Business Growth Mindset – How Full is Your Glass

One of my business partners and I had an interesting discussion recently around how we’re approaching growth. I came to a powerful reflection that it’s a complete mindset.

Let me elaborate.

We have a business that’s in transition from a previous business model to a new business model. This transition includes the task of rebuilding revenue. In other words, we took a revenue hit with the transition and now we have to get back to where revenue was with the previous business model.

As you might imagine, there is a strong desire to do this quickly! Nobody likes losing revenue, especially when it already existed.

So we’ve been hard-charging for the last 6 months solving a plethora of challenges from tech to sales and everything in between. It’s been very similar to building a startup, minus the “run rate effects” since we’re self-funded and bootstrapped.

Hard-charging has it’s highs and lows. There are extreme moments of satisfaction and very low moments of stress/anxiety. The low moments can certainly take their toll… to the point where you start to question, “Why am I spending time and energy on this?”

Take time to reflect

When I have these thoughts I know it’s time to reflect. Especially today, as a father and servant to humility – I take extra time to really reflect on what’s actually going on in a situation.

And in doing some reflection, here’s what I uncovered –

There are two completely different mindsets towards our current situation.

Version A

The new business is at x revenue and needs to be at y revenue since it was already there previously. So we have to figure out how to do that ASAP. We are behind and need to catch up.

Version B

The new business is a new business, which has different needs. It’s already at x revenue and growing steadily. We are making progress and things will continue to work themselves out in due time.

You can probably assume where this is going…

When we think of the business in terms of version A:

• We feel that the business is inadequate from its previous state.
• We feel like there’s an endless sea of tasks ahead.
• We feel stressed and tired.
• We become unmotivated.

Version A = negative effects

But when we think of the business in terms of version B:

• We feel the business has made great strides from no attachment of previous state.
• We feel like we’re solving problems and creating solutions.
• We feel excited and invigorated.
• We become inspired.

Version B = positive effects

So at the end of the day, these are two completely different perspectives, which have completely different effects. And the best part – it’s all in our head.

Growth is a complete mindset.

And as you can assume, a positive outlook always results in more productivity and efficiency. So option B serves us best and yields the best production from us as leaders and executors.

So I challenge you to think about how you see growth. This applies to any business, from new startups to established companies.

Are you looking at growth in version A or B? Or as you may have heard before – is your glass half full or half empty?

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