Personal Observations: Your Best Business Data

Episode 78 transcript: Personal Observations: Your Best Business Data

Why self-judgment hides useful business data

Hey there, and welcome to Episode 78 of your fun and profitable online business. This is the podcast that helps you build a business that feels as good as it looks. I’m Witte Muzzy, and I help women entrepreneurs create fun and profitable businesses by reducing friction, making better decisions, and building systems that actually work with the way they think. Last week, we talked about becoming a better business detective. Instead of jumping straight into fixing every problem, we practice slowing down and collecting evidence.

Today, I want to turn that detective work inward. Because one of the biggest sources of business data isn’t your analytics dashboard. It isn’t your email open rates. It’s none of that. It’s you. It’s your thoughts, your emotions, and your behaviors. They’re all leaving clues with you every single day. The problem is that most of us skip right past those clues and head straight to the judgment zone. I’m lazy or I’m not good at this. But what if those weren’t conclusions? What if they were simply stories you’ve been telling yourself before you’ve gathered all the evidence?

Today, we’re going to look at how becoming curious about yourself can change the way you solve problems in your business. One of the things that I love most about my background in research is that researchers aren’t trying to prove themselves right. They’re trying to discover what’s true, and that’s a very different perspective.

A researcher starts by observing. She asks questions and gathers information. Then and only then does she begin to start forming conclusions. But we sometimes miss this as entrepreneurs. Something doesn’t go the way we hoped. Within seconds, we’ve already diagnosed ourselves as the problem because our brains are incredibly good at creating explanations. The problem is those explanations aren’t always accurate. They’re often just our first thought. And first thoughts make terrible long-term business strategies.

One of the most helpful lessons I’ve ever learned comes from cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT. It’s the idea that our thoughts influence our emotions, our emotions influence our behaviors, and those behaviors create our results. Sometimes we only pay attention to that last part, the results part. But every result has a trail of clues leading up to it every single time.

How thoughts, emotions, and behavior leave clues

Let’s talk about the three places to look for clues. Number one, your thoughts. Every thought is not true. But every thought is information. Here are some of the thoughts that I hear repeated in my high-achieving entrepreneur clients. I’m behind. I’m not ready. I should know this already. I just don’t follow through. I have missed my chance.

Not a single one of these are facts. They’re all interpretations. If any of these hit too close to home, try observing the thought instead of arguing with it. When does it show up? What happened right before it appeared? Does it happen when you’re working on something specific? Your thoughts are not instructions. They’re just clues.

Spot number two: your emotions. I think emotions get a bad reputation. We often treat them like problems we need to solve instead of information to help us understand. I like to think of them as lights on your dashboard. If a light came on, I wouldn’t cover it up with a sticky note or panic and assume there’s a fire under the hood. I’d get curious about what that specific light is a warning for.

The same thing is true for business. Fear, excitement, relief, curiosity, jealousy, and avoidance are all pointing to something. Sometimes fear shows up when you’re about to do something important or new. Sometimes jealousy reveals something you secretly want for yourself. Sometimes relief tells you you’ve finally removed a source of friction.

Spot number three: your behaviors. This might be the most honest data you’ll ever collect. You can tell yourself that creating content is your number one top priority, but if you’ve reorganized your Canva folder three times this week instead of writing a post, that’s data. You can tell yourself networking is important, but if you’ve declined every opportunity to connect with people, that’s data.

There’s no judgment here. It’s just evidence. Your calendar tells a story. Your task list tells a story. The projects you finish tell a story. And the ones you’ve been avoiding for six months tell a story too. The question isn’t what’s wrong with you. The question is what are you noticing here?

Using personal observations to find friction

Let’s say someone tells me, I hate creating content. Maybe they do. But maybe recording takes 15 minutes to set up every single time. Or they never know what to talk about. Or editing feels incredibly overwhelming. Or they’re trying to post on five different platforms. Maybe they don’t actually hate creating content. Maybe they hate all the friction surrounding creating content.

Those are very different problems, and each one has a completely different solution. This is why observation matters. Because if you solve the wrong problem, you’re going to stay stuck. But when you identify the real source of friction, progress starts feeling incredibly easy.

Most of us are incredibly compassionate towards everyone else. If your business friend came to you and said she kept putting something off, you probably wouldn’t say, wow, you’re so lazy. You’d ask questions. You’d want to understand. You’d get curious with her. But when it’s you, I bet you skip the curiosity and go straight to judgment.

What if this week you gave yourself the same grace you’d offer someone else you cared about? Curiosity creates awareness. Awareness creates better decisions, and better decisions create businesses that feel lighter, simpler, and a whole lot more fun to run.

For the next seven days, become a researcher of your own business. Each time you catch yourself making a judgment, pause and turn that into an observation instead. Instead of, I’m procrastinating again, try, I’ve opened this document four times today and closed it without writing. Instead of, I’m terrible at selling, try, I’ve only mentioned my offer once this month.

We want to collect facts first and create stories later. Your goal this week isn’t to fix anything. It’s simply to collect evidence. Because once you know what’s actually happening, you’ll be in a much better position to improve it.

Today wasn’t about changing your thoughts or forcing yourself to feel differently or suddenly becoming perfectly productive. It’s about noticing. Noticing your thoughts, noticing your emotions, and noticing your behaviors. Because they’re all leaving you clues. And when you learn to observe those clues with curiosity instead of criticism, you’ll start making decisions based on evidence instead of assumptions. And that’s where real change begins.