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.
This is episode 58 of the Visionaries Pursuit Podcast. Listen, if you've been enjoying this podcast and you've taken valuable insights from it, go ahead and give it a rating and follow us. It will go a long way in supporting us in continuing to create this free content for you every week.
As the year ends, I've been thinking about what this last quarter should look like for my business, and there's the avenue of giving one last push to meet my revenue goals, my sales goals to grow the business. Or to slow down, step back, reconnect with my vision, and start deciding what I want 2026 to look like.
So how do we decide as entrepreneurs, do we push ourselves? Do we keep going to the finish line so we can grow our revenue this year? Or do we keep things going steady, But take a, step back and really think, how are we gonna make the next few years Epic?
So this is a conversation I've been having with most of my clients this year.
And the way I like to explain it to them is a difference between a vision and a goal. And I know these two terms are terms that you're very familiar with that we use for a lot of things, but I wanna explain them in a slightly different way, because I want to inspire you, I want to challenge your thinking.
As entrepreneurs, it's very common for all of us to be talking about goals. What are our revenue goals? What are our growth goals? Do we have team goals? What are our KPIs? The skill of setting goals and being able to achieve them, commit to them is very important. But if we just focus on goals, we're missing a very important question that is, what is the vision behind all of this?
Because here's what I've learned over the years, coaching founders. Goals keep us moving forward, but vision is what makes that movement meaningful. Vision is what creates deep transformation in ourselves and in our businesses.
I've been reading a book that's called 10 x is easier than two x, and while reading it, it hit me. Oh, this is what I've been talking with my clients about. 10 x is what I've always referred to as vision and 2 X is what I've always referred to as goals. Your vision or your 10 x mentality is expansive.
It stretches you. It asks you to become someone new. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you've probably heard me talk about your identity of upgrading yourself concept, and that's what a vision does. A vision doesn't give you a roadmap to double your revenue. A vision is a goal that feels impossible.
A vision doesn't have a step by step framework to get there. It's a dream. It's big, but it informs who you need to become . A goal on the contrary, tells you what you need to do this year. What marketing you need to do? Who do you need to talk to? What do you need to do in order to achieve a certain revenue or a certain growth goal or team goal?
So what I wanna do in this podcast is explain the difference of a vision and a goal, why it's so important to have both of them and how you can align them.
So, as I was saying, a goal is something you can see from where you stand today. For my business next year, our goal is to double the revenue and we know what we need to do in order to get there. A vision doesn't tell you how to get there 'cause it's so big. A vision informs you on who you have to become. Goals are about achievement. Vision is about identity, and you need both.
When I'm thinking about my business, I can say my goal for 2026 is to double this year's revenue. When I think about my vision is to become a thought leader in my industry, to become the expert who is advising the most successful entrepreneurs in the world. When I think about my goal 2xing my income, I have a plan. In fact, we already have the plan.
We have the marketing plan. We know the steps we need to do in order to get there. When I think about becoming a thought leader, it pushes me to think about myself in a completely different way. It's not about what is the marketing strategy that will drive the revenue, but what is my intellectual property? What are the frameworks, the ideas, the concepts I'm developing based on my experience that are mine? What is the stance I take regarding entrepreneurs? This episode speaks a little bit to it. I'm not just a coach telling you what to do. I'm asking you to ask yourself who you wanna become.
Who do you need to become? How can you 10 x your vision? I'm always pushing my clients to be more ambitious and a lot of the time I'm asking them to slow down, to focus on their zone of genius, to do only the things that are gonna create that vision, not necessarily just the goal.
But you need both. You need goals and you need a vision because they each serve a different purpose. Without a vision, your goal becomes a to-do list. It's efficient, but many times, uninspiring. And I also meet entrepreneurs who have been focused only on goals, and when I meet them, they're burned out. They've lost interest or passion for their business.
Having a vision by itself, it's a beautiful thing. But for the most part, it's way out of reach. Now, when you hold both, that's when your business becomes a vehicle for transformation. Not just success, but it takes you to the land of the unknown that is connected to your deepest desire. A vision is who you need to become to have the business that you would love in 10, 20, 30 years. Many times that vision also includes your lifestyle. So for example, if your goal is to double revenue, you might be thinking about hiring more people, putting more things on your to-do list. But if your vision includes freedom, then you have to think about scaling your team in a whole different way.
In the book, 10 x is easier than two x. Don Sullivan says two x goals are about doing more of what you're already doing. 10 x visions are about doing only what matters most. When you're aiming for two x growth, you try to improve everything, optimize, refine, look for new marketing channels, being every social media platform, you have a mentality of hustle. But when you're aiming for 10 x, you realize you can't do everything. You have to simplify. You have to choose, you have to make choices that can feel very hard.
For example, one of my clients has a $5 million revenue business, and she wants to grow to 15 million in revenue and then 30 million. And when we sat down to think about this vision. One of the things that became crystal clear is that she has to let go of certain clients, but that can be incredibly scary because those clients are bringing revenue right now, so it creates more uncertainty for her. The sure thing is to just get more of those smaller, medium sized clients, but to get to $30 million in revenue, she has to let go of them and focus only on getting the top clients in her industry.
So as you can see, having a vision works as a filter that keeps your goals aligned to what you truly want to build. You can ask yourself, is this goal moving me closer to my vision? And if it's not, you need to understand that that goal is just noise.
