NLP Language Patterns Keeping Your Business Stuck

Please enjoy this transcript of the Crown Yourself Podcast, with your host, transformational story coach, Kimberly Spencer (@Kimberly.Spencer) What if the ceiling of your business could be heard in the first 30 seconds of a conversation? “I have to do everything.” “My team can’t do it like I can.” “If I slow down, everything will fall apart.” Queen, those statements can sound like facts—especially when being responsible, resourceful, and relentlessly available helped you build your success. But what happens when the strategy that got you here becomes the glass ceiling keeping you here? In this episode of Crown Yourself®, Kimberly Spencer, subconscious success strategist for high-performing visionary leaders, explores five common language patterns through the lens of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). You’ll learn how to question the assumptions behind founder overwhelm, resistance to delegation, limited visibility, urgency, and unclear messaging. Kimberly shares how delegating a seemingly small administrative task to a virtual assistant freed hours in her coaching business—and why impressive credentials don’t automatically show potential clients how you can solve their problems. This is an invitation to move from white-knuckling every detail toward sovereign leadership: creating direction, trusting support, and spending more time in your zone of genius. Your one-week challenge? Listen to how you describe your business problems. Question the evidence. Then ask: “What business decision am I making because I believe this to be true?” Leave with practical questions to examine your subconscious success strategy and create more room for visibility, freedom, income, and impact. In this episode, you’ll learn: How to recognize five language patterns that may be limiting your business growth—including “I have to do everything” and “If I slow down, everything will fall apart.” How to question the beliefs behind founder overwhelm and uncover the business decisions you’re making because of them. How to shift from doing everything to leading with direction, delegating tasks so you can spend more time in your zone of genius. How to identify what’s crowding out your visibility through a time audit and targeted support. Why impressive credentials don’t always convert into clients—and how clear messaging connects your expertise to their problems. How to practice a one-week language audit using one powerful question: “What business decision am I making because I believe this to be true?” *Transcripts may contain typos. We do our best to catch any human or robot errors prior to release. And we thank you in advance for your understanding. Enjoy! Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast platform. And, you can always watch the episode on YouTube here. Before we dive in, boundaries are everything to protecting your energy and your empire, so please note some legal boundaries before we dive into the full episode transcript: Crown Yourself LLC and Kimberly Spencer own the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of the Crown Yourself podcast, with all rights reserved, as well as outright publicity. WHAT YOU’RE WELCOME TO DO: You are welcome to share the below transcript (up to 500 words but not more) in media articles (e.g., Forbes, The New York Times, CNBC The Guardian), on your personal website, in a non-commercial article or blog post (e.g., Medium), and/or on a personal social media account for non-commercial purposes, provided that you include attribution to the “Crown Yourself Podcast” and link back to crownyoutself.com/podcast URL For the sake of clarity, media outlets with advertising models are permitted to use excerpts from the transcript per the above release. WHAT IS NOT ALLOWED: No one is authorized to copy any portion of the podcast content or use Kimberly Spencer’s name, image or likeness for any commercial purpose or use, including without limitation inclusion in any books, e-books, book summaries or synopses, or on a commercial website or social media site (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) that offers or promotes your or another’s products or services, except without explicit consent in writing, from Crown Yourself LLC. For the sake of clarity, media outlets are permitted to use photos of Kimberly Spencer from the Media Room at crownyourself.com/media or (obviously) licensed photos of Kimberly Spencer from Getty Images, etc. We good? Great. Let's get to the goods. ___________ How NLP Language Patterns Reveal Your Subconscious Success Ceiling [00:03] Kimberly Spencer (host): What if I could hear the ceiling of your business in literally 30 seconds? I have to do everything. My team can't do it like I can. I don't have time to be visible. If I slow down, everything will fall apart. Are you seeing yourself in any of these? Those all might sound like facts, but really they're just clues. And for a successful entrepreneur, those statements are just clues as to how your subconscious success strategy is currently operating and blocking your next level. I'm Kimberly Spencer, subconscious success strategist for high-performing visionary leaders, and for over a decade, I have helped high-performers discover the subconscious patterns that are actually influencing the way they lead, they communicate, they perform, and they grow. And here on the Crown Yourself podcast, we are going underneath the strategy because eventually the subconscious strategies that created your current levels of success are the ones that are blocking your next level. Today, we're gonna be using NLP, one of the tools that I use, to uncover the five language patterns that I hear from successful entrepreneurs all the time. And I'm gonna show you how to listen for them in your own business, how to interrogate them when they actually show up in your life, and to uncover the business decisions you're making because of them. Because sometimes your words are clues as to the ceiling you're creating for yourself. And in this episode, we are gonna be smashing through that subconscious glass ceiling so that you start making the income and the impact that you deserve, that is worthy of your next level. And if you're super excited for this, make sure you hit subscribe so you never miss an episode or a conversation like this again. Okay. How Your Language Reflects Your Internal Operating System [Approx. 