Makeshift Mastery with Barbara M. Littles

High Capacity Facebook Group www.facebook.com/groups/highcapacitywoman/
Visit my website https://barbaramlittles.com/

This week's Call to Action:

1. Identify the 4-5 things you need to do consistently each day in your business in order to reach mastery.

Malcolm Gladwin (from the book Outliers) says it take10 years or 10,000 hours to reach mastery - metaphor for mastery takes time.

2. Identify your mission in your business - your work flow will follow it.

3. Master the necessary skill of your business by being deliberate and consistent each day.

4. You don't have to be great to start but you have to start to be great and,

5. You need mentors and coaches - to guide you but not do work for you.

Steven Martin said " Become so good they can't ignore you".

You lead your business.

Transcript

Narrator  0:00  
She leads. She's powerful. She's strong unforgettable. She knows what she's about. And she's building from the inside out. 

And welcome to the high capacity woman show with your host Barbara M. Littles.

Barbara Littles  0:24  
Hello, this is Barbara Littles, and welcome to the high capacity woman podcast. I'm your high capacity architect, and I'm here to empower you women, so that you can structure build and lead high capacity organizations, businesses and lives from the inside out. And you're gonna do it for the purpose of influence, impact and income in the global marketplace. I am so glad that you have decided to join me today. And I want to give you just an idea of what we are going to be doing on this journey. You know, my journey from corporate America, where I was a lawyer, putting money and big money into the pockets of other people led me into this place of business and entrepreneurship on my own. Unfortunately, at the time, there were not many women mentors to mentor me in how to do business, how to structure business, and how to lead a business. But I'm so glad today that we have more women that are in this space. And I'm one of those women. And so I am here to help you structure, build and lead. And so I want you to get your latte, I want you to get your coffee, and I want you to get your tea. And I want you to get your paper and pen and sit back and take notes. As today we are talking about make shift mastery.

One of the things that I'm noticing ladies in the marketplace is something called makeshift mastery. And it just reminds me of a couple of months ago, we moved into a new home. And it was full of boxes. We had so many boxes, our furniture had not arrived yet. And so I decided that I was going to take a box and of course I was going to make shift a chair and I was going to sit on that box. Well, the box held up for a little while. I'll say it held up for at least 30 minutes. But after 30 minutes of sitting on that box, honey, that box fell through and down I went along with the box.  I tell you that story because what I'm seeing a lot in the marketplace today is this thing I call makeshift mastery, which if you really think about the words, it's an oxymoron. If you think about makeshift, something that's makeshift, you're using it not as it was intended to be used.  Usually it's poor quality. Usually it's weaker than what you need. And it's not exactly what you need. But it will do for now so we use it temporarily just like I used that box. But just like that box, if you engage and sit on it long enough, that box is going to fall through. So I want to talk to you high capacity, women today about making sure that your business is not makeshift, but that you've mastered it.  I just want to give you a few pointers today. Over the next few weeks, we're going to have women entrepreneurs coming into the podcast.   We have some fabulous women that are coming in from every industry. We have people from salons and restaurants and coaching and training. We have people from all different walks of life, and all different types of businesses to come in and share with you on legal issues, on branding issues on structuring issues, mindset issues and things that you have to do in order to build a high capacity business. So I'm going to take a few minutes and kick off this season. This is our first season. And I thank you so much for joining us, if you could just make sure that you follow us below and subscribe to this podcast, and also press the like that will help us out a great deal. And I'll make sure that I put the major points in the show notes. But I know it's helpful for you if you sit back and take notes as you're listening to the podcast this morning.  I would even challenge you not to necessarily write exactly what I'm saying because some of those things will be in the show notes. But really think about how you're feeling and what reaction you have in reference to what I'm saying in reference to your own business.   That is more helpful in retaining information, processing information, and being able to take that information and implement it in your own business.

So when we talk about something that's makeshift, as I talked about that box that I eventually fell through on; that was a makeshift box. It wasn't a chair, it wasn't made to be a chair. But at the moment, I didn't have a chair and instead of waiting for a chair, I decided to use the box. Well, I'm seeing a lot of that in the marketplace, in terms of business, that we want people to build our business for us. And some of us, we have people who have offered to build business for us and offered to help us in various aspects of our business. And over the next few episodes this season, we're going to be talking about when to hire, how to hire, who to hire, and how to go through that process. So that we are maintaining as much of our cash in our businesses as possible as we make cash. So I want to just bring these couple of strategies to you this morning and some of these tools, so that you don't have a makeshift business, Malcolm Gladwell had talked about in his book outliers, he talks about needing 10,000 hours or 10 years to master something. And, you know, he's gone back and said  for some people because of technology, because we are in a new era, it may not take everyone 10,000 hours, or 10 years to master.

