What does it really take to grow a business and brand with integrity, without selling out? In this episode, Kara talks with Staci Gray about building teams that thrive, the mistakes leaders often make, and what it means to lead with both clarity and compassion. In this episode, I talk with Staci, founder of Organized to Scale, about how ambitious people get stuck, why systems like SOPs and checklists unlock freedom, and how embodying the person you need to be starts with organizing yourself first. We unpack how overachievers often skip rest, how journaling your wins and worries builds self-trust, and why restoring your home base—your dinner table—is the secret to sustainable growth. If you’ve ever felt like your life or business was one giant game of whack-a-mole, this conversation will help you exhale, get real, and take aligned action.
“You can’t organize and scale your business unless you organize and scale yourself. ”
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Free Guide: 4 Tips for Quickly Organizing Your Business to Scale
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't
Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business
The 3 Rings of Trust: Self Trust, Team Trust, Tribe Trust
A.N.D. Alert. Notice. Discern
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Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters:
(00:00:02) - Introduction to Wins and Worries
(00:00:23) - The Importance of Calendars in Life and Business
(00:03:59) - Staci Gray's Journey and Business Philosophy
(00:07:35) - Radical Self-Honesty and Journaling Process
(00:11:55) - Impact on Relationships and Home Life
(00:21:40) - Creating a Supportive Environment for Growth
(00:48:16) - Launching the Dinner Club for Connection
I have a journaling process. I call my wins and my worries. I think sometimes as ambitious people or high achievers, we sometimes just push down our fears and then six months, 12 months, 18 months, two years later, it bubbles up in a very unpleasant, unappreciative way in our life.
That's Staci Gray.
I'm Kara Duffy, and this is the Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Welcome to the Powerful Ladies Podcast.
I'm happy to be here. Thank you.
I love that my team, you know, in their production notes for this episode, they said, this person might be one of your soulmates based on the fact that we use some of the exact same phrases, one of which, if it's not in your calendar, it's not real.
Yeah. Yes. If it's not on the calendar, it doesn't exist.
Where did your passion for it going in the calendar come from and originate from?
Oh, that's a good question. So can I tell a long story? Yeah. Okay. So I've built a lot of businesses over the years and. I graduated high school at 16, bought my first property at 18, started working with a real estate company that was doing real estate education, and I started realizing that I needed to organize things in order for us to execute them.
And I did that, I read E Myth, and Scaling Up, and Traction, and all of these different books. And one of the things that I realized with working with so many different business owners and entrepreneurs, is when you go to organize their items, They're like, I have this idea, I've got this going on. I've got that going on. And I'm like, well, where, where is all of this information so we can get it delegated to the team? And they're like, oh, well, it's on a yellow pad on my desk. It's on in my phone, in my notes. It's in my inbox. It's on this spreadsheet. And I said, Well, how is the team supposed to be able to access that in order to be able to execute?
And they're like, I don't know. And I'm like, Okay, well, if it's not on the calendar, it doesn't exist. And so what we started doing was organizing all of their ideas into actionable playbooks. And then we would program them on the calendar and link on the calendar what needed to happen when directly to the standard operating procedure, the checklist, and we would invite the people that needed to participate in that particular execution item to the calendar.
And then our whole calendar system is a marking done or color coded. So everybody knows what's done and it's at a glance. And so there's none of this emailing back and forth or texting back and forth or asking for files. And it just created such operational efficiency. And then that was what I did in the business realm.
And then I also believe that you can translate that into your personal life as well, because sometimes high achievers. overachievers, ambitious folks we sometimes don't schedule in rest or we don't schedule in spirituality or we don't schedule in deep connection time or no screen time. And so I started using the calendar for what I call eyes open and eyes closed things.
So using it to advance all of the business initiatives, the goals, the things that we wanted to achieve, but also using it for Helping people embody who they needed to be in order to achieve what they wanted to achieve.
There are so many things in what you just shared that are making my heart sing. I'm excited to dive into some of them at a deeper level before we go any further.
Let's tell everyone Your name where you are in the world and what you're up to besides organizing everyone's lives.
Staci Gray is my name. I have a company called Organized to Scale And what I do from a business perspective is help people organize to scale their businesses So oftentimes people come to me when they're trapped in their business and they feel like their business looks like their kitchen junk drawer And they're playing whack a mole with all the things that are coming up and they just need help to You Restore sanity, restore their relationships and restore their health so they can build and scale their businesses.