01:50] Kimberly Spencer (host): Your language, the words that you use, there's a reason why they call it spelling. Language creates a gauge for your perception of your reality. You shift your language about how you're gauging your experience, and the experience itself, the paradigm, completely shifts. Your language will give you clues as to what is the internal representation that you're actually operating from? What is that internal operating system that's running the show subconsciously? That's what we're gonna be diving into looking at today. Five NLP Language Patterns That May Be Blocking Business Growth Pattern One I Have to Do Everything and the Modal Operator of Necessity [Approx. 02:20] Kimberly Spencer (host): So here are five common phrases from my seven-figure founders that I hear commonly when I coach them. Number one: "I have to do everything." So in this statement, what I hear is we want to explore what's called the modal operator. What changes when you question the necessity-"have to"? That's the necessity. That's a clue to the necessity that you're placing on doing everything. And everything's a lot. So no wonder you're freaking overwhelmed. If you believe and you're operating from the subconscious success strategy that's probably made you pretty successful because it allowed you to take radical personal responsibility and ownership over your results. But when you grow and scale and you start bringing on team members, no longer do you have to do everything. This is how I see so often seven-figure founders operating from a five-figure solopreneur mindset where they are white knuckling and gripping to control. So if you're under this belief system that I have to do everything, what changes when you question that necessity? The necessity of "have to". Do you really have to do everything? Or are you choosing to put all the weight on your shoulders? What would be the difference of you trusting that you can create the strategy and that your role has now elevated beyond the doing into the thinking? Into the role of your job is now to do the thinking to give the directions for the doers in your company. Pattern Two My Team Cannot Do It Like I Can and NLP Generalization [Approx. 03:50] Kimberly Spencer (host): Number two: "My team can't do it like I can!" Oof. There's a lot of pride in that one. Like there's a lot of pride going into that. It's also in NLP what's called a universalization or a generalization. Every team member can't do it. Every task under every circumstances, really? Every team member can't do it like you can. Like you're the sole person who can do all the things in all the ways. Come on. This is where I see founders getting tripped up by doing their web design. And suddenly they're working on their website, making it perfect. And I'm like, hire a web designer, someone whose job it is to actually perfect, improve better a website where that's their profession, that's their their zone of genius. Because I have seen over the course of a decade of coaching six, seven, eight figure founders, even one founder who took it to a billion on the New York Stock Exchange. What I have seen is the more you stay in your zone of genius, the more money you make. Is web design really your zone of genius? Probably not. So outsourcing that to someone whose zone of genius that actually is, it amplifies your zone of genius. It amplifies how often you can spend in that space that just feels so natural. And that's the scary part. Because it feels so natural, you wonder "How can I get paid for this?" Like this feels like almost illegal to be getting paid this much to be able to do this when it's something that feels so innate natural. So you busy yourself with doing all of the other doings and make up this whole story of how your team can't do it like you can. Well, you've either hired the wrong team members or you are not operating in your zone of genius to then dictate and share and collaborate on a strategy that collectively works with the whole team. Pattern Three I Do Not Have Time to Be Visible and the Nominalized Constraint [Approx. 05:50] Kimberly Spencer (host): Number three: "I don't have time to be visible". I don't have time to do the biz dev because you're so busy in the delivery and execution of your work rather than in the attraction side that does need to be done. As a business owner, you need to also have that attraction piece. So what this statement is, it's what's called an NLP, a nominalized constraint. Where specifically, and this is where we get to really do a time audit. Where specifically is your time going? Because you don't have time to be visible. But where specifically is your time going? Okay, you're doing most of the delivery? Okay, great. Then that's a sign that we need to put some systems in place, put some processes in place, put a team member in place. Like, for example, it doesn't mean putting someone in place of the whole thing, but for example, in my coaching industry, what shifted for me in my business back in 2018 was I hired a VA to just take off my plate the downloading of our one-on-one calls and uploading them into my client's folder. Like that in and of itself, plus adding the transcript, adding the pre-coaching calls and the post-coaching form that they go through in my Queen B and King B prep one-on-one programs. Just having a VA do that saved me hours of time. And none of that stuff is in my zone of genius anyway. And obviously because it's a high profile client, like we have all of our team members under very strict NDAs. But just having a VA to be able to do that was a game changer. Pattern Four If I Slow Down Everything Will Fall Apart and Cause and Effect Beliefs [Approx. 