221: Before You Think Big About Your Business, Get Real About Where You Are

Welcome to the She Thinks Big! Podcast. Get ready to level up your thinking and expand your horizons. I’m your host, Andrea Liebross, your guide on this journey of big ideas and bold moves. I am the best-selling author of She Thinks Big: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and Into the Extraordinary.

I support women like you with the insights and mindset you need to think bigger and the strategies and systems you need to turn that thinking into action and make it all a reality. Are you ready to stop thinking small and start thinking big? Let’s dive in.

Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the She Thinks Big Podcast. Now, if you are new here, I am Andrea Liebross. I am a business coach and author. I'm going to call it your go-to guide for moving past the messy middle and into the extraordinary. I hope that you'll find this podcast a space where you are prompted to think bigger and to take what might be brewing in your head, big, bold ideas, and turn those into action.

But here is the thing, before you can think big, you have to know where you are right now. If you have ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, even just restless for something more, I want you to ask yourself, do you truly know where you are right now? Before you tackle getting unstuck, eliminating the overwhelm, or finding something more, do you know where you're starting from?

Most women do not take time because we say we have no time, which might be creating this stuck in overwhelm, but most women don't take the time to get clear on what is working, what's not working, what they actually want, instead, they just keep pushing forward without a roadmap.

Now I can be totally guilty of this. I do see this all the time with my clients. But if I were to sum it up, where you are now, some are in pain. Some want to move away from pain. They want to move away from feeling overworked, frustrated, or guilty about where they are in their business or in their life.

Others are at a place where they feel the pull towards something new but hesitate because nothing's really wrong, everything's fine. They wonder if they even deserve more? Then another bucket—there are three buckets—another bucket of women are simply looking to add in more fun, more fulfillment, more purpose, but they don't know where to start and how to do that.

Wherever you are, the first step to growth is owning that current location without judgment. Because just like a GPS you can't map your route to Target. You can't map your route forward if you don't know the starting point, if you don't know your current location.

But when you do know your current location, then you can create the map to get you where you want to go. That's when the real movement happens. Notice the GPS and Siri have no judgment. It is not judging you as to whether or not you're starting from your office, the gym, your house, a tanning bed, or a vacation. No judgment. GPS is not judging you. You shouldn't be judging yourselves.

Now, here's something fun. I actually recorded most of today's content years ago. Before I had come up with this big thinking framework, before I wrote this book, but as I was going through planning out today's episode, which I want to be about step one in The Big Thinking Framework, assessing where you're at, I realized that I had this content “in the bank.”

Just the fact that I've had it is a perfect example of why this step, knowing where you are, is so powerful. I've been talking about knowing where you are for a while and now I've just incorporated it into step one of The Big Thinking Framework. No matter what stage of life or business you're in, this step doesn't change.

In the coming episodes, I'm also going to dive deep into each step of this Big Thinking Framework so that you can create real, tangible progress in your business and life. You're probably going to notice as I go through these steps, you've heard this before, but I'm presenting it in a different way.

I've realized that these six steps of The Big Thinking Framework, I've been talking about them all along, I just haven't positioned them like this. Before we get started, though, before I give you that content, I want to say thank you, first of all, for tuning in, whether you're on a walk or you're stuck in traffic, hiding in your closet for a few minutes of peace, ignoring your inbox.

I see you ignoring your inbox. No judgment where you're at your current location. I'm happy you're here. If you're new here, welcome. I am super happy to have you. Glad you've found this space. All right, let's dig into today's topic about taking inventory of where you are, knowing your current location as the first step in thinking big.

I think there are really three starting points in terms of what you're trying to work for or achieve or grow toward. There are three ways we can look at the starting point. You do need to know where you're at in order to move forward.

I think when my clients come to me and are wanting to move forward or to change something in order for that growth or movement to have the most impact, they need to know where they're starting from. Here are three places where you might be starting from if you are indeed wanting to move to a different location or a different place.

Number one, you may be wanting to move away from pain. You're in pain and committing to growing as a human can be a way of getting out of pain. Now, I'm not talking physical pain, it could be, but I'm talking more about emotional pain, feeling overwhelmed or unhappy or guilty or resentful.

