Are You Building an Aligned Business or Someone Else's Version of Success? | Identity Work [ep. #298]
Do you feel like you have been following someone else's advice for so long that your business no longer feels like your own? I'm seeing this happen so often right now among women entrepreneurs, and it's time we talked about it!
You join someone's mastermind or coaching container because you want what they have. You learn their strategy, how they run their business, how they show up... and it works great. But somewhere along the way, you realise the version of you that created those results doesn't actually feel like you any more, and isn't aligned with your values. That's what I'm talking about today: the identity work behind building an aligned business, the difference between identity expansion vs imitating someone else's, and how to create your own version of success.
Topics covered on Identity Work:
What's the difference between identity expansion and identity imitation?
How do you end up losing yourself when following someone else's version of success?
What happens when a strategy works but feels completely wrong?
How do your values shape the way you sell, lead, and show up in your business?
What does real identity work look like, and where did the identity you're building actually come from?
Connect with Rebecca Haydon:
Quote:
"Becoming the person who creates your next level of success does not mean you have to become a carbon copy of the person who taught you how they created theirs."- Rebecca Haydon
Transcription:
Our AI tried its best, but expect a few quirky typos in the transcript. Embrace the imperfections and enjoy the read!
[00:00:00] Okay, as we've been on such a hot topic of identity work these last couple of weeks on the podcast, I actually wanted to bring a bit of a conversation here that I've been seeing, not fallen foul to myself, but I've been seeing happening across the online business industry. And I think we're probably going to see more and more of it, but I think it's a conversation that I want to start having.
[00:00:28] It's also something, once I get into it, and this is all cryptic right now, but it's also something that I really pride myself in, and the clients that I attract don't do this either. But you might have fallen foul of it. You might currently be in it, which is why I want to bring it to the podcast.
Why Becoming Your Next Level Self Can Take You Further Away From Yourself
[00:00:47] And this is this concept of the next level identity, this next level version of yourself that you want to be, taking you further away from yourself. People spend months, sometimes years, being taught how to become the person who creates the results they want. So how she sells, how she leads, how she shows up, how she makes decisions, how she posts, what she prioritises, what she tolerates, what she doesn't tolerate, what the CEO version of her would do.
[00:01:26] And sometimes when you've been taught all of that, it really, really works for your business. You make more money. Your business grows. You become more visible. You build the team. You get the clients. And externally, there's loads of evidence that becoming this person has worked.
[00:01:51] But then I see, and I usually tend to get clients after they've been through this or when they're in the midst of having this realisation, I see that people get to a point where they almost feel a little bit grossed out by the way they've been operating. They don't want to sell like that anymore.
[00:02:13] They don't want to create content like that. They don't want to launch like that. They don't actually want to run their business like that. And sometimes they come out of a container and they want to completely rebel against everything they've just spent, one, a lot of money learning, and two, 6 to 12 months doing.
[00:02:33] They come out of that container and they're almost in this kind of, "Who the fuck am I anymore?" Now, I've seen this happen so often, and I think there's a really interesting identity work conversation underneath that. And we've spent the last couple of episodes, if you haven't listened, please go and listen, but we've spent the last couple of episodes going through what your identity actually is, how it's formed, and how you can start spotting where you currently are in the way that you run your business.
[00:03:05] But there's another part of identity work that I really want to bring to the podcast, and it's this conversation around how you know the new identity you're trying to create is actually yours. Because becoming the person who creates your next level of success does not mean you have to become a carbon copy of the person who taught you how they created theirs. You get to create your own version of success.
Modelling Someone Versus Imitating Them
[00:03:37] And I think sometimes what gets called identity expansion is actually just imitating someone else's identity. Now, there's a process I use called modelling, and I do believe it's really useful. It's got me really far in my business. Modelling is a tool. Identity work is what tells you when the modelling has gone too far.
When Identity Expansion Is Really Just Borrowing Someone Else's Identity
But I think there's a point where you're modelling someone and it almost becomes an imitation. You lose yourself, you lose what you believe, you lose what you stand for in the process.
