self awareness, we talk about self coaching, to be looking at, okay, where don’t I believe, but what I did this morning was like, where am I a 10 in my belief, and I really sold myself on how I’m already a 10.

And I’ve talked about this before in different perfectionist power ups and on coaching calls and things that when we’re in the energy of the belief of it’s working, and I know what I’m doing, that’s when we can best solve for what’s not working. So when we’re thinking that it’s kind of this protective thing of like, well, if I’m thinking and it’s working, when it’s not, then I’m going to miss what’s not working, and I’m going to be in an even worse position. But when we’re in the place of, I know what I’m doing, I know how to get that results.

I’m not in control of who the 60 will be. But I’m in control of there being 60 because of who I am, and how I’m going to show up and what I’m going to create. And from that place, like the super thinking I’m able to do from that place is so much more effective than when I’m like I’m a seven or I’m a three. And then my brain is just looking for all the ways it’s not working and isn’t very resourceful at all. So I just wanted to offer those things. But let’s get into some coaching. So Kristen, I might start with you. Yeah, tell me unmute yourself and tell me what’s going on?

Kristen
Well, I wasn’t thinking of myself on a scale of one to 10. But I think I’m might be a three but I’m hovering in the woe is me, nothing’s working. I can’t find any positive belief. And what you said at the top about the new cohort coming in and feeling like I should be further along, you know, that’s a theme for me the feeling like I and I, I hadn’t consciously thought that but I, when you said it, I was like, yeah, there’s that underlying feeling of oh, no, here comes another new group. And I’ve, I’m an old timer now. And I’m still not, you know, where I should be in the in the world of shoulds if I look at it that way.

So I know that my submission was rather cranky and whiny and pathetic, because that really is how I felt when I typed it. I feel a little bit differently today. However, I think a few things as I mentioned, I’ve actually always loved that Lincoln quote about sharpening the axe with the four hours, you know, if you’ve got the six hours to chop down the tree, however, I am always spending the six hours scrambling not using the four hours wisely to chop, you know, to sharpen.

And so when you mentioned it on the podcast episode, I thought, yeah, I’ve always really loved that quote, but I don’t live that and instead I do the opposite, essentially. And the other thing when you mentioned about what if you had half the time and twice the courage, I was like, Yeah, okay, that makes sense, but I’m not living like that either. And I think both of those things specifically right now are kind of themes in my life, I’m taking three times the amount of time and using a third of the current, you know, like I’m doing the easy things now.

And I think the one other thing I’ll mention is that I really feel like there’s part of me that is just forever going to be creating content, and wondering if that actually is going to lead to clients. And part of me believes that because I’ve had clients come from content that clients do come from content, and part of me is at the, I’m trying to reconcile, am I like, am I kidding myself, and that I just keep creating content, because that’s now easy. And I’m good at it. And you know, or I’m better at it than it used to be. And it’s relatively fun. And I’m better at talking about my offer, and whatever.

And I can fool myself into thinking because some clients have come from content that that is actually what’s still happening and just hasn’t tipped yet. Or am I deluding myself. And in fact, I literally just creating content, I’m not, in fact, creating clients. And so those are kind of the themes like that’s sort of what’s coming up for me. And I have evidence of doing things, usually mostly content things. Like I just today filmed my 100th YouTube video.

So I think, okay, that’s like a big deal. I really was a disaster on YouTube when I first started PGSD and rarely showed up. And so I see the evidence, I’ve just done a year of, you know, Instagram lives every week. So I see that the consistency of the content is there. But now I’m trying to really understand, should I be doing something else? Because the content is great, but is it actually leading to clients? Or am I just pretending that. And the more I self coach on my beliefs, the more confused I get, which is how I got to that desperate coaching submission.

Sam Laura Brown
Okay, tell me a bit about what your self coaching as looks like with that, just out of curiosity?

Kristen
Well, my self coaching recently has been sort of, I had done a self coaching curriculum several months ago, I did it again, recently, and came up with kind of the beliefs I have around my offer, and myself as a style coach, and you know, like, all the different parts. And so my self coaching has been mainly around my belief around my clients and where they come from and what they want and what they’re waiting for, and why they haven’t you know, why they’re not haven’t signed up yet.

