The Robyn Graham Show - Success without Social - Life and Business Growth Strategies for Christian Women, Coaches and Service Providers

From the bedroom to the boardroom, creating an environment that supports and nurtures both personal and professional relationships is crucial for success in business. Personal relationships have a significant impact on business trajectories. Discover how to manage these influences for greater entrepreneurial success.

Recent statistics show that a significant portion of people who experience divorce remarry, driven by an inherent need for connection and security. This insight underscores the human desire for meaningful relationships that impact various facets of life, including business. Healthy relationships bolster mental and emotional well-being, which are critical components for achieving professional success.

Personal and professional relationships are intertwined, each influencing the other. Business success often stems from the ability to manage and nurture personal relationships effectively. For instance, setting healthy boundaries and fostering an environment of mutual respect at home can translate to improved business dynamics and leadership skills.

Open communication and vulnerability are cornerstones of strong relationships. Expressing wants, needs, and desires clearly and honestly fosters trust and intimacy from the bedroom to the boardroom. Communicating effectively with clients, colleagues, and stakeholders is critical in business. Establishing a personal brand and sharing one's unique skills require a level of vulnerability similar to that in intimate relationships. Therefore, honing these skills in personal settings can significantly enhance professional interactions and build stronger, more trusting business relationships.

Women, in particular, often have a network of friends who fulfill various emotional roles. These friendships are vital, but when they overshadow the role of a partner, it can lead to a sense of disconnection within the primary relationship. Recognizing how platonic relationships affect intimacy with a partner is essential. By addressing and repositioning these dynamics thoughtfully, women can improve their personal relationships and, in turn, their professional lives.

As the #1 Balance (and) Relationship Advisor in the World, activating power couples and potent humans, I can attest to the power of being Intentionally Selfish. After a successful career helping families push through trials caused by trauma, lost confidence and communication challenges impacting intimacy within their relationships, I broke barriers and glass ceilings when I decided to break-free from outdated expectations and binding patriarchal definitions that limit the ability for humans to self-actualize.

Formerly trained as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, I’ve architected my core professional skill set as a Psychotherapist, Trauma Specialist, Sexology and Relationship expert with strategically infused tenets of coaching to set a new bar and create ripples inside the personal development industry.

Naketa's website

Additional Interview with Naketa about intimacy

Dionne created the acronym ROAR, which means Relentless, Optimistic, Ambitious and Results Driven and is known as the roaring speaker.

She helps women in the workplace become the leaders they are meant to be and take their seat at the table. Dionne is a leader in diversity and inclusion and helps women find their ROAR.

She also helps women find purpose when they leave corporate and write their signature speech and/or books that they have within them and others need to learn from.

Having her seat, as the only African American woman, at the executive table within the organization she worked for, she advocated for other women and women of color to take their seats at the table. But these efforts were met with resistance and she decided that her work would be more impactful if she left corporate, wrote her book and started speaking.

Dionne was writing her book not even knowing that she was writing a book. She took notes while working in corporate, thriving in sales success, receiving the accolades, but not feeling fulfilled.

As she was asked to speak at conferences, she came to live. Event planners started asking her to continue to speak. The thought of leaving the security of a 9 to 5, bi-weekly pay, etc. hadn’t crossed her mind, but every time she spoke, she became more emotional and people started praising her for her ability to inspire.

Just like so many of us do, Dionne ignored God’s calling to become a professional speaker. Until, he spoke to her in the dream. After the dream where God told her she had done great things on earth, but that she hadn’t become the empowerment speaker that he had called, equipped and created her to be.

When we don’t follow God’s calling, others on earth whose goals, dreams and opportunities will die because they didn’t have the opportunity to hear our signature speech or work with us.

The reality is we will not rest until we accept our calling and act on it.

ROAR came from Dionne’s calling and her need to be relentless, optimistic, ambitious, and results driven to answer it.

We won’t find happiness until we answer our calling.

Women often feel guilting about doing what is fulfilling themselves because they have so many people to serve and do things for, spouses, children, parents, church, etc.

If we follow our calling and do what we are called to do, we will become fulfilled. The more fulfilled we are, the better we can serve others.

It’s time to put the guilt aside and start doing what we are called to do and squeeze in time for ourselves.

A lot of women are walking around with the stories that they don’t even realize they have in them.

We have to own the story that happened to us that is going to help someone else. This story can become your signature speech and you can build a business around it.

Once the story is identified, points have to be created that will inspire and teach others.

If you have a product or service that you have to offer, you have to speak. If you aren’t speaking, you are missing a large part of your audience.

Identify your target audience and reach out and speak to them.

You know you niche, you know your audience, where are they located. Then start reaching out to the organizations, churches, businesses, etc. that need to hear your message.

At first speeches may be pro bono, but that’s OK because we need practice. If you do speeches pro bono, have a product offering that can be monetized within the speech.

• Music
  • Come out to music. What music goes along with the message you want to convey.
  • Music will energize the audience and get them ready for the speech.
• Humor
  • Humor is a must. It’s a heartbeat. A signature message is like an S-Curve. They have to feel different types of emotions. You need to have them stand up, raise their hands, talk back to you, laughter, tears, etc. Think of it as taking the audience on the journey with you. The audience needs to not only hear your journey, they need to feel your journey.
• Speak to the Pain
  • Speak to the pain that the audience is experiencing and solve their problem.

When you have said the same thing over and over again, it gets exhausting. A person can only take so much. A race of people can only take so much. And at the end of the day, as a race, African Americans are looking for equality.

