Gloria Grace Rand:
Why Your Business Still Runs on You (Even With Decades of Wisdom)
Namaste.
If you’re listening to this podcast, I know that you have decades of wisdom and the deep desire to lead, yet why does your business still require every ounce of your energy to keep the lights on?
Okay, I know there’s a few of you out there who are going, oh, is she talking to me? Well, I know why. Because the answer is that it’s because you’re working in the business, not on the architecture of your legacy. So today we are going to be talking about the bottlenecks that are keeping you small and keeping your business small. And just to let you know, let you realize that we’re not talking.
These are business failures. They’re really examples of just stuck energy. And that’s what I help women over 50 clear through my love method, my L O V E method, which we’re going to talk about a little bit in a couple of these. The context of some of these bottlenecks that we’re going to be talking about today. My long way of saying that.
The 3 Bottlenecks Blocking Midlife Business Growth
So I found that bottlenecks typically fall into three main categories.
And I’m going to help you audit yourself so you can figure out which bottleneck needs to be cleared. And in fact, you’re going to have. I’m going to give you an assignment a little bit later in the podcast. So if you want to even pause this now and get maybe a journal or a piece of paper and a pen handy, you might want to do that. So what are these bottlenecks?
Yeah, we get. We got to identify them. Right. So we’re going to start, we’re going to start off with that. And the first one is what I’m calling the Superwoman bottle bottleneck.
The Superwoman Bottleneck: Delegating Without Guilt
Yeah, this is one, this is one I can relate to. This is what I, I have experienced in my life before in my business. So ask yourself, are you the chief bottle washer in your business? Are you the one who is wearing all the different hats in your business? Are you still a solopreneur instead of someone who has a team of people around to help you?
Like I said, been there, done that. I know this. I can relate. It’s. And in fact, I, I think I’ve even done whole podcast episodes about this in the past.
Because it’s normal when you start a business, especially if you are, let’s say, a service provider in particular, it’s normal to think of your business as your baby, for one thing. And so you, as a, as any parent, any good parent knows, you want to take care of your baby, you want to you want to protect them and sometimes you want to do, especially when they’re young, you want to do everything for them. But if you’ve got that have to do it all mindset, it’s going to be a struggle to scale because eventually, you know, as again if you’re a parent, you know, we’ve got to let these kids, they have to start learning how to walk and they’re going to have to fall a little bit and then they’re going to get back up again. And. And I still remember, I still remember my dad teaching me how to ride my bike and you know, he would hold the bike for me as I was pedaling but eventually he let go so that I could go off on my own.
Now in business, what this looks like is delegating and as I mentioned at the beginning, I wanted to weave in part of the love method. So the L, LOVE is an acronym. The L stands for let go and let God. And this is, you know, realizing that you’ve got to let go of some of the tasks that you are doing in your business and delegate them to someone else. Let go of the need to control everything and hire yourself some part time help.
You know, virtual assistants, you don’t need to have them working full time. You can, you can have them just working for maybe a few hours, maybe just one or two hours a day. So 10 to 10 hours a week. And I tell you when I was, when I’ve had virtual assistants, now at the moment I don’t have one, but I, I am going planning on rehiring one again very soon.
They can make your life so much easier as long as you do again, what relinquish some control. So that means setting up some systems for them and setting up parameters so that you know how to communicate well. And that is going to make it a very effective relationship, which is what you want. Because when you start letting go of some of the tasks that take up your time, it frees you to be able to spend more time either high level planning or better yet, working with clients and being able to generate revenue, a lot more revenue than what you would be doing than what you would be paying to an assistant. Let’s say, because you can hire people fairly inexpensively.
But if you are a high level business owner that you’re charging, let’s say an hour of your time maybe is $500.
Well, if you were spending that time on Canva, creating graphics or scheduling posts in social media, you could pay someone a lot less than that thousand dollars and then we way you could be earning that money and then as you grow, then you can continue to outsource other tasks. So, okay, so that’s the superwoman bottleneck. So let’s do, let’s see what’s the second bottleneck? Second one is we’re going to call this the visibility bottleneck.
The Visibility Bottleneck: Valuing Your Uniqueness
So are you playing small because you fear your true voice will alienate your past connections?
So I want to share a story about one of my past clients. She was a photographer and in fact she is, was really. She still is photographer, but she’s an excellent. How I met her was because she was doing a lot of headshots. That was sort of her primary, primary business.
I think. She did, she did. I know she doesn’t like to do weddings, so she didn’t do that, but she would do. She did a lot of corporate, A lot of corporate photography and doing headshots and for branding and she’s done a couple of my headshots in the past. Great, great work.
But when I was working with her, when we were coaching together, she brought up the fact that she really wanted to do more nature photography. That was where her heart was. It was really doing that. But she wasn’t sure how she could move into that category and not again alienate her current clients.
And this is where the V in love comes from or comes into play. I should say the V stands for value your uniqueness. And actually I should mention also I, I’ve done, over the past four months, I’ve done actually episodes specifically on each of the four pillars of the love method. So maybe I’ll, I’ll include maybe these two, especially the let go and let God and value your uniqueness in the show notes so you can go back and find them. That’s where I go into more detail.
But you know, while we were coaching together, I, you know, encouraged her to, to again to value, you know, to value that desire in her, her, you know, her soul. Calling her to do, to start exploring nature photography as a way to earn a living in addition to the corporate headshots. Because, you know, she doesn’t, she didn’t have to let go of that totally, but she could certainly pursue nature. And so we. She was mentioned to me during one of our sessions that there was a show coming up in the, it was at a church.
I remember because I went to it, I went to see her display and I encouraged her to just go ahead and go for it and, and display some of her because she, she had been doing nature photography more as A hobby for herself and to please herself. But she wasn’t selling any of those pictures, so I encouraged her to, to try it out. You know, you got nothing to lose by trying it out. And she did. And, and, and I could see that it started really filling her up and making her happy.
And so today, man, she, I’m always seeing her on social media, that her prints are at this show when they’re over here. And I think she even won an award recently too. So she’s, you know, selling calendars and, and magnets and all kinds of cool things. And so she’s able to. Now she’s been able to put her passion for nature into her business and, and having it be another, another aspect of her business that really is helping to provide for her and also to, to fill her soul.
You know, that’s, that’s what I wanna, that’s what I want to say. And I don’t know if you’re hearing my lovely Siamese cat in the background. Hopefully not, but he’s been meowing and so I’m just gonna ignore him because he’s already had a treat. I gave him one before I started recording. All right, so we’ve got Superwoman bottleneck, visibility bottleneck.
The Strategic Bottleneck: Letting Go of What Used to Work
What’s the third one? Okay, the third one is the strategic bottleneck.
So again, this is really something you’re gonna have to think about. Are you holding on to processes that served you well five years ago but are now limiting your growth? For instance, are you leveraging AI in your business at all? Or are you like, no, no, I don’t want it. Nope, nope, nope.
AI is too. I don’t know. Okay, I know there’s an environmental impact of it, but it’s like, it’s too. And I don’t know if I can use it.
Well, here’s another pillar of the love method. Oh. Is open your heart to receive. So this is where I encourage you to instead open your heart, open your mind as well, even to new possibilities. To look at how, what are you doing in your business right now that could be better serving you?
What, what can you let go of and what can you start embracing to be able to have your business really move past whatever plateau you’re at at the moment and to, and to start really moving, get going, you know, keep moving forward again, because it does happen. We, you know, even, you know, multi million dollar businesses will come across a revenue ceiling and they will have to try something new. So, you know, whether you’re, you know, five figure business or six figure business Wherever you are. No. Just know that there will come a time when you’re gonna.
You’re gonna bump up against a ceiling, and that’s when it is good to start thinking about these bottlenecks and start looking at your business to try to figure out where.
Where and. And what specifically is stifling your expansion. Okay, so I mentioned earlier that we were going to pause for a moment because I want to give you some work to do.
Your Energy Audit Assignment
You know, it’s lovely to have just a passive listening experience. But you know what? I’m. I’ve.
I’m in the process now of really owning my value and valuing my uniqueness, because I have been in business for a very long time, and I’ve got these wonderful tools that I have to work with, and I want to make sure that I am really positioning myself well to communicate my value to you. So I am claiming right now that I am a strategic advisor for conscious midlife entrepreneurs. So that’s. That’s where we’re going with this stuff today. So it’s your turn now to start figuring out which of these bottlenecks do you resonate with.
So I hope you grabbed your piece of paper. If you didn’t do it earlier. Pause. Pause the podcast for a second. Go grab some paper or a journal.
And now that you’ve, you know. Okay, so we talked about the superwoman bottleneck, where you’re doing everything yourself. Visibility. Are you playing small and maybe hiding your light. Strategic.
Are you attached to processes that aren’t working for you anymore? Are you reluctant to try some new things?
So what I would encourage you to do now is to take a moment and write down one task or responsibility in your business that makes you feel the most drained. Let’s see. Do I have any music? I know sometimes Streamyard has this where I could. I don’t know what would be good would be the Jeopardy Music right now to.