[00:04:13] So today I want to talk about values, and how you can hold your own values while growing an aligned business and becoming the business owner you want to be, still modelling other people, but getting to that success and it feeling like, "Yes, this feels so, so good. So, so good." That's what it looks like to create your own version of success. And values, I do a lot of values work with my clients all the time, very subconsciously, whenever I see any incongruence between what they're building and how they're building it, or what they're selling and how they're selling it, et cetera.
[00:04:52] So it's really useful to have a set of values that you want to play from, and this is definitely not going to be a standard values podcast. You know that of me. It's going to have way more depth than, "Let's decide your 5 top values for who you're becoming." No, ugh, sick. It's going to be deeper than that. This is identity work with your values sitting right at the centre of it.
[00:05:13] Your values are one of the ways we can start understanding whether the person you're trying so hard to become is actually congruent with you, is actually congruent.
Your Beliefs And Values Sit Right Underneath Your Identity
So your identity and your values are very, very interlinked. If you listened to the first episode in this identity series that has somehow now become a series, it was episode 296, I believe. I'll tag it in the show notes.
[00:05:45] On that podcast episode I talked about neurological levels, and we talked about identity being the level of who am I. Like, who am I? Now, underneath identity, so the next rung after identity, we have our beliefs and our values. So what do I believe? What's important to me?
[00:06:09] What has to be true for me? And these are really in cohesion with each other. They're not operating completely independently. They work together. That's the layer any real identity expansion has to move through.
What Have You Decided A 7-Figure CEO Looks Like
[00:06:39] So if you're consciously creating this new identity of, I'm a 7 figure CEO, I'm like, "Okay, lovely." But before we do any identity work on becoming her, I first of all want to know what you've decided being a 7 figure CEO actually means.
So maybe right now your internal representation, as we call it, of being a 7 figure CEO means that she has a huge team, that she barely does any client delivery at all, that she sells constantly, that she's constantly available, that she never has holidays, that she doesn't care what anyone thinks, that she's always pushing for the next level, that she spends most of her time managing people.
[00:07:21] And then I'm like, "Okay, so that's your current representation of what that is." But what if some of the things that are incredibly important to you in your business are freedom, creativity, connection, depth? Family is always a huge one that comes up with my clients. Being authentic. Then we've got something else completely, because an aligned business has to make room for those things.
[00:07:51] Because then we look at it and go, okay, is your subconscious not letting you become a 7 figure CEO, and that's where you concentrate, but actually the version of a 7 figure CEO you've created in your head requires you to run your business in ways that conflict with what actually matters to you. So if we're doing identity work properly, I want you to know that.
[00:08:23] I want you to know that your values will follow you even if you're carbon copying someone else's success. So we need to have a look at whether the person you're becoming gets to have what's important to you, because that's how you create your own version of success rather than borrowing hers. That's the part most people skip.
How I Helped My Client Build an Aligned Business Around Her Values
Now, I had this with a client a couple of weeks back where she'd been taught a concept of selling, the concept of selling we see across the marketing industry where we do certain tactics and we say certain things and we use certain call to actions, and it felt really, really far away from her values.
[00:09:08] One of her top values in her business, and across her life to be honest, is being authentic. Being authentic and showing authentically what's going on for people and how people can work with her, et cetera, et cetera. So the moment in her business that she started to segue into any of these tactics, whether it be selling her course outside of a launch, or getting people to stay longer on a programme, anything like that, the moment she went into these sales tactics, it clashed against her values.
[00:09:52] So we had to come back to what selling looks like through her value of being authentic. And we still used sales and marketing language and tactics, and I hate that word and it wouldn't resonate with her at all, I know she's probably listening, so not tactics, but we went through what language she can use that still gets the client to the place where they do want to carry on or they do want to buy, because what she's selling is very useful for them and will change their life, but in a way that feels authentic to them. That's what starts to build an aligned business rather than a borrowed one.
[00:10:38] And it changed everything for her. She actually messaged me a couple of days later saying, "Bec, I've just sat down to write content, and it took me a little bit longer because I was doing it a little bit differently than before. But one, I know the type of person I'm going to attract by doing this now.
[00:10:57] I know that I feel really good doing it. There's going to be a very different energy behind it." So it was connected to a different value. Can you see how your values play such an important role in what strategies you follow, who you're becoming, what you want that to look like, and what's actually happening within that? This is what it takes to create your own version of success rather than repeat someone else's.
The Room Where I Realised The Strategy Clashed With My Values
[00:11:19] And I think this is where we accidentally start building identities from other people, and where identity work goes sideways. I was faced with this quite brutally in something I invested in, and I had to sit there on a call with another 10 people, all pretty much doing what they were told to do or what they were told works, and yeah, good for them.
[00:11:43] But half of the things they were doing were really not how I wanted to do things. And I had a bit of a question with myself, like, was I blocking myself? Was it a subconscious this, that and the other? And more importantly, what I realised is that it was just really against my values. It was really against what I believed and who I was here to be and what I want to show and what I want to do, and so I didn't do it.
[00:12:06] And does that mean my success might take longer? 100%. Does it mean I get to do it more sustainably and enjoy it? Abso fucking lutely. That's the price of an aligned business and I'll pay it every time.
You Are Buying Their Strategy And Absorbing Their Criteria For Success
[00:12:26] Yeah. And this is the bit I'm seeing so much in the industry right now, because usually success sells. It's just a common thing. This is why things are popping off online, and then someone talks about how much money they've made in a certain amount of time and you're like, "Great, okay, she's successful. I'll go and work with her." You join somebody's world because you want something they have.
[00:12:45] So maybe they've built a multi 7 figure business. Maybe they're incredible at selling. Maybe they're massively respected across the industry. Maybe they've got a huge audience. Maybe you actually love their business model. So of course you're going to learn from them. That's literally why you're there.
[00:13:05] But you're being exposed to their strategy, and maybe they're teaching you strategy or maybe they're not, because that sometimes happens. And maybe they tell you to just channel your inner something or other and send you on your way. But you're exposed to their strategy, and you're there to learn from it, not to hand over your right to create your own version of success.
[00:13:23] And in that moment, and this is why things such as the Yap Challenge went viral and everyone, you know, so many things happened within that and then everyone bought, you're also being exposed to their criteria for success. So you're being exposed to their beliefs.
[00:13:45] You're being exposed to their values. You're being exposed to the standards they hold for themselves, and their priorities, and their model of what a successful business owner looks like. And that's where identity work quietly turns into inheritance.
"People At My Level Don't Do That" And Other Lines That Will Change You
And you'll probably start hearing things such as, "At this level you shouldn't be doing X anymore." Or, "People at my level don't do X." Or, "If you want an X in your business, you need to..."
[00:14:16] And all of a sudden you're creating these things where it's like, "Oh, okay, therefore I have to be that. Yeah, absolutely, I no longer share any of my lifestyle, because having a business this big means you don't share your lifestyle. Don't share what you're doing." "Oh, okay, a real CEO wouldn't be spending her time with her family," you know?
[00:14:38] And suddenly something you actually love doing in your business starts to become evidence that you're not CEO enough, that you're not 7 figure enough, that you're not blah, blah, blah, blah, blah enough. And because you respect this person, and because they've created results that you want, it's a really easy way of operating, and the way they operate then becomes attached to your internal representation of who you need to become. And so all of a sudden it just feels so incongruent to you.
[00:15:16] You're not sitting there thinking, "Right, I'm going to sign up for this mastermind, and I'm going to abandon every fucking thing that's important to me, and I'm going to become Susan." You're obviously not thinking that. You're obviously not saying that. It's very subtle, but you're making tiny adjustments, because you're spending a lot of time in their world, you're probably listening to all their podcasts, you've probably got every single thing they've ever sold, and you're like, "Ooh, that's what successful people do.
[00:15:45] Ooh, that's how leaders behave. Ooh, that's how someone making 100K a month sells. Ooh, that's what a CEO prioritises. Ooh, that's what I shouldn't care about anymore." And eventually you can get further and further and further away from yourself while genuinely believing that you're doing identity work.
[00:16:06] And that's why, like I said right at the very beginning, I think we get this kind of identity expansion, and the words people use around it, like, "Come and be in my world and expand your identity and expand what's possible for you," mixed up with imitation.
How An 80k Launch You Hated Becomes The Way You Think You Have To Launch
And look, it becomes confusing because it can really fucking work.
[00:16:29] It can really work. And I'm really speaking with passion here, I know you can hear it in my voice, but you can operate in a way that isn't particularly congruent with you and still get really good results. You can get the numbers without an aligned business underneath them, and that's exactly what makes this so hard to spot. You can follow the strategy.
[00:16:53] You can launch the way they taught you. You can sell the way they sell. You can build the team. You can behave exactly how you've learnt someone at that level, at their level, behaves. You can make loads of fucking money. None of that is identity work though. It's an imitation with good numbers attached. And then your brain has evidence of, "I did this and it works," because we learn through association.
[00:17:13] But then the next time you want to do what you've done, so you've gone, "Oh, okay, this way of launching, I fucking hated it, but it made me 80K," and your brain's like, "Well, that's the way we've got to launch then, because we want another 80K." You're more likely to think you need to do the same thing because you repeatedly did it and you built that strong association between the results I want and the person I need to be to create them.
[00:17:39] However, you can travel quite far down that road until you realise, "I cannot keep doing this." And then a lot of confusion comes in, because you wanted the business, and you wanted the money, and you wanted the growth, and you wanted the recognition, and you got it, so why do you suddenly want to burn half of it down and just stop doing everything?
Separate The Result You Want From The Way Of Working You Think It Takes To Build An Aligned Business
[00:18:04] And this is where I want us to separate these two things before it maybe happens to you. Do you still want the result? And the way of being you've associated with creating and maintaining that result, do you want that too? Because maybe you absolutely do want the 80K launch, but you don't want the way you learnt to launch to get 80K anymore. That separation is where the real identity work starts.
[00:18:31] And then you can start to see where this incongruence has come from, and usually it's because it's gone beyond your values. It's gone beyond who you are. And an aligned business cannot run on somebody else's values for long. That's why I always come back to what I'm here to do, who I'm here to be, and the values I really drive from. And I get a lot of people, and I've heard a lot of people tell me that other people have told them...
[00:18:57] Does that even make sense? But I've heard a lot of people tell other people, and they've told me, in a nice way, that they love what I'm doing because, one, it's so different to how you're told to do it, and two, because I stick within my values, and I stay within my values. That's what happens when you create your own version of success and then stay in it. And yes, 100% have I swayed, 100%, 100%, 100%.
[00:19:23] It's very easy to. You're quick to, and then you're on the train and you're like, "I'm on my way." But I catch myself very quickly, and I mean I literally feel it within my body. I can't sustain it. I literally can't sustain it, and that's why I've built such a sustainable, aligned business for such a long period of time, and we've not dropped past a certain amount per month for years and years and years.
[00:19:47] And I really do think this comes down to how I run my business and how I want to run my business and the values I see within that and the identity work behind all of it.
[00:20:04] So this is where the values work becomes really useful, and it's the part of identity work nobody puts on a sales page. Let's quickly talk about values. Well, yes, everything about this episode was about values, but I didn't want to go fully into values, and then I thought it would be useful. So your values are simply what's important to you. And what's important to you in your business might be different from what's important to you around money and relationships and health and family.
[00:20:25] In master practitioner NLP, we look at values very, very in depth, and we look at values in context. So we don't have values, well, you definitely can have an umbrella value across your life, but we look at them in context, in the context of money, health, family, relationships, business, et cetera.
[00:20:43] I've actually just elicited all my values again, which I've absolutely loved doing. I did them just coming off the back of NLP Masters, just as I'd finished that. And it's been so, so powerful to see what's shifted and what's changed. But your values influence what you move towards. Your values influence your behaviour.
[00:21:03] Your values influence what feels rewarding, and what you prioritise. They drive a lot. They drive a lot. So when we're looking at this new identity you're creating, I want you to have a conversation with yourself, like, "Does the way I've decided this person operates actually allow me to have what's important to me?" That question alone is where a lot of identity work begins.
