Welcome to the Elevated Edit, the weekly reset for ambitious women who are done with chaos and ready to actually follow through.

I'm your host, Blakely Ramsey, strategist, systems girl, and execution coach for entrepreneurs who want structure that sells in a business that feels like peace.

Here, we don't chase hustle.

We edit what matters.

Let's get into it.

If your business moves feel safe, familiar, and vaguely exhausting, you might be playing not to lose.

And here's the hard truth.

Playing not to lose still makes you lose.

Today we're breaking down what it actually means to play to win and why the shift might be the only thing standing between you and the business you know, you could be building.

Okay, so I have been reading this amazing book.

I'm actually reading it through twice.

I told y' all that I was gonna try to start doing that in June, and this was the perfect book to start on that note because it is a fantastic book.

So it's called Playing to Win.

It was written by A.G.

lafley and Roger Martin.

So A.G.

lafley was the CEO, President and Chairman of Procter and Gamble.

And then Roger Martin has a long laundry list of accolades, and he is an advisor to CEO.

So he had a big hand in Procter and Gamble's growth.

And I truly did not know how much Proctor and Gamble did.

I had a general idea, but until this book, I did not realize all of the.

All the buckets that they were involved in.

But this book is mostly about how they grew Procter and Gamble.

But within the books, there.

Within the book, there are so many just small details that you can add to your own personal business.

And before I read this book, I realized that I, in business, was playing not to lose.

So I would look at an offer and go, okay, how can I make sure that people don't leave my page or they're not disappointed or they don't leave a bad review or they don't feel like they, you know, got.

Didn't get enough value.

Like, I was very.

How can I not lose?

How can I not lose?

How can I not lose?

But I've talked about your particular activating system before, and similar to that, if you are playing not to lose in business, you are focused on losing.

And it was just such a.

It was an insane shift.

Honestly, for me reading this book, the difference between playing not to lose and playing to win.

And in the book, they flat out said.

They said, you know, most people who play to win still don't win.

So if you're not even playing to Win, you're definitely not going to win.

Like if you're playing not to lose, you were definitely going to lose.

And it was just such an eye opening experience for me to read this book in terms of how I operate my business and how I look at my business and, and for me personally, I do think that especially for women, the concept of winning in business is not what we're supposed to be focused on.

I know I feel the pressure to have a bigger mission and you know, have a bigger, you know, all the things.

It's like you people want you to focus on that.

But truly playing to win is, encompasses so much and I'm telling you, it's such a good book, it was well worth the read.

But we're going to get into that today about how, you know, so many of us don't realize that a lot of our daily decisions are fear based.

And you don't really realize that until you slow down and you audit them.

And that is definitely something that up until I read this book, beginning of June, I was making decisions out of fear.

I was making decisions because I didn't want to lose.

I wasn't making decisions to win.

I wasn't making decisions to dial in and like, okay, how can this be the best that it can be?

How can I win in this situation?

How can I win in this sector?

How can I win with this demographic?

How can I win with this client?

And the concepts in this book are fantastic.

So I want to take a step back and define a few things really quick just so that way we're on the same page.

So playing to win is making bold choices that define where you'll compete, how you'll win and what capabilities you will build.

And I love this because especially when they talked about where you compete and how you'll win broke my brain open.

You know, so many of us, especially with social media, it has just opened up a thousand doors for us and really focusing in on, okay, what is my service, what am I offering, what is my product with that?

Where am I going to compete?

Because they said most people, they look at where to play and how to win separately, but until you know where you're going to compete, you don't know how to win in that space.

And that was just, I'm not joking you, it was so eye opening to me because even if you just think about the different social media platforms, you know, say I want to focus on Instagram and YouTube, I'm going to have a different how to win strategy based on those two.

Where to plays versus if I was like, okay, I want to win in person.

And in my email list, I'm going to have a different how to win strategy.

And through that, you develop core capabilities that help you define even further where you compete and how you'll win.

And I just love that they look at this from a holistic standpoint because I think oftentimes so many of us are overwhelmed and we don't know where to start in business.

We don't know, you know, maybe something's not working.

And it's like, well, what exactly do I need to work on?

And I love this concept of, you know, figure out where you're going to play, figure out how you're going to win in the where to play situation, and then figure out what core capabilities you need to build in order to win in the field that you've chosen to play in.