My belief around what I do is pretty strong. My belief around my business owner hat is pretty mediocre, because I feel like I run a half assed business, because I’m not fully booked, you know, like, there’s some part of me that believes a business should be a certain way. And so I negate all the stuff in my business that I do well, because the dollars and cents, I think, well, you’re not doing that well.

So you must not actually have you know, so my self coaching has been mainly just kind of journaling on those prompts that kind of go through the thing, the beliefs that I come up with in that sort of self coaching curriculum, and kind of pick one that really feels like it stings a lot that day, and kind of work on that. And I can usually come up with ways that it isn’t true, or, you know, a different belief that I also hold that’s kind of, you know, side by side, or opposite but similar, but then I don’t feel like anything, like I’m not doing anything different.

So that self coaching is just me kind of journaling on the beliefs that I hold that feel like they’re not serving me, but I’m not actually fixing it, it doesn’t feel like.

Sam Laura Brown
So what’s the problem?

Kristen
What’s the problem? The problem is, I don’t know if there’s a problem. I think I’m not being patient enough, right this minute to see if in fact, the content that I’m creating is doing the work that it needs to do. And I know there are still beliefs that it’s not doing the work it needs to do or that I’m not showing up in the way that need I need to show up in order to create the clients. And it’s not that there are no clients.

It’s just that it feels like there should be clients more consistently at this point. So I think the problem is, I think the problem is I don’t know if I should just keep doing what I’m doing. I don’t know when it’s actually time to be doing something different. Not in creating a new you know, program or or offer or changing my website, but just in the What am I not tweak? What am I missing as far as what I should be tweaking other than my beliefs and if my beliefs are what I should be tweaking, I don’t feel like I’m doing that very effectively.

Sam Laura Brown
So…

Kristen
I saw the problem was kind of sick of myself. I feel like I’ve been here a while and I’m not changing it.

Sam Laura Brown
Yeah. And have you looked at like, why? How does it benefit you to be in this state that you’re currently in?

Kristen
No, I don’t have to do anything scary. Because what I’m doing right now is all I mean, there’s a little bit of scary like, I definitely talk about my offer way more than I did, you know, a year ago or whatever. And I talk about it in different ways. And I feel like I’m more sold on it myself. And I believe in it differently, you know, more strongly, and I know its value differently than I did you know, when I first started to talk about it at all a year, six months ago, I forget what the question is, but so that, you know, that feels better. Go ahead, what was the question?

Sam Laura Brown
The question was about how it serves you to be in this state. And I just want to…

Kristen
Do anything scary, because what I’m doing right now feels pretty familiar. Even when I’m changing it to show up a little bit differently, or a little bit with with more conviction or more feeling of the value of what I offer. It doesn’t feel scary enough. So. And it’s not, I’m not seeing huge results. So that makes me think that it’s not scary enough.

Sam Laura Brown
And I know, I’m guessing you’re quoting me when I talk about, like the needle mover is thinking about, like things that are scaring uncomfortable and that kind of thing. But do you think like, at this point with where you’re at, is that the best metric to judge whether or not you’re a real business owner, like it seems like you’ve got, if I really had this real business, A, I’d be like, fully booked, and, B, I’d be constantly doing all of these uncomfortable things. When that might not necessarily be the case.

Kristen
I think I feel like the scary things are standing between where I am now and fully booked. And part of that, I think, is your voice in my head a little bit. But it’s also that I had to do scary things to get to where I am now. So I know the scary things are, you know, I believe that there are still things that I need to do that are bigger and scarier than what I’m doing. Yeah, I really think I don’t think that’s just you, in my head, I really do think that somewhere I’m holding back or not doing the thing that feels scary. But I kind of feel like I don’t know what that would be. And so, and I don’t want to just keep showing up the way I’m showing up with little tweaks and feel like I’m not like that, that I missed something. But that wasn’t actually the best way to be using my time.

Sam Laura Brown
How will you know if you are missing something or not? Like you keep talking about not knowing if you’re missing something and not knowing if you’re being delusional or just doing content? How will you how does anyone know if they’re missing something?

Kristen
I guess if every other PGSDer goes on to meet their growth goal except for me, I’ll know that I was missing something. I mean, I’m kind of kidding. But like, I don’t I guess I don’t know how I will know if I’m missing something.

