What promise do you need to keep?

What promise do you need to keep?

When I was a child, my grandmother, who we lived with for a few years and whose house I spent nearly every weekend and summer day at, used to make me swear — a lot.

Not that kind of swearing. 

If I made a promise, she’d ask: Do you swear on it?

I promise I will eat my vegetables.

Do you swear on it?

If you swore on it, you meant it. She made me raise my pinky and say, “I swear.”

And if you broke that swear, it was really serious business — like you’d go to H— or something, I can’t remember. I just know it was really bad.

(Or, so I thought because I took swears VERY seriously. Looking back, I now realize this was just a really impressive parenting tactic and oddly it worked very, very well and I’m kind of wondering why this didn’t surface for me until this essay.) 

First, let me be clear: My grandmother is my everything and she is a TOTAL comedian. Her “making you swear on it’“ was always a joke but I always wanted to keep my promises to her — and still do.

Anyway, as I resurface this memory about my childhood “swears,” I’m not surprised that I have always been passionate about promises and use this as a “purpose practice” in my own life as an entrepreneur and CEO — and with clients.

In my private coaching program, the first essential Brave Yes emPOWERment Tool we work with to help you find your Brave Yes so you can take yourself and your business to the next level is finding, declaring and believing in your PURPOSE.

  • You design a blueprint for where YOU want to take YOUR business or organization as the CEO and boss.
  • You set clear Brave Yes Intentions for you and your work.
  • And, you get super clear on your purpose at this very moment — including your personal desires and your justice and equity mission so you feel truly aligned when growing and building your changemaking vision.

All of this and more is about making sure you working daily to make a bigger impact in your LIFE and business. (Learn about my private, one-to-one coaching program here.)

But we can’t make as much progress in any of that until you are feeling good in mind, body and spirit.

This is where I invite you to set your first Brave Yes Intention and promise with me …

Consider your personal needs and desires right now for your self, your health or your wealth (the basic needs you need to thrive).

  1. What is that one thing you need to do in order to thrive and flourish in those areas so you can be the leader you need to be for your business?
  2. How can you make sure you are 100 percent nourished and cared for in those areas right now?

And with that, what promise do you need to keep for yourself right now in one of those areas — or all three?

This promise is not a business strategy, per say.

It is a life strategy that will inform your business strategy and goals.

The truth is that when you are working with purpose toward big + exciting goals, dreams or ideas, the intense mental focus and heavy lifting you are doing can take away from your personal needs and desires.

When you lose sight of your purpose, you can easily lose your way.

And when we lose OUR way, we diminish our ability to thrive and make an impact.

I can’t tell you how many times in the past I lost my way, ended up down some rabbit hole I had no business being in and lost sight of what I should have been putting more time, energy and resources into for my own personal purpose and flourishing. All because I hadn’t set a clear promise to myself.

The thing about a promise is … it’s personal and it’s 100 percent in your control.

And so now you need a swear ritual …

Photo Credit: Chrissy Metz, giphy.com

It’s time to make your promise legit.

Normally, in client sessions, our conversation would be where you get crystal clear on your ideal promise and then you would put a swear on it by telling me your plans and then we’ll check in on how you’re keeping your promise about two weeks later. (Learn about my private, one-to-one coaching program here.)

For now, the promise you’ve made to yourself — and it can be super simple — is just an idea, a thought.

It needs some power behind it.

Since I’m a hopeless romantic, I want to invite you take just one more step with your promise …

Let’s begin by going back in time to the delightfulness of “Anne of Green Gables” and how she encouraged a ritual with her new best friend Diana from next door, a ritual to solidify their friendship forever. 

“Will you swear to be my friend forever and ever?” demanded Anne eagerly.

Diana looked shocked.

“Why it’s dreadfully wicked to swear,” she said rebukingly.

“Oh no, not my kind of swearing. There are two kinds, you know.”

“I never heard of but one kind,” said Diana doubtfully.

“There really is another. Oh, it isn’t wicked at all. It just means vowing and promising solemnly.”

“Well, I don’t mind doing that,” agreed Diana, relieved. “How do you do it?”

