2083 – How Self-Reflection Can Propel Your Business Forward with Grown Ass Business’ Celi Arias

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1:05With us right now, it's Selly Aria. Selly, you are the founder of grownassbusiness.com. Selly, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll talk about, I've got your website pulled up right now. It says unstoppable growth without sacrificing your life. I like the sound of that. Tell me more. Oh, goodness. Well, depending on where you are in business, right? There's different things you need to work on in your business. But what I've found over the years as a COO to startups and venture-backed startups and then becoming a business coach, most often we are obsessing about and spending our time and focus on the things that we happen to already be good at or comfortable in.

1:51And no matter what revenue stage you're in, there's always the thing that you think isn't an issue or isn't a problem or the thing that you don't want to look at, that's probably causing a lot of the pain in your business. So yeah, the grown-ass business is all about getting comfortable with looking at all five key departments of business and giving them all attention and addressing our blind spots ultimately so that we can scale a business without sacrificing our lives. Yeah. Okay. Well, so when you're meeting with folks, like what are your common experiences or common gaps that you hear or the, you know, kind of maybe the pain these leaders are talking about?

2:36It depends on the stage of revenue. So I know that you talk to people in all breaths of revenue, but, you know, early stage, there's more of a problem in the sales process or product market fit. So in the early seven figures, getting up to seven figures, usually the pain point is I just want this business to work and I want people to love my products and I want them to sell. But there's usually a product market fit gap there that we're not willing to look at because to get product market fit right takes time, takes energy, takes being willing to listen to feedback and listen to people and hear what they need and hear what they have to say and what's landing for them and what's not.

3:21And as you grow your offers and grow your revenue, then the problems kind of shift into the other departments, which happen to be more systems and team related. So what I find, which I find really interesting is a lot of times multi seven figure, eight figure, I even have a nine figure client struggling with this right now is they really think their problems are just systems related. Like if we could just fix some of these systems and SOPs and processes, we would be fine. But what typically happens is if there's a systems problem, there's also a people problem. And if there's a people problem or a team problem, there's most likely a systems problem because they're related, right?

4:04Because the people that are operating the system are relevant to the system working and vice versa. If the system doesn't work for the people, they're not going to get the best out of it. So depending on, I find, what revenue bracket you're in, usually it's a different gap. All right, great. So, you know, if we're looking in our crystal ball and, you know, we look ahead at what we expect in terms of like business and trends that you're seeing, particularly as you work with leaders, if we were to make some goals or set some goals for the year ahead, you know, we're at the end of December or kind of planning what the next year is going to look like, like how would you advise someone to kind of go into that deep work session with themselves?

4:57Well, if you as a leader doing deep work with yourself on how to be a better leader and how to make data-driven decisions for next year, I would first look at where do I have the most resistance? So what is it that makes me the most uncomfortable? What is it that I really don't want to do? What is it that I don't want to look at? For me, for example, it was AI. When AI was taking off and everyone was talking about it, I really wanted to just turn the other way and ignore it. but there are ways to use these new tools that we may have a lot of resistance to that can actually catapult our businesses in a way that still feels authentic genuine to us we can use these tools intelligently and people are doing so and and so that's really true for business anything that you are unwilling to look at and explore and why it makes you uncomfortable and why you want to avoid it there's probably something there for you whether you end up using the thing or addressing the thing or not, right?

6:02There's something for you to uncover as a leader there. And it could be, oh, this person, I keep having conflict with this person on this team. There's something for you to explore there that if you're willing to uncover that, there's gold. I work with all kinds of businesses in different industries, from tech to product to supply chain to service-based business and coaches. And I find that we can do a lot of the tactical strategic things that need to happen to grow a business. I always say kind of strategy and the tactical is kind of the easy part because it's black and white. And you can create a strategy, put it on paper, have a black and white roadmap, and whatever's not working or the data is telling you it's not working, you pivot and it's not a big deal.

6:47But it's the willingness to look at yourself where you get in the way of the strategy or where you are unwilling to try new things or where you are unwilling to take feedback, that's what hinders a strategy. That's what slows down your growth. So if you're really a leader that's interested in, okay, what's coming up in 2025? What's the new thing? What's going to change the new? We can talk about industries and how they're changing and what's shifting. But I think for business owners, the biggest thing is like, where do I feel the most resistance because that's probably going to be a gold nugget.

7:25What is needed in your business right now for you to catch? Or in life. I mean, for any reason, like if something just keeps causing you tension, like, you know, that could be cognitive dissonance. And so what's going on there. And so generally like our tendency might be to react in illogical ways or, you know, are very emotional ways where I think when that tension shows up, like instantly that's, that's should be a cue to get curious what's going on here for me right now. Um, and you know, what, if that's the case, like if we're starting to get introspective about that, like, how would you dissect that?