So that's what I do in the work world. And then what I realized in the work world is you can't organize and scale your business unless you organize and scale yourself. And Yes, so what I am all about as a human being is Tapping into the part of us that exists beyond space and time and circumstance and getting ourselves into what I call the seat of the sacred.
So versus the seat of the scared and sometimes in life and business, we can white knuckle our way through things and I am really passionate about. Switching that and being like I'm sitting on the edge of my astral seat, you know excited about what's happening And the way I do that in my personal life is I spend so much time in nature.
I love hiking I love being out and sunbathing. I enjoy just being out in nature and I also enjoy yoga traveling reading reflecting and deep soul connections. So maybe your your engineer was right Around soulmate
And where in the world are you?
Texas.
Oh, amazing. Amazing. I'm going to go back to the laundry list of things you've said that I think are so valuable for clients.
First, some of my favorite words, SOPs and checklists. It's like calendar, SOPs, checklists. I think like you, I am amazed when people wonder like, why isn't their life happening? I'm like, did you write it down? Did you put it anywhere to follow up with it? Did you put it into a system, a structure? Like, what are we doing with it?
Because sometimes I think, and this also kind of falls into the manifesting space, but we throw ideas out there all the time, or we're thinking about things and noodling on them, but we don't ground them into what I'll call on earth actions so that they actually happen. We're like, well, I just want that.
I'm like, what are you doing to make it happen? Who are you involving in it? And I know that like your website uses some other words, like clarity is my first step. That's what you have on yours too. I'm like, yes. You talk about teams, you talk about the systems, you talk about that balance component. I don't know if people realize how.
Not easy, but simple. It can be to make whatever their ridiculous and extraordinary life is happen. If they just started with that simple thing of writing it down, because that probably covers the SOP, the checklist and the calendar right there. When did you have this? Like, how are we going to change the question?
How did this system like change your life in a tangible way that people can go? Oh, I want that too.
I'm going to address one thing before I answer that, because I, I definitely agree with writing down your goals and having a step by step playlist for how to get there. In all the work that I've done with folks the, the, there is resistance.
And so what you're talking about is this resistance that comes up from folks with even the courage to write it down. Yeah. And I, I think we have to acknowledge that because everybody talks about writing your goals down and having a plan and accountability partner and we're beating that into people's heads but it's not working.
And so I think at some point we have to. Be aware around that. And for me in my own life and with the people that I've worked with, I have to admit what I'm afraid of. And so I have a journaling process. I call my wins and my worries. And I think sometimes as ambitious people or high achievers, we sometimes Just push down our fears and then six months, 12 months, 18 months, two years later, it bubbles up in a very unpleasant, unappreciative way in our lives.
And I think radical self honesty is critical. So if you have a goal, like your audience is listening and they have a goal, they know that they want to build a seven figure business, or they know that they want to be a mother and have a family, or they know that they want to be an online influencer, or they know they want to get their pilot license, or they have this thing that they just know that they want to do. I think it's important to say, why have I not done it and get radically honest with yourself and write out all the things that you say to yourself that is preventing you from doing it. I'm not smart enough or I don't have enough money or I'm not well connected or people are doing it more.
I started too late. There's all of these. What we call stinky fish in our brains that are Preventing us from even doing the first aligned action And so in order to get to the place where you can even write down your goals and create the checklist to sops We have to be radically honest with what's preventing us from doing that simple thing And for me, it's something that you do in in a in relationships.
So you write them down, but we have, we heal in relationships. So being able to take that and have a conversation with somebody that you trust, who is a soul sister, if you will, and be able to let them see you, hear you, and respect you for where you're at and hold the container of a hard truth and a grace.
So the hard truth is Yeah, you know, sometimes we have these dreams that we want to achieve and we don't do them and it sucks because we betray ourself. That's the hard truth. But there's a grace for it. The grace is that you are capable beyond what you could possibly ever imagine. And if you were to change your environment, What do you think you could possibly tap into that could ignite it for you and we can hold both for folks and then from there their nervous system can take a deep exhale and when that happens, then they go right down what they want to achieve and the floodgates open and they feel completely unlocked and unblocked and it becomes second nature for them to go pursue it versus this like playing hide and seek from yourself.