“We must join hands–so,” said Anne gravely. “It ought to be over running water. We’ll just imagine this path is running water. I’ll repeat the oath first. I solemnly swear to be faithful to my bosom friend, Diana Barry, as long as the sun and moon shall endure. Now you say it and put my name in.”

Diana repeated the “oath” with a laugh fore and aft. (The book itself is rooted in old language that would not be acceptable today.)

So, your next step is to create a ritual to put a swear on your promise. The more official the better, because Anne says so.

  • You can imagine swearing to yourself over a body of running water, if you want to be super legit about it.
  • You could also head out to an actual body of water and stand with your hand over your heart and recite your promise to the universe.
  • You could also simply light a candle or write your promise on a sticky note. : ) (Sticky note oaths for the win!)

And then raise your pinky and repeat, I solemnly swear to ___________. Repeat your promise here as many times as you need to hear it, until it sticks in your body.

It’s silly.

It’s powerful.

It works … If you don’t let yourself off the hook. 

Now, how can I support you in mind, body, spirit — and strategy — with your promise?

—> READY TO GET CLEAR AND STEP INTO YOUR PURPOSE? Let’s work together! I have 2 spaces for private, one-to-one coaching opening up for April and 1 space in May. LEARN MORE HERE.

10 Visibility Blockers Stunting Your Business Growth and Success

10 Visibility Blockers Stunting Your Business Growth and Success


Visibility is absolutely key in your business.

If you want more success, more revenue and more sales, people need to know you exist. Period.

The more visibility you have for attracting and meeting — and connecting with — new fans, new followers, new potential clients, new customers, the more money you’re going to make, the more authority you’re going to have, the more demand for your work.

Business is a math project and visibility is a big part of the equation.

So if business is a numbers game and visibility is a numbers project, then we need to get to the bottom of your visibility blockers.

I’ve given this a lot of thought over the past year in my role as a business strategist for creative entrepreneurs — who tend to be humble and diminish their work — who want to uplevel, grow or pivot their brand.

As long as there are visibility blockers at play your business is not going to grow as fast as you would like.

Listen to this podcast below or keep reading below.

10 Visibility Blockers Stunting Your Business Growth and Success

ALGORITHMS

The number one visibility blocker that we must talk about is the elephant in the room and that’s algorithms.

Algorithms are the tools that social media giants — all the internet gods like Google, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, or whatever channel you use — use to keep you on their platform and determine what show up shows up in your feed, timeline or search results.

When you do a Google search, the algorithm there is what is going to come up in your search and what it’s going to look like. Same thing on Facebook, what shows up in your timeline, but what Facebook is willing to give to you is based on an algorithm a computerized system that determines what you will see.

Now, I am against algorithms in that I really believe we are grown adults who can choose what we want to see and how we want to see it. But that’s not how they make money. So algorithms are determined by each individual platform, and they have a method to their madness.

How is this a visibility blocker for you?

Well, if the content you’re putting out on social or on Google is not meeting their standards, then only a few people are going to see it. And, that is a huge blocker. You have great content — I know you do — but if it is not what the algorithms want or are rewarding, then you are substantially less visible. And that is just the way of the game.

There’s a few tricks to the system that the marketing gurus are selling but the bottom line is if you’re creating brave, bold content — which is the work that I love to do with my clients around your branding, your messaging, your core themes — all of that is going to show up and the right people are going to find your stuff. This how you cultivate demand and grow your visibility.

If that’s how you show up, it doesn’t matter whether the algorithm is your bestie or not. It just matters that you’re doing the right content for your potential client. That’s what matters.

TIME AND TIME SCARCITY

A second visibility blocker is time and time scarcity.

So visibility is probably the hardest thing we can do and practice in our businesses, especially for solopreneurs. Companies with a big marketing team won’t have as much of an issue in this but if you’re a solopreneur, which is most of my clients, and it’s what I am as well, time and time scarcity can really be a huge visibility blocker.

Visibility takes time, intention and practice. It can’t be shoved into the edges of our days.

