Women Thriving in Business

Episode 303: Activate Your Inner CEO

July 28, 2021 Nikki Rogers Season 3 Episode 3
Women Thriving in Business
Episode 303: Activate Your Inner CEO
Show Notes Transcript

Most of the time, we try to imagine ourselves being the person that we look up to. We admire these people and put them on a pedestal as if they are unreachable. But what makes them different? Remember they are not superheroes with superpowers, yet it is astounding what they are able to achieve in life. 

It's simple - they believe in themselves first. 

It is exhilarating to think about that moment when we finally achieve our dreams. Yet we are terrified to step out of our comfort zone to attain them. We tend to stay inside our bubble because we feed our minds with negative thoughts. We always have that fear that we are not good enough, or that we may fail along the way.  

But this is the perfect time for you to stop dreaming and make these things happen. Not tomorrow, not the next day - but NOW. In this episode, Nikki Rogers shares her journey on how she started as an entrepreneur and how a tragic life event - her mother’s death - served as the catalyst to actualize her dreams. 

Although stepping out of your comfort zone is not easy, it is your first step in discovering your inner strength. You will never know unless you try. Don't wait for a crisis or personal challenge to start doing what you aspire to do, just take the first step toward your goals. 

In need of motivation to activate that inner strength and inner CEO in you? Download Nikki’s free activation guide here

Thriving Points:

  • Life is just too short not to do what you love.
  • Confidence is about trusting yourself.
  • I realized that finding my mother's business plan was actually a gift. It was what catalyzed me in order to take action on living out my dreams. 

About the Show:
Women Thriving in Business features candid unscripted conversations with entrepreneurs, business experts, authors, and academics aimed at contributing to business success. This weekly show provides interviews with business leaders who have built, grown, and are thriving in business. Nikki A. Rogers, host of the show, also discusses achievements, lessons learned, and advice for aspiring business owners to develop the mindset, strategies, and connections necessary to thrive in business. Whether you are just starting or you have been in business for decades, WTiB offers inspiration, strategies, and resources to help you THRIVE in business. 

About the Host:
Nikki is a strategist and transformation coach who believes life is too short not to do what you love. She is passionate about helping entrepreneurs build sustainable companies and supports business leaders in developing the mindset, strategy, and connections to create thriving businesses and build legacy wealth.
Nikki is the CEO of The Bladen Group and an alumna of North Carolina A&T State University and UNC-Chapel Hill.

Connect with Nikki:

A Team Dklutr Production

Nikki Rogers: Welcome Thrivers to this week's episode of Women Thriving in Business Podcast.  Today's episode is a replay of my power talk from the You Are Enough conference that took place last month.  This conference was produced by Dr. Cheryl Wood and the internationally renowned motivational speaker, Les Brown. 

I signed up for this conference back in February, and it also had a book project with it as well. This was a full four months before the conference took place.  And when I tell you that life took over between the time when I signed up to do this conference and when the conference actually happened, there was so much that took place both in my life professionally and personally.  

So from the rehearsals to the masterclass that we had with Mr. Les Brown himself,  the months and the weeks before the conference just blew by.  And I will tell you that my speech evolved as life was happening.  My speech evolved and  I got much-needed clarity on what my story was and what my message was.  The result of that is what I am sharing with you all today. 

So you are enough to activate your inner CEO, and that's the topic of my talk that I'm going to share with you today.  My hope is that this power talk provides a catalyst for you to take the first step toward your unique purpose. Listen in. Let's go! 

January 1, 2017, should have been a day of joy and celebration. But instead of celebrating with family and friends, I was sitting with my brother in a funeral home making final arrangements for my mother who had passed away just a few days before. 

This was sudden and unexpected death. My mother died just two weeks after her 67th birthday and three days after Christmas, which was her absolute favorite holiday. So on that New Year's day, instead of mixing up the potato salad or frying up the turkey necks for my greens or smelling the heavenly aroma of my mother's world's famous red velvet pound cake. No, I was picking out a casket and discussing a burial outfit, and that's how I started off 2017.

