Visionary Sensitivity in a Superpower

This is the Momentum podcast. So I haven't done this in forever, recorded it in the car, and now it's on myself doing it two times in a row because I keep like driving around and I've been driving without the radio, without podcasts, and I find myself like organizing thoughts and processing and getting, getting insights that then I feel compelled to share. So I'm excited to share this one with you. You know, I recently listened to it was either a podcast or a real or a video or something by another entrepreneur who was saying really adamantly, you know, I don't have a morning routine. I don't wear orange glasses, I don't, you know, wear toe shoes. I don't like all these different things. Like, I don't I don't do any of these things. I get up in the morning, I grab a cup of coffee, I sit down at my desk and I go to work. And, you know, I think for so many of us and so many of us in the entrepreneurial world, especially those of us who are towards the earlier stages of our entrepreneurial careers, that's it. That sounds admirable. Sounds like, man, I want to do that. I'm going to get up. I want to get coffee. I'm going to get to work. I'm going to I'm going to put my head down. I'm going to work as hard as I can. I'm going to just keep doing the same. You know, I'm just going to keep pushing and I'm going to get there. And that's how I'm going to get there. And, you know, in a lot of ways, that's absolutely true, is that as an entrepreneur, you do have to put out a ton of energy and a ton of effort to get a business off the ground, to get things going, to get things moving, to be able to make the difference that you want to see in the world. However, I've been coaching entrepreneurs for long enough. I've worked with with so many visionaries that I also know that if you identify as a visionary or even a visionary operator, if you identify as somebody who who sees opportunities, if you identify as somebody who can put unique connections together to make things work that other people aren't seeing, if you're one of those people that you have a solution before everyone else has even clearly defined the problem. You know, if if as somebody is talking about something, you're seeing the pieces fit, then you have that visionary capacity. You know, you have that that ability that I, that I we share that we have as entrepreneurs, whether you own the business or work in the business, but we have this ability to go into the future, create a new reality, come back to the present and make it real. And you know that that ability is actually a massive sensitivity. We have a very high level of sensitivity to what's going on in the world around us, to where those opportunities should be, to how the pieces fit together. And the reason I bring this up is that as entrepreneurs, we actually have to protect that sensitivity. I'm Alex Charfen and this is the Momentum podcast made for Empire Builders Game Changers, trailblazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers and creators of all kinds. Those among us who can't turn it off and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum so we can roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution. Should we pay attention to their rules, but only so that we can bend them, break them, then rewrite them around our own will? We don't accept our destiny. We define it. We don't understand defeat because you only lose if you stop and we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority. The few who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future. And instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters, clearly the most important people in the world, because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive human evolution. And we always will be. If you're hearing the word sensitivity and you're kind of like you feel yourself objecting to it. I want you to know you're not the only one. I recently did some one on one consulting with just an extraordinary entrepreneur and his operator running about an $8 million business there. He's just he's incredible how he's he's made so much value in the company that he has. And in one of the conversations we were having, I said, you know what I want to be able to do? And the process that we're going through here is I want to be able to build a process so that you have protection around what you do so that you're not always head down 100%, having to do all of it yourself and feeling that that sense of urgency, because I want to protect your level of sensitivity. And I said, you are a highly sensitive person. And when I said it, I could all see and feel that there was some energetic push back there. Because here's what I think happens to us as entrepreneurs when we hear the words you're sensitive. That's actually seen as a negative. We actually have created a framework. Most of us, many of us, a lot of the entrepreneurs I've worked with, myself included at one point in time where if somebody was to have referred to me as sensitive, my immediate gut instinct, my reaction in my head, the things that I wanted to say or maybe even would have said would have been, you know, I'm not sensitive. I can get through all kinds of stuff and look at the things that I've done and look at, you know, how much I do on a daily basis and look at all the space that I hold for all this team on a daily basis. And so like I would have seen sensitivity as a negative. And the whole reason I'm recording this podcast is I want to help you potentially reframe the feeling that sensitivities and in