Or maybe you're in pain as it relates to your marriage, finances, job, or a relationship with someone else. It could be because of a health problem or diagnosis, yours or someone else's, or it could be pain because you're seeing your child in pain or your child struggling or suffering.

If you are wondering, “Huh, do I really need to work on myself? Do I need to invest time, energy, or money towards investing in myself?” you may be starting from a place of wanting to move away from pain. Now, what I want to point out here is that the circumstance or the facts surrounding you are not causing the pain.

The pain is derived from your thoughts about these circumstances, your thoughts about the amount of money that's in the bank, or the diagnosis or the relationship. I know this is true because as humans, we can all be part of the same circumstance and not experience the same amount of pain or pain at all as compared to the next person.

Yesterday, I was with my daughter at New Student Orientation at Indiana University, and I witnessed a bunch of parents in pain, or what looked like pain, around their child in August going off to college. This seems very painful for them. For me, I don't know if that's really going to be a place of pain.

I'm sure it will bring a little sadness. I'm 100% sure. It will conjure up lots of memories, but I don't really see myself in August being in a place of pain, but I know many parents will be. Same circumstance, child going off to college, different amounts of pain. The pain isn't caused by the child going off to college, it's caused by our thoughts.

When you are starting to understand why you might be feeling the way you're feeling or why you actually have this desire to get to a different place, to get out of pain, you need to identify the pain of where you're at. When you commit to moving forward, you are going to learn how to minimize or handle that pain.

It's not going to take it away permanently, but you are going to make it so you can leverage that pain as a way to finding the best solutions, which makes the pain a lot more tolerable and less intense. You might leverage the fact that your child is going off to college, that pain as a starting point for you to move forward into a different chapter of life.

When we are wanting to move away from pain, it is very helpful to be able to identify the pain and use it as a place where you can create some leverage. Here's another place that we sometimes start. The first one was moving away from pain. Second is wanting to move toward something when there really is nothing wrong, but you're feeling that nudge.

I talked about that nudge I think in Episode 81. Now, this place, when you're wanting to move toward something, it can be harder than pain because oftentimes there's a layer of guilt attached. I like to say sometimes, “Nothing's gone wrong.” Sometimes my clients feel even worse than if they were in pain or in a situation they wanted to move away from because they feel like there are people in the world that are struggling way more than they are, and that they should really be grateful for what they have.

They feel sometimes that they don't have real problems. They have a great life on paper or in the eyes of others, but they feel as if they are struggling. They sometimes ask, “What's the matter with me?” The second way you can actually think about this growth opportunity is, are you wanting to move towards something?

You could also look at this as, yes, when you want to move towards something, you are also wanting to move away from something because what you're wanting to move away from is your current norm, your current norm, which in and of itself might be painful.

But in this situation, most of my clients often have curiosity or wonder if they could actually move away from the norm without everything collapsing. They're curious, could they write that book? Could they start a business? Could they grow their business? Could they achieve that goal? Could they lose 100 pounds? Could they move towards those things without having everything collapse around them?

Think about that. They don't want to usually upset the status quo. If you're someone out there that's like, “Yes, I have this nudge, this urge to grow, but I don't know if I really deserve it because nothing's really wrong,” coaching tools or focusing on yourself, it can make a huge impact when wanting to move towards something, when wanting to grow.

Just immersing yourself in the mindset that it's possible, getting curious about how it could happen, that decision in and of itself is super powerful. All right, now here's the third bucket of people who come to me and I think about, “Okay, where are they at? Where's their current location?”

This third bucket of people really just want to enjoy life more. They want to put some fun into life. They're in no obvious pain. They may not even have a real obvious goal, but they want to add in fun. They might even want to add in focus or purpose. They want to work on themselves because they are choosing to, and there is nothing wrong with choosing to work on yourself.

It is time to focus on themselves, often they say. They want to become more purposeful with how they use their time, energy, and money. When they work on themselves and have fun doing it, their lives become so much more interesting. Their lives are not stagnant. Nothing is boring. They feel fulfilled.

If you feel like you're stagnant or you don't feel very fulfilled or purposeful, that in and of itself can cause pain. It can also cause the guilt, the guilty feeling, because nothing is really wrong. But something doesn't have to be wrong. You don't have to feel guilty if you are wanting to create some change in your life, if you want to grow, if you want to develop.

