231: How to Activate Visionary Mode and Own Your Role as the Big Thinker

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, friends. Welcome back to She Thinks Big, the podcast, not the book. Do you have a copy of the book? If you don't have a copy of the She Thinks Big book, you need to go get one right now. You could go to SheThinksBigTheBook.com, actually, and get the link to the link on Amazon and all the other places that you can buy a hard copy or an e-book or an audiobook.

Anyway, that really wasn't supposed to be part of this intro, but I decided to throw it in there anyhow since it came up in my brain. But here's what we're really going to talk about today.

We have made it to the fourth episode in this little mini-series about role evolution. I'm kind of calling it. If you are still here, I already know one thing about you. I know one thing if you're still listening, you are a visionary in the making.

I seem to attract these visionaries. Maybe you already are one, but you're still spending your days buried in email and wondering why you feel burnt out. We all have these moments. But if it's happening more often than not, then really, truly listen in here.

Because this visionary role, this is the role that makes you CEO in both title and function. So think about that. There's the title of CEO, and then there's the function of CEO.

I think this is why so many women have a hard time calling themselves a CEO. If you're an owner of a small business, you may be part of this crowd too. You have a hard time calling yourself a CEO because you may not feel it equally in title and function.

But this visionary role is what makes you CEO in both. But only if the roles underneath you are filled and functioning. Otherwise, your vision stays stuck in your head—or worse, in your inbox—if you don't have the other roles that we've talked about, or at least half of them that we've talked about in the previous three episodes, filled.

So today is really about stepping FULLY—fully—into that top role of visionary. That's the role that you were meant to be, the visionary.

Because without a visionary, a business plateaus, people lose motivation, ideas stagnate, you become a really efficient machine that's heading nowhere interesting. But with a strong, clear visionary, the sky is the limit. New ideas emerge. I'll call it, you’re more capable to make pivots happen and do it boldly. Your growth can accelerate. The business becomes a movement, not just a machine.

So let's talk about how to become the visionary that your business deserves. All right, so first off, let's define visionary. The visionary, I think, really sees what's next before anyone else does. Sometimes a coach plays this visionary role in your business if you are not yet there.

When I do a Vision Into Action Intensive, sometimes I have to hold the vision as we turn it into action steps. I have to listen to what the leader or the founder of the business says, but then I help them formulate that vision, because it's really hard sometimes. It's hard to go become friends with future you, as I call it.

But the visionary is future-focused, idea-generating, mission-driven. The visionary doesn't manage tasks, she shapes the direction.

So the visionary is the opportunity spotter. I call her the industry translator. She's the one that takes the most risk. She's a big bettor. She's the "what if?" asker. She's kind of the North Star holder.

You've heard all of these expressions. And she's asking questions like, "What's possible? What's no longer serving us? What does our client or customer need next that they don't even know to ask for? Where are we headed in five years? What needs to change now to get there? What bigger impact could we make if we thought differently?"

So think of the visionary as the lighthouse, always scanning the horizon, seeing the storms and the opportunities long before they arrive to shore.

Last episode, we used an analogy—I think it was last episode—of the orchestra. I want you to think of this now as the lighthouse. The visionary is the lighthouse. So I'm going to say that you have to literally make the decision to be the visionary. I've had clients do this. There are no emails. There are no meetings. There's just thinking and reading and exploring.

You might have visionary days where you can hold this visionary role while the rest of your business is kind of coming along and allowing you to be visionary 100% of the time.

I want you to try to find days where you can have no email, no meetings, and it's just thinking and reading and exploring. It's one of those days where you have insight about combining some services or creating something new, or how you might double your business in six months.

A lot of the work we do at a retreat—part of the Runway to Freedom Mastermind—we have these two in-person retreats, and they're really visionary days where you are exploring and thinking. That's the power of protecting your visionary role.

But it's hard to stay in the role, right? That's why I said you might have days where you're in it, but maybe not all the days.

Being that visionary takes space. It takes stillness. It takes creating some sort of strategic distance. But the world has a strong gravitational pull, right? It pulls you back into the weeds.

Your inbox becomes full. Your client needs a last-minute edit. A team member has a question. Your project management system or your CRM sends you an alert, and suddenly your vision gets really blurry.

So I have a client who has—I’m going to call them million-dollar ideas—but she has no time to execute them. She is too in the business to work on her business. Every time she starts thinking bigger, she gets yanked back into operations.

