Ep #22: Thoughts for Female Entrepreneurs to Think on Purpose

Hey, everyone. I'm Chris Plackey, and this is how to Lead for Female Entrepreneurs and Founders. Because the best way to grow a business is to grow the person who's running it. Let's go ahead and get started.

Hello. Lovely. How are you? Thank you for tuning in today. I want to talk to you today about thoughts you can think on purpose. And the reason I want to talk to you about thoughts you can think on purpose is because I know that you think a lot of thoughts not on purpose. You have a lot of.

Unsupervised thoughts as an entrepreneur that are affecting the results that you're getting, either in the relationships you have with your team, the way that you feel every day at work, the way the results you're getting in your business. And, you know, I hear enough of them that I can see how they're showing up in the results that many of my clients are getting. And so I want to really emphasize to you that.

You'Re not alone in the fact that you have unsupervised thinking. This is normal. I have it. My coach calls me out on it. Right? Every conversation I have with Brooke Castillo, she says to me.

Hello. Did you know what you were just saying out loud? Do you say that in your inside voice? Because you just heard it out loud where I could hear you.

This is normal. It's just that it's a practice of learning how to notice yourself and have more supervision over your mind. Because what we know to be true is that the way that you think triggers how you feel, and the way that you feel triggers the action you take or don't take. And that action is what delivers the results that you're getting. So we have to pay a lot of attention to our mind as the owner of a business, as the founder of a business, because you're at the helm here. And so your brain is. Is literally the rudder and the. And the. You know, the steering wheel and the gas pedal or whatever metaphor you want for the business and also for your own experience of having a business. Okay? And so a lot of the thoughts that I hear my clients say either subliminally or literally out loud, but in some way, shape or form, they sound like, I'm not good enough. I'm not worth it. I'm never going to do it right. Other people do it better than me.

I'm going to fail. I'm going to end up destitute. I'm going to lose it all. I'm not going to make any more money. This is too hard. This Is too overwhelming. I want it to be easier. I don't want to work this hard. I don't love my business anymore. My business doesn't love me. I had one client who was so cute, she just kept arguing that Facebook hated her.

Right? Facebook hates me. Because she couldn't get her ads to work.

I shouldn't do this anymore. I'm not a good manager. No one wants to work for me. I don't know what I'm doing. I mean, the list goes on. And sometimes these thoughts kind of flitter in and they move along. But a lot of times we, as Brooke says to me, right, we notice a thought. We say something like, I'm just, you know, I'm just not really good at this.

And we don't recognize that it's a thought. We think it's an observation. Like, we're just sort of stating the truth. Like, well, you know, I'm not very good at this. Like, it's the facts, right? Like someone said to me the other day, because I say all the time, one of my common things I say is, I'm just not really good at the details. And I say it like, it's just. I'm stating the obvious, like, of course I'm not good at the details. Details. Well, of course I'm not good at the details. Do you know why? Because I believe I'm not.

And that belief is very uncomfortable for me. And it perpetuates me not getting good at the details because, you know, I'm just not very good at it, right? So you can insert management into that. I'm not good at managing people, right? And it's like you're telling people the truth or. I don't really like it. I don't really like managing people. Well, okay, but you have a business with 20 people in it. That's a problem. Because you can't not manage people when you have a business of 20 people. Unless you're just absentee and someone sends you a check, which even then, you still have to manage the person who's sending you the check. Okay? So we have this. All of us have this bank of thoughts that we believe. And I think one of the best exercises, honestly, is just to write them all down.

And initially, I know this feels very icky. It's like, why would I want to write down all the stuff I think that's icky? Well, but you have to get it into consciousness. You can't if you. If it just stays in your sort of unsupervised, unaware Brain it. First of all, you don't even know it's happening. And second of all, it lives in that place, like I just said of, like. Well, it's just an observation. Like I'm just, you know, I'm just, I'm not really enjoying my business anymore. It's just really hard right now. And you think you're just telling the truth.

I'm here to tell you I coach women at every phase of their business with every kind of size of business. And there are people who have lots of big business parts moving much more complex, who don't think their business is hard. And then I have one client who's got themselves and three people and they're losing their minds about how hard it is. And everybody's got a story about why someone else's business is harder than the other. Why my business is harder than yours. Oh, well, my business is harder because I don't have a lot of people. Oh, my business is harder because I have a lot of people. You know why your business is hard? Because you think it is.