But, it competes with a lot of things — such as client customer service and delivery.

You’re gonna have to take time away from the day to day stuff that you are already doing in order to make space in order to get on the schedules and in order to put yourself out there so if you’re going to go to an event or if you want to speak or if you want to be on podcast time and time scarcity is a huge factor in your in your visibility blocker.

Now with this is the other side of this when you have enough time when you have an abundance of time to create and to really put yourself out there you are going to see more visibility, so less time, less visibility and more time, more visibility.

MAKE TIME FOR VISIBILITY! Join the Brave YES Power Squad and start taking bolder action in your business.

FEAR OF …

The third visibility blocker is fear.

We tend to let fear get in our way if we start to think about everything that can go wrong if we are seen more or take up more space or put ourselves out there. And there’s a whole list of fears that I have been thinking about and talking about with clients that prevent us from putting ourselves out there.

Fear is one of those visibility blockers that once it gets in your head — unless you work with the root of it — it’s going to keep bubbling up over and over and that’s isn’t great for the long game of your business. I was talking to a recent client about fear of getting on stage and speaking in front of a group — a common fear that will keep coming up until you address it.

A Negative Mindset

With fear is another visibility blocker which is your mindset.

If you have a mindset that you know social media is bad and you never want to be on it, and you hate it and that’s just the way it’s going to be then your mindset is yeah, you’re not gonna like social media and it’s not going to be for you. And that is going to be a visibility blocker.

Same thing if your mindset is you know, I don’t need to go out and, and network I hate networking. Networking is hard. It’s you know, I always hate the people that I have to talk to. If your mindset is a negative one around all of these options for visibility, then you’re going to remain in a visibility block. And that’s just the way it goes.

Visibility. And allowing yourself to be seen requires what I call a Brave YES Mindset that needs to be shaped and formed and really worked with because let’s face it, many of us have been conditioned to not be seen, we’ve been raised to be quiet and not have opinions and don’t be too much.

A mindset shift needs to be happen. If you really want to put yourself out there and be more visible.

READY TO SAY YES MORE?! Join the Brave YES Power Squad and start saying YES before you are ready!

LACK OF CLARITY

The next one is lack of clarity. And this this might be if I had to give a number one we just be on or maybe number two because algorithms really are a big piece of this.

Lack of clarity is a huge one and lack of clarity is a visibility Blocher because if you don’t know what to put out there if you don’t know how to communicate what to communicate, when you’re on stage, or when you’re in an interview or when you’re at a networking event or when you’re on social media or when you’re blogging.

If you don’t know that you’re going to have lack of clarity and you’re going to refrain from putting anything out or maybe just a couple of things out. And so this is where we get writer’s block if you’re somebody who does a lot of writing for marketing, this is when you’ll get videoblog because you don’t want to put yourself out there and video.

Lack of clarity is a huge, huge, huge visibility blocker. Also lack of clarity will lead to many many other things like comparisons, looking at what everybody else is doing and then trying to mimic it getting overwhelmed because you’re you know you’ve got so many ideas, so many ideas and you don’t know which ones to choose. Also distracted and then also just chasing all the shoulds like well you know I should do this because it seems like the right thing to do.

Clarity is queen. It’s so important.

LACK OF CAPACITY

With lack of clarity, comes another lack … a lack of capacity. This is a huge blocker I see on the regular. If you lack the capacity — you’re feeling burned out, exhausted, no energy, oryour life circumstances are hard or heavy or overwhelming — you are not going to want to do what it takes to be visible.

You won’t want ot attend that networking event.

You won’t want to go LIVE on Instagram.

You won’t want to write anything to put up on social.

A lack of capacity is a pesty visibility blocker that will keep you in your comfort zone and hiding.

You’re not going to feel confident you’re not going to feel like putting yourself out there, you’re going to want to crawl onto the blanket and go back into the quiet comfy cave.

The comfort zone is going to be calling you nonstop when you are at lack of capacity.

This is a huge visibility blocker I see more than any of the others because to me when I see someone who is in that state of lack of capacity, it’s apparent to me.