8:08How would I dissect that? Like when there is that tension of like, you know, like, Let's say, for example, it's like, well, listen, I want to work 60 hours a week, but I also want to be a mom. Or I also want to do this. I want to have more time for a break. So we're constantly rattled with this guilt. Or, again, we're just trying to shove two ideas together, and they're constantly at conflict. And that, again, that can create a lot of consternation. Absolutely. I mean, I'm there right now. You have older kids. I have a newborn. So I'm there right now. I'm somebody who worked 14, 12, 14, 16 hour days in joy, like joyfully so.

8:47Like I love my business. I love supporting business owners. I love what I do. And that's no longer possible. And it becomes also a bit of an identity crisis. So I don't, I think that we are, I personally find that entrepreneurship and running businesses is the biggest personal development journey and spiritual journey you'll ever be on because you're constantly being challenged to question yourself and who you are being in your business, how you're showing up. You think you need to show up. For me, it's been very confronting of, oh, can I still be an amazing leader and coach and create, you know, cutting edge programs for businesses, but gosh, work a six hour day or an eight hour day and be a present parent now, that's, that's an whole new, that's an identity crisis for me and a whole new game.

9:42And at the same time, right, Sully, I mean, there's, you know, again, I don't think anyone needs to beat themselves out for being out of balance because there's always seasons in life. And I'm sure that's a topic that you work on with your clients. Yeah, absolutely. There are seasons you get to honor and respect your seasons, But I think you also get to challenge the bounds of who you are. Could I possibly be an effective business owner with less hours and be present with my family? Is there a world and a possibility where I could organize my team to support me better? I could organize my systems and processes to support me better.

10:22I could release the reins a little bit and surrender to the flow and to the season, right? Right. Could because who do I become as a leader if I release the reins a little bit, trust my team more, set processes up better to support me so that when I am with my family, I can be present. One on one level, it's interesting what can happen to your business when you do that. And you might be surprised. And on the second level, on a deeper level, who you become in that process can be very fulfilling and surprising. I mean, I genuinely didn't think that I would ever not work a 12-hour day. And now life has forced me into a sleepless night routine and much shorter days.

11:08And it's still working and it's still happening. And people on my team are stepping up and we're changing strategies that make sense. We're doing things that I never thought we would do, right? So you get to evolve with your business if you're willing to, if you are open to evolving as a leader and a business owner. Yeah. Your website, grownupsbusiness.com, what's there? Like if someone's listed our conversation and maybe they're not ready to talk with you yet, but maybe they want to spend a little bit more time getting to know you, or maybe you have some thought leadership or long form content that you'd recommend.

11:42Anything come to mind? I would definitely go to Celigro's Business on YouTube where I interview seven, eight figure business owners on exactly how they did it. Because what I found after coaching hundreds of businesses and growing several startups, the strategy looks different for different people and different businesses and different industries. And I think it's important to take the general lessons, but also understand that you're, give yourself permission for your strategy to look different than the next person's. So I would check out the YouTube channel and watch some of those interviews because we really just go into what were the worst mistakes you made?

12:31Where were the breaking points? What were the absolute aha moments for you and your industry? Why did you make those pivots? What got you to seven figures? What got you to eight figures? What were those mechanical moves versus internal leadership moves? Because that's what most interests me. The Grown Ass Business is a methodology. Behind that website, there's a methodology of how do we begin to, in the minimum viable product kind of way, how do we begin to fill the gaps of a business? Because what I find is most times we start a business and we operate a business from our strengths. And that's great.

13:09And that's brilliant. You show up, Josh, in your strengths. And there's a certain point where your strengths will be the invisible ceiling, right? Because there was a certain point where you actually have to play the game of business now. You have to either hire the right team members and know how to hire the right team members, but you need to know all the positions on the field. You need to know what the positions do. You need to know the game. You need to know the rules of the game. and you have to build out a business that considers the whole field and all the positions. So that's what the Grown House Business is actually about is cool, you may be great at marketing.

13:45Now let's make sure that all your other departments are strong and scalable and ready to scale and are systematized and the metrics are in place for each department and your team can take ownership of them and run them for you. That's what it's all about. Yeah, awesome. All right, so your website, grownhousebusiness.com, if there's someone who does want to, have a conversation. I assume you're open to that. What would they do? They could actually directly book a call on that website. That's probably the easiest thing to do. Yeah. Excellent. All right. Grownessbusiness.com. Sally Arias, thank you so much.

14:20You're the founder and CEO. Thank you for joining us. Yeah. Thank you.

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