Small Business Revitalization Blog

Many startup business owners confide in me that they feel like a fraud.  They feel like they are pretending in this game of business and one of their motivations for having a business coach is to get more confident in knowing what they are doing.

Then there are other people who take the ‘fake it til you make it’ approach.  Often jumping from strategy to strategy, idea to idea, shiny object to shiny object… hoping desperately that something will work and they’ll become the highly successful business owner they fantasize is possible.

I was enjoying a great conversation on Facebook this week about the differences between ‘acting’ and ‘acting as if’ in business and when it’s okay to fake it.  To me they are two different energies. 

When we act we are being an energy – we are inhabiting a presence that comes from somewhere deep inside of us.  We are being the energy required to have a successful business, even if it feels a little different to our usual persona.  Just like a great actor does in a movie… when you really believe it could be true, that is acting!

When we are ‘acting as if’ we have started on the journey towards acting, but we are still in the zone of pretending we know what we are doing.  Underneath our ‘acting as if’ we still feel a bit like a fraud, we are still feeling like someone is going to find out we don’t have a clue any moment now…  the self-doubt comes to the fore. That’s more like being a C grade actor… everyone knows you are pretending!!

So what’s your strategy?  Are you going to ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ or are you ready to embody a presence that makes people sit up straight and take notice of what you are doing?  If you are choosing to have presence, you need an underpinning of knowing (rather than knowledge!).  

This is that sense within yourself that you know intuitively what is right for your business and you are willing to move forward with confidence.  You may not have all of the specific knowledge required (that is where a business coach or mentor comes in), but you do have an innate knowing that you have what it takes and your business is positioned to succeed.

This doesn’t mean you won’t take a few detours along the way – these often take us to places not imagined, but useful in an unexpected way!  There will be tweaks and about turns… new paths and the occasional crash to a stop… None of these things mean you are faking it! Discovery and growth is part of the adventure of being in business!  What will keep you going is that underlying presence that you bring to your adventures.  When you are clear and calm within yourself, so much more is possible!

So would you like to explore the essence of having more presence?  Join us at New Energies of BusinessTM – we are including some coaching hotspots this time… so a great opportunity to ask your questions of people who really understand presence! Bookings and more info at www.NewEnergiesOfBusiness.com 

Upcoming dates:  30 November 2011 in Brisbane and February 2012 on the Sunshine Coast.

(Image: Pinterest)

Like many perfectionists, for many years I chased the ever elusive ‘fix your weaknesses’ story, always putting myself in places where I could work on my weaknesses. Sadly this strategy did not bring me or my employers a whole lot of joy and I eventually got smart enough to avoid choosing the jobs that were too focused in those areas of weakness.

At one point I graduated to telling my employer why it would not be a good idea to give me certain tasks… I explained these tasks were not a natural talent and ability for me and they would be wasting their and my time given my capacities in other areas!  Of course, most people ignored this, preferring to squash the square peg into the round hole until they created a big mushy mess of misery for them and me.  Imagine if Frank Gehry had become a bricklayer instead of the magnificent architect he is?  The world would be much the poorer and he would be finding a whole lot less joy in his work!

I see this often with business owners – instead of allowing our team to shine in ways that are natural to them, we create a set of expectations and conditions that create the exact opposite.  And then we wonder why the business is not performing!!  As a business coach, it’s my job to sometimes deliver a little tough love to either the employee who is not loving their work or the business owner who is not creating the possibility for that in the workplace.  

Performance issues are almost always a result of the manager and the employee not being present with the strengths of the person who is not performing.  When we are truly present with our own strengths, talents and capacities it allows us to choose or create a role that is perfect for us (rather than twist, bend and mutilate ourselves to become perfect for the role!!)  

When we are present to our capacities, we work with ease and can easily outcreate and outdeliver almost anyone else… When you have a whole company full of people being present with their capacities and those people are in the roles best suited to their strengths, competition becomes irrelevant because you have a massive peak performance advantage!

Having this presence embodies a confidence, a connection with self and the willingness to be a contribution far beyond what most people see as possible.  Owning this inner presence individually and as a business builds in a set of distinctively different competencies that are incredibly difficult to copy well.  If you desire to build a sustainable, peak performing business, this is a great place to start! 

At the next New Energies of Business events we are bringing you two amazing speakers who live this strategy in their workplaces and beyond… what if we could have peak performance as the norm, instead of wading through the challenges of performance management way too often?  Would that make your business more blissful??  

If you’d like to know more, join us for an adventurous day of uncommon insights into what’s working right now!!  Bookings and more info at www.NewEnergiesOfBusiness.com  (Upcoming dates:  November 2011 in Brisbane and February 2012 on the Sunshine Coast)

(Guggenheim Bilbao image via Pinterest)