Tell me about your vision.
Well, my vision is about lifestyle, to sum it up in one word.
I've always looked for lifestyle for myself, which means time and financial freedom.
And that's what I want for my clients.
I work with business owners and I see a lot of business owners struggling to, you know,
they start a business because they want lifestyle.
They've got an idea.
They have a dream and ultimately they're looking for time and financial freedom for themselves
and their families as well.
And then they get into their business and they get super bogged down and they struggle
to move it forward as quickly as they want to.
They're not always following the right processes and they end up sacrificing a lot for the
sake of their business.
And so my vision is really about helping entrepreneurs have success without sacrifice, doing the
right things in the right order so that they can build the business of their dreams and
have the lifestyle that they wanted when they first launched their businesses.
Can you tell me more about that?
Tell you more about that.
Well, so I've been working with business owners for over 20 years and their business is their
baby.
And what I often find is they have skills in a particular profession.
They're accountants, they're architects, they're engineers.
And so they are experts in their field and they come to a point in their career where
they think, you know what, I'd really like to branch off and do this on my own.
So they either become solpreners or they start a small company and start leading a team.
And there are completely different challenges to face when you start running a business
and especially when you step into a new level of leadership.
It's very difficult to lead ourselves effectively, but then you have to take things to a whole
another level when you're leading others.
And I find that often business owners can get overwhelmed and sometimes actually be
kind of flying by the seat of their pants.
They haven't necessarily created a plan for themselves.
They dive in and kind of just get going and maybe get a bit of advice along the way, but
it's not focused.
And especially when you're leading a team, now you've got people seeking advice from
you and needing support and they can feel like they're supporting everybody else and
fielding phone calls and dealing with clients all day and then never getting back to the
work that they actually enjoy in the first place.
So they end up working too much in their business and not enough on their business.
And because they're not working on their business, they're not being strategic about it.
So that's one of the things that I do to help people get back on track is I help them balance
that more so that because if you're strategic and you're balancing working on your business
with working in your business and you're focused and you're working on fewer goals at a time,
you can actually move forward faster.
And subsequently, you'll get where you want to go faster as well.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, that's great.
Thank you, Shaina.
The statement you said business owners started to get on working in their business but not
on their business.
Where did you get the statement from?
It's not a statement that I've created myself.
There's certainly a lot of people in the business and leadership areas that talk about working
in your business versus working on.
Michael Gerber was one of the first people who I think coined that phrase.
He wrote the book called The E-Myth, which is the entrepreneurial myth and talked about
how lots of business owners are practitioners in their business.
Like I said, they have a particular skill and they've launched a business based on their
skill, but they're still working in their business and they're not setting up the systems
and the processes and the people that they need to be able to get freedom from their
business eventually.
So they're working too much in versus on, which are the strategic matters.
Strategic matters are having a business plan, having goals and objectives that you're working
towards and setting up systems and processes so that ultimately the business can run without
you.
Michael Gerber talked in The E-Myth about the idea of whether you ever go down the franchising
route or not.
You really should be thinking about your business like a franchise.
Set up the systems and the processes so that the business could be easily duplicated or
eventually sold if that's your goal with it.
And even if that's not your goal, with systems and processes in place, then you can have
employees and you can get your time freedom back again.
So that's where I think that phrase first came from.
It is probably from Michael Gerber in that conversation.
Thank you for sharing that.
My next question for you, Laura, is did your vision come from the same boat as Michael
Gerber's E-Myth book?
That very myself.
So as I wanted to ask you, is your business based on that?
Somewhat, yes, because I got into business and leadership coaching after actually being
in the nonprofit sector for 12 years.
And then I made a switch myself.
But my vision really came actually from my husband because my husband has had several
companies and his companies are his babies in addition to our own kids.
And he has really put his all into his companies.
And there's been some family sacrifice along the way.
And so that he hasn't, you know, over the years, he wasn't to be as present to the family
as he wanted to be or even to himself and his own health at times.
And he did have a health crisis a few years back.
So my vision really came from seeing him and how dedicated he was and how his ultimate
goal was eventually to be more balanced and enjoy business and life.
And as I watched what he was dealing with and then met other business owners and saw
what they were dealing with and ultimately what their goals were, then Gerber and his
work in the E-Myth really became the outline or it became the this is what needs to happen
in order to achieve that goal.
So with that information handy, then I knew at least what needed to happen.
The only problem with Gerber and the E-Myth is he didn't talk about how to do it.
So obviously in order to be able to put theory into practice, you have to figure out the
how.
So Gerber was great for the what.
And then another author came along and he wrote a book called Traction.
And Traction is brilliant because it actually takes the concepts that Gerber was talking
about, but it talks about the how, how to set up those systems and processes, how to
build your team, how to evaluate your team, and how to have a very simple two-page business
plan that you can execute consistently.
So I use a lot of those tools in my work personally for myself because it keeps me focused on
a track and moving forward faster.
And then I have my clients use those tools.
And when they do, I find that they need to exceed their goals, which is fabulous.
Thank you for sharing that.
My next question for you, Laura, is what is your why?
Oh, my why is being the best we can be.
That's work that I did with my coach a number of years ago.
And having come out of a social work profession, one of the things that we learned about in
my original training was the hierarchy of needs by Maslow.
And Maslow talks about the ultimate level in the hierarchy is self-fulfillment.
So that's what I want for myself.
That's what I want for my clients.
It's really about how can we grow along the path or the process of life and how can we
be the best we can be.
And so that's what I want for myself and that's really what I want for my husband.
I want for my kids and ultimately for my clients is for them to be the highest expression of
themselves.
Where are you at in your journey of your business and your vision?
Where am I at?
That's a great question.
I'm pretty I'm you know, I'm actually I think I'm living my best life.
I feel really fortunate about that.
You know, my my practice is at a place where it's given me the time and financial freedom
that I've been looking for.
I am healthy.
My relationship is in great in a great place with my husband.
My kids are launched and we have great relationships with my kids.
And as a hobby, I actually do competitive ballroom and country dancing.
And I've actually won a championship about a year and a half ago.
So I continue to develop my skills and take myself to higher levels with my dancing.
And I'm taking my business to higher levels.
There's always there's always tweaking to do so getting more organized.
And now I'm branching out in addition to just doing my one on one work.
I'm starting to create some online programs so that I can be in a place where I can actually
help more people get to that next level as well.
But it feels really good.
And I don't feel like I'm in that struggle place anymore like I was in the early years.
I'm just in that place of just at a very nice pace continuing to grow and adapt and learn,
which for me is all part of that self actualization we were talking about.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.