So going back to my client, who wants to go from 5 million to 30 million, two x, even though it feels like a stretch many times, it also feels safer. It's logical, measurable, controllable. When you connect with your 10 x vision, it feels risky. It stretches your identity, it creates fear. It can even create imposter syndrome because that's how you know you're at your edge.
That's why most people say in two X, for example, going back to the story I was telling you about my client, for her doubling her revenue, she knows what she has to do. Hire more people, keep selling the way she's selling, but you know, what is the problem she's burning out? It's too many people for her to manage and to keep the quality of the services she wants.
The smaller clients take up so much of her energy and she's having to deal with a lot of very small, repeatable problems that she doesn't wanna be dealing with. She loves working with the bigger clients, the ones that take longer to get, the ones that challenge her creativity, her sales process that require her to uplevel her team to have the best in the industry.
And that is scary. 10 x, you have to let go of the safety of what you know is currently working so you can go and create what is more aligned with that vision. And that new part has no guarantees, it's uncharted territory.
I was thinking about this vision versus goal while I was looking at big companies that we all know the stories of, and I think about Netflix. Many years ago, the two x goal for Netflix was probably getting better at delivering DVDs to all of our houses in a faster, easier way.
Their 10 x goal was going into streaming something that didn't exist yet, something that was new, something that required for their customers to change their behaviors. But if they hadn't let go of being the best delivery service of DVDs, they could never have become that Netflix we know today.
Most people staying goal mentality in two x mentality because it feels safer and it's not that 10 X is harder, it's not that living your vision is harder, is that it requires for you to let go of what you know. And most importantly, it requires for you to let go of who you are or who you've been.
You need to release all patterns, old offers, even all definitions of success. You need to let go of controlling behaviors, short term wins, to be able to bet on new, becoming the leader. That can be the CEO of a 10 x company.
It requires you to evolve your identity, to upgrade your self concept, and that is easier said than done. But the beautiful thing about this is, once you surrender that, once you let go of the attachment of what feels safe your decision making actually becomes easier because now you're aligned to that bigger vision and you're not in hustle mentality.
Now, when you're gonna hire an employee, you're not thinking of, okay, this person can solve a problem I have right now. You become clear that you have to hire the employee that is gonna 10 x your business, and that simplifies your decision process. And it happens with everything. The products you sell, the type of clients you have, the pricing, the people you hire, your sales process, all the decisions you need to make become simpler because now you know what is the bigger game you're playing.
Another thing Dan Sullivan says in the 10 x is easier than two x book that I really loved is, if you wanna be happier in your life, you need a bigger vision. When we're building something that is bigger than us, it gives us meaning. It gives us purpose.
Living your vision requires a change in your identity, a transformation or your identity. And that's not light work because a lot of the times we don't realize what is our operating system. We are unaware of our blind spots. We are unaware of our winning strategy, the strategy that has worked for years and where we feel the most valuable, the most worthy.
But if we wanna live up to our vision, we need to let go of that identity. We need to let go of the things that have worked. Might mean going from the person. Who is always controlling every little aspect of your business to the person who becomes an expert in delegation.
You might need to go from the person who's really good at being busy all day long to being a person who's an expert in creating space space, to think, to innovate, to make that one choice that changes everything. If you think about the energy, that goals bring it's usually tight, you're busy, you're efficient, and there's usually a pressure of, no matter how hard I work, it's never enough. But when you step into your vision, it feels spacious, you're clear.
You may be moving slower, you may be doing less, but everything you're doing is with a lot more intention, and you are developing a deep trust in yourself that every step you're taking matters. That every step you're taking is leading you to that 10 x version of yourself.
Sometimes pursuing your vision might mean downsizing, so you can reorganize, get everything in place so you can have exponential growth.
I have to confess, even though I know these terms, I talk about them all the time. Just doing this episode to try to explain to you what is the difference between a vision and a goal, got me thinking even deeper in my own vision and my own goal. It pushed me to dream even bigger, to be more ambitious, and I felt the nervousness, the excitement, but a little bit of fear that comes with it.
So as you step into thinking about your vision, if you feel a little bit scared, know that you're on the right track. In fact, I want to invite you as you're listening to this podcast, to pause it for a moment, to take a deep breath, to close your eyes and to imagine. What would be your vision? What would be the 10 X version of your business that would be absolutely meaningful, exciting, and that maybe right now it feels impossible? 10 X doesn't only mean 10 x your revenue. It means 10 x the vision for your business and your life. So go ahead, take a moment, write down what is everything you've ever wanted.
How would it feel to live that life that right now feels so far away and impossible? Who would you need to become? What would you need to let go of? What boundaries will now become non-negotiable, and what are the goals that will help you get there?
So as we're finishing 2025 and you're starting to think about your future. I encourage you to make time to dream of the impossible and the exciting to connect to your deepest desires to put fear on the side and allow that vision to emerge from you.
If you do this exercise, and I hope you do and you wanna share it with me, I would love to read it. You can email it to me to info at carolina zuleta dot com, and if you want someone to support you in creating that vision, I would love to be your coach on that journey.
So here's what I want you to remember. Your vision is the compass. Your goals are the roadmap. When you start from your vision, your goals stop being boxes you have to check. They become evidence that you are becoming who you are meant to be.
And as the book says, 10 x is really easier than two x, not because it takes less effort, but because it is more aligned, is more clear and it's more meaningful. When you align your goals with your bigger vision, everything will start to flow. All right. 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!