fact, here's how I see sensitivity when it comes to us as entrepreneurs. Our sensitivity allows us to identify opportunities and the world. Our sensitivity allows us to see the deficit that we can fill with a new product, with a new solution, with with something that we can create that doesn't exist today. Our sensitivity allows us to look at a market and say, here's the thing that's missing that no one else has seen. And when we are early in our careers, we do a tremendous amount of tactical work to get things off the ground. And so we are conditioned to continue doing that tactical work. We're conditioned to stay in that space. We're not conditioned and dare I say, we're rarely even encouraged to protect our sensitivity to. Be able to see the things that we see as visionaries. And we're rarely told that, hey, you know, if if we're willing to take time, take space, create systems around us and support us like a morning routine and a planning system, and we're willing to do the things that support us, like self-care and eating the right foods and staying hydrated. That that our ability to have that sensitivity actually increases. Because here's what I know about working with entrepreneurs. The higher the level of pressure and noise, oftentimes the less sensitivity we have to what's going on around us. And, you know, this is actually scientifically proven. You know, when we get into a place when there's a lot of pressure and noise, if we get into a place even before the fight or flight symptoms and fight or flight symptoms are triggered, even before we get into that place of anxiety and anxiousness and adrenaline, even before that, when there is a lot of pressure and noise, when there's a lot of things going on, when there's an overwhelming situation, we know that as human beings we tend to see less possibility. Our time horizon into the future actually pulls closer. We see we see the less distance in the future instead of more, we see a narrower set of options that we have. And that all limits our ability to be a visionary thinker. That limits our ability to see the next opportunities for our companies that actually can get to the place where we don't see opportunity. And so if you've been in a place or if you are in a place where you don't feel like you're seeing the same types of solutions, or maybe you're in a place where either your business has plateaued or things have plateaued for you in another area of your life. And you have been in that cycle of head down, I'm going to work 100% of the time. I'm just going to keep pushing. I'm just going to keep going. I want to give you permission, and I also want to give you the encouragement to pull up and to create some space and to go on a walk and to allow your mind and your body to process the opportunities that are around you and to start seeing what's going on around you. Because here's what I know about working with wickedly successful entrepreneurs, and I've had the privilege of the opportunity to work with so many incredibly talented entrepreneurs, but there is a 100% commonality with all of us when we are willing to lower the pressure and noise in our lives, when we are willing to stop that cycle of because I used to do everything, now I have to do everything. Or the even more vicious cycle of thinking about the times in our past where we put up with way too much and we had so much going on and you know, it felt like it was almost impossible. And then we finally created a breakthrough, you know, that that actually conditions us to continue to feel like we need all of that pressure, all of that that noise in order to create a breakthrough. And there's an eventuality in our careers where, you know, as entrepreneurs, we don't have to do fail forward, fail fast. We can actually start succeeding and we can succeed consistently. And once you start actually building a company around you and building a team and getting the support you need, all of those things are meant to create the space and time for you to be even more of a visionary. And the connection that I believe so many visionary entrepreneurs missed is that when we actually have space and time, that's where we envision greater outcomes, where we actually create a lowering of pressure and noise. That reduction of pressure on our nervous system actually allows our mind and body to work together, to feel into and then to visualize and see even bigger opportunities and outcomes. And I feel like there's this dogma in the entrepreneurial work world that the harder you work, the more value you have as an entrepreneur. And I'm just going to say that again, you know, there's that I've seen it over and over this dogma that the harder you work, the more value you have as an entrepreneur. And here's here's what I see. If we are willing to reframe that to the more effectively I work, the more I'm able to delegate, the more support I'm able to get, the more I'm able to create space in time for myself. That's where advocacy as an entrepreneur actually comes. That is that evolution of being an entrepreneur that gets us to where we really want to be. And it's it's hard to trust that at first because it's easy to trust the past. It's harder to trust evolution and change in the future. It's easy to trust that I if I work really, really hard, I'm going to get results like I always have. But here's the reality. Is that what you want? You know, as entrepreneurs, we get into this business because we want free. And then we create this this trap, this like treadmill of our own making, like I talked about on the last podcast, and the way that