I love this and something that. You know, comes up for me often in those situations is I'm so programmed to think of it as you already have it. Say the positive thing. Don't talk about the worries. And so I love that you're bringing up, like, take the second to write them down and talk to somebody about them because It's better to put them out in the light and dissolve them than have them secretly hiding back here that you're ignoring.
I get superstitious about like, Oh, what? Nope. Ignore the, ignore the worries. Keep going. And it doesn't, it doesn't allow you to have that freedom that you were talking about. When you see your clients stepping into this freedom space, when they're being honest with themselves, they're getting organized, how is it changing?
I think we can do a whole list of like how it changes their business, but how is it changing how they see themselves and the world?
I think some of the best comments I've received from clients is you've helped me be a better husband. You've saved my marriage. You've helped me be a better, better mother.
Like that for me is why I do it because I started organized to scale to restore dinner tables. I feel like the world needs the dinner tables restored and we need to be safe, seen, heard and respected around our dinner tables.
I think the process of getting there is sometimes we have to solve the, the trappedness in our business because we have too many tabs open in our brains. And so we're basically hanging from our heads, you know, our feet aren't even on the ground. And we're overwhelmed. And so our soul isn't in our body.
And when we can organize the business first, then they have their nervous system has this deep exhale. And then they can then open a tab up. Like, how could I Support my wife more. How could I support my husband more? How could I show up as a better mother or father? How could I show up as a better friend?
And then they start developing this self awareness because some of the demons that We encounter in business are the same demons that people are encountering at home.
It's all the same. It is all the same
Yes, so when we when we're we're feeling like we're hitting that ceiling It's a beating our head against a brick wall. I call it experiencing. You're enough is enough moment And everyone is going to hit it and the thing is is if you're a growth oriented person You're going to hit it over and over and over again and getting good at being I call it the four levels of mastery. It's not something I created I can't recall who did but part of growth as a human and part of growth in your business is going through these four levels and the level one is You're no good, and you don't know it And then level two is you're no good and you know it Level three is you're getting better, but it takes conscious effort.
And then level four is mastery. Most people get stuck at level two because ignorance is bliss. Level one is like, I don't even know that I'm not good. So it doesn't even matter. And then level two is like, Oh man, I've got like some deep shadows, some skeletons in the closet, some ways I'm programmed and operating that aren't serving me.
And I've got to change it. Well, I've got to now speak that into existence and hold it, the container of grace and truth. So I can transcend it. And that happens in relationship. And then if you're going through this process of achievement, you're going to go to four and then four becomes the new one because you're now back at it again, up leveling.
So for me, I think what helps people is this awareness around what growth actually looks like. And we have this illusion that there's a fish at finish line. There is no finish line and what we get to do is we get to be here now fully present to what the experience we're having. There's a quote by someone and I feel like I should someday write all of these credit the people that need them, but it's like you ask yourself, where are you?
Like you and I right now, where are we? We're here. And what time is it now? And then also you and I have. This goal of doing something. So then we also have this achievement aspect. So then there's also no finish line. And that's the the paradox of it all is we can hold a container of both It could be like we're fully present.
We're fully here. We've arrived the whole complete. We're lacking nothing and There's no finish line. I want to achieve I want to grow I want to evolve and I want to pursue and we can be both
I love this because so many people do think that it's a linear process and whenever someone's asking me to show both how you create a business, how you create products, but also create yourself, I draw it like a spiral and I happen to stumble upon a chart that said this cone spiral that expands as it goes out farther is the same trajectory that a rocket ship has to take to leave earth.
And I was like, this is so. Interesting because it's the same path we have to take to up level ourselves because you're right, like we're going to hit that same mark every time it's just at another level of having to understand it and it can be so frustrating for people who are doing the big work and all the personal development and pushing things out and you're like, I thought I got rid of my money story and you're like, Well, you got rid of it at level one, two and three, and now we're dealing with it at level four and you're like, Oh, so there is this level of surrendering and accepting that when you feel that way, it actually is a good sign that you're in that up level.
Like I talk about it feeling like you're about to break through a ceiling, like Alice in Wonderland. If you're feeling that pressure and you're uncomfortable, it's good. You're about to break through to the next part. You just kind of got to be in it. I also love that chart you mentioned. I use that chart all the time in a completely different way than you do because I use it as the habit mastery chart.