To just put a little. Oh, I know there is. Okay, let’s see. What do we got here?
Just some. Oh, these are just sounds. No, I want music. Okay, I’m gonna put on. I’m here.
I’m gonna put on a little music for a second. Hopefully this. When I put this on YouTube, it won’t flag. We’ll see how it goes. So we’re just gonna.
I’m just gonna put just for a couple seconds of music. So again, I want you to write down one task or responsibility. Think about it really carefully. That is draining you. Okay, I’m gonna do this.
Let’s try this out for a couple seconds.
I can’t hear anything that’s interesting.
Oh, okay. Well, that was useless. All right. Oh, well, okay.
I’m not quite sure how to do that, so we’re not going to worry about it anymore. Okay. Meanwhile, do you have it? Have you come up with it? Have you come up with that.
That task? Okay, so this, whatever that is, this is where your energy leak is. And it’s exactly. This is part of. This is a symptom of where your business growth might be currently capped.
So now that you have that, see if you can figure out which of those three bottlenecks it. It fits under. Because let’s face it, if you can’t name your bottleneck, you can’t clear it. And that’s what I want to help you do today, because it’s no fun being caught up in that.
Having. Having, you know, we have businesses for a reason. We want to be able to serve people. We want to provide either, you know, a service or, or a product that is going to help people in some way. And especially, I know if you are listening to this podcast, it is because you have a really big heart and you want to be able to serve people.
And that’s why it’s important to look at these bottlenecks, because once you can clear them, then you can serve more people. And that’s what we want to do, right? We want to serve more people. So I think this might be a good opportunity right now, while we have a couple of minutes, is to. Now that you’ve hopefully figured out what, what is that task of responsibility that is draining you, I want to clear the energy around it first, because then after that, you can start looking at ways to do the concrete changing of that.
You know, let’s say, let’s say for instance, that you’re. You realize that you are doing.
You’re doing all of your marketing. I mean, you. I mean from, you know, creating posts for social media, posting, scheduling, scheduling them, posting them, commenting, you’re creating images to go with all of those posts. You’re doing all of that work, and it’s really taking up a lot of time. Oh, and I should.
Let me actually just go back one thing here, give you a piece of advice. If, let’s say you don’t feel you’ve got a visibility one, you don’t know that you have a strategic one. Although some of this is. Is kind of strategic and superwoman sort of go together a little bit here.
If you really aren’t sure about where this leakage is or where if nothing is coming up for you right now, that, that is stressing you out, I encourage you to audit your day.
So if there are, I know there are apps out there. What was it? There was something. Oh, I used to use one and I probably should use it again too. Something about time, not time tunnel, but it was something about time tracker where.
And even if you don’t want to use an app, just do it old school. Jot down like the starting time of when you start a task and then the ending time. Every time you do something new in your business, write down what time it is and then what time you finish. And then, and I would do this really for about, I would do it for a whole week. Do it for a whole week in your business because you know, every day is a little bit different and you will be amazed, I guarantee you, to see the tasks possibly that you are spending way too much time on that are keeping you from attending a networking meeting, for instance, or making a phone call or texting, you know, an old client maybe, and just checking in on them and seeing what they’re up to.
So I encourage you to do that. But let’s say for, for, for the podcast sake that you have come up with something and you is really, it’s like when you think about this task, it really, your stomach starts getting tight and, and, and you just feel this tension in your shoulders. Okay, so what we’re going to do is I’m going to share light language with you and if you are new to the podcast and you have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s okay. It’s, it’s still think of it as an energy and it’s an energy modality and it’s not necessarily as common as Reiki, but it’s becoming more popular. I do see many more people who are talking about it.
A Live Light Language Clearing
In fact, I’m on, I’m on someone’s, some other podcaster’s list and he, it seems like every single show he does he has someone doing light language, which is quite amazing to me. So it’s pretty cool. So what it is, it’s, this is if you never heard it before, it’s basically how I describe it is a multi dimensional form of communication. It’s, it’s a sound healing practice. It’s, it’s something that I am able to, I speak and sing it and it’s a language that speaks to the heart, not necessarily one you can translate with your brain.
So what I, what I do when I am working with clients and we are getting ready to do a session. Because this is also. In addition to coaching, I also, I also offer light language as part of the coaching. It’s. It’s a good way to.
To clear what’s going on with you so that you can move forward with more confidence and clarity in your day and your week and your month. So what I encourage you to do is to set an intention right now that the message that comes through is going to help you to clear away some of that stuck energy that is making this bottleneck seem permanent. Because it isn’t. May look that way or feel that way, but it isn’t. You can always clear it.
