Your Success Hinges on Being a Laser, Not a Flashlight

I was on a client call this past week and the question that kept coming up from my client was “I just don’t know what I should focus on.  I have these three irons in the fire and want to add this, but now I am feeling overwhelmed, but I am also equally nervous if we don’t do this then we’ll be in a cash crunch.”

Ooof. There is a lot to unpack there, starting with her overwhelm which was being compounded by not focusing on what will actually move the needle. 

For this client, and maybe for you too, there is never a shortage of  ideas. She’s a creative entrepreneur: Our minds are great at seeing opportunities and chasing shiny objects. 

What she lacks though, is focus. Her shiny object syndrome is breeding overwhelm like bunnies in love. 

For the past 4 months, we have been working on clarity, specifically clarity regarding roles and where she should be focusing her time to have the biggest impact on her practice. 

Between seeing her patients and being an online educator, to say her plate is full would be an understatement and she’s tired — like so many other business owners... 

…So we used our monthly strategy call to update her focus on the right things.  Or as I like to say, get her back to being a laser, not a flashlight.

Yet, she kept coming back with, “But what do I focus on?” and my response was, “Your functional anatomy course.”

This went on for about 20 minutes, each time bringing her back to the priority because she kept getting nervous about, in her words, “limiting her choices.” 

I knew that is was totally natural response by the way, but it’s my job to keep my clients focused in and I knew that this direction has the highest success rate for students, the biggest ROI/ROTI for her, and is the least impactful on the rest of her practice resources and life. 

She got really quiet, I could tell she was thinking about all we talked about and then she looked at me and I could tell she was about to cry.  I’ve been in this spot many times with clients before so I knew exactly what was going through her mind.... 

A massive fear of the calm. 

I’ve talked about this before — the fact that most entrepreneurs thrive in chaos. It’s what we know.  Primarily because most of us grew up in incredibly unstable homes for one reason or another so it feels like “home.” 

This “addiction” to chaos is why so many businesses struggle to reach the level of success they could, or they fail all together. 

Successful businesses scale and are sustainable when they are predictable and proven.  I don’t know a single business that is successful for long if they are flying by the seat of their pants and changing strategy every 5 minutes.  That is not a recipe for success. 

The panic that was rising in my client’s eyes when faced with the idea of space in her schedule, a steady MRR from her course, and the ability to see patients just a few days of week, was something I have seen time and time again.

You see, it wasn’t that she didn’t know what to focus on or do.  She was just having a full body moment of resistance to getting out of the rat race.

To her, as counterintuitive as it is, it is so much scarier to be in the calm and certainty than it is to be in the chaos and on the roller coaster that she’s used to. 

THIS! This fear is one of the biggest things I work with my consulting clients on — being OK with white space.  Taking a step back and not freaking out.  Mastering the art of letting go without feeling like you are losing control of your business. 

One of my company and personal core values is freedom.  And that is one of the top deliverables I work with my consulting clients to achieve: true entrepreneurial freedom.

Freedom to focus on the things that light you up.

Financial freedom to build the life you want. 

Time freedom to be with the people who matter most. 

Those things are only available if you take your light and focus and turn it into a laser instead of a burning-the-candle-at-both-ends flashlight.

Helping you identify and focus on the things that will be the 2mm difference between a great and extraordinary business is my superpower.  

If you are struggling with all the spinning plates and realize you are spread too thin and your business is stalling, or worse — burying you alive, then please reach out.  I would love to throw you a life raft and extricate you from the rat race.

Schedule a free consultation with me!