And I use it to help show people what their businesses should be or what they What they don't know they do that are their zones of genius, because our zone of genius is end up in our mastery where like our mastery, we forget we have it like we forget that we are skilled in brushing our teeth or tying shoes or, you know, all the other things that we just do, but we forget that other people don't have these skills.
And so I've never thought about using the chart that way that you described it before. So I'm very excited to implement some of that. But knowing again, this is like such a good example of the yin and yang of what things have because We can use that chart to look at our growth and our shadows, but we can also use it to see how can we serve other people.
Yeah. See, my producer was right. There's just like continuing. If we go back to eight year old you, would she have imagined that this is your life and your business and what you're up to these days?
Well, my eight year old sure had an imagination, so maybe I think. She would be proud and you know, we I've never met a human being That if you really got to know them and got to know their story, you wouldn't be proud of them either.
We slay demons as human beings that nobody knows anything. And we have, Brian Tracy says, you spend the first 50 years of your life recovering from the first five. And so there's things that we all experience that we label trauma. We label abuse. We label betrayal. We label. pain, suffering, things that we think should not have happened.
And I like to think of those things as life lessons. They are part of shaping our grit, our gratitude, our grace, our resilience. And when we try to make sense of them with what I call earth eyes, they don't make sense. Nothing will make sense for why certain people hurt you or betrayed you or did certain things.
And it also doesn't make sense the ways in which you coped to compensate for the ways you felt hurt. It only makes sense with ethereal eyes. It only makes sense when you put on glasses that you had some type of soul contract and that you're here for this particular point in this lifetime to be us having this conversation, to be us sharing the parts of us that.
We sometimes maybe want to shy away from the, the eight year old me needed to go through all these evolutions. The eight year old you needed to go through all of these evolutions. It was part of your journey and that how we get to alchemize all of that into A podcast, a business, a family is such an epic journey.
And so what I love to do for, for my eight year old self, but for every other inner child out there that's listening is there's something so magical and magnificent and wonderful about you and all the things that maybe have happened to you that you think hold you back or are hurting you or are preventing you from achieving what you want to achieve.
In my life, those have been the things that have been the biggest gifts and the best blessings and the most challenging. But it's also the things that guided me, like trailheads, they guided me back to the part of me that was capable of integrating it. And the human journey is just really about integration, so I enjoy being able to share my story in hopes that it would inspire somebody else along their journey to integrate so they can.
Get to the point where they can write down their dreams on the piece of paper and create the checklist and put it on the calendar and do it because their eight year old self will be so proud of them when they do.
That's when I know I'm doing the right thing is eight year old me proud. Yeah, because she's proud when I am dancing in the living room with girlfriends over, she is proud when I am speaking somewhere, she's like, it's knowing these things were.
I think that's why I have that the ridiculous and extraordinary life phrasing because we often think that kids like what they put in that list are ridiculous. And I think it goes back to what you're saying. People are preventing themselves for asking what they want because they think it's ridiculous.
It's like, what if you can have it like when you're eight, you're I love that time because you're. You're in the full of possibilities, like one foot's in full of possibility and the other foot is in functioning, you know, in the human adult kind of world. Like you can make yourself breakfast. You know how to do some things.
When, when I was eight, I was allowed to leave the house for the whole day on my bike. And so there's like an interesting space of being in both worlds there and why not be ridiculous? Like I don't, when did grownups decide to be so. Boring and accepting what was not even like their first level, like that's the part that I always didn't understand as a kid, and I think as I've been an adult and doing all the things I've been doing, it's been trying to change that from a place of Why are we not having more fun?
Why are we not enjoying ourselves?
I have a, I have a theory on this. So I am Spanish Filipino and Italian. My grandfather came over from the Philippines when he was 14 years old. And when I asked him, why did he come to America? He said, because he wanted to be in the land of his heroes because they help provide freedom.
To him and my great grandfather came over from Italy on my mom's side, and they both both sides started companies and where the immigrants edge entrepreneurial that grit that drive that push when we look back at history, and I look back at my grandparents history. There was a lot of wartime. We had World War One.
We had World War Two. We had the Great Depression. When those things happen, and we're, we're in essence in wartime right now, and when that happens, look what's happening to everyone's nervous system. People are going into survival mode. It's like, I'm not safe. I don't know what to believe. I don't know who to trust.