How does all this pertain to what I addressed at the beginning about knowing your current location or being your own human GPS, turning on your location services? Well, you have to know where you're starting from in order to go to someplace new. Then that means, in other words, knowing and owning what is currently true for you.

I coach women and I notice over and over again that being able to own what's true is just as challenging, if not more challenging, than taking responsibility for your current situation. It's hard for us to take responsibility. We tend to blame outside things. That's a natural human condition.

But when you know where you're starting from and you are committed to creating some growth or developing, you can learn to take responsibility for it. We tend to blame ourselves. We reject or judge who we truly are. We feel bad about where we are. We feel bad about our current location. We get mad at ourselves and we say, “I can't believe this is happening or this is where I'm at. How did I get myself into this situation?”

In this podcast, I want to make a case for you. Those thoughts are the opposite of what are the thoughts that are really going to serve you. I also want to teach you how to be on to yourself if you're not owning what's true, and identifying your current location, and give you some strategies to help you wrap your arms around it. When you think about that GPS, before that GPS lady can give you a route forward or toward something or even give you the most fun and scenic route, the GPS needs to know where you're starting at.

Often it actually asks you, do you want me to use your current location? Then once they identify your current location, the GPS lady can calculate the route. Now, you might have named your GPS woman a certain name. You might like a certain accent. If you haven't used Waze, they have some very fun GPS voices that are movie stars and singers and all sorts of things, Cookie Monster. But I digress.

When the GPS identifies where you are, it then calculates the route for you to get where you're going. Now I want you to notice that the GPS lady never says, “Why aren't you there yet?” Or, they never say, "Isn't it obvious you just take this left and that right?" They never say, "Well, it's only two minutes away, do you really need directions?" They never say, "Hey, I think you've been here before, didn't you memorize the path?" They never say, "Why are you using a GPS anyway?"

None of that is said. When we ask ourselves why can't we get where we want to go, one reason might be that we don't know where we're starting from, but another reason might be the fact that we have not accepted that we shouldn't know the route, or even if we've been there before, it’s not always easy, or that there might be another way to get there.

The GPS doesn't think the past is relevant either. It doesn't judge. But notice when we as humans want to move forward, we feel compelled to tell everyone where we've already been. We like to give everybody a little background. Sometimes when I'm coaching someone, someone will get on the call and say, “Well, I just want to give you a little background so that everybody understands where I'm coming from.”

But notice the GPS doesn't need to know where you're coming from the past or where you've been in the past. It doesn't need any background info in order to understand how to help you move forward, how to get where you want to go. It just needs to know where you are now.

I'm guilty too sometimes of wanting to give you a little background so you understand my history and all the things I've been through and all the things I think are relevant to where I am now and where I think I want to go, but those things aren't really relevant.

What matters is where you are today, your current location. Are you trying to move away from pain? Are you trying to move towards something new? Or are you trying to add a little fun, purpose, or focus into your life? What matters is where you are today. What are you thinking and feeling and believing right now, today?

The GPS also doesn't have a lot of disbelief about our ability to go somewhere else. She never says, "I can't believe that you want to go there. You're never going to get to your destination. It's so far away."

This is what I love about GPSes. They are robots. They're not human, and I'm not trying to make us into a robot, but I just want you to try on the idea that the more you can pinpoint your current situation, your current struggle, the more accurate you are in pinpointing where you're at, the more power you have around where you want to go.

Have you ever been in a parking lot and you try to start the GPS and you're facing one way and the GPS thinks you're facing another way and until you get yourself turned around and pinpoint exactly the direction you're heading in, until you do that, the GPS really can't calculate the best route.

If you say, “I'm at home,” it would be way better to say, “I'm at home on the second floor in the master bedroom,” because that's giving us a way better idea of our current location. We want to be able to pinpoint where we're at so we can move forward or toward what we want or toward creating more meaning, purpose, fun in our lives.

We want to own our current location in order to do so. Here's what we don't want to do. We don't want to judge our current location. We don't want to reject our current location. We don't want to push it away because when we do, all of that, we're just lost again.

But often, when we don't own it, we wonder why nothing is changing, why we're not getting to where we want to go. Today, I also want to walk you through some of the most common signs you might feel or see or experience, and the most common signs to know that you're not owning where you're at.

