{"id":1751,"date":"2015-10-28T16:18:12","date_gmt":"2015-10-28T16:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/?p=1751"},"modified":"2015-10-30T16:20:14","modified_gmt":"2015-10-30T16:20:14","slug":"for-your-business-to-grow-bigger-you-need-to-think-bigger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/for-your-business-to-grow-bigger-you-need-to-think-bigger\/","title":{"rendered":"For Your Business to Grow Bigger, You Need to Think Bigger"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"#StadiumStatus<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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\"John<\/a><\/p>\n
JOHN BRUBAKER<\/div>\n
CONTRIBUTOR<\/div>\n
Performance Consultant, Speaker & Award-Winning Author<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Image credit: Steve Broer | Shutterstock.com<\/a><\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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With the World Series underway this week, there\u2019s a great lesson for entrepreneurs in understanding how to play at the level\u00a0athletes and entertainers call \u201cstadium status.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stadium status is a term popularized by musicians and athletes. It\u2019s that elusive place every coach, athlete, entertainer and performer of every type strives to reach.\u00a0It\u2019s moving from being an opening act to the headliner, from performing on a small stage to the greatest stage in the largest venue possible: a sold out stadium.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same elusive place every entrepreneur strives to reach. To move from an also ran to the biggest and best in class. From small accounts or\u00a0a small customer base to a big stadium full of raving fans.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a concept I learned from country musician Granger Smith<\/a> and his manager Tyler Smith. Several years ago, they set their sights on achieving stadium status. To keep their vision top of mind, any time they had a new idea, reached a new milestone or grew their brand to the \u201cnext level,\u201d they\u2019d repeat the mantra#StadiumStatus<\/a> to one another verbally and on social media.<\/p>\n

Related:\u00a05 Levels of Intensifying Your Dreams in Business<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Why is keeping your vision in front of you integral to winning? To understand what wins we must first understand what causes losing. We create success,\u00a0or failure,\u00a0in our minds before we create it in the marketplace.<\/p>\n

The event: 1986 World Series game six<\/h2>\n

The Boston Red Sox enjoyed a 5-3 lead in extra innings and were just three outs away from winning their first championship in 68 years. The New York Mets managed to tie the game and\u00a0hit three straight singles, when\u00a0Mookie Wilson hit a grounder that went up the first base line and through Bill Buckner\u2019s legs, allowing the winning run to score.<\/p>\n

Just 16 days before game six, Buckner was interviewed by Don Shane of WBZ-TV and he described the pressures of post-season play:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dreams are that you\u2019re gonna have a great series and win. The nightmares are that you\u2019re gonna let the winning run score on a ground ball through your legs. Those things happen, you know. I think a lot of it is just fate.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is now widely known as the most costly error in sports history may never have happened if Buckner protected his confidence and maintained a better vision of his future. What happened to Bill Buckner can and does happen to all of us on a different scale every day.<\/p>\n

How to protect yourself<\/h2>\n

You should utilize affirmations like Granger Smith\u2019s band does. Repeating affirmations of what you want (not what you want to avoid) will enhance your beliefs. When you enhance your beliefs you will enhance your results. If you think it often enough, it becomes a part of you. According to psychologist Linda Sapadin<\/a>, talking to yourself respectfully makes you smarter.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Smith and his drummer, Dusty Saxton, Saxton shared with me a critical juncture in their journey. A number of years ago, after a show where things went less than stellar, Saxton told the band,\u00a0\u201cListen guys, I\u2019ll be playing stadiums one day whether it\u2019s with this band or another band.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was reaffirming his vision and in the process refocusing his band mates. As a result, the band\u00a0now uses the stadium-status mantra not just on good days but also on bad ones when things go wrong in order to reinforce their vision to themselves.\u00a0I believe, like Saxton, you have a responsibility to have a bigger vision for the people around you than sometimes they have for themselves.<\/p>\n

Smith attributes his band members embracing and consistently repeating this mantra as a key to their success: \u201cFor a band member who might be doubtful a couple years ago, hearing everyone repeat this is reinforcement of our collective vision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related:\u00a03 Strategies to Explode Your Business Growth<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

They\u2019ve gone from playing small markets to stadium status and were recently announced as iHeart radio\u2019s<\/a> On The Verge artist. Make no mistake about it, Smith is an entrepreneur and the lesson for the entrepreneur in Smith\u2019s rise to stadium status lies in this\u00a0quote he shared with me:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not about talent or work ethic. That\u2019s just enough to get you in the door because a lot of people have talent and work ethic. It\u2019s about strategy too. My talent was good enough to get me in the game, after that it\u2019s up to me how I play the game.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whether you\u2019re an entrepreneur, athlete\u00a0or musician, you\u2019re either growing or dying.\u00a0There\u2019s no standing still. Talent and work ethic might get you in the game, but stadium status takes strategy. Your\u00a0strategy, like Smith\u2019s, must start with a vision.<\/p>\n

Nobody starts out at stadium status. Everything starts from humble beginnings before it grows to stadium status.\u00a0Smith\u2019s stadium-status journey began with his first album in 1998.<\/p>\n

Your journey can be intimidating, frustrating, painful and sometimes downright humbling. What makes it a lot easier is having great teammates. All great teams have great teammates. Like Saxton, they help you get your mind right and protect your confidence every step of the way to stadium status.<\/p>\n

Food for thought<\/h2>\n

The only way you can keep moving forward with positive momentum is to protect your confidence every day. One of the best ways to protect your confidence is to be very selective in who you surround yourself with. Who do you spend most of your time with? Who is your peer group? Do you spend time with people who support you and lift you up?<\/p>\n

You need to spend time with people who not only share your vision but have a bigger vision than\u00a0you. That forces you to step your game up.<\/p>\n

For more stadium-status strategies to turn your potential into performance, join my\u00a0free weekly newsletter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Related:\u00a05 Ways to Make Success a Routine Matter<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JOHN BRUBAKER CONTRIBUTOR Performance Consultant, Speaker & Award-Winning Author Image credit: Steve Broer | Shutterstock.com October 28, 2015 With the World Series underway this week, there\u2019s a great lesson for entrepreneurs in understanding how to play at the level\u00a0athletes and entertainers call \u201cstadium status.\u201d Stadium status is a term popularized by musicians and athletes. It\u2019s … Continue reading For Your Business to Grow Bigger, You Need to Think Bigger<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","pmpro-has-access"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4MGMb-sf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1752,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751\/revisions\/1752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}