And when our nervous systems go into survival mode like that, it's very natural. It's human nature for it to become not fun and for us to have a lens on life that is fearful. And it's very normal. And When I asked my grandmother, she's 84 now, What do you do? Like, what time in history does this most remind you of?
And she said 1945, which was during the Great Depression, and she went to Stanford. So, she went to Stanford, and at that time, in 1956, It was between 54 and 56, I don't know exactly. She went to Stanford, and she wasn't allowed to wear pants, only skirts. So she did welding, and she would go into her professor's office, have to take off of her skirt, put on pants to go weld, and then go back into her professor's office to put her skirt back on to leave.
And, I'm like, okay, so there's like this, this oppression, there's this fear, this, there's this, tyranny in a sense. And I'm like, what do you do? What do, what can we do in these times? And she said, honey, there's, there's, it's really hard during war time. She's like, you, everyone can clearly see something is wrong.
Everyone can see it. And she's like, all you can do is grieve. You can just grieve. And I don't know about you, but there's been times where I'm seeing what's happening. I'm just crying for humanity. Like, how did we get so far removed from authentic love, authentic nurture, deeply caring for your neighbor?
How did we get here? And how can we Bring it all back. And that's where for me, it's come full circle to I started organized to scale to restore dinner tables because entrepreneurs are trapped in their business and they were not home around their dinner tables. And I thought leaders really needed to be at home around their dinner tables.
Now I'm like, I full circle to Mothers need to be around dinner tables. We need families around dinner tables having real conversations in grieving what is not right with the world And changing it around our dinner tables first And then bringing back the joy at our dinner tables and bringing back the fun at our dinner tables Because that then becomes contagious.
I I love that because it is So often people think about being powerful and they think it has to be this huge global Big. And I think you're so right in the sense that being powerful starts exactly where you are. And it's like, it starts with you and then it's the dinner table and then it's the street you're on when it also becomes really manageable, doable.
It opens it up so that stepping into your power doesn't have to be this scary, enormous thing. Most people would probably be like, yeah, I can do a dinner table. I can, I can do the family. Cause we'll usually skip ourselves as women for better or worse and go right to the family dinner table before we do ourselves.
When you're giving people access to that dinner table experience, I would imagine. So I'm curious if this is what you're seeing with your, your clients and the people you work with, are you seeing them shift into finally having space? to give their other people in their community room that they may or may not agree with?
What are you asking? Well, so like, I would imagine, I'm hypothesizing that if we give people space to focus on Just manage your dinner table. Make sure that's a priority. Talk about the things. Don't sweep things under the rug. Be honest about what's going on that's good and bad and scares you and all the things if people have that dinner table security, like almost like a layer of mass with hierarchy of need.
I would imagine it starts to give room. To maybe just listen first to other people, it's like it's going to change how we react to the other people that we interact with outside of the home, because I think to your point, it's like layers of shutting down and you're like, of course, no one's talking to each other because We're just trying to get to the office and back and not, and have the least negative interactions possible.
Yeah. So yes, I think having, it's what I call pink elephant conversation. Everybody knows there's a pink elephant and we just need to put it on the table and have the conversation. And if we can have that at home, then what we do is we've secured home base. And that becomes a place of stability. It becomes the place where we can go off in orbit and have a negative interaction at Starbucks or a negative interaction at Target.
Road rage, something happens, and we go home and we're safe. Yeah. And then from a business perspective, it gives people the courage to be like, I'm going to go launch this product. I'm going to go attempt this speaking engagement. If I fall flat on my face and I'm embarrassed and I make a mistake and it was a flop, I've have home base.
And when we don't have home base, we're not anchored. And when I'm not anchored, then we feel like our identity. Becomes a reflection of the external world And I think there's levels of being anchored, right? You have to be anchored within ourselves and then we be anchored in our primary attachment relationship Whatever that significant relationship is for you and then your family unit and that can be your chosen family.
It doesn't have to be your biological family your friends could be your family. Whomever your chosen family is That's your that's your tribe and I think of it in a three ring circle of trust Because what's really happening in businesses that are struggling, in homes that are struggling, in nations that are struggling, is trust broke down.
