Most business plans fail before the first meeting because they use last year’s results to decide what is possible next.
Sarah sits down with Debbie King, business strategist, executive coach, and author of Loving Your Business, about future self business planning as a more effective approach to strategic planning for entrepreneurs who want to learn how to stop letting past results limit your future business growth. Debbie questions the habit of treating prior performance as a ceiling and invites a different starting point for planning that begins with identity, belief, and vision. If your current results reflect who you have been, what changes when you plan from who you are becoming?
The discussion turns to the quiet beliefs leaders carry about themselves, their teams, their market, and their offer, and how those beliefs shape decisions long before strategy enters the room. Which assumptions feel true simply because they are familiar? What might open up if you challenged them before pulling your team into the process? Debbie introduces the “How can we?” framework as a way to create forward motion without waiting for certainty, and the episode offers a grounded reset for entrepreneurs who want their 2026 planning to feel clear, focused, and genuinely expansive.
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Future Self Business Planning for 2026
03:02 Why Past Results Limit Future Business Growth
09:01 How Beliefs Shape Business Results
17:57 Strategic Planning Begins With Inner Work
26:58 The “How Can We” Framework for Expansion
44:09 Decide, Act, Evaluate, Iterate
Connect with Debbie King:
Visit the Loving Your Business website
Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn
Connect with Sarah Lockwood:
Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn
Connect with The Conscious Entrepreneur:
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