In Which of the 5 Business Zones Do You Reside?

by Rick White, President 180BIZ                                                                (Estimated Read Time 5 minutes)

This episode is about is zones and modes. I talk to clients all the time about two modes in a business. There is “DO IT” mode where you’re fixing the cars and making the sales all day long.  That is where you’re most comfortable. But then there's “GROW IT” mode. You are either doing it or growing it. That's it. Most shop owners are very uncomfortable in “GROW IT” mode. We don't like talking about ourselves. We don't know what makes us different. We don't know how to have a conversation that invites people in. So, what do we do?  Nothing.  We never enter “GROW IT” mode. We remain in “DO IT” mode.

The answer is to learn, get through suck, and get really good at letting people know who you are, where you are, what you stand for, and how you do things. These two modes are extremely important to understand.

 PAY ATTENTION TO THE ZONE YOU'RE IN

Also, we all operate in ZONES. What's the zone that everyone is most familiar with? That’s the comfort zone. We've heard a lot of talk about comfort zone for years and years and years. We’ve heard how it's really bad to be in your comfort zone.  We’ve heard that nothing happens in your comfort zone. When we think about the comfort zone we get this picture of Al Bundy from Married With Children sitting on the sofa with his hand tucked in. That’s not a pretty picture.  But none of that is true. So, I’ll talk to you about the different zones in your business and then I’ll challenge you to think about which you are probably stuck in.

THE COMFORT ZONE

The COMFORT ZONE is where it's most comfortable. We know what's going on. We know what to expect. But hear this.  The Comfort Zone is where you go to rest. It's not where you go to live. That's my Rick-ism for this week. The Comfort Zone is where you go to rest, not where you go to live.

THE FEAR ZONE

Just outside of the Comfort Zone is the FEAR ZONE. This is where we want more and want to grow, but then we see this big, scary wall. That causes us to pause. It causes us to step back. It causes us to doubt. But the truth is that the Fear Zone looks like this big brick wall. It grows with time and attention. The more you stare at your fear, the bigger it gets. So that wall just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.  Your goal is to see the Fear Zone as a wall from afar, but as you step closer you find that it's actually a curtain that you can walk through with ease. Everything you want in life is on the other side of that Fear Zone.

THE CAGED ZONE

If you stare at the Fear, if you let it hold you back, the Fear Zone gets bigger. It doesn’t really push everything aside. It causes the Comfort Zone to get smaller. And the Comfort Zone becomes the CAGED ZONE. I want you to hear me with this one. It’s a big one. If you stay stuck in the Comfort Zone because you're afraid of stepping out, eventually that comfort zone gets smaller and smaller. You end up in a cage feeling helpless. You end up feeling like there's no way out. You feel like a victim.

THE LEARNING ZONE

Helpless feeling like a victim is not who you are. It’s not who you are meant to be. When you push through the Fear Zone, the other side is the LEARNING ZONE. This is where you recognize that you want more, you want to get better. This is where you want your business to perform better. But remember, businesses don't perform better. The people in the business perform better and then the business gets better. In the Learning Zone is where you become a bigger, better person. This is super important. If you don't see yourself as wanting more and willing to become the person that gets more then you’ll end up back in your Comfort Zone. In the Learning Zone is where we fall. In the Learning Zone is where we scrape our knees. In the Learning Zone is where we go through suck to get to great. It’s a necessary part of this whole portion. Being in the Learning Zone can be a lot of fun. But do you know what makes the learning zone painful? It's your expectations. I’ll give you an example. I bought a set of golf clubs and took a half-hour class. I figured I would be able to hit the ball like Tiger Woods. Surprise. Surprise. I couldn't. And because of that expectation, the Learning Zone was very uncomfortable for me. You need to get comfortable with the Learning Zone and here's why. The Learning Zone is uncomfortable because we don't know what we're doing. We're working on finding the best way, not the right way. But it takes time and practice to get through that new thing that we're pushing for. The Learning Zone is where you want to give up. The Learning Zone is where you doubt yourself. The Learning Zone is where you feel like you're not quite there.

And for those in my groups, we're reading the book titled Three Feet from Gold right now. The Learning Zone is where you are Three Feet from Gold. I want you to hear that. Right now you're this close to knocking it out of the park.

GROWTH ZONE

In the Learning Zone, you do it over and over and over. Repetition creates competency. Repetition creates confidence. And then you go into the GROWTH ZONE. The Growth Zone is where you take off. It’s where you hit a spurt and it's really awesome. But you won’t stay in the Growth Zone forever. It's not sustainable.

Every once in a while you get into the Growth Zone. You’ll see some tremendous growth. Then what do you do? You go back to the Comfort Zone to recharge and reinforce what you learned. Then you go back out and you push through fear, you learn something new, you grow through it, and you become amazing. You cycle through the zones.

SHARE THIS VIDEO

Please share this video. I'll be talking more about this in future posts. If you want to get deeper, subscribe to our Pocket Business Genius webinar series. The webinars are amazing. There are over 70 webinars in the Library and I’m adding a new one each month. There are all leadership and management related. Right now they are a mere $49.00 per month.

Also, my Shop Owners' Round Table continues on the 3^rd Thursday of each month at 7:00 PM Eastern time. I’d love to see you there.

God bless. Stay safe, have some fun, and go make some money.

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