The #1 overlooked factor for success
What’s the #1 thing that Divergent Maverick entrepreneurs and CEOs overlook when they’re trying to scale their businesses and impact?
I can hear your mind clicking down the checklist. Is it…
✏️ An amazing product or service
✏️ Product-market fit
✏️ Business plan
✏️ Marketing funnels
✏️ Getting better at sales?
You’re getting colder.
So what about…
✏️ Customer experience & retention
✏️ The right team
✏️ Systems & automation
✏️ Legal?
Now you’re digging in the freezer. Put down those peas.
You know more about your product or service than 99% of the planet. To grow your business, you’ve gotten advice, read books, perhaps gone through an accelerator program, or even raised money. Maybe this isn’t your first rodeo.
But you’ve still likely overlooked the most vital factor.
Before I reveal what you’ve overlooked, let me tell you a little story.
MEET JEN PRE-2019.
I’d left steady corporate-strategy jobs several times, attempting to work on my own terms. I twice started my own consultancies, one in brand/CX strategy and another in creating sustainable brands.
They both eventually flopped. I ended up retreating to the safety of the steady paycheck, even though I knew it wasn’t for me.
“You don’t have what it takes to get a business off the ground,” I told myself..
I hated working for the establishment where I simply didn’t fit in… but the door to my future seemed to be locked and I didn’t have the key.
“You’ll always be an outsider,” that inner voice whispered.
And I believed it.
See… I was an only child and my dad was in the military. I moved through 9 states before I turned 12. I never fit in, despite a lot of trying. As an adult, I felt increasingly trapped and discouraged, full of self-doubt.
I didn’t learn until decades later that my brain works differently – I’m divergent – and that I’d always be an outsider to the mainstream world.
In 2019, one week before my 50th birthday, I quit my life. I sold everything in the US and embarked on a journey through 14 countries in 9 months. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was a journey into deep self-knowledge.
I gained entirely new perspectives on not only why my life wasn’t working, but also why all my clients over my 30-year career weren’t thriving… even the global giants.
KNOW THE SIGNS
👉 Do you feel like you’re working against friction or headwinds?
👉 Do you wonder why you can’t seem to attract the best team or customers?
👉 Do you feel overwhelmed by all the growing complexity in your business?
👉 Are you investing more and more, while getting less and less in return?
If so, you’re likely overlooking this key factor.
When I discovered this missing piece, it opened the door to a life of freedom and growing the impactful business that I’d always yearned to create. I have total faith in myself and my vision. And I no longer feel like an outsider.
BIG VISIONS NEED STRONG ROOTS
So let me ask you this question… Who are you? No really… who ARE you?
Did you know that less than 15% of humans actually know ourselves? Nearly 9 out of every 10 of us have enormous blind spots. We don’t know what we don’t know.
So we keep trying to do the same things over and over, while expecting different results. And that’s because we’re trying to use our brains to solve problems that our own brains created. We’re trapped in a matrix of our own making.
Thing is, big visions need to be grounded in the strong roots of embodied self-knowledge. If you’re a divergent maverick – a holistic dot connector and integrator – you’ll need to start by INTEGRATING YOURSELF FIRST.
When we begin to access our full, distributed intelligence (yes, there are 100 million neurons in our guts), rewire somatic-based limiting patterns, and learn how to strategically leverage emotions and motivations….
That’s when everything changes. The door to your future swings wide open. The key is – and has always been – inside you.
When you’re deeply grounded in your own identity and leadership presence, you…
✅ Replace stress and striving with freedom and flow, working with your own strengths and limitations.
✅ Become a center of gravity for like-minded teams, partners and customers. This ‘human fit’ is the precursor to successful product/market fit.
✅ Create common ground where you uniquely belong. You stop trying to fit into the mainstream world and create your own insider brand instead.
“Self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion.” - Billie Jean King
WHERE CAN YOU START?
Here are five questions that I use personally and in my coaching practice to unlock clarity of self and others, and make consistently better decisions based on that knowledge:
🤔 What does Hell Yes and Hell No feel like in your body?
🤔 What core needs and emotions have been the hidden motivators behind your decisions throughout your life?
🤔 What limitations can you embrace as essential boundaries, so you can flow limitlessly towards your best future self?
🤔 What’s the resonant ‘common ground’ you’d like to share with your best-match team and customers… and even friends and romantic partners?
🤔 How will you operationalize that common ground… transforming it into a center of gravity that attracts your people?
Bottom line – As a divergent maverick, your brain is incredibly powerful… but it can lead you astray.
When you embrace the wholeness of who you are, you’ll access and amplify your power to move mountains… not as an outsider, but as the leader of a movement. This is the heart of human-centred business.
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” - E.E. Cummings
WANT A SHORTCUT TO PERSONAL AND BUSINESS GROWTH?
It took 10 years for me to figure this out through trial and error; I’ve codified my process to help my clients figure it out in as little as four months.
🌟In my Intentional Design 1:1 coaching program, you’ll uncover the secret to staying in your Hell-Yes zone, and design a powerful life and business that consistently generates more freedom, belonging and impact.
🌟Want to seriously up-level yourself and your business in community with other ambitious Divergent Maverick CEOs? Apply to become one of 10 founding members of the Groundbreakers Guild.
Wishing you the power to move mountains, fellow mavericks.
- Jen, your Divergent, Whole-Human Leadership Coach & Strategist
–
P.S. After 3 months of embodying Groundbreaking principles, my client Jeff started crushing it. Will you be next? Check out my Intentional Design process, which moves you through Self-Knowledge, Balance, Design & Optimization, and finally into Attraction.
“I'm amazed how Jen helped me figure out how to do the work that really lights me up, on my own terms, and double my earning potential in the process. This process really works!” - Jeff F., Founder
Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash
