Welcome to Visionary’s Pursuit, a podcast where we explore what it takes to turn your bold and inspiring ideas into reality. I'm Carolina Zuleta. I'm a life and business coach and your host for this podcast. I'm thrilled to have you here.
Hi everyone. Before we jump into today's episode, I'm very excited to share that the doors to my Visionary Mindset program are currently open. After being a coach for 15 years and coaching many founders, entrepreneurs, leaders, I started seeing some patterns. So earlier this year when I thought, I wanna create a program that it's all about the mindset, that it's all about your self concept, your identity, becoming the person you need to be in order to lead and create the businesses you want, the curriculum of the Visionary Mindset Program came to me clearly.
I've designed this program to attend to the most common pains I see all entrepreneurs struggling with. To teach you how to think in a different way.
Although in the program we look at a lot of the common topics we face in businesses every day, like our capacity to make decisions, to be visible, to sell, to have money, conversations we're going to look at those topics from a mindset perspective, from the way that you are currently thinking and how you can evolve it and realize the vision you have without burning out or without limiting yourself, by becoming that person that can fulfill that vision by becoming the version of you that your business and your dreams require you to be.
So if you're at that point in your life that you're Wanting to start a business, or you have a business and you wanna take it to the next level and grow it and really fulfill the desire you have inside, I want to invite you to go to the link in the description, which is carozuleta.com/visionary. Put your name and email and someone from my team will reach out to schedule a 15 minute call in which we're gonna share more details about the program, answer your questions, and go a little bit deeper into what this mindset work is really about.
So one more time, the link is down here in the description, or you can go to carozuleta.com/visionary and I'll be delighted to support you in becoming the founder, the visionary, the person that your business and your vision and your dream need.
And now onto today's episode...
Hi, and welcome back. This is episode 51 of the Visionaries Pursuit Podcast. How are all of you? I am recovering from another cold that had me out last week, but very excited to be back with all of you.
As I was reflecting on what I wanted to talk about today. I went back to when I was very young to this desire, or to this knowing that I had within myself of exploring everything of who I am, of using all my talents and strengths, and seeing what I could create with this life in many different aspects, including businesses.
But the vision was bigger than just my business.
And when I look at my life so far, I can see the evidence of that exploration, like the time I moved to New York with two bags and a desire to work on Wall Street, or when I applied to get my MBA at the University of Chicago. And listen i'm not the smartest, I don't have the highest gmat. The fact that I was accepted, I think it was purely because I was convincing. I believe that I belong there and somehow I convinced them of the same. Or the, I don't know, hundreds of retreats and explorations I've done about how I feel, what I believe, what is my past, what meaning my life has.
All of that, I think, has come from that desire of fulfilling my potential, and I believe that that's a desire I share with all of you, because when we're visionaries, that is part of our driving force.
So, naturally, when I came across a book that started with the following, I knew I had to dive right in. So here's what the book said. This book is not for people who want to become successful, but for those who have already won at the Game of Success and want much more.
And it's not that I think that I have achieved all the success I want. I want more, but I can look back and be proud of the achievements I've compiled so far. But yet the desire of expanding my potential, of creating the impossible, of seeing what I can do with this lifetime is stronger than ever.
So since I know you share that desire with me, and I know that like you, you get excited about thinking, what is the vision? What is the possibility? How can I create something that right now seems so far away and so impossible? Throughout my years of being a coach, I've learned that in order to fulfill our potential, we cannot only change our actions or the things we do or the way we do them. In order to create the impossible, we have to evolve our identity.
That is the core premise of everything I talk in this podcast and everything I teach. It's the idea of upgrading our self concept. And today I wanna talk with you about a component, a very important component of our identity that is both the source of our biggest strength and success, and also our toughest limitation.
This is the winning strategy, and I learned it from this book that I was telling you about. That is called the Last Word on Power, and was written by a woman called Tracy Goss.
This component of your identity that I'm talking about tracy calls it the winning strategy in her book, and I'm gonna read straight from the book because I think her definition is so good and so clear so we can all understand what I'm talking about. So here's what she says:
a winning strategy is a lifelong unconscious formula for achieving success. You did not design the winning strategy. It designed you as a human being and as a leader, it is the source of your success, and at the same time, the source of your limitations, it defines your reality, your way of being, and your way of thinking.
This in turn focuses your attention and shapes your actions, thereby determining what's possible and not possible for you as a leader.