Nobody trusts anybody, and nobody even knows what information to trust. And so the three rings of trust are self trust, team trust, and tribe trust. And when you can develop that radical self trust, that you say, no matter what happens, No matter what said, no matter how many mistakes I made or all the shame that I contain, I trust myself and I trust my relationship with the divine God, universe, whatever you call it, source.
I trust that I am held safe and secure no matter what. And then you bring that energy to your primary relationship. That means that your partner no longer threatens your identity. And I think that sometimes happens in intimate relationships where your partner will have a negative experience and you'll take it personally And so having the ability to self regulate and have a container of of self trust and then your team trust becomes Your it could be your family in business.
It is your core team Whatever your leadership team is and then your tribe becomes your customers your clients your strategic relationships your neighborhood your community your block parties You know all of that Becomes your whole trust unit and then That whole thing relies on putting pink elephants on the table because if you brush it under the rug, you're just continually Undermining the foundation that is creating the container of you being able to launch off Experiment and come home and have them home base.
And I think in my home, I'm very committed to preserving home base because it's the thing that gives me the most security to do all of my crazy ideas.
Yeah, no, it's, you said it so well about how when we don't address the pink elephants, it's risking that trust. It's, it's creating so much separation and it can show up as simple as someone at work doesn't deliver something in a way that you.
They didn't deliver something the way that you thought they would and you're in your head marking them off, like giving them an X and then you give them another X and we're not having that radical candor that allows it to be a fluid, full trust barometer relationship. We think like, Oh, they can't handle it or, Oh, I'm being too picky or, Oh, I have high expectations.
Whatever we think the thing is, we're still thinking it like, And that's where I think so many people get nervous about personally and professionally. You and I both have a component on our websites talking about teams. You know, like we can't do business in life alone, but so many people are afraid because they don't have these trust foundations that you were talking about.
How can people who are trying to do it by themselves in life or in business? I don't, I think it applies equally, but how can they start building trust so that they can allow people in, so they can expand in that way?
The short answer is make and keep promises to yourself, but I'll unpack it. So part of what, why trust breaks down is, and I'll just talk self trust.
So you'll say, I'm going to eat this way today. And then you violate it and you don't do it. Or you say, I am not going to let so and so walk all over me. And you violate it. And so then you start eroding your self trust. And really what you're doing is self betrayal. And then, that over time, erodes what you, what is your self worth.
And then, other people, because you, that self betrayed, they start being allowed to do to you, what you do to you. And then, what happens is you start then blaming. And, Saying well that so and so did this or so and so did that and you get into what we call below the line energy Which is blame complain frustration.
So if anyone is in a i'm My partner is doing this therefore this or the school system is doing this therefore that or my team lead is doing this Therefore I have to do this if you're in that dance, you're below the line So that's like the first flag like it's like an alert system And it's no shame none at all because we all can get there And then you have to say, okay, how have I self betrayed and created this environment?
And then what can I do? To make self honoring choices and I like to start small So it could be something super simple where I right when I wake up I'm going to drink a full glass of water before I have coffee Or when I get on my team call i'm going to take five deep inhales and exhales before I even open my mouth Something super super simple for you to get your trust system back online with yourself and that that over time starts developing so much self trust and then what happens there is the self trust then this is really lead this is where leadership comes in but your level of self trust then But comes the confidence and energy that you transfer to the people around you, and then you start empowering them to make and keep promises to themselves.
And in business, the way we do this or the way we undermine it is you may say, I want, I want to delegate the task of checking my inbox to Samantha on my team. And then you tell Samantha how you want it, you start giving her the inbox, then she does something you don't like. And instead of going to her and saying, hey Samantha, I don't think I communicated this clearly, this is my expectation, how can I better train you?
You undermine her and go in and you just go do it. What you just did is you broke her confidence and you fractured trust. And leaders do this all the time when we're not even aware we're doing it. And so as a leader, our self trust container has to be so strong because when Samantha does the thing that you don't want done, Is a more empowering position to take is you turn on your loom video and you hate say hey samantha We're i'm in a hurry hurry hurry right now, and I don't want to not do this But I don't want you to take it away from you So i'm going to loom myself doing it so you can see what I would have preferred done And I apologize that I wasn't able to communicate this stronger on the front end so that we're here So you take that extreme ownership And then you say, now that I'm showing you how to do it, let me know if you have any questions, but it's all you going forward.