Sam Laura Brown
Yeah, and this is where it comes back to self trust that it’s just deciding to come up with a hypothesis and test it and to come up with very clear metrics around it rather than it sounds like you’re like, I don’t know, like, I’ve thought about why they’re not signing that. But I don’t really know. And I can’t trust myself to know, even if I did have a hypothesis. And I know I should have more clients. But I don’t know exactly how many I should have at this point in time. But I know I should have more. And something for example, that like I just did, before this call, like I have all scribbles on the whiteboard in front of me is think like doing a launch debrief ahead of time for this launch. So our goal is 60. As I said, I’m at a 10. And from that in my belief that we’ll get to 60.

And from that place, I asked my brain, okay, imagine like in a week’s time or two weeks or whatever. I’m reflecting on this launch, and we have 10 sign up out of 60. Why was that the case? Like why did our best PGSD is by why didn’t like the ones that are our best clients, why didn’t they buy? What I know for sure is happening, and I just made shit up. Like, you know what I mean? I didn’t like I’m looking at different things. But I don’t like I’m just deciding that my eye noise so that I can do something about it.

Kristen
Yeah, and that actually, the, I think the perfectionist handbrake for me comes on at the idea of making shit up because I like to know the answer. I like to research I like to have the facts, I want to waste time in that or spend time which ultimately might be wasting time in that space. So the making shit up requires so much self trust that or you know, requires me to put on that self trust hat or go into self trust mode. And I haven’t been willing to do that, I guess in this loop that I’ve been in.

Sam Laura Brown
Yeah. And so I have talked about with Daisy on our call this morning. Like when we do the call we go through like the goals that we have our values and like that kind of thing. And then And the key like principles and and ideas that we have for this launch. Just around like PGSD work like just things we want to remind ourselves of, and the approach we want to take. And that’s something that I added in there that I was looking through. What I was really thinking about at the beginning of when I was creating the launch content is divergent thinking.

And I think I mentioned that maybe on a coaching call around that time, but I think it’s helpful for everyone to just be thinking about is there’s divergent thinking. And I think it’s convergent thinking is that the alternative to that. But divergent thinking, which is what I’m talking about doing that I did on my whiteboard, is when you ask, but you see there being so many solutions, and that it’s not like like the way we often talk about there’s one big missing piece.

If I could just find what that is. Every single click and magic will happen. Which is that thinking of there’s one right answer, and so I must find the right answer, and I need to be sure it’s the right answer. And I can’t do anything until I know it’s the right answer. And ironically, action is what tells us if it’s the right ones, it’s only when the right answer a right answer, because there are many. And divergent thinking is the growth minded way we want to be thinking, which is there are so many ways to get to our goal, there’s so many different things that might be going on.

And it’s not all or nothing, and I need to like solve for all of them. And have done that all by yesterday. And that kind of way. It’s there are so many things, so many options, so many right answers. And I’m just going to pick one or pick how many have I need to pick and then come up with a way that I can test it and test it. So I have like I was thinking about why our the best clients, the people that we can help, why they didn’t sign up.

And I’ve just like, made up from my brain, different beliefs they might have. So I want to make the most of PGSD my business needs to be more prepared, I need to have a clearer and easier messaging, I need to know what I’m selling and how much for like, I’m just not ready yet to make most of it. I don’t have the energy to be more productive. Like I’m so burnt out, I just need to spend the rest of the year like read like all of this stuff.

Until this morning, when I asked myself I was like, I think we’ve covered everything like I’ve already done this super thinking I did this multiple times throughout the launch prep stuff. So and just to remind everyone, this is like my day seven launch. So don’t be exactly yourself to do this from day one. But just asking my brain, like what are all the different options I can see. And then from that place, creating a plan. And this is something Daisy and I have been talking about as well is that like the better we think the higher level we think that the more PGSDers we attract into PGSD.

And we often underestimate the level of thinking required and a level of action required. And so we are not… first of all uplevel our thinking this doesn’t mean that it’s kind of like you’re thinking like there’s a bucket with all these leaky holes, and you must first fix all these leaky holes before you can start filling the bucket. But instead knowing like, even just changing one thought or like entertaining one thought, can then have us and we didn’t have to sustain that thought, but that can then have us generate a more impactful plan than we were able to before.