I can see when somebody is exhausted and burned out.

And, once you know you know, it’s like one of those things you can’t unsee.

Your confidence is directly influenced by your capacity.

OVER-THINKING, OVER-PLANNING, OVER-STRATEGIZING & PERFECTIONISM

Okay, I love this next visibility blocker. I wastotally at fault for this for many years but have finally mastered it.

This visibility blocker is overthinking, but not just overthinking, it’s also about over-planning, over-strategizing and trying to get everything exactly so. This one includes a bit of perfectionism, for sure.

It’s when you spend too much time over-preparing — such as planning out all your content for the year — and you’ve got it all mapped out but you tthen you don’t follow through on any of it.

Yeah, it happens.

This is a big visibility blocker. When we spend more time over-thinking, over-planning and over-strategizing, this will kill your creativity and it will kill your spaciousness in your in your process and you will just get into a blocked state. All of this prevents taking action and doing the things.

Trust me I know I’ve been there. And I’ve seen others. I’ve seen this happen to so many others.

READY TO TAKE PRACTICING MORE SERIOUSLY? Join us in The Brave YES Power Squad right now.

LEARNING CURVES

The next visibility blocker is learning curves.

When you hit a learning curve, it’s where you start to think oh I don’t know enough I need to do more. I need to learn more. I need to take this course I need to you know do this thing. You’re gonna go into learning mode and you’re not in leading mode.

This is a visibility blocker that I talk with my clients about all the time, especially when they are about to sign up for another course, program or certification or degree program.

If you want to cultivate demand and your work when you really want to put yourself out there. You’ve got to be the you’ve got to be the expert, not the not the beginner.

I wake up a beginner every day but I tried to really show up as the as an expert every day.

And how do you move easily from expert you know, into, Oh, I’ve got to learn something consistently over and over and over. It’s exhausting.

So learning curves are visibility blockers and watch them because they are tricky little beasts and they will get you they will get you because you’re going to say things like, “Well, I can’t do that yet because I haven’t mastered this and I’ve got to get this degree or I’ve got to get this certification.”

Doubting your ability and talents puts you in The Waiting Zone and The Waiting Zone is tricky and sticky and you can end up in there your whole life.

This is why it becomes a huge visibility blocker.

COMPARISONITIS

Okay, number nine comparisonitis.

We all know what this one is. I’m sure you’ve experienced it over and over. Comparisonitis can be a huge visibility blocker.

This blocker will stop you cold in your marketing tracks because you start telling yourself that your work is not as good as so and so or somebody else is farther along or you’re really caught up in where you should be instead of where you are and so you don’t do anything at all.

This is a huge visibility blocker and one I see a lot.

When comparisonitis takes over, it stops all your own inner power and inner creativity and inner self-sovereignty because you are so focused on what other people are doing and making sure you are keeping up with them and their ideas and work.

ASSUMPTIONS

The next visibility blocker I see a lot is making assumptions, especially assumptions around what people know or what they don’t want to hear about or what they’re tired of hearing about from you.

When you assume your audience knows everything or your potential client doesn’t need to hear from you — again — you are creating a visibility blocker that also impacts you communication.

The thing about assumptions, though, is that they are often actually wrong. A favorite story I like to tell is how a super fan of my work once told me — after a launch of a new offer — that despite how she follows my work very closely she didn’t know about my offer until two days before the cart closed.

This was a huge lesson for me that I shouldn’t assume everyone is seeing my work and getting annoyed.

In fact, don’t assume anything because …

AFRAID OF BEING TOO PUSHY, TOO SALES-Y

This next visibility blocker is similar and related to the last. When we are afraid of being too pushy or salesy, we hold back and we don’t share our work widely.

This has been my own biggest struggle with visibility. You know, I don’t want to be pushy. I don’t want to be salesy, but I do want to make money. And mostly I really want to do good with the work I do.

Being pushy and salesy is something that definitely is a visibility blocker if you’re not letting people know what you are offering and doing.

And trust me, there’s no way to really be that pushy or salesy right now in this market unless you are a direct, you know, DMing and harassing people.