And that way you're addressing the pink elephant in the room. You are also saying, taking the ownership of, hey, I probably dropped the ball on how I communicated, and I'm in a hurry. So I have to do it because it needs to be done. And, but I also don't want you to think that I'm undermining you. So I'm going to show you exactly what I'm doing while I'm doing it, so that you can put it in your catalog and your SOPs and your checklist.
So that next time you're fully empowered to do it. And if you have any questions, I got your back. And it builds trust. Like pink elephants are the best way to build trust. The thing is, is we brush them under the rug and we miss the opportunity.
And in that example you were given, there's also an element as the leader of knowing it's going to be okay. I can fix anything. Like there's a level of, we get so wound up about not trusting the future that we're creating that we just like, Oh, like there's that panic all the time. And it's, there's, there are those other layers of like, when you are trusting yourself and you like the confidence you're building because you are having your word with yourself.
There's less panic about the 10 steps away. There's less catastrophizing as you go. And because there is that component, like people think that they're not to your point, they are not seeing these. Micro frustrations or disappointments. They're not because I think that's how it how it feels to people when they're experiencing it.
They're disappointed. They're frustrated. They're not seeing those as the golden nugget that allows them to transform what's actually happening. They see it as one more thing I got to do. And you're like, how about wow, thank you. Like I can coach on this so fast because this is in front of me.
I have an acronym that may help your audience. My favorite word is and andy. It's a connector word It's I love the word. So I created an acronym and it's alert, notice, discern. So when Samantha doesn't do what you want or Joe doesn't call back the client or the car didn't get washed or, you know, the strategic relationship fell through, whatever it is, that's an alert.
It's like alert, alert, alert. And we get to take notice of it. And we get to say, how, how is that feel to me? How does, what am I making it mean? What is going on for me in this situation? And then we get to discern whether we're going to react and respond to it out of fear or faith. And what you're just speaking to was our fear response, where in part of our fear response to it is because we need to be needed.
Like, we need this thing to go well for us to feel validated, significant, and secure. And that relationship we have with that thing is ours to own and ours to work on. And the faith response is not religious. And my grandfather, who built a company to take public, he's an atheist. And he's like, honey, you have to have faith.
Like, faith is a thing that you have to have. And I'm like, but you don't believe in it. thing. And he's like, it's not about that. It's about just hope and optimism. And then there's a brighter future. So it's, it's about being able to say there is something good on the other side of this. And I'm going to trust in the positivity of it.
And I'm going to trust that even though I don't have the next 90 steps planned out, I'm going to take the next best aligned action. And I'm going to choose faith in this moment versus fear in this moment. And when we can, we as leaders can do that. And we can teach our teams to do that, to teach it around our dinner table and to empower that.
Then eventually you have a team of high achievers, high performers everything's on the table. That's where you really get innovation and creativity and, and momentum going. Otherwise it's just stifling it and you feel like you've got high payroll and you're still doing everything.
It's a, it's a surrounding yourself with people who are lit up.
It's a completely different experience. And I feel really lucky to have had those experiences and to be creating them. So I, like, I have proof, right? It's like stepping out of the, I think it can be possible to being like, no, it is like, just come over, just, just do it. I think that's our job as leaders is really not to tell them, but to show them and create the container.
Yeah. A lot of what I'm saying here is not something that we actually. Fully talk about all the time. It's something that I'm modeling and if you model it Then they start doing it when they when you start to elevate them as leaders You're like, hey remember when this happened between you and I and this is the response then they get to see like Oh, I get to experience it from both angles.
I don't think people who were coming on today to listen to, you know, to business coaches who love calendars and structures and SOPs, I don't think they would have thought that the conversation would have gone in this direction.
And I love that it did because someone asked me yesterday, like, where do people really get the value out of working with you? And I had to pause for a second and they're like, what are, what are other clients doing who are hitting these high metrics that maybe I'm not doing? I was like, Oh, that's really interesting.
I haven't thought about it in a while. And this conversation, it, like, I do not believe in coincidence, right? Cause it is coming back to, and I had said it yesterday. I'm like, when people bring everything, just dump on the table, all the stuff that isn't working in their life, that's where we can build a great business.
And I don't think people realize that they have to do the work and I'm sure you get these, like, Yellow, red flags, orange flags. When a client approaches you, cause you can tell, are they willing to work on themselves? And if they're not, we can't, like, I can't really help you if you're not willing to do that work because the aha moment in having a great business.