So if you're kind of sick of yourself and you're tired of feeling tired and you're tired of feeling overwhelmed and you're tired of feeling nervous or worried or anxious or scared, I have a lot of people I talk to who are in fear.

I have a lot of clients who, when I first meet them, feel burdened by their business.

What a terrible way to feel about your business. You started this for a reason. But you're believing these thoughts first of all, very unconsciously, and then it's. But it's directing your outcomes, it's directing your. Those thoughts are directing your results because those thoughts are triggering how you feel. So I wanted to make you a list of things I know you could believe instead.

And this isn't, you know, I want to make sure for those of you who are newer to my work, this isn't the power of positive thinking. I'm not talking about you. Like putting post it notes on your mirror or writing it in lipstick. I mean, I suppose if that works for you, that's great. But this isn't about believing something that when you read it or hear it, you think it's a lie. This is about understanding. Like instead of me saying I'm not really good at the details, I can say to myself, I'm always learning how to be better at the details. One detail at a time, one calendar invite at a time, one calendar management exercise at a time, one conversation with somebody who works for me at a Time. I just. I'm getting better every day. I'm getting better at it because I want to get better at it because there's nothing. I love the feeling of when I got the details right. I love the feeling right. So I'm learning to and continue to practice just like I would if I was learning how to get stronger and carry more weight and bench press more weight. It's practice.

So I just thought I would throw some thoughts out there. So, you know, I. And again, I.

I also want to invite you to recognize there's a lot that you say out loud or in your own mind about yourself. I'm not good enough. I shouldn't do this anymore. No one wants to work for me. I'm not good at managing. I'm going to run out of money. I have a lot of clients who talk about worrying about money, and then they tell me they have lots of money in the bank. So it's always intriguing how that thought shows up. But we have to sort of examine what is the plus side of me talking of saying this out loud. What is the plus side of me believing this? Because for you to keep nurturing it and keep feeding that kind of thinking, there must be a get for you somewhere. What is it? Why do you keep thinking it?

How is it serving you to believe that? I believe that the thought, I'm just not good at managing people, I'm just not a good manager. Even though you would say, oh, I don't want to think that about myself. I believe that. A lot of women say that and believe that because it keeps you from having to learn.

Because what is learning? It's hard.

It creates vulnerability, it initiates change. It pushes you to go outside of what you've always done, which even though you don't like what you've done and the results that you've gotten, that, that inertia, first of all, to change and then to go try something new and fail at that. Ew. Who wants to do that? So I'm just going to sit over here and say I'm not good at it.

Because on the surface of it, it doesn't do you any good to believe that. We all know that. But I know that most people continue to say that because then they don't have to deal with learning.

Right? If I just say I'm just not very friendly, I'm just not very approachable, then I don't have to learn how to network and get connected to people.

If I just say I'm not very good at selling, then I have to learn. I can just say I'm not good at it.

If I say that I'm just a worrier. It's just who I am. I just worry. Then I don't have to learn not to worry. I don't have to actually start to be trusting of the future. I don't have to believe ahead of time that I can create an amazing future because the worry keeps me from having to do that. Plus, it's very dramatic, and I love to talk about how much I worry. Gives me something to talk about.

Now, none of this is conscious, you guys. I'm not telling you. I'm not saying this, like, in a judgmental way.

But, like, seriously, if you didn't worry, what would you talk about?

If you weren't so busy talking about what a terrible manager you are, what might you be doing? And then what do you have to take responsibility for if you're doing it?

So some other thoughts. I know you can think.

Some other ways to think yourself as a business owner. You can go all the way over to, of course I'm worth it. Of course I'm amazing. Look at how proud. Look at how incredible I am. Look at what I've built. Where can you find pride in what you do? I also like to remind my clients that everything they're going through is normal.

There's nothing wrong here.

Move along, right? Watch how your brain just wants to da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da and fester. How about we just move along and do the next thing?

I'm in the process of figuring it out. That's a thought that comes from Danielle laporte that I learned years ago, and I just loved it. I'm in the process of figuring it out because a lot of us say, I don't know what to do. A lot of us say, I'm so confused. I don't know where to start. This is so overwhelming. But instead, we could just think, you know what? I'm in the process of figuring it out, and this is what I'm going to do next.