07:30] Kimberly Spencer (host): Number four, and this is the most common one that I see, especially with founders who just hit the seven-figure mark: "If I slow down, everything will fall apart." If I stop operating from urgency, scarcity, and fear, everything's gonna fall apart. And what this shows me as a subconscious success strategist, is I'm hearing a belief system of cause and effect. I'm hearing that there is a deeper underlying belief system where you believe if, then that. That's cause and effect. If I do this, then that happens. What evidence do you have that by slowing down, that creates failure? That by not operating from urgency, suddenly that's failure. Where is the evidence? Show me the evidence. Pattern Five People Do Not Understand What I Do and NLP Mind Reading [Approx. 08:15] Kimberly Spencer (host): And number five: "People don't understand what I do." This is what's called a mind reading in NLP. Really? People? All people? No one? No one in the history of the world understands what you do? No. What evidence? Again, it goes back to that evidence. What evidence do you have that they don't understand? They're not paying? They're not converting? Okay, no, they don't understand what you do. They just don't understand how what you do can solve their problem. That's a positioning problem. That's a messaging problem. That's not an understanding problem. That's a very specific, unique messaging and positioning problem. If no one understands what you do, I promise you, like there's 8 billion people on the planet. Somebody understands what you do. We are all unique and amazing, and you're also not that unique. So we need to recognize what is the evidence that you're saying that they don't understand. I had this personally where I had this belief system of they don't understand what I do. And when it came down to it, what people were seeing were they were seeing for being in Forbes, they were seeing Netflix, they were seeing multi-award-winning best-selling author, they were seeing being on a Times Square billboard, they were seeing all of this external stuff that is very impressive, but it doesn't show someone how I can actually support them in solving their problem. So they'll be impressed by what you do, maybe, especially if you have a bunch of credentials and social proof to back it up. But if they cannot make that connection between what you do and how that applies to them, then you've lost them. It's not that they don't understand what you do. It's just they don't know how it applies to how you're going to support them. So it's a positioning and messaging problem. How to Audit Your NLP Language Patterns for One Week [Approx. 10:10] Kimberly Spencer (host): So for one week, I just want you to give you a little bit of homework. We're just gonna challenge you just a little bit. I want you to listen to your language of how you're talking about your problems. So you're gonna be talking about them, but you're gonna be listening with a second set of ears. How are you talking about your problems? This is not to try to like positive think your way out of a problem. This is not, I shouldn't be, you know. I shouldn't be focused on the problem in my business. So I'm gonna, you know, pretend like it doesn't exist. This isn't an avoidant attachment style. We're not developing that. This is really you taking an interrogation to the language that you're using and really having a discerning eye as to how you are languaging the problem. What specifically is the problem? According to whom? Is it always the case with everyone? Does it never work for you? What would happen if it didn't? What would happen if it did? How do you know? The Question That Reveals Belief Driven Business Decisions [Approx. 11:15] Kimberly Spencer (host): Then just ask yourself this one simple sentence. What business decision am I making because I believe this to be true? You might have some answers there. Your language is always gonna leave clues. And for a successful entrepreneur, those clues reveal a subconscious success strategy that could be running a multi million dollar decision. So let's really evaluate the language that you're using, shall we? If you love this episode, if you're like had your mind blown, if you're like, my gosh, I'm making business decisions based off of these beliefs, then definitely click down below. Make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode like this. And we also have Assess Your NLP Language Patterns with the Free PDF Download [Approx. 11:55] Kimberly Spencer (host): a quick little PDF download for that you can access right now so that you can assess the language patterns that you're using that are creating your subconscious success ceiling. Click the link down below, download it for free. I'm so excited to support you in your journey, busting through that subconscious success ceiling because you deserve everything: the impact, the freedom, the love, the income, the generational wealth, the legacy that is on the other side of it. I'll see you in the next episode. The Crown Yourself Podcast is a fast-growing self-improvement podcast, ranked in the top #200 personal-development podcasts in two countries, so far, out of 4.5 million podcasts. Each week, you get the conscious leadership strategies you need to help you reign with courage, clarity, and confidence so that you too can make the income and impact you deserve. Imagine this podcast as your royal invitation to step into your full potential and reign in your divine purpose. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.