19 - Running a business as a source of personal growth

Welcome to the business of executive coaching. I'm Ellie Scarfe, an ex lawyer turned executive coach. Over the last 17 years I've coached in house, I've been an associate coach and I've run executive coaching businesses with.

Teams of coaches around the world.

My clients have ranged from global brand names to boutiques, startups and organizations doing.

Good in the world.

I now run the Impact Coach Collective, a community of executive coaches who want to level up their business skills and take action in a community of like minded peers. I'm a traveller, a reader, a mum, wife and dog parent and I know firsthand that our stories have a huge impact on our businesses. The executive coaching business is tough and I've learnt all the lessons through plenty of mistakes and also with some great mentors. This podcast is all about growing a thriving executive coaching business. You can build a coaching business that is profitable, sustainable and that supports your personal goals, whatever they are. I'll be sharing tips and ideas translated for your context, as well as stories from the field with brilliant coaches and mentors.

If you want to level up your.

Executive coaching business skills, then this is.

The place for you. Hello and welcome to the podcast. So I have been a little bit sick. My daughter and I both had the flu and as a result I lost my voice. Now it's mostly back, but if it starts to peter out throughout this episode, please forgive me and I hope it'll be back to normal for our next episode. So it is a truth universally acknowledged that coaches love development, they love personal growth. If you're a coach listening to this, I'm sure you cannot deny it. Training development, reflection, you name it, we really kind of, you know, grow. Not addicted, but very attached to those processes throughout our coach development. And most coaches tell me that the coach training that they did was very significant, mostly in terms of the personal growth that they went through as they did the training. And I'm no exception to that. So I have done a lot of inverted commas work over the years. I've tried many types of therapy and even still having done all that work, my coach training helped me to see parts of myself that I wasn't aware of and that I hadn't grown comfortable exploring. So, you know, I get it. Like coach, coach training is, is no joke. Like it's really, it's really quite powerful and a result. And like many of you, I'm sure personal growth is something that I really value and I think most coaches are the same. So sometimes in business things can be really hard, right? There's no no doubt about it. There are ups and there are downs, and the downs can be challenging, but it can help me to reflect on what business gives me beyond the tangible business outcomes. And it is my theory that, well, I have borne out through my experience and that my clients experience. My theory is that running a business has huge impacts on your personal growth as well as on tangible business outcomes. So I wanted to share some of the growth that I have experienced as a result of being a business owner. And now, you know, I've been in business on and off for nearly 18 years now. But some of these lessons happened in a really short period of time and then. And some of them have been long, slow burns. So I really encourage you to just reflect on what have you learned through your business so far, and even more than that, maybe to just be open to the fact that this is a great source of learning and it is a great source of growth. You know, beyond the technical things that we learn, what do you. What do we learn about ourselves through this process? So I want to share five things, five ways that being in business has contributed to my personal growth. And honestly, because even though I like to think I'm a unique and special butterfly, a lot of these are themes that I see in many coaches. So hopefully they will be applicable to you too. So the first way that being in business has contributed to my personal growth is that I have had to move past my perfectionistic tendencies in quite a big way. So you know how I became perfectionistic? I could hypothesize it could be, you know, being that firstborn child, being an overexcited achiever at school, whatever the source of it, I grew up with a very painful dose of perfectionism. Now, this doesn't mean that I did everything perfectly, which is what I used to think perfectionism was, but it meant that I had this unrealistic expectation of what I should achieve. And when I didn't think I could get there or I, you know, didn't get there, there was a huge amount of self criticism. There was a lot of procrastination, you know, all, all of that. And that's been, you know, that was. That's been a pattern for a lot of my life. And I wouldn't say, you know, I've perfectly, perfectly fixed it, but how this played out in business for me is that when I didn't know what I didn't know or I couldn't see how I could possibly do something in the way that I thought it should be done, I would lean into avoidance And I would lean into procrastination. So, for example, if I didn't really know what I was doing in terms of sales and marketing, I wouldn't do the tasks I needed to do. I would let my overwhelm lead to paralysis and not doing anything. I would endlessly overthink. If I couldn't do something perfectly, which was honestly and truthfully most of the time when you're starting a business, then I wouldn't do it at all. And gosh, I'll tell you what. I did do perfectly doing nothing. So I was very good at procrastinating and avoidance as ways of avoiding facing the fact that I