The reality the problem of inequal...

You can be stuck at zero dollars or a million dollars. If you aren’t moving to the next level, you are stuck. Every time you are stuck, you can link it back to one or more of these four Ps. The four Ps apply to everything.

People Pleasing

Procrastination

Playing Small

Perfectionism

Female entrepreneurs tend to struggle more with playing small and people-pleasing.

Perfectionism is another way of trying to control. You can’t be the boss of the outer world if you aren’t the boss of the inner world.

People-pleasing is associated with fear. Instead of putting yourself in front of others, your internal voice says, please her, please them. It is not healthy for your business to please others all of. Pay attention and recognize when you are doing this. Then, you will be able to stop pleasing others, take intentional action, move forward, and get unstuck.

In addition, people-pleasing will lead to a lack of confidence.

Nicole often hears clients say that they wish they could get clients without selling. The clients go on to say that they just want to serve. The cause of these thoughts is a lack of belief in the ability to attract new people. Negative thoughts do not lead to a fulfilling life. They won’t allow growth.

Likewise, for maximum potential, you must put yourself out into the world to connect with others and build relationships. Don’t fall into a comfort zone where you are giving in to fear. Fear will hold you back.

Playing small is the most common thing Nicole sees holding her clients back. When you say that you just want to do the work and don’t want to sell, fear is holding you back. You are afraid of someone saying no.

Robyn used the example of Instagram and people saying they don’t like social media; they don’t have time. Fear of failure or not being perfect often holds people back. Do you avoid publishing content because of fear of being judged? This is common. You must remember that likes do not determine your worth.

Likewise, the playing small mindset holds you in procrastination.

And, perfectionism is fear holding you back.

Click here to read the full blog post and access the links.

If you don’t know where to begin to start and grow a business follow these strategies.

Building the foundation doesn’t mean starting with social media. Start with creating your personal brand, and then move to the critical strategies provided below.

1. Faith – ask the Lord to be the foundation of everything you do.
   • What feels impossible is possible with him!
   • Ask the Holy Spirit for guidance.
2. Don’t wait to begin mindset work.
   • It is important to address negative thoughts of doubt and fear from the beginning. In addition, it’s important to avoid distractions because they will induce doubt which leads to confusion, and fear.
   • Here’s an example of how your brain will distract you. I had a conversation with a 1:1 client yesterday and she said she was questioning her pricing – she thinks she’s charging too much – there is zero proof of this thought. In fact, when we set her packages and pricing she felt confident in them. But one thought drug her into the basement of despair and doubt over her entire business model.
   • You have to trust yourself or you people won’t trust you.
3. Start with systems and processes, SOPs, create your package, and set your pricing.
   • This is key if you want to start and grow your business for long-term success. Without systems and processes in place, you will not be able to serve your clients effectively and may lose referral opportunities.
   • This step includes defining your soul mate client.
   • What values and characteristics do you want and need them to have? What do you need them to believe about you and themselves? For example, they are ready to invest time, energy, resources, and money, they believe in your offer, they trust you, and they trust themselves to make decisions.
   • These are all important for creating copy for your website and building trust with your audience.
4. You NEED a website – you do not need social media – start with SEO-ready pages and blog posts – at least three with CTAs.
   • Think about credibility. If someone is using social media to build their business and does not have a website, are you going to trust their credibility?
   • A website is your introduction to the world and it is your opportunity to connect emotionally and build trust.
5. Build your email list.
   • Start with your community – they know you and trust you and are willing to share you with their community.
   • Give them an opportunity to follow you on your new journey or to unsubscribe.
   • Stay front of mind.

If you want to start and grow a successful business the key is my success equation, mindset + strategy + action = results. This is the basis of my Purpose to ResultsTM Method.

Download the free eBook: How to build a solid foundation for long-term success.

Have you ever wondered if God is speaking to you? Some believe that that only happened in the Bible. But in reality, God still speaks to us, but we have to listen to hear Him.

The first step in hearing God speak to you is to read Scripture. Reading Scripture will help you recognize how the Holy Spirit speaks to us. And you can ask the Holy Spirit to make you sensitive to His voice and to help you hear Him.

The Holy Spirit speaks to us through our intuition. Or, you may have a strong feeling about something.

Oftentimes, things you've been praying about will come up in conversation. Someone will bring up the topic to you out of the blue. Let your ears be open to hear the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit may speak to you in dreams, song lyrics, or maybe a picture that pops into your head. In addition, you may experience a change in your circumstances, like opportunities dry up. This is what happened to Laureen Alexa with her acting career. The roles she was willing to play quit coming up. In addition, the roles offered to her were not aligned with her morals.

When you feel a shift like this in your life, ask God if he wants you to lean in and keep pressing because He's training you in perseverance, or does He want you to pivot? Or, ask Him if this is a new opportunity and ask him to redirect your steps.

Similarly, if it's a perseverance thing, He's going to strengthen you and you will receive confirmation or release that gives you a new insight or direction.

In addition, ask God to give you sensitivity to hear His voice and to know the counterfeits from His. Also, ask Him to make you in tune to Him because you want to obey Him. This is the prayer Laureen prays.

The most important thing about communicating with God is discernment. It's imperative to discern and differentiate between what we think God is saying versus what the world or Satan may be saying.

Read the full show notes and access all links.

Website for Laureen Alexa

Laureen's book: Festival in the Desert: Learning to Rejoice in the Difficult Seasons of Life

Download the free eBook: 37 Bible verses every Christian entrepreneur should reflect on and live by.