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Beyond ordinary growth series | Part 4
This blog is written by Claudia Cordova Rucker, a serial entrepreneur, former seven-figure beauty spa owner, and founder of Beyond Ordinary Business. Read the first post in this four-part series here.
The missing link: Presence
As leadership expert, Sara Harvey Yao teaches that authentic leadership begins with presence. Presence is not about controlling outcomes or micromanaging plans. It’s about showing up fully engaged, no matter what unfolds. It’s about leading from clarity instead of fear.
In business, presence means:
- Pausing long enough to see what’s real
- Listening to your numbers
- Listening to your team
- Assessing your energy
- Adjusting without judgment
Without presence, even the best business plans collapse under pressure. With presence, plans become living tools for growth.
Building the financial foundation: Prosperity Planning™
Of course, presence alone doesn’t pay the bills. You also need a financial foundation built on reality, not wishful thinking. It’s the reason behind why we anchor our work in Greg Crabtree’s four financial keys:
- Owner’s pay: Pay yourself a real, market-based salary.
- Profit: Aim for consistent, healthy pre-tax profitability.
- Labor productivity: Understand the real output of your team.
- Cash flow: Plan proactively so you grow with stability.
These principles form the backbone of Prosperity Planning™, a proprietary profit management system for translating vision into sustainable profit. Prosperity Planning™ isn’t about rigid budgeting. It’s about creating a clear yearly vision and breaking that down into a monthly financial roadmap aligned to:
- Revenue goals
- Actual capacity of your team
- Cash flow needs
- Synergy between your business needs and your well-being
The real magic: Mindful financial reviews
Here’s where presence and planning come together:
Every month, we guide leaders through a Financial Plan-to-Actual Review, a simple but powerful mindful leadership practice.
In this practice, you sit with your numbers—not with fear and judgment—but with curiosity, and compare your plan to your results. You notice what’s flowing, what’s stuck, and where energy or strategy needs adjusting.
You give yourself permission to feel the feelings, acknowledge them, and let them pass through you, freeing up valuable capacity to focus on what is vital in the moment. No shame. No blame. Just truth, clarity, and intentional choices. This habit unlocks deeper decision-making power than any spreadsheet can offer alone.
A real-life transformation: From overwhelmed to empowered
One experience that stands out is with the founder of a chiropractic practice. When we began working together, she had already laid a strong foundation:
- She had a clear vision with an inspiring VTO (business plan).
- EOS® systems had been implemented, including weekly L10 meetings.
- Their client experience was proven, with clients on a waiting list to get in.
- A talented team was on board and loved what they did.
She had an ambitious plan for growth. Her holistic approach to care had positioned her as a trailblazer in her field, and she possessed real assets as a notable thought leader and working operational systems.
But sudden disruptions including a facility emergency and a bad hire shook her stability. Her financial reports were messy, and the bookkeeper resisted her requests to get them cleaned up.
She felt stuck, her finances felt overwhelming, and she was unsure whether she could afford to hire again or invest in growth. She was stressed about whether her numbers could even be trusted.
At this point we introduced Prosperity Planning™ and mindful financial leadership. Together, we:
- Rebuilt her profit plan based on real-time capacity and productivity.
- Discontinued a revenue stream that was costing her money instead of making her money.
- Restructured her P&L to reveal true service profitability
- Hired a values-aligned partner committed to clarity and support, replacing her bookkeeper.
- Established a monthly financial review habit—to turn uncertainty into data-driven, value-based decisions.
- Included her salary in our profitability projections.
The undeniable results of Prosperity Planning
✅ 27% revenue growth
✅ 56% gross profit margin
✅ Clean, trustworthy financials
✅ Owner’s pay aligned with leadership role
✅ Progress on debt reduction
By the following year, she texted me:
“Thank you—this is the first year I didn’t have to file a tax extension or carry the stress of getting organized. I feel so relieved.”
Ultimately, she felt empowered to lead with presence, clarity, and freedom—free from constant financial anxiety.
Creating a living operating system: Accountability with heart
Structure and an intentional container to hold your team accountable matter too. That’s why we pair presence and Prosperity Planning™ with the proven rhythms of a business operating system like EOS®. This is amplified by using Bloom Growth to bring everything into one visible, trackable system. Inside the weekly L10 meetings, we infuse curiosity going beyond to-do lists to teach leaders how to:
- Set conscious, mindful commitments that they can own and complete within a week.
- Reflect weekly with compassion and truth as they receive feedback.
- Adjust rocks proactively as reality evolves.
- Celebrate progress to build resilience and momentum.
Accountability isn’t about pressure; it’s about presence, staying connected to your highest priorities, being curious, and adjusting gracefully when the path shifts.
Why this matters
When you integrate purpose, presence, financial clarity, and mindful accountability, you stop leading from stress and start leading from strength. As a result, you build a business that:
- Grows your wealth and funds your life instead of draining it
- Supports you and your team’s well-being instead of burning everyone out
- Grows sustainably, even through challenges
- Reflects your deepest values in action, in profit, and culture
A new way of leading
All things considered, it’s clear that true leadership is rooted in supporting leaders who want to grow with intention, clarity, and sustainability.
Finally, I hope my perspective shared in the Beyond ordinary growth series has been beneficial to you. If you haven’t read the other posts in the series, I invite you to start with the first one here.
