Practicing What You Preach As An Entrepreneur
Are you practicing what you preach as an entrepreneur? This topic is very near and dear to my heart as it has become a core value of my company. I always strive to be in 100% alignment with my words and action. I see all too often in the online world people showing up out of alignment. To be fair, this is very easy to do because with social media we can hand select what we show to the world, we can stage it.
We can choose who we show up as and we can hide the messy stuff or ourselves completely. I believe that we each have to do our part and practice what we preach. In my 16 years in business, I’ve seen it a lot in business. I’ve seen people show up online as one person and then be a completely different one behind the scenes. I’ve seen it on the flip side with clients trying to hire people because they want to embody what that person is but aren’t really ready to do the work of showing up and living in that way.
The definition, to me, of practicing what you preach is having your actions be in alignment with what you say. Why is that important? Let me give you an example, my son and I were in the bathroom this morning getting ready for the day. I noticed that he was studying me in the mirror and following my every move while I was brushing my teeth. Riveting, I know however, he was literally mirroring my every move while I brushed my teeth. I was not only saying brush your teeth, I was DOING IT! I was practicing what I preach. Super simple example but I think you get the drift.
Kids very naturally mirror our actions. So when we are doing the actions that you want you kids to embody stop talking and start doing. How can we take this same idea and apply it business and entrepreneurship. How can you practice what you preach as an entrepreneur?
It can be challenging to look yourself in the eye and determine where you need to make improvement. It’s a bit tricky, right? Oftentimes we have to get radically transparent with ourselves and we have to get radically aware of what we’re saying, what we’re doing, and how we’re behaving.
If we practice what we preach long enough it can become a part of who you are. An example of practicing what you preach would be if you were a marketing company and using the same marketing techniques as you are implementing and sharing with your clients. For a coaching business, it might be actually using the coaching advice in your own business that you would give to your clients. If you are somebody who is a fitness instructor, perhaps is actually doing the type of workouts that you encourage your clients to do. Makes sense, right?
You should always strive to be at 100% practicing what you preach but that’s it not necessarily a realistic expectation to hold for ourselves. It can be really hard to take a honest look at yourself and be radically transparent. I mean let’s be honest for a minute, it is uncomfortable to say to yourself, “Hey Jamie, You made the commitment to meditate daily and you told your clients they should too but you are only doing it 5 days a week.” I share tthis and use myself as an example hat because I think those are really simple and easy things to get transparent about.
I like to slow down when I begin to think about where I am practicing what I preach and where I am not and I like to journal on it. You could also meditate, go for a walk, write it down, create a pros and cons list whatever works for you. However, I highly recommend creating a list of actions and habits you want to take and scoring yourself from one to ten. Then once a month do the same thing again to see if you are in integrity and alignment. This practice will help you become more aware of yourself.
When I think about if I am practicing what I preach I think about the words that I am saying, the things that I am doing and who I am becoming. I evaluate each one. I take a good hard look at myself and my actions then determine how I can improve.
At the beginning of this I talked about my son and brushing his teeth so I want you to think about where you can improve the dial and be a better leader. Where can you show up at 80 or 90% daily?
Leave a comment below and let me know how you are practicing what you preach!
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