Welcome to the Level Up Series. We’ll be expanding your business mindset and leveling up your brand. Leveling up your mindset and your brand are two processes that accentuate each other. Done together, you create the total standout brand package and a leveled-up business.
In this first article, we’ll focus on a few core principles of expanding your mindset. Your mindset includes your attitude and thought processes around your business. It’s the key inner ingredient behind success.
“Most people fail in life not because they aim too high and miss, but because they aim too low and hit.” –Les Brown
Have you ever wondered why some people effortlessly accomplish their goals, while you can’t seem to move forward?
Maybe you’ve looked at your business and you know you it’s not quite where you want it to be. You know deep down you want to be, do, have more. But somehow, you’re just not ‘there’.
Here’s what you might not know…
You can have anything you desire in business and in life. But there are two crucial questions you must answer:
First, are you willing to do what it takes?
Second, are you willing to do what’s required?
This second question is inspired by something my friend and mentor, Paul Martinelli says: “People say they will do whatever it takes, but I want to know, are you willing to do what is required?”
That may not be nice to hear, but it’s real talk. And most of us need to hear it. Success takes work. Most times, it takes hard work and lots of it. This includes doing things you ought to do now so you can do what you want to do later.
Here’s a powerful little secret that’ll help you make the shift in perspective about the work you need to do to move your business forward: turn your ‘ought to’ into ‘get to’. So instead of thinking ‘I have to put in extra hours today.’ Instead, think ‘I get to put in extra hours today!’. This seems simplistic, and maybe even a bit cheesy, but it’s powerful.
When you look at what’s required of you from an optimistic perspective, everything changes. You give meaning and purpose to your daily work. This is what you need to drive you forward.
To supercharge this perspective shift, we can use the powerful 7 Levels of Awareness model. This model can help you understand how your worldview, actions/inactions, results/lack of results are shaped by your level of awareness.
Let’s break it down.
The 7 Levels of Awareness
Think of these levels as stages. As you read through them, try to get an understanding of where you might fit and which of the stages most resonates with you right now.
Animal
This is the lowest level of awareness and has to do with how we react to events and people in our lives. At this level, we’re in ‘fight or flight’ mode. We’re mostly reactionary, and what’s happening in our business/life is determining how we think and feel. When something happens, we react quickly, not necessarily prudently.
Mass/Crowd
Here our awareness starts expanding and we begin to recognize others. But because we are still at an earlier stage of awareness, we just follow the masses. We’re following the crowd. This is not optimal for your business mindset because you want to stand out, not follow.
Aspiration
At this stage, we become aware of a certain level of dissatisfaction. We realize we’re not happy and begin to aspire for more.
The challenge with this stage is not to get stuck. Often, we know we want more, but don’t take action to make these aspirations reality.
Individual
Here we begin to embrace our individualism and want to express ourselves as unique people. We may bounce back and forth between wanting to act from a place of individualism and feeling pulled back into ‘mass’ thinking (level 2).
Discipline
At this level, we realize that we must take action to reach our aspirations. We also realize that we need to be disciplined to take consistent, purposeful action.
Experience
When we are disciplined and focused, we start to experience the results of our aspirations. Through these experiences, we also learn more about ourselves, our obstacles, what we really desire, and about the steps, we need to take to make our goals happen.
Mastery
This is the final stage, the level of ultimate awareness. At this stage, your brand operates from a Leveled-Up perspective. Not just in branding concepts, but in how you’re thinking your mindset, and perspective on your business and how it fits in with your deeper purpose and the world.
This powerful model of awareness is a measuring tool you can use to assess your mindset, which is critical to your business success.
It takes mastery to operate a leveled-up business.
Are you at the level of mastery?
You may often be searching for the right answers. But what you need, instead, is to ask the right questions. Take a few moments and ask yourself:
Are you willing to do what’s required?
Where are you on the Levels of Awareness? What actions do you need to take to move up levels to reach mastery?
Understand that this is a journey. You may sometimes move up and down along the levels of awareness.
Always keep restarting.
Always aim higher.
Ask yourself the honest, challenging questions, assess where your business is now. Where do you want to be? Take a hard look at your mindset and make the connection between your perception, attitude, and the results you’re getting day-today.
This isn’t always easy work. But it is doable and highly rewarding.
Keep leveling up!