Mirroring the Natural World in Business with Dr. Sabrina Starling Part 2 (of 2)
“When we put ourselves in situations that nurture us, we are going to be able to have something to give back to others. Nature nurtures us, it helps us to think better. ”
YOUR KEY INSIGHTS FROM Dr. SABRINA
Dr. Sabrina Starling, The Business Psychologist™, is the author of the How to Hire the Best series, The 4 Week Vacation™ (coming October 21, 2021), as well as the founder of Tap the Potential LLC. Tap the Potential specializes in transforming small businesses into highly profitable, Great Places to Work and sending business owners on 4 Week Vacations to celebrate that achievement. Dr. Starling has coached thousands of entrepreneurs to overcome the day-to-day struggles of business growth by getting out of their own way and developing a success mindset that propels them to higher and higher levels of success (and profitability). As a co-host of Tap the Potential’s Profit by Design Podcast, she shares tips, tools and strategies to help entrepreneurs design sustainably profitable businesses that support the lifestyle they desire.
behind the scenes
“As a psychologist, one of the things that's fascinated me is that I have worked in all kinds of different settings, run by mental health professionals, psychologists or psychiatrists, MDS, and PhDs. And I have worked in environments where it's been very abusive, where bullying has gone on, not great places to work and very toxic environments. And my last experience that I had before I went out on my own was a very toxic workplace. And we had a boss who later came to be known was an alcoholic with bipolar disorder. And it was a setting where all of us were afraid to speak up about what was going on. And when we finally did speak up the board who interviewed all of us to get a handle of what was going on, said to each and every one of us in an individual conversation, how come you didn't speak up to this point. And that was like a knife to my heart, because I realized I had personal responsibility, and I had not spoken up.
And so when that director left, we brought in a new director, and what I really dug into is how to heal a toxic work environment from a bullying situation. I learned that it can take up to seven years for that process to happen. I invested a lot of time and energy and learning how to create great places to work and what good leadership looks like. I really started supporting our team and our staff around that. And that's where my interest in psychologically healthy workplaces really started to come together.
So I left that job ultimately, and I went into coaching. And that was when I started working with small business owners. And it was a breath of fresh air, because now, I had business owners who really cared about creating great teams and great workplaces. But they couldn't make it happen, no matter what they were doing. I knew at that point, all they needed was some help and support. They needed to know the right things to do, which was what I had been studying. And it was the breath of fresh air. Here's people who really care who really want to make a difference in their workplaces. And that's what I've gotten to do. And as as I started working with them, and I was hearing their challenges around growing their teams and bringing in quality team members, I realized that there was nothing out there for small business owners on how to hire.
And so what I started looking at is what do small business owners need and what can support them? And what I had been hearing reflected back to me over and over is Sabrina, we can't get good people. We it's just the way it is in small business. And I had started to believe that it had kind of sunken into my own psychology. And then one morning I just woke up and you know how you were making that transition from sleep to wakefulness, sometimes we have aha moments. Well, I had a powerful question run through my head and that was, what if it's not true? What if it's not true that it's just the way it is? Because we're in small business, we have to make do with the team what we have, and we can't get good employees? What if there are small business owners who have A players on their team? What if I could find them and talk to them and find out how they got those A players? And that is what really put me on this quest for how to hire the best. And the book is I just started interviewing small business owners and asking them these questions.
And what was really interesting to me is I could find small business owners who have A players, that was no problem. But I couldn't get them to talk to me. They would say things like, I have no idea how I got these A players on my team. It was luck. It was just happenstance. I'm tenacious, you know, if I, if I'm curious about something, I'm gonna persist. And so I just kept asking questions. And I was coming to that mindset of curiosity, like, tell me more, tell me the story of how Joe, your wonderful team member came to work for you. And it was through those stories, I started to see patterns in what these business owners were doing to attract these eight players to their team. And that became the foundation of the How to hire the best system. One of the pieces of feedback that I hear about the How to hire the best series is this is easy. This is real practical stuff to implement right away. And Dr. Sabrina, the best thing is, is it doesn't have to be done perfectly. And it still works. And I'm like, Yes, I know. That's the genius of it. Because all of us are not going to none of us are going to execute it perfectly. We're human.”
on finding connections in nature
“ Yeah, that that is a big, that's a big part of who I am. So I'm a walker. I go for walks almost every day and I go outside. If you put me on a treadmill, I don't have deep insights on a treadmill.
I've really I've just been very intent on tuning into myself as I walk, and pay attention to my surroundings to be fully present in the moment. And that's been a big part of my journey as a thought leader having time every day for thought and reflection. I'm not good at meditating and sitting still and closing my eyes and trying to stay present in the moment. I really suck at that. But I can walk and meditate and I can knit and meditate. I can read and journal and reflect and get to those deeper insights. I'm a nature girl, I love to go on hikes. I love the mountains, put me on a lake on water skis, or in a boat. Any nature environment is good for me. Even if it is 30 below at the top of, you know, the Tetons in Wyoming, I'm in nature and I'm happy. And I have better and better insights because of that.
And in turn in terms of writing a book, it is a process. And when I sit down and start typing, if I'm doing it in between other things, I don't get to the connections and pulling things together. And really How to Hire the Best, there was a lot that had to be pulled together. Because there was no system, I had to create it. And I had to create it from disparate pieces of information that I had gotten from various interviews, and I had to see the connections.
Going out and walking, a lot of times, I would have this, you know, the aha moment of, oh, that this is the piece that needs to go over here in the book. And that's how that part works together with this piece. And so it's allowed me to create a very coherent system that works for the business owners and that works for the teams. It's really in service of what I've what I believe very strongly is that work supports life, not the other way around. And that we need to be creating businesses that support life for the business owner for the team members. Businesses that are life giving rather than life draining. And what I mean by that is when we show up at work, and we put in a full day's work, we need to be leaving feeling energized, not depleted. If we are walking away from a day in the office, and we feel like we have nothing left to give there's something going on there, that's not okay. And that's not sustainable. So how to hire the best system is really about how do we create work environments for entrepreneurs and their teams that are life giving, where people go to work, and they get energized by what they're doing, and they come home and they have something left to give to their families. They have more to give to their families because they went to work.”
how nature nurtures us
“I'm very in tune to my surroundings. So I've always looked for, how can I position my desk where I can see outside the window? And in homes that I've lived in, I always look for windows and bright spaces and the ability to see nature. Even when we're indoors, that ability to connect to nature helps us to think and process at a deeper level. I am fascinated with a client's business that I got to work with years ago. She was focused on the natural materials that we bring and build our homes with and how that helps us to have better thinking processes.
When we put ourselves in situations that nurture us, we are going to be able to have something to give back to others. Nature nurtures us, it helps us to think better. I'm a big proponent of slowing things down to speed things up. And so our clients at the breakthroughs retreat and in our better business Better Life program at half the potential take a four week vacation pledge and they start working on tests that build up to a four week vacation where they're disconnecting from their businesses. And that's an opportunity again, to get out of their business, go do something different, be outside, be in nature in some capacity during that time, and think and reflect. That's where the insights are going to come. It's not going to be about working harder. That's not going to get you where you want to get.”
final thoughts
“Small steps forward, if they're taking a consistent direction, lead to big change over time. And so when it comes to being more intentional with our connection with nature, we need to be looking for those opportunities to get outside. So I want to leave, leave your audience with a powerful question to take on a walk with them. And that is assuming you have all the courage you need. What action could you take right now that would have the greatest impact on your life?
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