And for me, and I hope it does the same for you, it simplified business so much for me.

Like, I was like, oh, that's the answer that I have been looking for.

I'm a very simple girl.

I tell people all the time, can you explain that to me?

Like, I'm three years old, and I used to be embarrassed to say that, but now I am learning the faster that I ask questions, the dumber the question is, the faster that I learn.

And so if other people look down on me because I'm asking a dumb question, that's totally fine, because after I ask them that dumb question, I'm going to go ask 20 more people 20 more dumb questions.

And by the end of the day, I'm going to be really smart.

And so that is just a little aside.

One thing I've really learned this year is to ask as many questions as you can, especially if you're in a room with people that are smarter than you, ask so many questions, people are willing and ready to pour into you.

And the faster that you can kind of put your guard down and look a little dumb and ask dumb questions, the faster you're going to learn.

Okay, second definition is playing not to lose.

So playing not to lose versus playing to win.

If you're playing not to lose, this looks like avoiding risk, making reactive decisions, staying inside of what's been proven, and choosing safe offers safe content and safe clients.

So one is rooted in conviction and identity.

So playing to win is going to be rooted in that conviction and identity.

Playing to not to lose is rooted in safety and perfectionism that is actually disguised as being strategic.

So you might.

And look, I've been There where I'm like, I'm actually being strategic in my business.

It's like, well, no, I'm not.

I'm really avoiding and I am staying in my safety zone instead of truly working with conviction and being true to myself and true in my identity when it comes to business and playing to win.

I for so long have played not to lose.

And it's like I said, it's been such a big shift.

I hope that you're, like, nodding your head along with me and you're not like, man, this girl is rambling.

Now, I want to give you some business filters that you can audit your business through.

And for each one of these, I want you, I'm going to give a bold example of like, playing to win versus playing not to lose.

Just so that way, if you're like me, sometime I need someone to spell it out for me and this is going to be me spelling it out so you can know exactly what I'm talking about.

So these are business filters.

You can audit your business like someone who is done playing small because we're done playing small in 2025.

Second half of this year, I cannot believe it is already the second half of the year.

It's wild.

Second half of this year, we are playing big.

We are playing to win.

Okay, number one, offer creation not to lose looks like building a low ticket bundle because you're scared people won't buy your real offer.

So instead of being like, you know what, I know that this package, this product is worth $3,000, but I'm so scared that people aren't going to pay $3,000.

So instead I'm just going to build this low ticket $49 bundle and I'm going to sell it instead because I'm terrified that people aren't going to buy my real offer.

And that's out of fear.

It's playing not to lose.

You're so scared of losing that you play not to lose instead of playing to win.

Now, the shift to that to win is leading with a signature framework that reshapes the market.

I've talked about blue ocean strategy before where, you know, there's the red ocean, where it's very competitive and there's blood in the water and there's so much competition and so few consumers, and you're all kind of like racing to the bottom versus this blue ocean strategy that can reshape the entire market.

That is to be totally transparent, what I am planning on doing with my real estate career the second half of this year is I Plan on reshaping how I market myself and in turn hopefully reshape the market.

Because I do.

I kind of want to bring the, the big city technology and merge it with the small town vibes.

And so that is going to be me leading with a signature framework that reshapes the market.

And so instead of playing not to lose and making yourself smaller and just automatically assuming that people aren't going to buy, just pack so much value into whatever it is.

If you need to hire a coach, if you need to hire an advisor, if you need to hire a strategic thinker, if you need to ask, you know, for feedback from a million people to make sure that that offer, that product, that package, that service is so valuable.

That is how you play to win.

You don't go in assuming that nobody's going to buy or assuming that you're going to lose.

You say, okay, what is it going to take for me to win?

And I love that.

So that is offer creation.

Okay, Business filter number two when it comes to pricing, the not to lose scenario is pricing emotionally or low balling to be affordable.

I will say I have done this the majority of my life.

I grew up very poor.

And so I am always probably going to have this little bit of fear in terms of what if I don't have enough food or like enough money to put food on the table at night.

Thankfully, I am pretty far detached from that reality at this point.

But I always keep in the back of my mind I could end up back there tomorrow.

I'm fully aware of that.