So again, our winning strategy is a way of being, is what we listen for is the way we act, is the expectation we have of what we want in return. So to make it more concrete, let me give you some examples. A winning strategy can be someone who is listening for what's underneath, what's hidden, so they can provide what is needed in the moment and therefore be valued and avoid being left out.
Another winning strategy looks like listening for what's the truth here? What's really going on here? So that then you can do the right thing in order to be safe. When I explored what my winning strategy was, what I listen for is what is needed, who needs what, and I'm very in tune with people's emotional needs. So I listen for that, and then I show up as the person that you can count on that will deliver what you need many times without you even asking. And I do that so I can feel like I belong, so I can feel valued.
Historically, for me, being needed has been a driving force. So I've created many things, so people need me. I mean, it's not surprising that I'm a coach, not that you need me because I've evolved in that, but I really wanna feel like people count on me and can depend on me. Now that sounds so beautiful, right?
All the winning strategies I shared are incredible, but here's the problem. They limit us. This desire to want to attend to everyone's needs has caused a lot of pain as well. In my personal life putting myself last so I make sure everyone is okay. I'm taking care of everyone. And then I'm exhausted. I'm tired, I feel empty. And before I did all this work, I've realized that I had an expectation that then they had to give me something back.
And I was constantly disappointed because when I give from an empty glass, there's nothing that can refill that glass other than myself. Another way that my winning strategy held me back. Was not rocking the boat, was not taking risks, was not setting proper boundaries, always being the person that said, yes, of course I can do it no matter what.
And that didn't allow me to use other strengths like taking risks, doing things that I believed in, even if other people were disappointed by them. And not that I wanna live my life disappointing everyone, but what I don't wanna do is disappoint myself in order to keep everyone happy.
And those are some of the limitations of my winning strategy. And when I say it's my winning strategy, it's because it absolutely has helped me win.
When I worked at Morgan Stanley, I was the analyst everyone loved because I said yes to everything.
People counted on me, and if I had to stay in the office until the next day and work through the night, I would deliver on what they asked of me. And that allowed me to grow, to get recognition, to get approval, to get higher bonuses, right? So the strategy was winning, but the cost was also there.
I was burning out. I was exhausted. I was having migraines that wouldn't stop. I was putting my own health at risk in order to keep playing the game with my winning strategy.
My winning strategy also helped me at the beginning of this business. I took courses about marketing and sales, and I followed the script and I did the steps and I got some success.
I got some clients, but following other people's rules wasn't allowing me to create the business that I wanted to create, the business that felt most authentic to me. In another area that my winning strategy helped me was in coaching. If I could understand what my clients needed. And very kindly give it to them so that they would approve of me, well, we had a great relationship, but the truth is that my biggest evolution as a coach is to use that power to recognize what's needed, but then not want the approval. Instead, look for what's the best for my clients and tell them the hard truths.
Since I started understanding the limitations of my winning strategy, I knew something had to change. Winning strategies are about survival, about staying in what we believe is safe, but they prevent us from taking risks or allowing us to stand in true leadership. Many times what we do with a winning strategy is end up protecting our identity rather than pursuing a possibility.
So since I learned this concept about our winning strategy and did my own work in myself, I started seeing it in my clients. I started noticing a pattern of people who were very successful, who were used to leading in a certain way and had achieved success from that and now they were hitting a wall. The strategy that they've used in the past that had always worked, wasn't working anymore, and it's because when we're operating only from our winning strategy, we can have success in one way, but what we haven't mastered is existential leadership. Which includes those moments where we need to hold a paradox, when two things that seem opposite need to coexist at the same time or when we need to learn how to lead from intuition, not from what a book says, from our beliefs to stand behind them when we need to learn to manage all kinds of different people, our winning strategy is gonna be great for a certain group of people.
But as your group grows, as you become more visible, as your company grows. You are gonna have to deal with a lot of different personalities. And if you're stuck in only using your winning strategy, you will not be able to influence everyone.
One of the things I've noticed in founders is that at the very beginning when we have the idea, we're very bold. We're going from nothing to something so even failures might seem like wins, but there is a moment when we're no longer building from zero, and that's when the winning strategy really kicks in and in those moments, the winning strategy, what it's trying to do, it's to protect our reputation, protect the relationship we have with investors, protect the profitability. So we go from being these entrepreneurs who were really good at taking risks to becoming more risk averse.
So you can even think for a moment where right now are you making decisions? Because you are afraid of losing your reputation or that people think of you in a different way. Or here's the other way I hear the winning strategy coming up all the time: when my clients or potential clients tell me, well, that's the way I've done it.
Here's who I am as a leader. Here's who I am as a business founder. I was talking with an entrepreneur recently and he was telling me that he was like a racing horse. He wasn't a pony to be shown around. The only thing he cared was winning, and we explored this as his winning strategy going forward, running fast, pushing hard.
Of course, those things had given him a lot of success, but at this point in his career, he was hitting a wall. That strategy wasn't working anymore because he wasn't facing a field where he can run limitless. He was facing canyons and big drops and things that are not good for a racing horse.
So through our work, he realized he had to change, he had to find another way of being a leader, being an entrepreneur, because just racing that fast was not what was going to get him to where he wanted to go.
So I want you to start paying attention. When you talk about the type of founder you are, the type of leader you are, what do you say? How do you refer to your identity? Because that will give you clues as to what is your winning strategy, and then you can really see, okay, how has this winning strategy helped me win? But how is it also limiting me right now?
So this is the work I do with my clients. We uncover their winning strategies. We see their strengths, we see their limitations. And then usually what my clients tell me is, okay, so let me create another winning strategy so I can win in a different way. But here's the problem. No matter what winning strategy you choose. All of them are gonna have limitations.
So the solution here is not to create or develop another winning strategy. The solution is to create a new context, a new game for you in which you cannot be defined by a winning strategy, but in which you have to become whatever is required in the moment.
So think about it this way. Your life so far has been about nailing pieces of wood together, and you have a hammer. Your hammer is the winning strategy, and so far it's worked fantastic. You can do it fast, you can do it precisely. You can get the job done, but all of a sudden you no longer have to nail pieces of wood together.
Now you have to build a house. So you start seeing all the limitations your hammer has, and then you think, well, let me get a wrench. Okay, so with the wrench, you can do things you couldn't do with a hammer, but the wrench is also limited.
So the solution is not to go from a hammer to a wrench, to a screwdriver, but to focus on building the house. And being able to discern what is the strategy, what is the tool you need at any given point, and develop the flexibility to use any tool, any strategy, any skill, because now you're no longer playing the game of nailing pieces of wood together. Now your game is bigger. Now your game is building a house.
So I want you to take a moment and ask yourself. What is the version of building a house for you? What is the biggest, most impossible game you want to play? And allow that to be the context for your life. So no longer focus on your current identity and how well you do it right now.
But you focus on who you have to become in order to achieve that goal that seems impossible. And here's a caveat. This process I'm telling you about is not so much about achieving or not achieving the goal. It's about finding inside of you all of your potential, of playing such a big game that you have to constantly reinvent yourself, challenge your thinking, challenge your beliefs, dig deeper so you can play that bigger game.
So as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, the doors to my Visionary Mindset program are currently open. Our next class starts on October 1st, and what we do inside this program is challenge all those ways of thinking that have helped you succeed, but are now the reason that you're feeling limited.
My goal for this program is that every person that participates in it upgrades their self concept, and that means expanding your capacity, your intellectual capacity, your emotional capacity, your capacity to hold a bigger business to hold more money to hold, more risk to hold, the ability to lead more people and influence and be more of yourself.
So if what I've been talking about today excites you and you feel that calling to expand your business, or to launch a new business, to evolve your leadership and who you are, I invite you to go to carozuleta.com/visionary. Put your name and email and a member of my team will reach out to you to schedule a 15 minute call where we're gonna walk you through the program, and answer any questions you have.
So as you're moving about your day, I want you to start paying attention to who you think you are, to the patterns you have to what you think might be your winning strategy. Notice in the conversations you have with others what you say about yourself. What is the story you have about who you are and what works?
Once you identify your winning strategy, you're gonna start seeing how it has been limiting you all your life, and you'll be ready to be free of it and play the Impossible Game.
Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next time.
If you're currently pursuing a big, bold idea and would love some support, let's talk. In my coaching program, I'll teach you how to manage yourself, your own thoughts and emotions. as well as your team and your money so you can turn your beautiful idea into a reality. Go now to carozuleta.com slash consult that is c a r o z u l e t a dot com slash consult and complete the form to book a complimentary call with me.
See you there!
