Are You Willing to Be As Brave as Your Spirit Animal?
My favorite stage of my signature GLEAMS Process is the very first one: Listen.
It’s my favorite because it allows us to get deep together. This stage is our opportunity to delve into what you truly want your life to be, where you currently stand in your leadership journey, and how best to support you.
Much of what I create in your strategic growth map comes back to this initial stage. Part of growing your business involves growing yourself – your leadership and management abilities. I understand that growing your management skills isn’t the first thing you want to do. You started your business to share your message with the world, not to learn how to manage people, time, or money. Your business is asking you to grow. Your ability to step up as a next-level leader directly impacts the effectiveness of any strategic growth map we create.
I find most leaders struggle to take on the next level of leadership - not because they don’t want to or don’t know how, but because they lack support and find change difficult. When your business has been as successful as yours, it can be hard to imagine changing what has worked for so long.
The reality is growth requires change. There are great programs available to help you reach your next level of leadership. My role is to help you understand where you are now and what needs to be ‘adjusted’ as you move into your next growth phase.
Renee is a great example of how listening and change impact the strategic growth map. She previously ran a successful brick-and-mortar business and has been in the personal development business for over 10 years, growing her business to well over mid-six figures. However, she was struggling to understand why her business was stagnating and why she wasn’t creating the life she wanted.
She is a heart-led, purpose-driven, deeply spiritual entrepreneur committed to creating and maintaining a conscious business.
Going through the Listen stage requires courage and honesty. It is your opportunity to dig deep and redefine how your life looks. We start with the big questions:
How do you want to BE in the next phase of your business?
How do you want to BE with your team?
How do you want to BE in your most precious relationships (your husband/wife/partner, your children, etc.)?
How do you want to BE in your community? Are you searching for time to volunteer or to run for office?
How do you want to BE in your world?
How are you BEING in all of those areas right now?
Do you feel you have areas for growth and development that impact how you BE?
What would your team say if I asked how you BE in your business?
These questions allow you to define the life you want to have and how you want your business to run at the next level. For example; if you are interested in maintaining the same amount of time with your family that you currently have, the next phase of growth needs to provide for that.
While the strategic growth map is designed to make that time available, there is likely some personal growth required to ensure that time is realized. It could involve delegating at a new level, allowing a team member of your team to assume a new role, or even hiring someone to fill part of the role you currently fill. This is your call to growth.
Listen is your opportunity to decide where you want to focus in your business and to move toward that goal. This was an important realization for Renee. Her business served both newcomers to spirituality and those advanced in using her system. She felt bored with teaching beginner classes and recognized the value of guiding clients through a customer journey from beginner to expert. While she loved all her clients, she no longer wanted to teach the beginner classes.
This opened the door to discussing how we could change the business to give her more time with her advanced students.
The discussions were personal and heartfelt. We found a way to move the company forward that met her needs, allowing her to fulfill her purpose while creating the life she desired.
I love creating a strategic map that captures your desires and propels the business to its next level of growth.