If your fear of being too salesy or pushy is keeping you from putting yourself out there, this is a visibility blocker that needs addressed and you can do that through adopting organic, authentic marketing tactics rather than forced, manipulative marketing.

THINKING LIKE A BEGINNER

Finally, the last one in this particular list, and it goes back to something that I said a little bit earlier, but that’s always being the beginner and not knowing how to move from beginner to expert. This creates feelings of imposter and as long as we feel like an imposter we refuse to put our work out there.

When you feel like you’re an impostor, if you’re new and you know you’re everything is new, and you’re not really 100% sure of yourself, that is visibility blocker.

The truth is you’ve got to allow yourself to be and learn how to be the expert or the authority — and step out onto the bigger stage with your ideas and thought leadership.

That’s how you earn authority.

It’s vital to get past the beginner stage as quickly as possible so you can start owning your power in your industry and showing up as a leader. That’s really all that it takes to start to play bigger and grow your business and get more clients and have more revenue.

SOLUTIONS TO VISIBILITY BLOCKERS

One of key reasons I created The Brave YES Power Squad was to design a space for practicing being more bold and brave.

And so being experimental around visibility is a foundation of my group coaching program for that reason.

What do you do if one or more of these visibility blockers are holding you back?

Well, lots. And this is work I do with my clients and work we’ll be doing in my group coaching program.

The first solution is taking action and being consistent.

Consistency is everything.

If I’ve been nothing, I have been consistent in my businesses over the years.

Being successful in a business requires showing up consistently. Not just when you have the mood, not just when you have the time, but really being consistently visible. That is how you move the needle in your business.

Making space to create and do the things that are going to demonstrate your expertise.

Embrace a Brave YES Mindset

When we say no to ourselves over and over, we start to fall into a small, cozy box where we aren’t taking real action to do what is necessary to grow, uplevel or pivot a business.

My work centers around helping my clients embrace a Brave YES Mindset, which is where you are tuning in and turning on to decisions based on possibility — not fear.

A Brave YES Mindset allows you to say yes to yourself — before you are ready.

READY TO SAY YES MORE?! Join the Brave YES Power Squad and start saying YES before you are ready!

Invest in Clarity

One of the other solutions is to invest in clarity and having a really strong strategy in place to help you meet your goals.

Once you know exactly what your vision is, and if you know what your goals and tactics are going to be, taking action becomes a breeze.

When you know what you need to do to put yourself out there, you know what you need to say in interviews, in blog posts and on social media rather than just throwing spaghetti at the wall.

Clarity is Everything.

And that strategy, that clarity piece is so big because once you know you’re not putting the energy into the figuring it out or in the deciding you’re putting it into the action of putting yourself out there putting your work out there doing the things that leads to more business more leads.

So those are the 10 Visibility blockers that will help you uplevel your visibility in your business so you can start to play bigger and see more business growth.

The next step is to practice, practice and practice.

Give yourself the time — and build the capacity — to show up and keep showing up over and over.

Because business is a numbers game and visibility is vital.

Get better at practicing being visible and you’ll grow your business, too.


Shawn Fink is a business strategist & couage coach who helps creative entrepreneurs Brave UP so they can uplevel, grow or pivot their business. She is the founder of The Brave YES Business Show podcast. Learn more about her coaching and work HERE.

Originally published at https://shawnfink.com on March 1, 2023.

Fear Less to Brave UP

Fear Less to Brave UP

Hey all!

I’ve decided to put some energy into video lessons for the next several weeks with a new series called FearLESS Friday.

I have said before that there is no reason to feel the fear and do it anyway.

Fear is a natural part of the human experience.

Some of us are going to be afraid far more than others.

The key, I have learned, is to work with that fear and help it feel safe enough to take a back seat.

So this series is going to help you tend to your fear so you can have LESS of it holding you back.

When I help my clients design business offerings and sales systems that feel aligned for them and their values, fear is almost always a part of the discussion — such as how do I truly show up as myself when my industry wants me to be a certain way?

In business, we need to Fear LESS.