had, you know, very high expectations, and I was not meeting those unrealistic expectations quite a lot of the time. So this is something that has come up again and again in business. And as a result, I have definitely developed some mindsets and some strategies that have, if not gotten past it, that. That really allow me to function well in spite of that tendency. And the first way that I think about this is that I really do focus on courage over confidence. And what that means is that I don't wait until I feel confident to do something or confident that I can do it really well before I do it. What I do is say, am I brave enough to give this a shot anyway? And most of the time, I sort of have this, you know, this identity that I've developed, which is that, you know, I do think I can do hard things, things. And I have proven that to myself. And so I can leverage that courage even when I don't feel confident. And so that lets me say, can I have a go at something? Even if people might think it's crap, even if I might think it's not great, Can I have the courage to experiment and to try? And, you know, I would say experimentation. And having that mindset of experimentation also helps me a lot. The next mindset I have is that I now strive to not try and get things perfect, but I strive to get things to 80%. And that means, you know, in terms of the look and feel of a product, the. You know, there might be something that I could wordsmith forever, but if I can say to myself, it's 80% of the way there. I make myself complete it, send it out in the world and do something. And part of that is therapy, right, to say, okay, this perfect, this hundred percent that I have in my mind does not exist. They're probably the 80%. You know, maybe that is 95%, really. But for me, that sense of 80% is what I'm aiming for. So I go with that. And let me tell you, that doesn't sit easily with me because, you know, I grew up with, you know, aim for 100% or more. Right? Don't be willing to accept 80%. 80% is, is failure. So for me this is a big thing. And so, but it has unlocked my ability to do and to take action, which is, which is hugely important. And to me, getting things done at 80% is much better than doing nothing at a hundred percent. The third thing is related, related to that is focus on taking massive action. So when I feel myself go into these patterns of overthinking or rum or avoidance and you know, like for me it will look like, you know, I've got a, I've got a task to do, but instead of just doing the task, I sort of start roaming around the house. My antidote there is I just do something. So it might mean that I make a post or I contact someone or I send a marketing email or I just do something because massive action is the thing that will make all the difference. And when you're focused on getting things done, doing rather than thinking, then your perfectionism will fall into the background. And that's what I have experienced. But overall, you know, this is, there is a component of this that I'm really still working on and that is a tendency I have to immediately reset my expectations. So if I achieve something, rather than celebrating and acknowledging that I have a real tendency to say, oh well actually let me raise the bar to a bit higher and then judge myself against that. And so if you have that tendency, it's really interesting to look into schema, psychological schema, and particularly the schema of unrelenting standards. Now this is a lifetime journey for me and perhaps for you, but a really interesting book that you could look into if you think you may have. This unrelenting standard schema is called reinventing your life by Jeffrey Young and Janet Costco. And it has a chapter on that schema as well as a whole bunch of other schema. So it's very interesting. Unfortunately, unfortunately the title sounds super self helpy, but the, the content on schema is actually really great. So I am less perfectionistic and to me that is a huge piece of personal growth that I've experienced as a result of being in business. The second thing is that I take things less personally now. Now I would say that it is a big part of my DNA because of how I grew up, that I developed a strong need to be liked. And I felt things very deeply as a know as I share about my perfectionistic tendencies and my tendency to take things personally. I feel like you're getting a good portrait of me as an anxious teenager. But to be honest, they're like that, that person still still sits with me. And so I need to be really mindful of how I manage these things. So, you know, I grew up living in lots of places in the country and in, I went to seven different schools and you know, those transitions required a lot of fitting in and you know, people's opinions of me really mattered in that context because that was the sort of the, the way you survive as a kid is can you fit in, can you make friends? And you know, that was a good skill then. But as a fully grown adult and an adult in business, business requires me to be rejected on a frequent basis, right? That's just part of the gig. And I have to give people challenging feedback all the time. I, I have to tell people things that they may not want to hear. And that really runs contradictory to my need to be liked. Because if I want to be liked all the time, then I'm going to tell people what they want to hear. I'm going to not put myself in a position where I can be rejected. And while I still feel it, right, it hasn't gone away. I still feel that, you know, I prefer people to like me, but I now have the ability to notice that tendency and do what I need to do anyway. And so for those circumstances when I have to give challenging