I have another message specifically for you sales professionals, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and business owners. Do you ever get down on yourself or doubt your abilities? Yes? Well that means that you’re human.
Most people who have reached some level of success have faced imposter syndrome at one point in time. You start thinking “Am I good enough?”, “Do I really have what it takes to be sitting at this table?”, or “I’m not qualified enough to be serving these clients.”
It’s totally normal for thoughts like these to spring up from time to time, what matters is how you navigate through them. One of my favorite guides for dealing with these limiting thoughts is the book Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine.
In his book, Chamine talks about how saboteurs show up in our lives. While there are quite a few of them, the big saboteur is “the judge”, which makes us feel inadequate. The judge brings up those same self-limiting thoughts that lend to imposter syndrome.
It’s easy to get down on yourself for having these kinds of thoughts, but oftentimes the thoughts that try to sabotage us are actually a form of emotional intelligence or EQ. Emotional intelligence is your ability to manage your emotions positively. This helps you to do things like effectively communicate stress, have influence with other people, and diffuse conflict. When you think of emotional intelligence, you probably think about your personal relationships, but it also comes into play in your business life as well.
Business Systems Intelligence
Another book I love is Conscious Capitalism by John Mackey and Rajendra Sisodia. The authors talk about another form of intelligence – “business systems intelligence”. This is the kind of intelligence that helps you create business optimization, system optimization, and reduce friction in the workplace.
What does this have to do with emotional intelligence and self-sabotage? Everything. Your personal and professional lives do not exist on isolated islands. Especially as business owners, everything that’s going on in your life trickles out into your professional life.
Questions about whether you’re good enough or what’s holding you back tend to trigger distraction, isolation, lower energy frequencies and contribute to self-sabotage. If you find limiting beliefs and thoughts of self-doubt creeping in, you have the power to stop them in their tracks and flip them around.
When these questions pop up, swap them for something like “I feel most fulfilled when I ____”, “I believe the gifts that I have to offer others are ____”, or “The most confusing part about purpose is ____”. Journal through these questions and come up with your own answers. The most important part is self-inquiry. If you survey a bunch of thought leaders, you might get fifty different answers to the same question, but what really matters is understanding what purpose means to you.
When you understand what your purpose is, you’re able to diffuse negative thoughts by asking yourself if the life you’re living fits that definition, and change it as needed. Not only do they help give you clarity, but they also help to trigger emotional intelligence.
Leveling Up
Clients come to you because they want to grow or expand in some area of their life. Naturally, wherever your level of consciousness and enthusiasm is, your client will be a few steps lower than you. If you want them to get up to where you are, you help guide them with your own congruency and certainty.
Think about your interactions with your clients. The person who has the most certainty and conviction in the exchange is the decision-maker. If you are more certain about a yes than they are about a no, then your higher level of certainty will influence them into your way of thinking.
Back to overcoming those self-limiting beliefs. You can develop congruency by getting anchored in deep questioning and journaling. Overcoming saboteurs and limiting beliefs is so important when operating a business. These practices help to create a sense of self-possession and assuredness that magnetizes clients to you and gives you a sort of energetic credibility and authority.
This allows you to operate from a place of integrity for your business, feed your purpose, and create more meaningful connections. When you operate from this place, your business starts to become a real service. You are better able to help people leverage their gifts because you understand what yours are – and how to use them.
These are the kinds of topics that I’m planning on exploring more and more. Helping sales professionals, solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, and business owners give offerings from a place of intention and aligned purpose. So lookout for the podcast, the accountability group I started, and other tools to help you transform and level up your business.