Later on that day, I was back at my mother's house. I was looking through some of her paperwork. I was just trying to keep busy as friends and family float in and out of the house to pay their respects, and I've found something that stopped me dead in my tracks. I found a business plan for a shoe store that my mother had been working on. Now, anyone who knew my mother knew that she loved shoes. She had every type of shoe possible.  She always said that an outfit started with shoes.  

If I ever sent her a picture of something that I was going to wear,  she would always ask: What shoes are you going to wear with that? And she had always talked about opening a Shoe Store. Now, just two years after retiring from a 30-year career, she was finally taking the steps to make it happen. My mother thought she had plenty of time. And until that very moment, I thought I did too.

Now, how many of you all know that you are being called to do something greater in your life? You're just waiting for the perfect time. If that's you, raise your hand. Say, just say: Yes, that's me in the chat. You waiting for the perfect time. Have you thought about how you living out your dreams will impact not only your life but the life of your family and friends? The lives of those in your community and even the lives of those who are in the world. 

I'm here to tell you that life is just too short not to do what you love.  This is the perfect time for you to get started on your dream.  I was just like you. A few months before my mother's death, I was starting to feel stuck in my job. I knew I was being called to do something greater, but I just didn't know what it was. 

As a matter of fact, I was planning to take time off that Spring and just spend time with my mother and just relax, restore, and figure out what I was going to do next. But I didn't get that chance.  As I sat there looking at this business plan,  I remember the business plans that I had created before both in college and in grad school and then I had put them to the side.  I resolved right then that I didn't want my son to find one of my business plans and wonder what might have been. I realized right then that I needed to take control of my life,  my wealth, and my legacy. And in order to do that,  I had to activate my inner CEO.

So I'm going to share with you three things that I did that worked for me. Now, the first thing I had to do was start trusting myself. I had to start moving with confidence. Confidence is about trusting yourself. It's trusting that you know what you know,  and it's believing that you're going to be successful, so I had to start operating in that manner.  

My husband and I were talking about me leaving my job and he said, rightfully so, are we going to have to cut out some spending? Tighten our belts? I confidently said to him, we will absolutely be able to maintain our current lifestyle. I had absolutely no idea how much revenue I was going to be generating over the next year, but I had a plan, and I had a dream of goal that I was going to replace my 6- figure income. And that's what I did.

By the end of the 12 months of being in business, I had generated 6- figures. I was working only part-time in doing that. And the year I quit my job, I actually took five trips because that's what I planned to do and I had confidence that I was going to be able to do it. 

The second thing I did was I had to get curious. To be honest, I was conditioned to be an employee. I had my first job when I was 16, and I had interned every summer during college and grad school.  I really bought into that notion of getting a degree and get a good job. I had done that multiple times. 

So I had to get curious about what being an entrepreneur looked like. I asked questions, I followed those who were doing what I wanted to do and being successful at it. I read books, I listened to podcasts, I've got a coach to help me shift my mindset from that of an employee to that of an entrepreneur, and now a CEO. 

The third thing I had to do was get into courageous action.  The first thing I had to do that took the most courage was to finally resign from my job. Now, I had a panic attack about a week before I actually resigned because I thought, what am I doing? I'm going to bankrupt my family. All these thoughts just went through my head, but I took action. 

And literally one year to the day of my mother's home-going service, I turned in my resignation. It was the scariest thing I had ever done. That was that morning. That very afternoon y'all. Listen, four hours later,  I got a call from a former co-worker offering me a contract to come to do work for his organization.

I went from resigning from a job in the morning to have a contract that afternoon. So what I know is when you take that first courageous step, the universe will rise up to support you. Now, thinking about the actions that I had to take, I realized that finding my mother's business plan was actually a gift. It was what catalyzed me in order to take action on living out my dreams.

So I know some of you all may be saying: Nikki, I'm not ready to take the leap. I'm not ready to quit my job. I'm not ready to start a business. Hey, I'm not even ready to take that dream trip that I've been talking about for the last five years, and that's okay. 

I just say to you, don't wait for the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, a health scare, or even a global pandemic for you to start to take steps toward your dreams. For those of you who are ready to take that next step and take control of your life, your wealth, and your legacy. I invite you to download my free activation guide at bit.ly/activateceo.  

My name is Nikki Rogers. I help women create thriving businesses, and I want you to remember that life is too short not to do what you love and that you are enough to thrive. Thank you.