So I think like this pressure you’re putting yourself with like, I’m changing my beliefs, but it’s not really working. It’s more like actually, you have a human brain that thinks lots of different things. And that’s how all our brains work. And just because your brain is having thoughts about I don’t know why they’re not signing up or whatever, doesn’t mean you don’t know. But you had very all or nothing thinking of like you said, I’m always scrambling. Like I’m doing the opposite of what I should be doing. I know in your persistence, like so you say like I’m allergic to clean rest. When you probably doing about a pretty similar job to the rest of us.

My second thing to say I’m allergic to it, because that creates this like struggle and tension there instead of just being like, actually, I’m pretty good at clean rest. And I’m still working on that. But I’m like I’m not spending 24/7 on my business. Because you’ve literally talked about your persistence log like the stuff you’re doing with your kids like, you can see from what you’re sharing, you are getting clean rest as we define it. And yet your brains like, no I’m not, no I’m not. Let’s like, focus on how I’m not doing a good job with this. And it seems like you might be using the PGSD process against yourself.

Kristen
Jot down as soon as you set it as a standard as to it. Yeah, but 100%, a hundred percent.

Sam Laura Brown
So that’s not what the PGSD like I, as I said, our brains like to do that, like, well, here’s that here’s another aspiration I have that I’m failing to me. And instead, it’s like, no, here’s some guiding principles. And let’s just like, have a go with them. And you mentioned in your application for the coaching about, like, I know better, but I’m not doing better. Welcome to being a human like, that’s literally the human condition.

We all have ways that we know something intellectually and our actions aren’t reflecting that. And so if we expect that, well, if I was doing a good job, all of my intellectual knowledge would be reflected in my actions 100% of the time, obviously, we’re going to feel like shit. So if you were to go into self trust mode, tell me what you do know about the content, and your clients. And what to do.

Kristen
What I do know about the content is that it is getting better with the consistency that I have been giving it. And that it’s easier for me to create, and it’s more fun, you know, I guess…

Sam Laura Brown
Tell me about it as it relates to the person on the other.

Kristen
I am more clear in sharing my offer here and talking about I mean, I do that at all. So I’m more clear in sharing my offer, I’m learning more what my offer actually is and what value it has to the potential client who’s hearing about it on the other end through the content.

Yeah, I mean, I do believe that the content is valuable. I just also believe that I am spending a lot of time on content. And I don’t know whether clients are even going to fit with the content that I’m creating currently, you know, I’m kind of allowing it to take up all the space, as I said, I’m not using half the time and twice the courage I’m using more than half the time and you know, and it’s not requiring courage, which I understand maybe right now, at this phase.

Courage isn’t the most, you know, that’s not the most important thing that, you know, I am okay with being where I am with content and just continuing to fine tune it. So I believe that the content is actually getting better, and that it is delivering my message in a better way to her and she’s hearing it differently. And it’s more compelling, and I’m more sold on the value. So um, you know, it’s easier for me to offer it and offer it as a value. And then you asked about the clients what I’m thinking about the clients?

Sam Laura Brown
Well, you’ve kind of answered it that like just I wanted to get some of the thoughts. So I think that, just to clarify, when I say like, and I mentioned this, I think in the episode on power planning that just went out recently, but I think I mentioned a few of them in the planning series on or maybe it’s a needle mover, one, about having twice the courage and half the time, because you’ve mentioned in your submission about. Like, it seemed like the way it interpreted that was like if you had half the time to get a task done, which might be a helpful way to think about it. But also I like to think about it like, say, if you normally have a 20 hour working week, if you had a 10 hour working week, what would you be doing in that time? And it’s not to have you beat yourself up?

Because oh my goodness, like that, like, whatever you’re thinking, it’s just a way to access divergent thinking of, okay, what are some other options that I might not be seeing? Because I have so much time that I feel like I can do everything that if I actually just constrained myself, I would be able to more clearly see, okay, well, if I only had half the time, I would cut out this kind of content, or actually, when I do this kind of content, I would make sure that I’m super clear about XYZ, or whatever it is, like just, it’s just a question to help our brain access more solutions.

It’s so important to know too am i doing super thinking, divergent thinking whatever, that it’s not like every idea we have, we need to implement I think sometimes we can be scared to generate ideas because then we’re gonna like, Oh, now here I am, again, with more ideas. And I’m doing anything with I love just like taking the lid off, bringing up all those ideas, which is something that used to be really challenging for me like I would squash the idea before I could even have it because I was subconsciously judging it.