Isn't the business strategy. Like those are so repeatable. There's formulas for this. Like that's the science of it. Sure. There can be something unique that we do differently in it, but it's, it's this side of things. And you said it earlier, like people just aren't always brave enough to unpack all of that to actually get access to what they want.
But they can become brave. They can, they can, they can. I have to remember not to push them over the brave line, but invite them.
Yes. It's it's having a human operating system and a business operating system. We need both because all, all companies are, is a collection of human beings. Yeah, working towards a specific goal.
We're just communities. And so the leader is the one creating the community, creating the environment, creating the container with our business frameworks, our strategies, our tools, our SOPs, our checklists. And we're also doing it with our culture code and our communication standards and our pink elephant conversation.
We're doing it with both. And if the leader to your point is unwilling to, to optimize their, their personal, Human operating system, then it doesn't matter what tools strategies or systems I give them in business. They will Input they will self sabotage it will Go down. So they have it's both. It's not just your human operating system.
It's not just your business operating system It's both together and it does take a lot of courage But that's where I think that that you what we get to do as coaches is we get to transfer our Confidence and our energy to the people who showed up and said I know what I'm doing is not working Please help me and then we get to be like, okay, there's some hard truth You And some grace and some frameworks and some tools and we're going to do it together But it's going to be a journey and you're going to have to do some work and have some skeleton in your closet come out That you're going to be like cringe just so you know, everybody has them So yeah, we'll work through it and we can be playful because there's a pile of you know There's a pony in this pile of shit somewhere.
Yeah, and this is a great example of why Sure, you can dazzle somebody in an hour, but you can't transform them. Like that's not, that's not enough to like give the coaching transformation that people want for their lives and their business. So I have some rapid fire questions for you as we're wrapping up for today.
The first one is when you hear the words powerful and ladies, how would you define them? And do their definitions change when they're next to each other?
Powerful ladies. I think it's, I, I don't even know if it's a ladies thing. I think I'm just team human. I'm so team human. I think that, I think that people, if, if I could give one gift to the world, it would be that they remember who they are.
Yeah. There is something so powerful, so magnificent, so wonderful about every single soul that is walking this earth right now. And if, I could transfer any amount of it into somebody and light them up. I would do it in a heartbeat. And I hope that this conversation in some way does that because I've never met a powerful woman who really did the work that didn't change dinner tables.
When we ask everyone where they put themselves in the powerful lady scale, if zero is average everyday human and 10 is the most powerful lady you can imagine, where would you put yourself today and on an average day?
I'm going to elect not to answer and say, audience, you tell me what you think. Because my, I don't, I don't label and rank myself. I every day try to show up in my fullest expression and bless in the remembering who I am and being a blessing. That's what I want to do.
We also have been asking everybody, what do you need? What's on your wishlist to do list to manifest list? This is a powerful connected community. How can we help you?
Well, I am launching a dinner club Specifically to help people restore their dinner tables because I think that so many people are working so much kids schedules team demands business demands and if they were just given like hey play this 10 minute video and ask these five questions around your Dinner table, they would do it because they want that community, but they just need the tool.
So if they are interested, I would love for anyone to be a part of the dinner club because it is something that I'm passionate about is restoring dinner tables.
For everybody who is a fan of yours and wants to learn more and want some of this their life, how can they find, follow, connect, hire you?
They can send an email to scale at organized to scale. com. That's just s k a l e at organized to scale. com and i'm Staci Gray all over social media. That's s t a c i g r a y.
Well, thank you so much for taking the time today to share your wisdom with us and everyone listening. It's so important to remind people about their humanity and how to put that first and how to be leading with love and how it applies everywhere. I left really inspired and reminded of Just, I feel like my North star is realigned after this. So thank you so much.
It's a mirror. Thank you.
All the links to connect with Staci organized to scale and her dinner table community earn her show notes at the powerful ladies. com. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening and join us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies. To connect directly with me, visit KaraDuffy. com or Kara underscore Duffy on Instagram.
I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, I hope you're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
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Episode 233: Amanda Foust | Founder, Highest Potential Planner
Episode 167: Angie Wisdom | The Power of Coaching to Live Extraordinary
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Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