That was a metaphor to let us know that it takes a lot of time to master something. What are you mastering in your business?  We're going to have someone come in and talk about branding in the next couple of episodes. But you can't master everything. Because if you try to master everything you master nothing. You heard that saying, a jack of all trades is a master of none. Absolutely true. So he talks about this metaphor. And the metaphor really is about getting people to just understand that mastery takes time. So as you're building your business, high capacity women, you are going to grow and your business is going to grow. But make sure that you identify your avatar, your clients, your customer, what your topic is, and make sure that you master it, absolutely master it. Secondly, know your mission.

What is your mission for your business? Your mission is going to determine your workflow, and what you need to do on a daily basis. And we'll be talking about time management, we don't believe that you can manage time, what you manage is actually your priorities. And so we're going to talk about managing your priorities, because we know high capacity women, that we have lives outside of our business. Some of us have husbands and children, some of us have family members, and just other things that we need to take care of in life. So we know our business is our priority but at the same time, we need to set priorities.  Guess what, if you don't set your priorities in your business, someone else will set your priorities for you. And because this is your business, and because you're a high capacity woman, and you are running your business, in a high capacity way, you need to be the driver of your business and not someone else.

You don't have to be great to start. But you have to start to be great. So I want to encourage you that in whatever you're doing in your business, the key is to get started.  It isn't going to be absolutely excellent and fantastic the first time you do it. It will probably be good, maybe average, we don't want to say average. But it'll probably be somewhat good the first time. But in order for it to be excellent  you have to master it. We know that it's going to take a couple of iterations, several iterations for you to do that thing in order for you to master it. But if you get started, and you continue to do it, you will master your subject matter, as we have someone coming in, and they'll be talking about branding, and exactly what that means. We want to know when people hear your name in the marketplace what do they think of? They should absolutely think of a specific thing when they hear your name in the marketplace. You want to have mentors and coaches as I talked about coming onto the podcast today. When I came out of corporate America, there were not a lot of women, mentors and coaches in the business world setting up businesses. We were still trying to climb the corporate ladder, which is where I was in corporate America. And so I learned a lot by going and training in subsequent years. But those first years I learned a lot by trial and error. And so we're going to take the trial and error out for you.

We're going to give it to you just the way it is. And we're going to tell you how to build. That should allow you to build a little faster than I did, it should allow you to build more efficiently and more effectively than I did. That's what we want, we want you to be able to go further and to be able to go faster. However, I want to caution you that only you can drive your business. This is not a sprint, ladies, it is a marathon. And you're going to hear from these women that are coming on to the podcast in the next couple of weeks, how it has truly been a marathon. But it has been a great marathon of success for them, because they intentionally and deliberately put their business strategies to work. And they took time to build that business in a quality way, with deliberate feedback from mentors, and from coaches.  I want to welcome you today, I want to say to you, we have a high capacity woman Facebook group, please join us. In that group, we give additional tools and strategies each day and each week for growing your business. You know, as a community of women, we need each other.  We have different businesses, we have different skill sets. The group is designed for us to support each other. You will also see the link to that high capacity woman group in the show notes below. 

You know, I remember Steve Martin, the actor who said that you should become so good that the world can't ignore you. So high capacity woman that is what we do, we become so good that the world cannot ignore us. And in order to do that, we have to get branding in place, we have to get our message in place, we have to get our legal structure in place, we have to get our systems in place. And we have to become who we need to be in order to run a high capacity organization and to live a high capacity life. Ladies, we will see you next week. And next week, my guest will be Blanche Henry. She is the owner of a tea room that was rated in the state of Maryland as the number one tea room for 14 consecutive years. In addition to that, it was rated number two in the United States out of 500 tea rooms for consecutive years. Her family also appeared on the Food Network show in which they won five out of the six times that they appeared. I believe this woman has something to tell us about building a high capacity business. So make sure you do not miss out next week. Now what I'd like for you to do in the meantime this week .... Yes, we will always have a call to action on this show. Your call to action is to sit down and think of the four or five things you need to consistently do in your business every day in order for you to master what you do. And in regard to that, on Thursday of this week, we will have a training in the high capacity women's Facebook group. 

That training will be on consistency. What's consistency got to do with it. Well, ladies, everything. How do I develop the discipline of being consistent in the most important things that I need to do in my business every single day? Join us in the high capacity woman Facebook group. The link is below in the show notes. All you have to do is click on and request to be a part of the group and I'll make sure that you get admitted. And last but not least, make sure that you subscribe to the podcast and like the podcast for us. It will help us out tremendously. And just remember, we will be here next week. And I want you to really set aside some time because we are going to do a deep dive with Blanche Henry. Ladies. Thank you as you're building your high capacity businesses. Bye bye.

She she's powerful. She's unforgettable. She knows what she's about and she's building from the inside out.