So if it’s. If it’s safe right now, I also encourage you to close your eyes because that way you can just allow. Better connect with. With your higher self to allow what comes through. What comes through my mouth, what comes through the speakers as you’re listening to this, and just let it, let it.
Just communicate with your own higher self and allow it to clear what needs to be cleared. Okay. All right. I think, I think that’s a good setup for this. So I am going to.
I’m going to do that right now. All right. Take a drink of water first, though.
Okay. Take a drink of water and. And I’m going to set that intention for all of you as well.
[AUDIO TRANSMISSION ONLY]
You might want to. Now just take a deep breath, let it out, and even just sit with that. Let’s just sit with that for a moment, a couple seconds.
Okay. I hope, I hope you felt that. I’d love. I’d love to know, you know, if you could reach out to me on, you know, go to my website. I have like a contact form there.
If you go to gloria rand.com or gloria gracerand.com, i have both domains. And, and let me know how you felt during that. I would love to know. And, and you know, you can always go back in and listen to this again, so you might even want to, you know, cue it up on your podcast player or if you’re watching this on, you know, new reality tv, we are on that network, which is on Roku and Amazon, by the way.
You listen to it over and over again for maybe a few days and then see if you don’t gain some clarity on what needs to be fixed to start clearing out those actual physical or, or structural bottlenecks in your business.
What’s Next: The Life on Purpose Accelerator
And I’m also going to let you know something, though, if you realize that your bottleneck is deeper than just too much to do.
I have a container that you can use to clear it properly. So I am currently launching the Life on Purpose accelerator and it’s going to start September 1st. So what it is is basically a 30 day sprint specifically for women entrepreneurs who are ready to dismantle these bottlenecks and scale your business on your own terms. Because again, the name of this podcast and my, my brand is about designing your life your way, and that includes designing your business because your business is part of your life. So if you want to know more about it, I will have this in the show notes.
You can go to Lopa cc. So that stands for, of course, law. Law. No, Life on Purpose Accelerator. And so it’s Lopa Lopa cc.
And when you get there, you can join our priority list so that. That way you will know exactly when the program officially opens. I will send you an email so that you can. I’m working on the landing page right now putting the finishing touches on it. So I’m not ready to officially unveil that yet.
But this way you can get started by, you know, expressing some interest. So I hope you will consider doing that. And you know, we covered today, we covered these blocks. Energetic bottlenecks. So the next time we get together, my next solo episode is going to focus on why pushing is the enemy of scaling.
So make sure that you are subscribed to the podcast so you’re not going to miss that. And I have an exciting announcement to make in addition to the fact that I’m watching the Life on Purpose accelerator, but I found out recently this week that my podcast, design your life your Way was ranked number 10 on the Best 100 Art of Living podcasts in the United States. So pretty cool. I’m. Yes.
For those of you who aren’t watching, I’m just patting myself on the back. And you know what, though? I couldn’t do this without you, I really couldn’t because you’re the reason I get up every week and. Or in every day, really, and start planning what I’m going to talk about the next week on the podcast and who I’m going to book as an exciting guest to be on the podcast. So I’ll have the link in the show notes so you can check it out and check out some of the other podcasts because there’s wonderful, wonderful people out there who are also sharing amazing messages.
And you know, I don’t expect you to just listen to this one. There’s. Because no matter what you’re interested in, you know, either professionally or personally, chances are there’s a podcast out there that you’re going to want to get gain some information from. I know I listen to a few that I enjoy and there’s a lot actually go to newrealitytv.com and in fact, one of the ones that I was on recently is on new reality TV that they actually had me as a guest was the Laughing Light Workers. So I’m putting in a plug for them too.
So I think that’s going to do it for today. This is a. I think I’ve covered enough. But you know what, just, just to remind you again before we close, so I encourage you to consider. Do you have a superwoman bottleneck? Do you have a visibility bottleneck or a strategic bottleneck?
And if you need some help figuring that out too, again, reach out to me. Sign up for the Life On Purpose accelerator. It’s only, it’s only a 30 day program, but it’s going to be really cool. You’re going to get 30 days of journal prompts to help you uncover some of those blocks along with a whole bunch of other great stuff. So yeah.
Okay, that’s going to do it for me today. Oh, thank you for being here. I’m so grateful to have you in my life, to have you listening and watching and, or watching, depending. And I just want you to remember that you are amazing, you are worthy, and I hope you will go out today and every day this week and really live life on purpose.