Here’s the first episode! I would love to hear a bit about your Fear Story.

Let Them See Your B.R.A.V.E

Let Them See Your B.R.A.V.E

Let’s face it, being a biz owner is like 90 percent being scared. I know because I’ve been doing this work as a solopreneur for 10 years full-time.

Each new experience — or a FFT as Brene Brown calls them — is terrifying and then gets easier and easier and easier.

And yet being brave and visible — and taking up space in your industry — is a powerful way to grow your business.

In order to attract your most aligned clients and you need to let them see your B.R.A.V.E …

What does that mean? It means …

  • Blaze your own path
  • Rise to the Top
  • Act like the Expert
  • Visualize best possible outcome
  • Embrace a Brave YES Mindset

This is exactly what my latest podcast gets into this week …

Listen to this podcast here:

Let Them See Your B.R.A.V.E

If listening to audio is not for you — or if you just want to get straight into it — that is perfectly fine. Here’s the cliff’s notes version.

Blaze your own path

This is what I’m all about — doing your thing, being authentic, and really laying out what differentiates you what is your own leanness, and really letting that help you position your offers. When you get to a place in your business, where you are blazing your own path, people will flock to you you will be you will be doing everything that you need to be doing that makes it easy for people to work with you. But when you operate, like every other, whatever your industry is, it doesn’t set you apart, it doesn’t stand out. And so blaze your path is the first step in letting them see or you’re brave.

Rise to the Top

Rise to the top be top of mind for people all the time, not some of the time, not when you feel like it not when the mood strikes all the time.

When people think about you and that industry, or when they think about, you know what your offer is, they should think of you. Even if they don’t want to work with you, they should think of you, there’s something that needs to be something that is catching their attention, that is really calling to them or sticking in their brain. So when you can rise to the top and cultivate demand for your work. That is when you will start to really see clients flowing in money and revenue flowing in attention rolling in, and then your authority just naturally starts to grow. rising to the top, though, is a little bit of messaging. Well, a lot of messaging is a big part of messaging.

But it’s also capacity, and consistency. And they’re two shifts that need to dance together seamlessly. You must have the capacity in order to show up consistently. And the more you show up consistently, the more you’re going to rise to the top.

And so leaning in and investing in your capacity is essential having the business practices and the self care practices and the spiritual practices that you need to do to show up and take up space on a regular basis. That is what is required of us in this economy.

Act like the Expert

Yes, you might be new to business. I don’t know what how many years you’ve been doing this, but I can tell you that I was in business for eight years. Had a highly profitable business, by the way, six figures, you know, thriving community, I was living the life. And I still thought I was a beginner. I still looked for other people to tell me how to do things what to do what’s what should I do next? And it was only when I reclaimed my inner authority and my self worth and understood that nobody knows how to run my business better than me.

So this is why when I’m working with clients, we are we are focusing on what you know what you already know. And we’re pulling it out we are unearthing the gold that is within you that is within your business model that is within your expertise that is within your experiences. 

Visualize best possible outcome

Now, I have to remind myself of this one all the time, because it is so easy to get caught up in all the details and the overwhelm of running a business of you know, launching a thing, you know, working on a project.

when you know that the outcome has gonna have a great ending, you’re willing to go for it, you’re willing to do it, you’re gonna put the time and you’re gonna put the work in. So whatever that thing is that you’re struggling with right now, whatever that problem is that you’re trying to overcome. Get your journal out and just write out best possible outcome for it. And just focus on that focus on that. 

Embrace a Brave YES Mindset

So the brave guests mindset is something I created late, you know, kind of middle of last year. And I find more and more that it is the number one skill that entrepreneurs, female entrepreneurs especially need to make it in this industry in this in this market and this economy. And you know, when we when we say brave, yes, not just sometimes, but all the time. We’re going to be doing the things that we need to do to move our businesses forward. And when you can embrace a previous mindset, you’re doing things like saying yes, before you’re ready, trying new things, not being afraid of failure. 

Designing a Business for Impact — Not Toxic Productivity and Busywork

Designing a Business for Impact — Not Toxic Productivity and Busywork

Growing a business is hard work. It takes effort.

