Ever have trouble trying to decide where to eat? After a long day at work or dealing with things at home, sometimes it’s just easier to have someone else decide where to eat instead of having to figure it out on your own. This deflecting of decision making is what Kristen terms as ‘outsourcing thoughts and actions.’ And it isn’t always a bad thing – until it is.
When faced with a decision, whether it’s personal or business related, it can seem like a good idea at the time to ask more trusted figures in your life for their feedback or opinions. But the truth is that no one has more authority over those decisions than you, especially when dealing with something that affects your business.
That’s why this week Kristen is talking about your inner authority and why deciding to trust yourself to know what’s best could be the most important decision you’ve ever made.
Here are a few highlights:
- How outsourcing your thoughts or actions can diminish your authority
- Examples of healthy ways to ask for insight instead of wholly outsourcing the decision making
- How owning your authority can lead to consistency
- Why it’s important to help build your team’s independence
- What role you play as a team leader
When you allow others to make decisions for you, you allow them to take your power as well. You can start taking this power back, and have full ownership over your results, simply by trusting yourself with decisions a bit more each day. Remember, no one knows the ins and outs of your business quite like you.
If you’d like to join the launch party for Kristen’s new book, Pivot to Purpose: Leaving the Toxic Hustle Culture Behind, you can click here to get in on the celebration and order your copy today.
Thanks for listening! Do you have a question about network marketing? Kristen can help! Drop your question here, and she just might answer it live on the podcast: https://kristenboss.com/question
Connect with Kristen:
If you’re ready to learn the simple process of running your social selling business online, you have to check out Kristen’s live group coaching program! The Social Selling Academy: www.thesocialsellingacademy.com
Interested in Kristen’s exclusive mastermind for six-figure earners in the network marketing industry? Get all the details and join the waitlist here.
Do you have a business full of customers and almost no builders? You’re in need of a reboot! Learn the three skills you can learn that will completely change your recruitment game. Check it out here.
Transcript for Episode #104 Inner Authority:
Kristen Boss (00:05): Welcome to Purposeful Social Selling with Kristen Boss. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. I’m a mindset and business coach with more than 15 years experience in both the product and service based industries. I believe that social selling is the best business model for people wanting to make an impact while they make serious income. This is the podcast for the social seller, who is tired of feeling inauthentic in their business and desires to find a more purposeful and profitable way of growing their business. In today’s social media landscape. In this podcast, you will learn what it takes to grow a sustainable business through impactful and social marketing. It’s time to ditch the hustle and lead from the heart. Let me show you the new way.
Kristen Boss (00:48): Hey bosses, welcome to another episode of the podcast. This week we’re going to talk about how to trust your own voice and taking authority for decisions in your business and in your life and more why that’s important. But before we get into that, I want to kind of give you some updates on what’s going on. First. My book pivot to purpose is officially out in stores and out for release, you can go to target. You can go to Barnes and noble. You can go to Amazon. We are hearing kind of some mixed things with Amazon. Like some people getting their orders right away. Some people are delayed. So I do know that people are getting their books. Some people are having to wait, so it’s kind of a toss up, but you can, if you don’t want to wait, you could do Kindle and have an immediate download, but it’s been so fun seeing everybody’s share about their takeaways and their aha moments.
Kristen Boss (01:42): As they’re reading the book. If you are reading it, I would just love for you to shout it out on Instagram. I’ll reshare that on my Instagram as well. It’s been so fun seeing so many of you holding the book in your hands when it’s been something that I have been waiting for more than a year to come out and the day is finally here, what is kind of funny? I, and the irony is not lost on me is that the week my book released, I got really, really, really sick. And honestly, I’m still recovering as I’m recording this podcast. I’m like sucking on a bunch of cough drops and throat losses as I get through this episode. And it won’t be long just cause I don’t want to redo it, but I got the, this a terrible cold and flu that literally knocked me on my butt and forced me to kind of be in bed rest really.