If you're like, "Well, I think I know where I'm at," I'm going to give you some examples for you to ponder. Maybe you don't really know where you're at or you could even get better at knowing where you're at, at pinpointing it. Here's the first thing I want you to think about.

You're not owning your current location when your words, when what you say doesn't match the way you feel. Here's an example. This just happened to me. A colleague told me how excited they were that they just landed a big client. I said I was so happy for them. But maybe inside, when I really examined myself, I wasn't super happy.

I was feeling a little inadequate or annoyed and jealous. This also happens when someone might say, “Oh, we're going to Hawaii for two weeks this summer,” and you say, “Have a great time.” But inside you're like, “Really? They're going to Hawaii and I'm just staying here?”

When you say something like, “I'm so happy for you,” you may not really be feeling that. You may actually be saying to yourself inside, “Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it, when that really pans out for her, or if that plane actually takes off without there being some reason why they can't go.”

Owning where you're at in this situation, it's really like you realizing that you would like to be where they're at. You would like to go to Hawaii. You would like to land the big client. Perhaps, you're in a little bit of a “Poor me stage,” or “Why don't I have that yet?” stage.

What does that tell us when your words are not matching your feelings? What it tells us is that actually we want to be somewhere different than where we are now. We don't love our own current location. This is just good to know. If you do know that you don't love your current location and you've actually recognized what your current location really is, then you can start to ask yourself, "Where do I want to be? What do I want?"

You could also recognize in this particular situation that you're comparing yourself and you probably do care about what other people think, even though you might be telling yourself you don't care. Can you learn something about how you view yourself what you believe is true for you or even possible for you?

Maybe you think it's not even possible for you to land that big client. Assess, are you living in this state of abundance or are you living in scarcity? In this case, I'd say you're living in scarcity and you might not be sure if what she has is actually possible for you.

Now, I could be wrong and you could be in a great place, but do you see how we really want to, when we really own where we're at and really explore it and get curious, we actually can create the change that we might be looking for.

Getting to where you really are might happen with the guidance of a coach or in your own journal or it might happen in a conversation where you're feeling vulnerable. Wherever that starts to happen, instead of judging yourself, just notice your current location because your current location is really fascinating.

Here's another way you might notice that you're not owning where you're at or you don't really have a good current location pinpointed. It's when you have a should or shouldn't somewhere in your thoughts or you're operating from a place of I should or I shouldn't.

This is one that people talk about all the time. I actually think I have an episode about shoulding on yourself. The main reason to not should on yourself is because you lose awareness of where you are. You can't get leverage over yourself and you can't get where you're trying to go as easily, as quickly, as efficiently, as peacefully if you don't know clearly where you're beginning from.

If you find yourself saying things like, "I know, I shouldn't spend money on all those things," that's your brain's way of deflecting away from really understanding what's really going on. It's sort of like a way to just close the lid on the box.

“I know I shouldn't buy this stuff or I know I should have a better handle on my finances,” then we just shove it in the closet or close the lid. I want you to try to open the box, and I want you to go ask yourself, “Why am I buying all this stuff?” or, “Why don't I like looking at my numbers? What am I trying to feel by purchasing things that my prefrontal cortex doesn't really even want? I wonder why I do that. I wonder why I don't like looking at my bank account. I wonder what I'm chasing. I wonder what that's about for me.”

I think that we're afraid if we look into the box, then we're going to have to stop doing that. I had a client last week say, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to stop doing all the things I really want to do." That's not true, my friends. You don't have to stop doing it at all.

Maybe you'll decide you have reasons you like what you're doing, maybe you'll keep doing it or maybe you'll have reasons that you don't like and you'll still decide that you're going to keep doing it. The key is to stop judging and rejecting this part of yourself.

The irony is you probably won't find it as enjoyable if you open the lid on the box, but that will be okay. It isn't that I want you to stop doing behaviors that aren't serving you, it's that I want you to stop wanting to participate in behaviors that aren't serving you. That's totally different.

If you're a mom, I'm guessing you think there are things that you should be doing and that you should love doing too, like helping with homework or driving kids around or playing with them, but in reality, you don't love them. Then you make the fact that you don't enjoy them mean something about you, like you're not a good mom or you don't love your kids.

