What is stopping your business becoming a much better business?
It is an interesting question to reflect upon, isn’t it?
One of my clients, Noel, is an entrepreneur who has started several successful companies.
His latest creation is a tech business in the financial sector, and it has gone from a start up to requiring close to 20 staff in about a year.
On one of our recent coaching sessions Noel shared with me that he had secured a 30-minute, one to one coaching session, with none other than Sir Richard Branson.
So, he had this meeting with Richard, and they talked around this particular challenge that Noel had been coming up against in his business.
And Richard told him what he thought he should do about it.
Sounds amazing, right?
One of the very best entrepreneurs of all time giving you the benefit of his vast experience.
Here is what I found interesting.
Noel carefully listened to the advice and let it sink in for a few days.
But he ultimately concluded that he couldn’t use the advice as it didn’t suit his particular situation.
We had a conversation about this, and he had a couple of valuable realisations:
- Your business is unique to you (no one else has your thinking, your experience, your circumstances, your history or your vision).
Therefore, it is unlikely (as Noel discovered) that someone else will have the right answers for you.
On those rare occasions when external advice does land with you it’s because it’s like an echo of your own thinking. You get behind the idea as though it were your own.
- If you don’t know what to do then be willing to hang out in the unknown until something comes to you.
The power of insight
I was fortunate enough to come across Robin Charbit and Ken Manning several years ago and they have a hugely successful business called ‘Insight Principles’.
They run a programme called ‘Invisible Power’ where they help businesses solve what they call ‘intractable problems’.
An intractable problem is one that despite a huge amount of time, effort, thinking, money, tried and tested solutions and external help, does not seem solvable.
What do they do on the programme?
Well, they don’t give you answers! Instead, they teach you the invisible mechanics behind how the mind works.
And it’s amazing what occurs. Quite often people come up with solutions within hours or days for problems that have existed for years.
How does this happen?
We have been conditioned to massively over-value the intellect (the finite mind) and we massively under-value the power of the universal mind (the infinite mind).
But where does new, fresh and creative thinking come from?
The mind is designed to give you the thinking you need. When you drop your habitual and conditioned thinking, you become wide open to the field of infinite possibility.
So, the main point is…
Although you are not in control of when you get insights, they tend to arrive just when you need them, and they are perfectly tailored for you.
If you want to get more insights (and who doesn’t?), then be comfortable with not knowing.
P.S. Ken Manning gave a TED talk called ‘The Invisible Power and Brilliance of the Human Mind’, which I recommend. Click here to view it.