So like letting myself I want to share ideas. And then just choosing like 1 to 3 to implement. And part of being an entrepreneur is getting comfortable with having lots of ideas that aren’t being implemented or like lots of things like lots of loose ends, lots of things you want to do that aren’t being done and knowing that that is business like that is if you have a business where there’s innovation and you’re growing, you’re always going to have more ideas, then you’re going to be able to execute on.

And so just knowing that, like, it seems like with this, that maybe you’re not letting yourself actually like, fully explore different ideas you have for fear of not being able to execute them, or for fear of them, maybe taking more time than you already are spending on your business and doing content and that kind of thing. But also, like a reason not to worry about myself a lot in this coaching call. But I think I’ve recently shared about how I did a time audit of my power planning. And I saw that 50% of my time was going to creating Instagram content, which is like, third on the totem pole in terms of like our marketing platforms.

And I could have gone oh my god, this is like, look at me, I’m, what did you say? Like, it’s like, you know, taking them three times as long as a third of the courage and a bit, I was like, oh, so interesting. And just you like, just chose to think of it this way. Because I was choosing not to beat myself up when I could have so easily be like, this explains everything like, look, how should I am whatever. Like, oh, how interesting. Now I can see that. And for me, like where I’m at in my business, I could say okay, I’m going to condense that way down.

And then I’m going to ask my brain, what else needs to be done? Like he was saying, like, I don’t know what else to do it that’s my brain was also there, because I was filling with Instagram stuff, because my brain knew what to do there. And I hadn’t gotten it to do the uncomfortable, super thinking of figuring out what else needed to be done. Which wasn’t like any, it seems like you’re thinking maybe like, oh no Sam has some fancy plan about all these different scary things. And I just need to figure that out for myself. It looks pretty similar to before. But it’s just done with it, like a different level of thinking about myself particularly and about the business.

Rather than it being like I’m still creating content. Right. I’m still doing a lot of the same things. But I have basically more time for high level thinking than before. And there’s other edits that as well. But that’s one of the main ones. So it seems like a lot of us have this like everyone else in their business. Like, they’re not just creating content, or they’re not just whatever I’m doing that isn’t good enough, they’re also doing this or that or all of that. And I think when it comes to the the question of like, like these scary things, I think, perhaps we knew it could be the scary thing is like taking that time to do the super thinking and not just like working on the limiting beliefs, so to speak.

But like, the scary thing is coming up with a hypothesis and trusting it, and coming up with a way to measure it and not meaning you have to like track all this data in this really meticulous way. But just my theory is if I create X kind of content, and I’m thinking about myself and my client in X kind of way, that the end of three months, I’m gonna have this number of clients. And these are my checkpoints along the way.

So for example, with the launch, Daisy and I have a daily checkpoint of how many PGSDers we expect to sign up each day. And it’s not to say that it doesn’t mean we couldn’t have 60 Sign up on the final day. But it’s just a point for us to check in and say okay, are we on track or off track? And if we’re on track, how can we continue to double down on what’s working and if we’re off track? Like what super thinking can we do? How can we, like instead of just being like, well, I’m just gonna like be patient and wait and see for three months and then the end of three months I’ll have a look and say, Oh, no one signed up. I don’t know why.

Kristen
And I’ve avoided the super thinking, yeah, sure. Because part of me has that, that, you know, voice playing in the back of my head that I’m behind. So I don’t have time to super think, you know that I don’t want to take that pause to do that. And part of me, I think, is a little afraid of the ideas, as you know, as you said, either that they won’t be good enough, or they’ll be good, but they’ll take too much time, or they’ll take too much effort, or they’ll be too scared, you know. So I have been, I’ve certainly been avoiding the super thinking, which is interesting, because I actually like to do it.

But I have been kind of punishing myself by pretending I don’t have enough time to do it. Because I already have other things on my plate. And that isn’t going to be, you know, like, yeah, I haven’t allowed that. I haven’t, I haven’t looked at it as important enough. And I haven’t, it feels like an indulgence to do the super thinking. And when there are clients, you know, for some reason, I feel like I should be doing something else to, you know, attract clients. And the super thinking is not that and I realized that that isn’t actually accurate. I need to change the way I’m thinking about the super thinking.