[00:21:27] So let's say freedom is one of your top values, which tends to be many, many business owners' top value. But if you've created this knowing that 100K months mean an enormous team, constant management, more calls, more people needing you, less time, less freedom, then consciously the 100K months can be in your goals, but the identity you've attached to 100K months represents losing something incredibly important to you, freedom. An aligned business has to leave that intact.
[00:22:05] Or maybe connection is really important to you, but somewhere along the way you've decided that becoming more of a powerful leader means being more detached, more unavailable, harder in how you're delivering, and not caring what anyone thinks, and you're trying really hard to become that person, and maybe it feels wrong because it's just not in cohesion with your values.
[00:22:36] You know, you're like, "Oh, maybe I'm incapable of being a powerful leader." Maybe you are, but maybe it's also just clashing with your values. So this is where values become so useful in identity work, because they help us look at whether the identity you're creating is actually congruent with the things that matter to you. Real identity expansion takes your values with it.
[00:22:57] Yeah, the things that really matter to you. So the first question I start with when we're looking at values is, "What's important to you about business?" You'll come up with probably 5 or 10. There are another couple of questions we then ask deeper when I'm in session that flush out all the values.
[00:23:16] We then do a lot of work with the beliefs behind the values you hold. But even just starting there, what's important to me about business now, and what's important to me about business when it's running the way I want it to and I'm making the money I want to make? And looking at those values and asking, are they in cohesion, coherence...
[00:23:35] I really like those words for some reason. But are they in coherence with who I'm then becoming? Really start there. That's the ground you stand on to create your own version of success. Yeah, so that's where I just wanted to have this conversation, because I think this part of identity work is really important, and because it's happening so often.
[00:23:55] I'm also having a lot of clients where I almost have to unravel the things they've been doing, unravel the person they've been being, because they're now scarred by all of those things. So yeah, it's just a really important conversation.
4 Questions To Work Out Where Your Version Of Success Came From
So the question I want you to leave this episode with, think about the person you've decided you need to become to create your next level of business, and think about how she sells, and how she leads, and how she communicates, and how she spends her time, and what she cares about, and what she doesn't care about, and what kind of business she runs, and what success looks like to her.
[00:24:33] Think about all those things. And then just ask yourself, "Where did I actually get all of that from?" Where did I get all of that from? That all of that has to be part of it. Which parts genuinely come from me, and what I want, and my values, and who I'm here to be in the business I'm here to build?
[00:24:54] What parts came from another coach? What parts came from the industry? What parts came from someone I admire? What parts have I simply associated with being successful because I've watched successful people doing them? That's identity work in 4 questions. And then bring your values into it. What's genuinely important to me in my business?
[00:25:16] What actually matters? And maybe it is growth. Maybe it is recognition. Maybe it's having the most enormous impact, freedom, creativity, family. Maybe it's a combination of all of them. I want you to know what they are, and then I want you to look at the identity you're building and ask, "Can she have them too?" That's how you create your own version of success instead of inheriting someone else's.
[00:25:41] Because if your future identity requires you to sacrifice half the things that make the results worth having in the first place, we're fighting a losing battle, and no aligned business survives that trade. So yes, be obsessed with who I need to become, but also ask, "Who am I becoming, and do I actually want to be her? Is that sustainable for me?
[00:26:08] Is that part of my value system as well?" Yeah? Okay, I hope this episode has been eye opening. Maybe I've spoken to people, to you, who've been through experiences like this before and you're trying to undo those things. Come back to those values. Come back to those values. It's so, so important. Real identity expansion should give you more of yourself, not less, and that's the identity work that keeps your business yours. I'll see you on the next episode.
[00:26:30] Love ya.
More about The Subconscious Expert:
Welcome to The Subconscious Expert, the podcast where your subconscious becomes your one-way ticket to the mind-blowing results you desire in your life and business! I’m your host, Rebecca Haydon, The Subconscious Expert who went from being stuck in victim mode to a multi 6 figure business owner. Each week, I will be giving you the subconscious tools and techniques so you can become the woman who is living out her vision with a life and business that she is truly OBSESSED with. I have said it before, and I will say it 100 times again: "Your business can't outgrow your mindset, and if you want to grow your business, it always starts with growing your subconscious." So let's dive into the subconscious breakthrough you so deeply deserve!