Kristen Boss (02:33): And it was just kind of ironic that I have this book going out in the world about not hustling, learning to rest, find your joy work with purpose. And the week this book comes out, I’m being forced to rest. And I think it’s hilarious and so timely. And literally, while you know, I, and I also have this Facebook group, which you are welcome to join. We’re going to put it in the show notes. It’s free for anybody who wants to be a part of the book launch. We’re going to start doing Q&A’s and discussions. Because I got so sick, I was unable to do my first live and my scheduled Q&A and hopefully this week I’ll be back to it. It’s, I’m actually kind of shocked. I’m able to be at the microphone and doing this podcast right now because the old, I got ended up turning into pneumonia.
Kristen Boss (03:20): I was having a really hard time breathing. So thankfully I got some treatment I’m spending a lot of time laying down, tons of rest all while the book launch is happening. So I just want to say thank you to you guys for just kind of running the book launch without me and sharing with your friends, sharing with your family. It means so much, especially, it’s just, I can’t tell you how wild it has been literally being laid up in bed during a book launch and trusting the process and trusting that, you know what we play the long game, not, you know, the success of this book is not determined on this one week of my life. Thank goodness for that, but man, it has been quite a week being forced to rest and take it easy. And man pneumonia is no freaking joke.
Kristen Boss (04:10): I had it once before and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. So I just took the weekend to be with my family and we just had a really quiet time away in the mountains. Mostly with just me laying down. So yeah. So I just want to say again, thank you for sharing about the book. Again, you can join the Facebook group where we’re going to be doing the launch. I’ll be more active in there probably starting later this week, given that I recover. Okay. It’s again, I’m blown away that I’m able to do this podcast right now. So you can check out the show notes for that. Okay. So what I want to talk about in the episode today is I want to talk about the importance of owning your inner authority and you become aware of areas of your life, where you assume someone knows better than you do that.
Kristen Boss (05:06): You don’t know what’s best that someone else knows better than you do. And you don’t trust yourself to make decisions that are aligned and best for you. And this is quite common in business. I see a lot of people when they want to make a business decision, they feel that they need to go to a bunch of other people to get their opinions, to get their input. Or maybe for you, it’s your spouse, your partner, that you constantly go to them to get their feedback on what they think you should do or what action you should take. And there’s nothing thing wrong with you asking somebody else what they think. However, when it doesn’t serve you is when you don’t first do that, exploring like exploratory work with yourself. First. I want you to notice if there are areas of your life where you aren’t willing to sit down and ask yourself, well, what do I think?
Kristen Boss (06:06): And what do I want? And what do I think is best at this moment and what might I do? And some of you are so afraid to sit down and, and ask yourself those questions, or maybe not even afraid. Maybe it ha doesn’t even occur to you that you are a trustworthy source to go back and ask yourself, well, what do I think about this? And what’s important for me to know in this moment. And I see this happen a lot, especially with women, I see women a lot of times defer their decisions or defer their answers to somebody they believe is smarter than them knows something better than them knows more than them. Not in a way of like, Hey, I respect this person and I want their insight. That’s different. Insight is different than I want somebody to tell me what to think and what to do.
Kristen Boss (07:04): That’s different because you saying, I want somebody to just tell me what to do is from the belief I don’t, I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m probably going to make a wrong choice. And so somebody probably knows better than me, but when we’re little for input and insight, the healthy, the, a healthy way of doing that is when we are coming with our own thoughts to the table and our own decision to the table. Like, this is what I think this is what I want and I’m going to get input to see if there are any blind spots I have to the way I’m thinking, but what I see most people do is they aren’t willing to first sit down and ask themselves, well, what do I think about this? What are the answers I would come up with and then go out and look for someone else’s insight to say, Hey, is there anything I’m missing?
Kristen Boss (07:57): That is healthy. The, and what I see most people do, and this is really common and I’ll bring it back to your business. And this happens in the academy. And one of the biggest things that I teach my students is how to be an independent and resourceful thinker to become self reliant instead of upline, reliant, or even coach reliant. It is not my job as a coach to tell you what to think it is my job as a coach to teach you how to think for yourself in a way that is constructive in a way that yields the results that you want. And in a way that helps build your own muscle of decision making. It is actually not my role as a coach to take your decision making away from you. And I think a lot of times we want people to do that because making a decision can feel mentally cumbersome.