That effort should feel good — and move the needle for you so you can thrive and feel joy in the work you do. This is how we align with The Entrepreneur’s Freedom Trifecta that I talked about recently …

The simple truth — the one thing I want you to know is … mindful progress and Brave YES impact are a lovely combo.

I focus my work and coaching around Brave YES Power Moves because that’s what has helped me grow by leaps and bounds — my first business and now this one.

Boring just doesn’t cut it in this market.

Listen to this latest episode of The Brave YES Business Show!

The truth is there’s a lot of hope hanging in the air.

I just liked a tweet that said hope is a drug — and a lot of online gurus and thought leaders are playing on that drug, encouraging you to do bigger things.

But wait, that’s what I do????

Except it’s not. I’m not promising anything that’s not possible — other than your own joy and happiness and growth.

I have grown a bit of a community on Twitter this year — which has been great — mostly talking about the ridiculous standards around toxic productivity that fills every day, every week, every month with STUFF TO DO to grow your audience, your following, your revenue, etc. etc.

But, while I do believe in — and practice and coach my clients around — slow growth and mindful progress, I also believe in taking your business seriously and going all in on impact.

Growing a business is hard work. It takes effort.

That effort should feel good — and move the needle for you so you can thrive and feel joy in the work you do. This is how we align with The Entrepreneur’s Freedom Trifecta that I talked about recently …

The simple truth — the one thing I want you to know is … mindful progress and Brave YES impact are a lovely combo.

I focus my work and coaching around Brave YES Power Moves because that’s what has helped me grow by leaps and bounds — my first business and now this one.

Boring just doesn’t cut it in this market.

Embracing a Brave YES Business Mindset is KEY. It’s essential. And this is all about opening up your perspective and seeing what is possible for YOU and your business and going for it.

When you embrace a Brave YES Business Mindset — and I’ll be teaching a masterclass on this in January — you are saying YES to so many beautiful practices that will help you grow your business with ease and joy — rather than toxic productivity and shoulds.

You need impact. You need the buzz. You need the attention because business IS a numbers game and it’s harder than ever to get the numbers in your favor.

This traveling through the dark valley without taking some risks is ensuring that many business owners are falling behind.

And you need to be intentional and strategic to avoid burnout and exhaustion and wanting to give up when things don’t work out.

Here’s what I know to be true and how I shape my client journey in Brave YES Business Coaching with me.

OPERATE IN YOUR ZONE OF GENIUS — What you think is your zone may be accurate but often times there is a lot of inner work and self-discovery to do to figure this out. Or, you may even know what this is but not actually operating in it most of the time.

INVEST IN YOUR CAPACITY — How many times do I have to say it? Your ability to keep up in this fast paced, challenging economy — and stand out in a noisy, saturated market — requires you to be at the top of your game in confidence and courage — and that means at the top of your game in mind, body and spirit.

CALL IN YOUR MOST ALIGNED CLIENTS — In my coaching, we work directly on creating client alchemy — this is matching your energy to those who need your services, products and offers. In this process, you are creating a pipeline of clients to YOU, rather than you going to them.

GO FOR THE IMPACT WITH BRAVE YES POWER MOVES — It may not surprise you that I don’t waste much time. I don’t like busy work. I don’t like fluff. I like impact. I try to fill my calendar with high-impact actions rather than fluff … and this is where my Brave YES methodology really stands apart from average business coaching. Every move you make should be strategic and attempt to move the needle in your business.

CULTIVATE CONSISTENCY — Impact isn’t a one-time magical moment that you manifest. It’s a set of actions that you take consistently over time for mindful progress that builds and creates momentum over time. The more consistency you practice — in sales, in marketing, in visibility, in connections, in offering, in doing the work — the more traction you SHOULD feel in your business (ie: sales, audience growth, discovery calls, speaking engagements, etc.)

As you build out your outcomes and goals for the year, consider what’s on your list that is impact or fluff and see what you can do to turn that fluff into Brave YES Power Moves.