But what does it really mean? Maybe it means that those are things that you just don't enjoy. It doesn't mean that you stop doing them or you make everybody hitchhike to where they need to go. You continue to do them. It's just being honest in your observation.

It's so much more valuable than saying, "I should love doing this." Here's another one when we tell ourselves that we should just go ahead and do something that we're uneasy about. Like you should just do it, and that's a way to gain confidence. But here's the thing, if you are not wanting to do something or act in a certain way, what if we just observed and said, “Huh, that's interesting,” and we own it, then we can get coaching or guidance on becoming more confident.

We get to create the change that we wouldn't have been able to create if we just plowed on through without assessing our current location. Own where you're at. Don't say I should just be confident around my family or my boss. I should like playing with my kids or I shouldn't be spending so much money at Target.

Own where you're at and you'll get way more growth, way more movement, change, progression, and leverage on yourself when you do that. Here's the last way I want to share with you about understanding your current location. It's what you're doing or not doing is not aligning with what you're thinking.

Now I see this a lot in my clients when they say to me things like, “I don't know why I'm not X, Y, Z. I know I'm capable, but,” that's a sign that they're not owning where they're at, because if you really believe that you could do this, or that you were capable, and you were going to be successful, and you were going to help people, and it's what the universe wanted you to do, and all those things that you were saying, you would be showing up with full force and excitement.

Step one isn't just to power your way through. You can, I'm all for taking action, massive action, and I'd rather you take action than not, but step one is to just own,

“Okay, part of me doesn't believe, I don't have the thoughts that this is going to work, or that this is actually possible. There must be a part of me that isn't sure if this is the right thing or this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Or what I'm wanting to do is actually going to help people. Or that I'm going to be able to succeed.”

What's this all about if you ask yourself, what's going on in there and owning where you're at, embracing where you're at without judgment, without telling yourself that you're doing something wrong? Owning where you're at allows you actually to create more movement.

One more thing. To assess where you're at or to get the real picture on your current location, it's really looking at what emotions or feelings are driving your actions or fueling you. A couple of episodes, I talked about fueling your commitment. What's fueling your actions? Is it guilt, fear, shame, scarcity, greed, or anger?

Those emotions in the long run don't create enough action to get you to continue to move forward, toward something, or into more purposeful and fun existence. Those feelings and the action derived from them, they're short-lived. You are so much better off being fueled by curiosity and confidence and love and commitment.

That's going to get you to the different place. Let me give you an example, losing weight. If you're trying to lose weight out of guilt or shame or belief there's something wrong with you, or you don't like your body, then the weight loss is going to be short-lived.

You want to feel good in your body. You want to be proud of who you are right now and own it and believe that you have the power to change. This relates to thought bridges, which I've mentioned before. You need to own where you're at. You need to have a thought that I like where my body is at and I believe that I've done what I've done up until this point for a reason and I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.

It's only from that point that you can start to create some change. Another example in business, sometimes my clients say, “If I could just get to 500K in my business, then I could believe that what I have is valuable and I can do this.” I say, “You've got to own where you're at right now. You've got to be wherever you are, which maybe is zero dollars or maybe it's $100,000 in revenue, whatever and believe that what you have is great and that you can move forward from there.”

That's the way to get to $500,000, it doesn't go the other way around. Owning where you're at is so, so, so important. Jody Moore, who I've mentioned on this podcast before, taught me something about yelling at kids that relates to this too.

I think this is so true. If you want to stop yelling at your kids, you can't be mad at yourself and yelling at yourself for yelling at your kids. You've got to own where you're at. You've got to say, "I yell at my kids. I just yell at them again. I wonder why. I wonder what's going on for me that made me do that."

What if you just told yourself, "I'm an amazing mom and I just yelled at my kids," do you think you would yell less or more if you genuinely believed you were an amazing mom? I'm going to promise that you would yell less. You can't yell at yourself for yelling at your kids and think that you're going to stop yelling.

If you do then you're just going to get better at yelling. Do you see what I'm saying? The metaphor I always use to explain this is that we're trying to get to the top of the mountain, the peak. At the top, we are the best versions of ourselves. Do you know what version that is?