Kristen Boss (08:47): It can feel tiring to sort through the options and to decide what we want. You know, I think an example of that is like when you’re deciding for dinner, have you ever had this where you’re like, okay, what, what do you want for dinner? I don’t know. You decide, well, do you want this? No, I don’t want that. Well, do you want that? No, I don’t want that. Right. And really what you’re noticing is you like, you feel decision fatigue, and because you feel decision fatigue, you don’t want to expend any energy, making a decision. So you want to hand the decision to somebody else. Now when it comes to deciding on dinner, that’s great. Great. Let somebody else handle that decision, but there are areas of your life where you might have decision fatigue and you’re handing your authority away to somebody else because you don’t want to expend the mental energy, thinking about what you want and what you decide and what you think is best.
Kristen Boss (09:44): So instead of doing that work, because that is thought labor, and trust me, your brain doesn’t want to do thought labor. It’s a, your brain is actually designed to conserve energy. So anytime you have to put work in mental energy and your brain is going to want to resist that and your brain might have trained you to like, Hey, instead of spending all this time, thinking about it, let’s just go ask somebody else what they think. And they’ll tell us what to do. And we’ll just do that because it’s easier. And then if it doesn’t work out, then we can blame that person instead of like holding ourselves responsible for the results. And I, I want you to look for areas in your business specifically where you are giving someone else authority over your decisions or how you are showing up in your business. And an example of that might mean if you’re constantly changing up your strategy, depending on who you’re hearing it from, maybe you’re listening to a training or a webinar or something like that.
Kristen Boss (10:46): And you’re watching, you’re like, oh, that person is saying that I’m going to change my, okay, I’m going to throw out what I’ve been doing and do that instead. And then three weeks later you watch somebody else. You’re like, oh, they’re doing that. I should try that too. And you never stop to think and slow down and think, wait, hold on. What about this is appealing to me. And is that the right? Is that the best decision for me? Is that the next right step for me? What do I think about this? Or you might be thinking like, well, my upline me to do this, so I’m just going to do it. And I’m sure your upline or your teammate or your coach, or whoever has your best interest in mind. But it’s important to know that you know, your business better than anybody else. And I, I say this to my students too.
Kristen Boss (11:32): I’m like, Hey, listen, I’m going to offer you some insight into what I see as a coach. Like here are some things that I see here’s a potential blind spot, but I’m never going to tell my client, this is what you should do because they actually have a lot more knowledge than I do about their business. What I’m going to do is I’ll draw attention to their thinking and say, Hey, I want you to, I just want to draw attention to how I see you thinking about this one particular area. And if you continue thinking in that way, what results do you think that might lead to? Or, Hey, I’ve noticed that you’re, you’re tending to act in this way with the, this one thing. Tell me your thoughts about that. But I’m always keeping the power with the student, with my client. Like I always am acknowledging their inner authority is more important than mine.
Kristen Boss (12:28): It is never my students, even, even as a listener, it’s so important, you know, this, you know, your business better than I do. You know, the nuances of your team, you know, the nuances of your personal life, you know yourself better than anybody does. So I just want you to look for areas in your life where you are assuming maybe I don’t know, and you’re giving authority, to somebody else in your life because you don’t trust yourself because you think, well, what do I know? What if you actually do know what, if your, what if you actually can trust your opinion? What if you actually can trust your judgment? What if you actually can trust the decisions you make? How powerful is that for you? But some of you won’t give yourself that opportunity because you’re afraid. Well, what if I make a decision? And I don’t like the decision or the results, aren’t good.
Kristen Boss (13:24): That doesn’t mean that you’re incapable of making good decisions. It doesn’t mean that you don’t know what you’re doing. It just means that sometimes your decisions don’t, don’t pan out in the way you want them to. But it doesn’t mean you’re incapable. And I think that’s what I see happen for some people is they make a decision or, you know, they decide something and it doesn’t go the way they thought it would. And they make that mean like I’m not good at making decisions or I don’t know. And in the future, I’m just going to ask somebody else what they think so that I can protect myself from failure. But it’s really important that you keep your inner authority intact in many areas of your life. Where are you outsourcing? This is it to a family member? Is it to a spouse, a partner? Is it a friend who are you giving the reins to?