But when it comes to business, when you are being emotionally reactive or you are undercutting your prices just to be affordable, that might be you playing not to lose.

And it is so easy, especially if you know you're not getting a lot of sales or you're not getting a lot of attention on your business to immediately go, oh, it's too expensive, it's too expensive and I need to lower the price.

Well, that might not be the case.

You could think of it like the two win scenario where you price based on value transformation and your future client base.

So it might not be your offer.

It might be that you need to add a little bit more value.

You might need to get trained in something, you might need to get coached in something.

You might need to read some more books, you might need to get some more experience experience.

You might need to work on the transformation that your client goes through.

Are they actually getting from point A to point B clearly?

And are you giving them the transformation that you actually promised.

And then also think about your future client base.

You might not just be reaching the people that you need to reach yet.

You know, that's why I love about ads.

And I'm so thankful that I found ads because my target demographic, I used to think, had to be within 30 miles of me.

Like, that was my mindset.

I was like, I have to price everything for people in south Arkansas.

And look, I love my south Arkansas people, but I had to get out of that mindset of the only people that are ever going to buy from me are within 30 miles of me.

And once I open that and I expanded out to, you know, the.

The entire country, I was like, oh, wow, I can instead price for my future client base.

So I want to keep my prices to where I have the time and the capacity to serve my clients.

And if my client roster is not full, cool.

That means I have time to get more coaching, take more courses, read more books, get more hands on experience, and dive into the clients that are right in front of me.

And so working for your future client base, maybe you just haven't found them yet.

Maybe you just haven't been in the game long enough.

You haven't posted enough, you haven't ran enough ads.

One of my Instagram coaches, she said that it takes 180 days of saying the same thing over and over again every single day for those 180 days, for the message to finally click with someone.

And then I want you to think, if you've ever had a social media post flop or you go, you know what?

I tried, I posted, and nobody, nobody responded.

Did you post about it every single day for 180 days.

Our attention span is so small and so short.

You know, they say you have three seconds to hook someone at the beginning of a video.

I think they're actually shifting that between one to two seconds because there is so much content out there and our attention span is just getting shorter and shorter.

And so think about, if people can't pay attention to a video for three seconds, they're going to have to hear your message and your offer.

A lot.

A whole lot.

Okay, Number three is client delivery.

So this is the third business filter.

This one, I think, is probably going to hit home, I think, especially for a lot of you ladies, because I know I have definitely fallen into this category before.

So client delivery, not to lose looks like over delivering out of insecurity.

So.

So when someone pays you or someone hires you, or someone, you know, purchases your offer, you feel like you have to overextend yourself, you have to over, please.

You have to just overdo it so that they feel like they got their value.

They, you know, what are all these scenarios that you might come in your head that probably really aren't true?

Instead of just delivering the offer that you promised, you feel like you have to give so much extra and a lot of it is based out of insecurity.

Now the To Win filter looks like designing systems that deliver excellence without resentment.

One thing that I have realized over the last couple of months is that if your offer is valuable and provides transformation, that is all you have to do.

You don't have to do all of this extra, over the top extra stuff.

Sometimes it can be even more overwhelming if you, you do all of that.

And this is something that I quickly realized when I got in some of these coaching programs is the, my highest ticket coaching program, the one that I pay the most for.

There's not a lot of content within the coaching program.

We have a couple of calls a week.

We had our, you know, different modules that we needed to watch before we got on the program.

But other than that, there's not a lot, there's not a lot of downloads and worksheets and check lists and all this stuff.

And then, you know, some of my lower ticket coaching programs that I'm in, there's like months and years of content and you're like trying to dig through it.

And I, I know what they're trying to do.

They are trying to over deliver out of this insecurity.

But I have noticed the, the people who are charging 30, 50, $150,000 for coaching programs.

Yes, one of my coaches, her highest ticket program, I'm not in it.

Not that I'm saying if I, if I get the money, I won't be in it.

But her highest ticket program is $150,000 for a year of coaching.

Now she delivers.

Girl is insanely valuable.

But Even at that $150,000 program, there's not all of this extra over delivering.

She delivers on the product and the transformation that she sells and that's it, period.

And that has been such a drastic shift for me this year because before I was in the mindset of like, I've got to do all this extra, you know, if they sign up for this one thing, I've got to give them these other things.

