Back in January, the HeyCreator Summit 2024 took on the online creator space by storm. The hugely successful event, sponsored by ThriveCart, saw guest speakers from all walks of the entrepreneurial life giving talks on everything from the importance of community to influencer partnerships, social media strategy and what digital tools to harness to take your business to the next level.
Our CEO, Kevin McKeand, drew on his breadth of experience to give a talk on applying principles of personal transformation in order to scale your business. We’ve collated and summarized the talking points in this handy guide so you can benefit from this wisdom, even if you didn’t manage to make the summit – hope to see you next year!
Takeaways:
- Identify your winning strategy
- Take control of your choices
- Make bold requests
- Reframe limiting beliefs
What is transformational thinking?
What’s holding you back from achieving the level of success that you really want in your life, both personally and professionally?
The word “transformation” is used a lot in business. Everybody has their own definition of transformation, and Kevin’s – learned 10 years ago from an executive coach – is “a transformation that you facilitate, that occurs outside of your own identity”. In short, transformation isn’t about you: it’s about your winning strategy.
When we talk about transformational thinking, it can be helpful to talk about it in an ontological way (related to your way of being and understanding life), and a phenomenological way (related to how you experience life).
Your winning strategy
One of the best ways to think about this is that your winning strategy is an individual way of being that has allowed you to be successful. Your way of being – the ontology behind how you live your life – is what got you to where you are now, but it’s not going to get you to the level of success that you aspire to. That’s where transformational thinking comes in.
For example, let’s say that your winning strategy before now was that you like to challenge or provoke others, you avoid being ordinary, or that you don’t trust other people. This strategy may have worked for you in the past, but now it could be keeping you from achieving the level of success that you want. On a phenomenological level, this may be the difference between wanting to be on the field playing the game versus being in the stands and watching the game play out.
Even if you don’t know your next winning strategy yet, you become committed to finding it: that transformation is a process by which the future is radically altered, a mindset rather than a set of steps. Transformational thinking is the promise that you’ll change to meet the challenges of the future, and the recognition that you won’t always be the way you are today.
Creating a transformation in life and business
Transformation has to occur at a personal level in order to occur at a business level.
Let’s say your business goal is to get your first customer, your hundredth, or hit a million dollars. Before that happens, you have to commit to a foundation of a new way of being: to be more authentic or have a higher integrity, and commit to a goal that’s bigger than yourself. You have to be a cause in the matter: in other words, take a stand for yourself and your life. Declare that you are the cause of the transformation, that no one else controls what you do or how you do it.
Too often, we make decisions out of fear or apprehensiveness: this is one of the major causes of not being where we want to be in life. When we commit to making choices and decisions with a mindset of optimism and eagerness to learn, we open up to new possibilities.
Choices vs decisions
Although on the surface they seem to be the same thing, there’s a difference between making a choice and a decision: one that’s a key fundamental in transformational thinking.
For example, you are tired and burnt-out after a long day of work and know you have a pint of ice cream in the freezer. On one hand, you may decide between eating and not eating it. In other words, you are making a decision between those two binary scenarios: black or white, yes or no.
On the other hand, you choose between eating the ice cream, or something else (which could be anything from only eating a little part, to eating something healthier, or nothing at all). It’s no longer a decision between yes or no, it’s a choice between what kind of life you want to lead and results you want to see. It’s yes or yes – which transformation will be yours? Will you choose to be successful, and how does that impact what you do in day-to-day life?
Decisions limit us to a list of options: if we instead look at these opportunities as choices between the kind of results we want in our lives, it’s easier for us to choose the paths that lead to transformation.
As James Clear says, “every action you take is a vote for who you want to become”.
Authenticity and taking a stand
When we ask ourselves to adopt transformational thinking, part of that means standing up for something bigger than ourselves. Our goals are out there ready for us, but in order to reach them we have to extend our awareness to concepts and opinions we haven’t yet experienced, which is where authenticity comes in.
For example, Kevin enjoys a plant-based diet. There’s multiple benefits to it: one that it’s good for his health, but another is that it’s better for the wider environment. These are all good reasons to go plant-based, but one leads to greater authenticity because it’s based in the concept of thinking outside your individual self.
By taking a stand for what we believe in, we’re opening up to new experiences and points of view that will help us think transformationally and get to the next level of business and personal development.
Kevin’s personal journey
As an advisor, investor, founder, and now CEO, Kevin has done his fair share of transformational thinking. When he originally heard of this concept, he was working for a business that provided technology solutions to the hospitality industry.
One day, the CEO of the company came to Kevin and said, “Do you really think people will use wifi in McDonald’s?” And to that, Kevin and his team said “no: people will never do that. They’ll take their laptops to Starbucks, sure, but not McDonald’s.”
In reality, the matter wasn’t that simple: after the company entered an agreement to install wifi in 13,500 McDonald’s restaurants over the US, Kevin realized it wasn’t just about customers working on laptops. Expanding the technology solutions in fast food restaurants affected everything from the manager’s computer in their office to people submitting job applications, to point of sale systems and more, transforming McDonald’s businesses all over the country. After the success, Kevin’s company ended up partnering with AT&T and the business was sold for $325 million.
The key? Transformational thinking: looking beyond the “now” to what could be possible. Before the project, the conservative thinking was that wifi in fast food restaurants was pointless. It was unwise to take a risk. But by approaching the idea differently, it soon became clear that wifi was the future, and what was at stake was much more than customers’ laptops.
Now, as CEO of ThriveCart, Kevin has fully embraced transformational thinking, embedding transformational choices in the heart of everything we do. Our driving ethos is to help others achieve the success they’re looking for, both personally and professionally.
Exercise: start transformational thinking today
Want to introduce transformational thinking in your own business and personal life? It comes down to one question: what are you afraid of?
Most people will say they aren’t afraid of anything, except perhaps spiders or heights – but they’re wrong. In their business and personal lives, everyone is afraid of something, be it making a mistake or confronting a colleague or raising their rates. If we delve deeper, they’re afraid of the rejection, the shame, or the consequences that go with those scenarios hand-in-hand.
But here’s the thing: those consequences haven’t happened yet. They aren’t true. So why approach the matter with a negative mindset? Why, when faced with a challenge, should we approach it first with fear and apprehensiveness? Our limiting beliefs hold us back, and ultimately that is what keeps us safely within our comfort zone, at a level we’ll never leave. Unless, of course, we make the choice to adopt transformational thinking to break out of that comfort zone and reach new heights.
So for now, ask yourself: what are you afraid of? In other words, what’s holding you back? Is your previous winning strategy, the commitment to long work hours, stubbornness or not trusting others, now preventing you from reaching the next level?
It’s time to stand up for the life you want to lead: commit to change, adopt transformational thinking, and make a bold promise to yourself to approach each new challenge with optimism. It’s time to thrive – and you can do it all with ThriveCart!