Kristen Boss (14:12): Or maybe you shouldn’t because you assume maybe, I don’t know, maybe I’m not smart enough. Or maybe I haven’t researched this enough. Or maybe I’m not experienced enough. What are areas you’re discrediting yourself? And because you’re discrediting yourself, you’re assuming somebody is more qualified than you are to make a decision about your life in business. No one is more qualified than you are now. I not saying like, now, are we capable of making poor decisions in our life? And yes, of course, but what I’m, what I’m saying is, you know, you have this inner authority and this inner knowing, you know, better than anybody else. Now, do you have biases and blind spots that you might not know you have? Yes. And that is where coaches and mentors and professionals and friends, our job is to help show you the blind spots in love, but never your authority away saying, Hey, because of these blind spots, you can’t do this.
Kristen Boss (15:16): So let me do it for you. That is never the role that’s never, this is. And I also want to say this to like, if you’re a leader, if you have someone on your team, notice if you’re taking power away from your downline as like treating them as if they don’t know any better, that you know, better than they do. And I’ll just do it for you. It’s so important that you help them build their self-trust, their ability to make decisions, their ability to be resourceful, their ability to try new things. You don’t want to take that away. And you know, you’ve taken that away. If they come to you for everything and they’re not going out and trying new things. If you have a downline that’s incredibly dependent on you and is always asking you, well, what do I do? What do I do?
Kristen Boss (16:09): What do I do? It means they see you as the authority in their business. Instead of seeing themselves as an authority in their business. And we never want that. I never want my students to think that I’m the authority over their business. I am only a coach and I bring light to their biases. Their blind spots, their way of think. But my goal as a coach is to always improve the student’s relationship with themselves and to strengthen their inner voice with themselves so that they can make aligned decisions. And so that their actions are aligned with what they say they want and their life. That is the role of a coach. That is the role of a leader. The role of a coach and a leader is never to take responsibility away from the student. It’s never to take power and agency away from the student or the client ever, ever, ever.
Kristen Boss (17:07): You always want to be empowering your downline, your friends, your family, and empowering yourself. But I want you to think about areas in your life where you might be giving power away because you think they know better than you do, or because maybe somebody told you, maybe someone in your, maybe you grew up in an environment where you were told that you don’t know any better, and it’s better to go to, you know, someone else to get insight. Like I think for me in certain areas of my life for a while, I assumed that a man knows better. A man knows better. So I should go and talk to a man about this when that might not necessarily have been true. Like there were areas in my life where I abdicated authority and having a voice in making decisions because I assumed I wasn’t capable or good at making them.
Kristen Boss (18:02): And what if that’s not true? So think about areas of your life, where you’re telling yourself I’m not good at that. And somebody else knows better than I do look for areas in your life and in your business where you’re giving authority to somebody outside of you. And what would it look like for you to decide? Maybe I can trust myself. Maybe I do know better. Maybe I can take this step and have my own back with this decision. That is one of the most important things you can do for yourself. And as a leader, your job is to always hand power back to your students, to the people who are under you, to the people you are mentoring. You always want to give them their power back, never take their power away. So as you go out in your business this week, I want you to decide all throughout this week. What if I know best? What if I know my business better? And what if I am capable of making a really great decision here? And I can trust myself because you know better. We’ll catch you in the next episode.
Kristen Boss (19:16): That wraps up today’s episode. Hey, if you love today’s show, I would love for you to take a minute and give a rating with a review. If you desire to elevate the social selling industry, that means we need more people listening to this message so that they can know can be done a different way. And if you are ready to join me, it’s time for you to step into the Social Selling Academy, where I give you all the tools, training, and support to help you realize your goals. In the Academy, you get weekly live coaching so that you are never lost or stuck in confusion. Whether you are new in the business or have been in the industry for a while, this is the premier coaching program for the modern network marketer. Go to www.thesocialsellingacademy.com to learn more.