That's the us that is confident and curious and embraces ourselves, all of ourselves, with all of our bumps and bruises and scratches that we got along the way as we climbed up the mountain. When we took a wrong turn off the trail or when there was a log that covered up the path, we just get curious and we figure out how we can take the next step or do better next time.

We get up and we try again every time we fall down or we see a log in the trail on the way to the top. We're able to be a positive influence on our fellow hikers. We're not judging them, we're able to treat them with respect, just the same respect that we want to treat ourselves with, which is loving, compassionate, and kind.

Then sometimes curious when we behave in ways that maybe we don't quite like. We become fascinated and open, and we're continuing to learn, grow, evolve, and we're healthy in all of those things. That's you as your best self at the top of the mountain. But to get to the top, you need to assess where you are now, and really get out your compass and pinpoint the location. You need to be able to look forward. So many people are always looking back for proof that they can or cannot move forward. They say things like, “Well, in the past, I XYZ,” or, “I know myself because I always ABC.”

But the truth is they don't know their future self. They don't know what's in the future and they won't know unless they try to get there, looking at the past or looking at the trail we've already covered doesn't help. I want you, my friends, to embrace where you're at. Embrace the positive, embrace the negative. That's the way you expand yourself.

You're not going to become any better than you are right now because you already are complete. You're just going to expstand yourself. You're going to evolve. You're going to become the next version of you. That's pretty fun to do.

All right, friends, did this episode get you thinking? If it did, then I have one question for you. Do you actually know where you are? Not where you wish you were, not where you think you should be, but do you know your real location, your real starting point? Because when you own what’s true, whether you’re feeling stuck or craving more or just ready to shift, you can then take that first real step towards change.

Today, we explored three key places you might be starting from. Number one, moving away from pain. You're overwhelmed, you're frustrated, you're unhappy and growth feels like the way out. You're moving towards something new. Everything seems fine, but you feel the pull for more, even if it comes with a little guilt or uncertainty, or the third place that you might be starting from is wanting to add in more purpose, more fun, or more fulfillment.

You're not necessarily in pain, but you want to feel more engaged. You want to feel more focused. You want to be doing the things you want to be doing. You want to be more excited about your business and your life. No matter which category you fall into, progress starts with embracing where you are, not judging it, not rejecting it.

I see so many women trying to push forward without fully acknowledging their reality, and that's what keeps them stuck. Here are a few signs that you might not be owning where you're at. Number one, you say things that don't match how you actually feel, like congratulating a friend while secretly feeling envious, or you're constantly telling yourself you should or shouldn't be doing something instead of just getting curious about why you feel that way.

Or if you've noticed that there's a disconnect between what you say you want and what you're actually doing, you want growth, but you're holding yourself back, that kind of thing. Here's the kicker. Your emotions fuel your actions. If you're operating from guilt or fear or scarcity, your progress will always feel forced, it will always feel just temporary.

But when you shift into curiosity and confidence and commitment, that's when you start making real sustainable changes. Here's the next step. Take the “Are you ready to scale big?” If you haven't done that already. It's at andreaslinks.com. You can find the quiz there and in just a couple minutes, like two minutes, you're going to get clear on where you stand and what your next best move is.

If you're ready to go deeper, to take that next step, you can schedule a call right from that same Andrea's links page and together we're going to determine if coaching is going to help you move forward, if it's right for you, and what format makes the most sense for where you are now.

Go to andreaslinks.com, take the quiz, schedule your call. If you know someone that needs to hear this, share this episode with them because really the best thing we can do for each other is help one another, see what's possible, and that all starts with knowing where you are today.

Okay, friends, until next time, keep thinking big because your future self is totally counting on you. See you next time.

Thanks for tuning into the She Thinks Big! Podcast. If you're ready to learn the secret to unleashing your full potential, don't forget to grab a copy of my book, She Thinks Big: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and Into the Extraordinary. It's available on Amazon and at your favorite bookstore.

And while you're there, grab a copy for a friend. Inside, you'll both find actionable strategies and empowering insights to help you navigate the complexities of entrepreneurship and life, and step confidently into your extraordinary future.

If you found value in today's episode, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast platform. And if you're ready to take this learning a step further and apply it to your own business and life, head to andreaslinks.com and click the button to schedule a discovery call. Until next time, keep thinking big.