Sam Laura Brown
Yeah, and I think like, what might be going on is you feel like you like super thinking that you probably don’t like super thinking at the same time, because it’s going to get you to do the uncomfortable thing.

Kristen
Right? It’s like I would like super thinking for somebody else’s problem. You know, like, I like super thinking as an activity but not actually with the way it pertains to my business. I’ll super think about how to reorganize the garage happily, you know, it yeah, it’s it’s my own business situation. I’m avoiding the super thinking for sure.

Sam Laura Brown
Like I know for myself when I needed the most is when my brain has the most drama about I don’t have time to do it. Like with the the launch that’s like, currently ongoing about start. I spent like two weeks super thinking and like, like squeezing my brain for like, what it knows and how to, like describe things in a clearer way, like thinking about analogies that I could share in different things. And then so instead of like in the March launch the April launch, I spent like three weeks creating the content. And like half a day, maybe an hour Monday, but like I was just like I don’t have time I need to get into the content.

This time I was like, actually, the more I super think I know, my content creation is going to be much quicker, because I’m going to be willing to repurpose things, I’m going to be able to sit down and just write more clearly because I’m in a different state. So just knowing your brain is going to have like, super thinking, your brain is going to have drama about it. Because it’s going to end up with you. Like a our brains don’t want to super think. They don’t want to be they just want to like show up Hey everyone, here I am live did that like that’s way more comfortable for our brains, even though at some point, that was a really scary thing that is more comfortable for our brain to do that, than it is for our brain to be super thinking.

And like I like to think of it like my brain sweating. And like I’m at the gym, like lifting weights when I am super thinking, because I don’t like my brain resists it and doesn’t want to do it. But my brain resist that. And just knowing that, like, if we’re feeling like I love super thinking, potentially it could be that this super thinking you’re doing isn’t having you show up like I don’t really know, dissing how to word this. So it’s not like the right way in the wrong way and that kind of thing.

But it’s knowing that like, if you feel resistance around it the same way with like your weekly review, that’s probably a sign that it’s uncovering some, like uncomfortable truths for yourself and, or, like, it’s bringing up things for you at all like also your brain. It means basically like, your brain is thinking at a level that it doesn’t want to be thinking that it just wants to be coasting and doing the things that always does and thinking the same thoughts of I’m stuck on behind like your brain wants to do that. Versus be thinking about how is it not true that I am behind?

So, with the… What they’re saying, you’re super thinking our brain is going to resist it. And that’s normal and I think that’s a good sign and you can it’s like with the gym you can learn to love, like that feeling of sweating and that feeling of like, physically walking hard and I think the same is true for super thinking, you would have been thinking like, Oh, that’d be so great. And I’ll just be like, journaling away and coming up with all these ideas. I’ve, in my experience, at least, the super thinking I do that is the most productive part like my brain, I can like, feel it kind of like flexing and having to push it beyond the level. Does that resonate with you about super thinking?

Kristen
Yes the sweating makes complete sense. Yes. It feels like a squeeze for sure. When it when I’m doing it, and it feels effective. Yes, absolutely. And I’ve been avoiding that for sure.

Sam Laura Brown
And I think it would be willing, like being willing to say, I’m going to skip a week of content to do the super thinking.

Kristen
Right.

Sam Laura Brown
And knowing that, like, once you’re really at a place where you can, you’re in that like self image of consistency. And this is all might also bring up like, where you need to maybe solidify that a bit more. But when someone’s consistent, you can skip a week, it’s not a big deal. It’s not like, Oh, my God, but I had this perfect streak. And now I’m no longer doing it’s like, oh, no, like, it’s normal for me to show up, I’m going to, like, the responsible thing for me to do is do the super thinking, if I don’t have enough time to do it, because of the content. And then I’m just gonna keep showing up, as I always have, and continue, like, but when when we don’t have that self image, we’re like, oh, I can’t remember straight. Because once I do, I’m, like, never gonna post again, or like three months time.

Kristen
Yeah, and I thankfully have gotten past like, I have been there and fallen off the wagon and back on, you know, I have been there for sure. I don’t feel that way about my content anymore. And I have seen that some of the content does much better. When I take a break. You know, like, all of a sudden, there’ll be a surge of people looking at old content when I haven’t posted any new content. So yeah, I, the super thinking is the important next step, and I have been avoiding it. Absolutely.