you stop that, the way that you bring perspective to that, the way you bring new possibility to that is by recognizing that the value you create in the world is not through hard work. The value you create in the world is actually through your visionary ability. And once you have a team and once you have support around you, the more visionary you can be, the more you can accomplish that trip successfully of going into the future, creating a new reality, coming back to the present, and allowing it demanding and you creating that reality in the present. That's really where we create value as entrepreneurs. And so, you know, there is some merit to head down. I'm going to work every day, you're going to get results. But once you start really growing into being a visionary entrepreneur, having support and having a team, the results are far more likely to come from you, giving yourself the space and time to be able to create those results. And it was interesting, you know, in this I'll wrap up with that kind of another insight that I had during that consulting session that I had. You know, I did an eight hour consulting session with this group, and we split it into two, four hour periods. And at the top of every hour, I made sure we took a break. And the reason I didn't I didn't feel like I necessarily needed a break. I never feel like I need a break when I'm consulting. I used to go 6 hours at a time and everybody in the room would be worn out and I would still be ready to keep going because I love doing it so much. But when when I look at what actually happens to us as entrepreneurs to to us is like continuing to go head down, continuing to put all the pressure on. The reason I made sure we took a break is during that those sessions I actually wanted to model what happens when you have time and space. I actually wanted to model what happens was what when you're willing to pull up, even if it's only for like 5 to 7 minutes, which was about how long the breaks were, you actually have more insights and you have more awareness. And at one point during our second four hour session, I said, you know, I want you all to know part of the reason I'm taking these breaks is I want to model this for you, that creating the space in time actually creates a better outcome and they immediately set back. Well, you know, it's interesting you said that because we never used to do that. But now in the past few meetings we've had in our team and with our clients, we've been taking a break at the top of the hour and it's so much more effective. And we can see why getting up and moving around a little bit actually creates like a better outcome. And so if we extrapolate that 5 minutes out of 60 that we're taking a quick break, like what does that look like in your week? What does that look like in your month? Where are you giving yourself the space, the time to support, to lower the pressure and noise and to actually allow that visionary sensitivity to come through. And so hopefully after listening to this, when I say you are highly sensitive, you actually see that for the off the charts incredible strength that it is that the rest of the world really doesn't have and the rest of the world doesn't have our sensitivities, or they would all be entrepreneurs like we are. And so I want you to protect that sensitivity. I want you to think about how you're going to lower the pressure and noise for yourself and start asking what's making you uncomfortable and how do you get it out of your way, rather than putting up with everything that you are and head down working 100% of the time. Thanks for they for being here for this podcast. And, you know, if you're interested in understanding more about this and understanding more about yourself and how you think as a visionary thinker and developing these sensitivities so that you can be even more visionary and get even higher levels of success. I developed a system called the Momentum Planner, and, you know, it looks like a day to day planner. But what it really is, is it's a planning system where you start in a way that no other goal setting or planning system does. You first identify where you're uncomfortable through the process that we've spelled out, and we use that to help you lower the pressure and noise and create exponential gains in what you're doing as a person and what you're doing as a leader and what you're doing in your company. And if you're interested in checking that out, you can actually go to simple operations dot com forward slash m p s so momentum planner and system so simple operations dot com forward slash NPS. You can check out the details there. And if you have any questions about the momentum planning system, make a post on Facebook. Tag me in a post on on just about any social media and I will make sure that I see it and I come I respond to it because if you have been in a place where you feel stuck and you're looking for an entirely new level of momentum, go through a planning process that's unlike any other out there. And instead of just starting with where you are today and what do you want to be bigger, we actually help you eliminate the roadblocks, the obstacles, the constraints that you're feeling today so that what do you want to be bigger? Where do you want to go into the future? Morphs into something much greater, much larger and much more grounding and confidence inspiring. So check out simple operations dot com forge slash amps and thanks for being here today. If this podcast meant something to you, share it with something. Someone that needs to hear it. Thanks for being here.