Dr. Cheryl Wood: Wow, Nikki. Did that touch you in your heart space? Hearing that story, and resonates probably even deeper because I lost my father. I lost him on Thanksgiving Day of 2009. That was the first phone call I got that morning. He was only 59 years old.  He passed away from a massive heart attack in his sleep, so that resonates with me. Losing a parent.

And then of course, more recently with the death of my 20-year old nephew, my twin sister's son. So when you share that story about the fact that you should have been happy and cooking up all that greens and cutting up onions and doing things that most of us look forward to, but instead now you had to sit in a funeral home, and plan a funeral for your mother. That hits home. It is such a pivotal reminder that we've got to take action now.

In fact, that was one of Nikki's three points. It was confidence. It was getting curious and it was having courageous action. 

I love that our mom had at least started mapping out that journey of opening that store. Unfortunately, she didn't get to see the realization of that. But then like Nikki says, oftentimes that becomes a catalyst for us taking action when we lose someone that we love. But the point is we don't want you to wait until then. We don't want you to wait until something tragic happens, like losing a 20-year old child or losing your parent or whatever might have. We don't want you to wait until then.

It has to be a sense of urgency about it now, even without something traumatic happening. Why? Because it is connected to your legacy. The reality is that all of us will leave this place one day.  It doesn't matter if you're gone when you're 20, which is very unfortunate, or if you're 67 or 59,  or if you're 107. The point is every one of us is going to have the dash in between our birth date and our transition date.  And that dash will stand for something, it will represent a legacy. It will represent how we used our lives while we were here. Was it only about ourselves? Or was it bigger than us?  Did we just play around? 

And  I'll get around to it. I'm thinking about doing that thing. I'm thinking about writing the book. I'm thinking about being a speaker. I'm thinking about whatever that thing is, that is a big heart desire for you, and it's time to stop thinking about it and execute. Execute, execute, execute.  That's what I took away from Nikki's presentation, Activating your Inner CEO. 

Thank you so much, Nikki. Y'all do what we do. Go ahead. Give some love, give some flowers, give some handclaps and some snaps to Nikki Rogers for that amazing presentation. And thank you for sharing your story with us because your story is about you, but it's not for you. And I know that that story that you just shared is going to move so 

So many people who are here in our audience today.

Nikki Rogers: Thank you for listening to my debut as a speaker.  I had such a great time doing this project and is it really the result of what happens when you play full out and when you do it afraid and when you don't have all the answers yet.  Because I certainly didn't have all the answers as I was going through the process of creating this speech and just evolving and practicing and just going through the multiple iterations before it got to where it is today. It was tough and it was challenging, but right now I'm so happy that I committed to this, that I actually executed on this.  Now I'm on the other side and looking forward to my next speaking opportunity. 

For me, this was a huge act of courage to step out of my normal comfort zone of being an introvert and wanting to be behind the scenes and actually, announced myself as a featured speaker. It took confidence to evolve my story and get my speech to a place where it really reflected that my knowledge, my knowing,   my insights. 

And then had to practice curiosity because I had to delve into what makes a great speaker and listened to others, and just get tips and techniques from a lot of different people in my life who I admire, who I think are great speakers.  I ask them a lot of questions on how I could improve and evolve my topic and my presentation.  This is where we are right now.

But really what happened through all of this is that I got really a lot more comfortable with being out in front, of raising my voice, of posting a lot about what I was doing on social media.  So these are things that I think it would have taken longer to happen had I not committed to this conference, this event,  and really had a deadline that was driving me to accelerate my action plans.  

So I say all that to say that, try things out even if you're afraid. If there's something you want to do,  just put a stake in the ground, make a commitment to it and do it.  The first time you do it is not going to be great but you will have done it once, which is more than a lot of people can say,  and then you'll know how to improve and evolve over time. I really want you all to remember that life is just too short not to do what you love. Don't wait for the death of a loved one, or a health scare, or a professional setback in order to start doing what you love and taking the steps toward the future that only you can create.  You are more than enough, just as you are.  You are born with the right to thrive.  

Take care and I'll see you next episode.  In the meantime, keep thriving.