Another one of my favorites is, of course it happened that way versus it shouldn't have happened that way, or I shouldn't have said that. Of course I said that. Of course my employee did that. Of course they did. What am I going to do next?

I'm totally capable. I can and will ask for help.

I'm not alone.

There are people who will help me. There are people who will listen to me. Even if it's me.

I can always find an answer. I can always try something new. I'm really good at failing so that I can succeed.

Right? We know this. We know that success is lined with failure. I mean, there's so many cliche quotes out there, but that's actually the truth. The only way you know if something works is if you 17 different ways to Sunday to make it work. And then the thing that you thought would work doesn't work forever. So then you got to do something new. But that's the whole game, isn't it? When you attach the failure of your business to who you are as a human, I mean, you're just. Why would you do that? It's just a business. It's just work that you do in the world. It's not who you are.

One of my clients, Jody Moore.

Shared in her Instagram post an example she did for some girls in.

An event that she spoke to. I thought it was a lovely example. She held up a brand new $100 crisp bill and asked everybody what it was. And they all said it was a hundred dollars. And they all, you know, is it worth anything? Yes, it's worth $100. And then she said, well, what would happen if I crumpled it all up and then held it in my hand as a crumpled up mess? Would it have lost its value? Of course. The answer is no. It's still worth $100. What if I just kind of tear off a corner? Is it still worth a hundred dollars? Yeah, it is. What if I put it in the mud?

Does it still have its value?

The answer is yes. And she used that example really also for about how we are, right? Like we don't lose the value that you have. The worthiness of you is always innate. It just doesn't go away. You've always had it and you can never lose it. Even if you get a little dirty, even if you stub your toe and your toe bleeds, even if you fall on your face and you break your nose.

You'Re still totally valuable, totally worthy, totally matter.

But that's an inside job, right? And as entrepreneurs, I watch so many of my clients really struggle with this, and then they want to use the business to substantiate their value, which is where all of the comparison comes in, which I'm going to do another whole podcast on, because that just. It kills you. I don't care what other people are doing. I really don't. I love to watch other people succeed. It is my favorite thing. Nothing makes me happier than when I talk to my clients and they tell me I Had a million dollar month. I did this. I met this person, I got this new client. I made this happen in my. I don't experience envy and jealousy for them.

But I watch a lot of people I know do that. They get jealous of other people's success.

Those kinds of comparing thoughts are so detrimental. They do not serve you.

Because other people's wins do not compromise yours. Other people's amount of money does not affect how much you can make. People's lifestyles that are on Instagram are a frickin lie.

Just love your life. Be in yourself. Be your dirty dollar bill, your crisp dollar bill, your dollar bill. Or one hundred dollar bill with the tattered corners. You're amazing.

Always. Nobody takes that except for you.

You're the only one who robs that. Robs yourself of that. And as the leader of your business, you're the. You're the prize, baby.

You gotta love the prize. I love you. I don't even know all of you and I love you. Right, well, ask yourself, what would your future self tell you about this circumstance? I do this a lot for myself. You know, sometimes things feel really big and overwhelming and hairy. And I just asked myself, what will my future self tell me to do right now? What would she tell me to think about this, right? Because I have a clear sense of my future self and I see her. I see what she's like 10 years from now and I can vibe on her. And usually she just says, just chillax, it's gonna be fine. Do this instead. What if the next best thing to do was totally simple and very obvious? What would it be? What would I do? What would I do if the next best thing was easy? What would I do if solving this was easy? What is really the crux of the problem I'm facing right now? And let me just address it. So those are some things I would invite you to think. Like, there's so many things you can believe other than, I'm not good at this. I don't know what I'm doing. This is too hard. I don't know where to start. Those kinds of thoughts just don't get you anywhere.

You're beautiful, you're gorgeous. You're so capable. Look at what you've already done with your life. Trust yourself.

You're amazing. You've got this. I know this.

And take some time to write down all the things that right now you know you're thinking that aren't helping you. And then give yourself your own list. What else do you want to on purpose believe about yourself, your business, your life, who you are in the world. What do you want to believe on purpose and give your brain that as fuel and then find other fuel for it. Find ways to reinforce those beliefs. Keep them present.

Don't indulge the unsupervised thoughts. Let's not. The thoughts will come, but we don't have to like park our car there and move in and set up a tent and live in these negative non serving thoughts. We just can notice them and move along.

Right? That's the true work here.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

Foreign.

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Sam.