Sam Laura Brown
And it’s just like listening back to this and the things you were saying about. Like, I don’t know, if content is the right strategy of I need to spend my time there, or what else I should spend my time on? Or like, if I should just be patient, like asking yourself those questions in your super thinking. And like, if I didn’t know the answer to these questions, or like, is there a more helpful question I could be answering or asking myself or like, for example, when I tweeted this whole, like brain dump of like, different ideas as well for like Instagram, because Daisy and I were talking about that.

And so like, I have a lot of ideas that would like, also be very time consuming. But it’s like letting myself have those ideas. And then what I wrote down was, what’s the most impactful thing I could be doing? Like, what if I could just do one of these things, which thing would it be, and that doesn’t mean, I only have to do one, but it’s been able to have like, to trust ourselves enough to let all the ideas come up. The ones that are time consuming, the ones that we don’t have the team to execute on the ones that like we might even want to do, but when like we’ve seen someone else do it maybe or whatever.

And then having the self trust to say okay, but I’m willing to have all those big ideas and let them be seen fully. Because I can trust myself to then be able to discern what my plan is going to be and execute on that plan. And that it’s really just like a matter of like and I’m gonna just gonna enter self trust mode and do that rather than thinking like, well, maybe Sam can do it because of whatever like these other people can do it. Myself, trust is in the gutter, and I can’t did it. It’s just a decision and a willingness to be in the discomfort of doing something that might not work. Because all this stuff, as I said, it’s made up.

But I’m like, what’s the alternative to not have the idea? And I’ve spent a lot of time in that alternate reality, where I’m like, well, I don’t know what the answer is, I might just as well come up with none and do nothing. I’ve lived in that for many years. Not fun. I’m sick of that. So I’m, I’m willing, like I’ve had my like, I’m sick of myself moment. Moments. And now it’s like, okay, and I’m actually going to do the thing where I’m willing to come up with a hypothesis and test it and it might be completely wrong. But I trust myself as well to evaluate after and be able to discern that. And I also trust that if I’m not able to discern that the next time I make that mistake, if we want to call it that I will be able to all the time after that like that. It’s never going to cost me too much. That it’s costing me more to not have a hypothesis than it is to to have a hypothesis that could be incorrect.

Kristen
True. For that, I feel that for sure.

Sam Laura Brown
So what are your next steps?

Kristen
My next steps are to super thing for real. And to give myself a break, I mean, I definitely have been harder on myself over the last couple of months than over the last year. Because I guess as I saw things changing, I gave, you know, I felt good about that. And now, I’ve just been in a funk feeling like, I’m not doing enough or not changing or not, you know. Yeah. And so I think cutting myself some slack, you know, and accepting the humaneness. Like, I think I’ve been too hard on myself, I really have been holding myself to some standard, that is absurd.

Sam Laura Brown
So what does that look like tangibly speaking, because we can all say like, I’m just gonna not be so hard on myself. But what does that actually look like?

Kristen
I think, tangibly speaking, I know, there needs to be some sort of a thought, or a post it note, or both, or something that truly I, I’ve returned to when I’m starting to feel like all the things that I that are my go to things scrambling behind, you know, all of those things, as a reminder that this is just part of exactly where I’m supposed to be part of this, you know, human journey that I’m on. And, you know, some sort of reminder of all the things I actually have accomplished and all the ways that I actually have grown and changed and, you know, adopted a different mindset and released my handbrake, because there are certainly plenty of those. I just haven’t been acknowledging those really at all, or not acknowledging them as enough, I kind of dismiss them like, yeah okay, that’s great, but it’s not, you know, Iam not at the next phase. So I’m not actually sure what the tangible, the tangible act is for chilling myself out about.

Sam Laura Brown
A great thing to super think on. And just to clarify, like, when I talk about Super thinking, like, it’s really just asking yourself, like, asking yourself, what are the high quality questions I could ask myself or being willing to ask yourself, whatever questions come up, and then answering them and then asking more, like, it’s, I think there’s, I think of it like, there’s self coaching, which is, I mean, this is just how I’m thinking about at the moment.

But when I’m doing self coaching, it’s like looking at my brain and how it’s thinking and like thinking about my thoughts, and super thinking, when I’m doing the best super thinking, as it relates to the business, I’m focused on you guys. I’m focused on our future PGSDers, I’m focused on the business as a whole. And I’m thinking not just about like, myself, and how I’m operating within the business, but I’m thinking about the bigger picture of things.

