Every Business Reflects It’s Founder

Every client who comes to me has an idea in their mind about what they’re really looking for: strategy. Tell me what to do. Tell me what will work. Tell me the tried and true ways that I can achieve success in my business right away.

That makes sense. We like to believe businesses can be shifted, adjusted, accelerated, made “successful” through strategic decisions based on history and data and consumer trends. They can be.

And.

Business strategy does not exist in a vacuum. Every single business decision passes through a human being. In my case, it passes through my clients before it is applied to their business. So who they are, the quality of their internal landscape, and how they show up in the world is exactly who they are going to be in their business while applying those strategic decisions.

The most powerful business strategies and the most meaningful ways to build a company require paying attention to both the business and the human running the business.

Your business reflects what you value, what you tolerate, what you avoid, how you handle conflict, what you let slide but secretly gripe about, how you make decisions, how you define success, how you think about money, and how much you trust yourself. Your business reflects what you celebrate and what you fear.

A founder who avoids conflict eventually builds a company where difficult conversations can’t happen. Where staff never disagrees with you even when they do.

A founder who doesn’t trust themselves second-guesses every decision and waits far too long to make a move. This can look like a product launched after the market wanted it. A partnership that never happened but would have shifted the entire business. A contract not sent at the exact moment revenue was needed. A big expense that never panned out because you felt bad the moment you made the investment and didn’t do the work to see it all the way through.

A founder who struggles with boundaries creates custom work for every client. Says yes to projects they don’t have time for and fails to create clear expectations for their team. This often leaves everyone feeling confused, unsure where they stand and unable to speak clearly about needs.

A founder who believes rest needs to be earned builds a company where no one ever really stops working. A founder who has imposter syndrome is eyeing yet another certificate, another degree, another hat to wear to prove their worth which prevents them from launching the next thing and keeps them stuck in a cycle of proving their worth.

None of these begin as business strategies. They begin as human patterns.

Every pricing decision, every hire, every difficult conversation, every opportunity you say yes to, every opportunity you decline, every product and service you launch, every choice you make in your business is a reflection of who you are because every decision passes through you. You are the filter. The decider. How you move through life quietly shapes the business you’re building.

This is why running your own company can push every single button you have. Can make you question everything you ever thought about yourself. It’s why running a business can feel so challenging. You’re not just up against market forces, you’re up against your own patterns and beliefs and ways of being.

There is nowhere to hide in entrepreneurship. If you avoid difficult conversations, eventually you’ll have to have one. If you struggle to trust yourself, eventually you’ll have to make a decision with incomplete information. If you seek everyone’s approval, eventually you’ll have to disappoint someone. Building a business has a potent way of introducing you to yourself.

This is also what makes working with founders so uniquely rewarding. They expect strategy to solve every problem. They’re often surprised to discover that some of the biggest opportunities sit in the way they make decisions, lead people, respond to conflict, or think about success. This is where the most powerful work lies and where the most life-changing shifts can happen that are yes, good for business, but oh my goodness also deeply transformative for the human running the business.

Clients who embrace working on both levels - the business and the human running the business - are never the same after our work together. Their patterns improve so their decision-making improves. Their old stories are laid bare so they can build new ones which makes them far more able to sit in conflict, in the gray areas of a situation, in the true understanding of what outside success looks like versus what true success means for them. Ways of being that they’ve lived out of for their entire lives are shifted and they begin living out of patterns that are of far greater service to the business and the human.

This is the work. The true work of being a founder and building a business you admire is becoming a human being you admire. It is being willing to sit with all of your stuff, hold it up to the light, and get honest with yourself about what stays and what goes, what is true and what isn’t, and what you’re going to do about it on the path to becoming fully YOU so that fully-sorted YOU can run a far more sorted business.

So maybe this week, instead of asking “what does my business need next?” ask yourself:

• Where does my business reflect my best qualities?

• Where does it reflect patterns that no longer serve me?

• If my business is becoming a mirror, what is it showing me?