I think this has happened enough times now—and I've sort of pointed this out to her—that she now sets aside entire days for strategic planning. I tell her, on those days, you are not answering any emails.

No. Any emails, right? You need that day for strategic planning. No matter what someone says on your team that they need you, it's a trap. Don't fall into their trap.

You have to build your team structure that hones in on your zone of genius. You have to protect it. And I can help you do this. We've got to protect your calendar like it's gold. So with this client, we created some systems where others could handle, I'm going to call it like 90% of those complex issues, and they only bring her the truly unique ones.

And when you do this—spoiler alert—it pays off. Her business tripled in 18 months. Not because she worked more, but because she finally had space to see around corners.

Now, how do you stay there? I think here are a couple of things that work. Number one, you need to protect your thinking time like a CEO protects their board meetings. You need to get religiously clear about what only you can do. You need to build a team you trust to run with the vision without your constant supervision.

You need to create rituals that signal visionary mode, whether it's a specific location, a time of day, or even an outfit. You've got to fill your inputs with inspiration, not just information. You have to say no a lot.

So visionary work doesn’t look busy. It looks quiet. It looks strategic. It looks focused. Sometimes it even looks like staring out the window or taking a walk, or being part of a mastermind where we meet in person twice a year for two days, where this is what you’re doing. It’s the most important role you’ll ever play, and it’s the most important time you’ll ever spend on your business.

Okay, I have a client who implements lighthouse hours, which means that three hours every Wednesday morning, she is completely unreachable. She will go to a coffee shop with no computer—just a notebook—and think about where her business is headed.

Her team figured this out a little while ago. And she was balking at it and said, “What if we need you?” But within a month, they adjusted. And within six months, those three hours were generating the most for her company in new growth opportunities.

When your visionary role is supported by the other roles we've talked about—the leader, manager, implementer, doer—that's when your CEO energy is fully, fully activated.

So let's pull this all together. Let’s wrap this all up, this whole series, with a new big picture.

Here’s what the flow should look like: The visionary sets the vision and the priorities. The leader turns vision into direction and, I’m going to call it, values. The manager creates the systems and the accountability. The implementer improves the how. The doer executes the what.

So if you’re still playing all five roles, no wonder you’re tired. And the hard truth? You can’t be an effective visionary if you’re spending most of your day in doer or implementer mode. You can’t set culture if you’re drowning in management tasks. And you certainly can’t scale if your systems rely solely on you.

So it’s time to really choose your seat and own it. And own it, okay? If you’re still packing every order personally, if you’re doing errands, you’re doing doer work that someone else could handle for $20 an hour, well, and if you’re doing that, your visionary ideas, potentially worth millions, are sitting untapped.

So I want you to reorganize and step fully into your visionary role. Because when you do, I have seen this, your business doesn’t just grow, it kind of transforms. You spot partnership opportunities that lead to licensing deals worth more than your whole entire previous year’s revenue. And that’s what happens when you give your visionary brain room to breathe.

So here's your homework. Number one, block off one hour on your calendar this week—no client calls, no meetings, just white space—and label it “visionary time” so it feels official. Then, number two, ask yourself what you want to be thinking about in that hour and what big questions you haven't had time to consider.

Third thing, I want you to identify one task you're doing that could be handled by someone in a different role and make a plan to transition it. Number four, I want you to revisit your company’s mission or purpose statement. Does it still light you up? If not, how might you refresh it?

Number five, I want you to write your own visionary job description and see how much of it you’re actually doing right now. That's your homework. If you’re really ready to finally lead from the top, it starts with letting go of the bottom. You can't truly operate as the CEO if you're also your own assistant, project manager, and implementer.

I want to help to build the business that gives you the space to lead, to dream, and to scale. I want you to work together so I can help you delegate with confidence, expand your team, and really stay in your visionary zone, that's where you belong. I want to help you do that. It’s hard to do it alone; I can’t even do it alone myself. I have help and support to keep me more in that visionary role.

Okay, head over to andreaslinks.com, book a call, you have nothing to lose. Let’s make this thing happen. Thank you so much for joining me for this entire four-part series. Remember, your CEO role isn’t something you earn later, it’s a seat you need to claim right now, in title and in function. You do that by making sure all the other seats are filled.

All right, friends. Who else needs to hear this? Pass this episode and this mini-series on to them, because 99% of female entrepreneurs are not playing that visionary role fully. You’d be helping them by sharing this info. As always, keep thinking big, because when you do, big things happen. I’ll 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.