And just, it being like accessing new thoughts that I haven’t had, rather than like, looking at thoughts that I’m having and trying to, like, do the coaching on them. But super thinking on how can I make it a tangible practice, for example, if I might find five times throughout the week that I feel find myself in this certain feeling. And then in that situation, I’m going to do XYZ. Instead of it. Like if we say, like, I’m just, I need to be kinder to myself, like, sounds great.

So say, for example, a tangible practice I have around that, that has now become pretty automatic, is instead of saying I should have done whatever past focus, it’s next time in that situation I’m going to do whatever it is, I like, look at it future focused. Next time in that situation, I’m actually going to do this instead. Because when I do that, it’s not me beating myself up. It’s not I should have I was wrong. It’s okay, here’s what I learned and next time, and it’s always such a more tangible takeaway than like, I shouldn’t have done that.

And we tend to just stop that. And our brains like cool. Well, I don’t know what to do differently next time. And I like it’s so relevant now that I have a toddler and just thinking about how you can say to her, like, be careful, vague, or you can say to her, like, hey, like, you know, we’re in the shower, it’s slippery, like bend your knees a little bit more. Like, how much easier is that to follow? Like, she doesn’t she’s like, 16 months old. She doesn’t really get that.

But she’s starting to and it’s like just me practicing instead of the vague thing, which is similar to what I would tell my brain. Don’t do that. We shouldn’t have done that whatever to be like, Okay, what specific things I want to say. Let’s say instead of like, don’t hit, it’s like gentle hands. It’s like just thinking about something instead of the thing not to do, what’s the thing to do and how can we create some kind of measure on that. So it’s not kind of like this self trust mode. So it’s not like, okay, now I need to be kind to myself all the time. Now, there’s another thing I’m not measuring up to.

Because here I am beating myself up again, classic me. It’s instead of five times this week, one time this week, I’m going to notice when I’m beating myself up, I’m going to be clear about like, what that tends to look like for me. And in that situation, I’m either going to just like, check in with myself and be like, okay, this is something I do. Like, if I find myself feeling like unresourceful and like, helpless or overwhelmed or whatever, like, what’s really going on to me?

Because it’s never the thing, I think. That’s just like, the drama my brain wants to be in. But like, what’s really going on for me, it’s like, I’m feeling like, I’m not speaking up for myself, or I’m not supporting myself, or I’m not like I can, there’s something else there. And oftentimes, just having that realization, like removes the beat up, because the beat up was just the distraction. So it could be something like that. It doesn’t have to end with like, I’m gonna have this whole self care routine. Like, it’s not about that.

It’s just like, How can I create something really tangible, that I only have to do a couple of times in the week. And knowing that, even just with that intention, you’re going to also be subconsciously doing it and other times as well. But we want to make sure for all of us if we’re, and be paying attention to this our weekly reviews, that if you’re saying like I need to be kinder to myself, I need to stop scrolling, I need to whatever to like, what’s a tangible specific, like, action focus, rather than like trying to not do something?

What’s something they can actively do? Couple of times this week, that’s going to lead me in the direction I want to be in.

Kristen
Yeah, that’s helpful. That’s helpful.

Sam Laura Brown
But I know that everyone will be able to relate like we all have our brains. We love just telling us we’re behind and and we are stuck, we don’t know what to do. I don’t know why it’s not working. We’re trying our best but it’s still not working and we should be further along and all of that. And our brains are filthy liars. And so it’s just remembering that but not making yourself wrong for thinking like, well, I I know better now than to have these thoughts of like being behind. Like our brains just want to keep thinking that. Because like I was talking about earlier in a coaching call like our brain has that favorite movie it just wants to rewatch again and again. It creates comfort.

Kristen
Yeah. Thank you.

Sam Laura Brown
I wanted to spend a bit of time on maximum be very relatable.

Outro

If you want to make sure that the hard work you’re putting into your business isn’t a waste of effort, then I invite you to check out the power planning course. It’ll teach you how to plan properly as a perfectionist with power planning so that you can get out of your own way in your business. And so that every hour you put into your business gets doubles the return. You can find out more and sign up today at samlaurabrown.com/powerplanning.

Author: Sam Brown