feedback and honestly, that can be a really significant part of being a coach. It really helped me to reframe that what I was doing was really giving my coaches or the people that I was working with a gift, right? That there is a gift of being honest and direct and giving people information and insight that they may otherwise never get. And in many cases with senior level coaches, no one else is willing to have these conversations with them. And so, you know, the best feedback that I personally ever received was through an activity called a Reflected Best Self activity. And if you're a POS Psych or a POS Organizational scholarship fan, you should look up that activity. It's run out of. I think the University of Michigan commercialized it. It's called Reflected Best Self. But it's a great tool for teams where you, you survey like so it's almost like a 360. But you ask for stories of you at your best from people in all areas of your life and you go Through a really interesting process of consolidating that to create a portrait of you at your best, that you then work on a plan of how are you going to live more into that in work and life. And anyway, so one of the pieces of feedback that came through again and again was that I had developed an ability to give constructive feedback to people in a way that made them want more. And when I got this feedback, it was like a light bulb for me, which is that, firstly, I think it was that there's. It's not a polarity. So I don't. Just to give people difficult messages or constructive feedback doesn't mean that by definition they won't like me. So that, that was part of it. But also, you know, maybe, maybe in some cases they don't love it, right? And they disagree. And so I figured out ways that I could be okay with that as well. And the other way that I've managed it more in terms of the, you know, the needing to be liked part, at least in my business, is that I anchor really strongly and deliberately to what is important for me. And it helps me to write this down that, you know, I do what I do for a few reasons. One, I do it to be able to provide for my family. That's really important to me. I do it to make a difference, especially for coaches who are growing their businesses and don't know what they don't know. And I want to help them get a leg up into what can be a very opaque industry. And I also do what I do because I want to be creative and I want to share and I want to put things out in the world. And so when I start worrying that someone isn't going to like what I'm sharing, or I get a message telling me that I'm sending too many emails during my launches. And this does happen a bit. And I do think you are welcome to unsubscribe. So, you know, like, I get people giving me quite negative feedback sometimes. And, you know, initially my default reaction would be panic. Change my approach, you know, make sure this random person on the Internet likes me. But then what I do is I come back to those anchors. I remember why I'm doing what I'm doing, and I take the feedback, but I don't let it be the be all and end all. And now, honestly, that process takes a while. So when I get criticism, I feel it, right? I don't, I don't have this Teflon coding that allows me to say, oh, I don't give A crap what people on the Internet say about me, of course I do. But what I can do much, much better now as a result of putting myself out there consistently is that I can notice it, I can feel hurt, I can worry because I think they don't like me and I can still move on and keep taking the action I need to anyway. Yeah, so, so that has been a gift to me is having to look directly at that part of me that really needs to be liked and to, to you know, I guess develop a little more resilience in that area. The third thing that I have developed is a much higher level of determination and ability to just get shit done, frankly. So you, I am talking to you today as a world class procrastinator. Actually now I think of myself as an incubator and this is reframing at its finest. But someone who, who takes time to let the inputs come in and then I deliver quickly at the end of whatever time frame is available to me. Now really this is procrastinating. But I'm also, you know, I don't look at it quite so negatively anyway anymore. But for many years I just either put things off entirely, right, just didn't do things that I, for many varied reasons or I would start things and I would lack follow through. And you know, I can remember being like this even back to high school where I would write a beautiful study plan for my exams. You know, it would be highlighted, this is before digital days, so you know, I'd highlight it, I'd write it out, it'd be so pretty, I'd use all the colored pens and then I would be so into it that I would miss the first chunk of actual studying and then I would have blown it. So I'd stop anyway and maybe, maybe I'd write another plan or maybe I just, you know, take a break instead of studying. So you know, this one obviously relates to perfectionism, but what I have developed over the years that I've had a business and it has taken years, is that I have become a person who takes action. And I really am proud to be someone who is action oriented. So I have strategies to take, get things done. Sometimes it's not even at the last minute, but I set myself big goals. I write really good plans and once I have a clear plan of attack, I'm, I'm good at just getting it done. I don't allow myself to overthink taking action anymore and I default to action. So you know, if I'm in one of those scenarios where I haven't got a good plan of, you know, like a plan for my content on LinkedIn, for example. I don't know what to post. Then instead of thinking about it, I open it up and I just start typing rather than putting the thinking first. And I focus on consistent actions over the long term. As you know that that's my grounding principle is that things that I do consistently over a long term are the things that will pay off and that requires me to be very action oriented. And so, you know, I now think of myself as an action oriented person. Even though I can still procrastinate, I still get a lot done. And so, you know, I'm really proud of that, that shift. The fourth thing is that I would say I now have an increased level of self belief and that is has been a journey and a personal growth for me. Now when I say self belief I want to differentiate this a little bit from self worth or even self confidence. But what I have developed, and this is over time and with increased evidence, is a belief in myself and my ability to achieve my goals if I work towards them. Now this doesn't mean that I don't beat myself up when I don't achieve my goals, which are often wildly implausible. I am, you know, the poster child for setting unrealistic goals. I do beat myself up when I don't meet them, but I don't ruminate on it as much anymore. And I do focus on the fact that the process of setting and working towards those goals is as much a positive outcome as, as the outcome I was seeking in itself. So you know, I still, I still wake myself up but underneath that is a deeper belief in myself that I can do hard things and that I can weather the ups and downs. It does mean that my positive self regard also is less tied to any one specific outcome. So whereas in the past, you know, I would have been thrown by not winning an engagement, not winning a chemistry check or you know, a beauty parade, not hitting your revenue target, those things individually would have really thrown me in the past. But I think now as a result of that higher level of self belief, I'm more balanced and I can understand that, you know, missing one achievement does not detract from all of the other things that I've achieved over the course of my business journey. And you know, I'm also working on disentangling achievements from my self worth overall. And this is a bigger journey for me but you know, and one that's still at play. But I think I'M I'm getting better at that. The fifth, the fifth thing that I have developed in terms of personal growth is that I have. I am much better now at empty. Embodying a growth mindset. So this is huge because I would say I used to be your textbook fixed mindset person. Now, people wouldn't have said that if they looked at me. They would have thought I was a growth mindset person because I was a high achiever and I was smart. But I thought that being smart was kind of it for me. Right. That, that, you know, I was either smart and good at something or I wasn't. I didn't have a sense that I could switch codes. Right. And I thought that, yeah, the. But what I had was what I had and I had to work with what with what I had. And that was limited, essentially. There were a lot of things I thought I just couldn't do or I just wasn't naturally good at, including, you know, technology to a degree, certainly managing my finances. I thought I'm just not a money person. I'm no good at saving, I'm no good at investing. You know, I had a lot of those stories that I had to work through. I thought I couldn't do marketing, I thought I didn't want to do marketing. And that's just a few examples of where I had a fixed mindset. So, you know, then, interestingly, I learned a lot more about growth mindset. And I learned about that specifically when there were two things that came together. My daughter started kindergarten, and at her school, they were really into growth mindset. And I learned a lot about it. And I was also doing a lot more work deliberately in positive psychology. And I was learning all about the research. And so these two things had me exploring where I was fixed in my mindset. And so I deliberately set about changing that. And I did it mostly in a work context. So, you know, as a result of that deliberate work using my business as a platform, I would say now I'm pretty technologically comfortable. You know, we use a thousand different tools and systems. Although, to be fair, I do. I do have the wonderful Jill do a lot of that these days. But I'm no longer. I'm not afraid of my money situation. I love marketing. This has been a huge growth journey for me. And I think having the impetus of running a business really, you know, enabled that, that development for me from, you know, a more fixed mindset to being more growth mindset oriented in those aspects of my business. So overall, I think that business has had a really big impact on who I am as a person, who how I feel about myself, how I feel about my potential to achieve things. And I really don't think we can separate growth as business people from our personal growth journey. And you know, I think that being in business is an incredible opportunity to to grow and develop, and I think it's useful to think of it in that light as well. So, you know, I mean, I don't think that being in business is for everyone, but I think everyone who is in business can learn from that experience and can take a lot of quite deep personal growth out of that experience. So I hope some of these have rung true for you too. And I'd be really interested to hear if you want to drop me a line, you know, what your personal growth journey is or what your current growth edge is as it relates to your business. So drop me a line, keep in touch and I'll be back to talk to you next week. Have a great week.

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