But oftentimes that can just be overwhelming and overstimulating and just delivering on what you're supposed to be doing can be so valuable because then you get even Deeper and you go even more and you improve even more and you get even better on that one thing that you're supposed to be delivering.

Okay, the fourth filter is content strategy.

Now not to lose looks like posting what's trendy so you don't feel left behind or constantly feeling like, oh, I've got to post something.

You know, I've got to post something because I have to post every single day to win.

Looks like creating point of view driven content that sets the tone for your space.

So this looks like being intentional with your content.

It looks like this looks like really bringing people, like behind the scenes of your program or behind the scenes of your business, or behind the scenes of the values and the mission, whatever.

It is like actually really being so sharp and so strategic instead of just playing not to lose.

And oh, I haven't posted in a week, Let me throw something up.

Slowing down and being strategic and saying, okay, you know what?

My capacity is posting one time per week.

I'm gonna make sure that one post is so valuable that it blows any, any of the crap that I could throw up in a hurry in a jiffy.

Trying to post every single day.

I'm gonna post one piece of content that blows everything else out of the water.

Okay?

And then the fifth filter is teams and systems.

So the not to lose looks like hiring people who make you feel busy.

And I feel like this is something that so many of us want to fall into where it's like, oh, well, okay, in order to look like a real business and feel like a real business, I need to just hire people.

And then, oh, no, other people underneath me are asking questions all the time.

And it's like, I'm so busy, Busy, busy, busy, busy.

You know, it's like busy is like a badge of honor versus to win looks like structuring your back end like the business that you're becoming.

So instead of just hiring just to hire or oh, well, things are overwhelming.

So I'm going to hire.

We'll hire admin or we'll hire a content creator, actually slowing down, creating systems and then from those systems go, okay, how can we truly play to win?

Do we need to hire someone to handle finances?

Do we need to hire someone to handle content?

Like, calmly and clearly?

Where do we need to hire?

Not just someone that is going to ask a thousand questions and make us feel even busier than before, but where can we strategically hire?

Does this look like hiring someone smarter than me?

Does this look like hiring someone with more experience?

I'll be super Honest, I am not completely in a season where I'm ready to hire yet, but I already have my first hire laid out, and my first hire will be smarter than me, and they will get a bigger say in the company than I do, because I know my limits and I know how far I can take everything.

When I say everything, I'm pointing at all the.

All the buckets that I've got my hands in, because y' all know I just love all the things.

But I don't want to hire just because that's what I think I need to do.

I want to hire strategically, and I want to hire to win.

Like I want to hire someone who is going to take the business to the next level because it can be so easy to feel reactive and hire reactively, and sometimes that can make things so much worse.

And so this is just all about strategy, intention, slowing down, thinking things through, and asking yourself, where am I playing not to lose, and how can I play to win?

Okay, here is your challenge.

I want you to ask yourself, what would the bold version of me choose this week?

What would she launch?

What would she say?

What would she cut or eliminate?

What would she raise?

She raised prices.

Playing to win does not mean that you are reckless and you're just out here.

Wreck it, Ralph.

Burning everything down, tearing everything down, just destroying everything that you've built.

It just means that you're deciding that your business is real and you're going to act like it.

So instead of just living in this fear and playing not to lose, you can start playing to win.

And then I want you to choose one area so offers, pricing, delivery, content, structure, and make a decision this week that a winner would make.

And you might have some things come up.

I did this practice last week as I was reading the book, and I had to journal through some things.

There were a lot of.

There was a lot of emotional things that came up.

For me, that is one thing I'm learning in this business journey is that business is a huge mirror when it comes to personal development.

And if you think that you know yourself, starting a business will show you things about yourself that you had no clue.

And sometimes it can be really ugly.

There are things that I've learned.

I'm like, oh, where was that at?

That was deep rooted in there.

And it's all coming up now that I have put myself out in public, out for the world to see.

And it can be very interesting to go through for sure.

But that is why it's so important to make sure that you get in the rooms so that you have your business friends that you can send a voice memo to, even if it is a random hour.

And they'll be like, typically, most of my business friends are like, oh my gosh, I'm going through the same exact thing today.

Or I went through this last week and this is what I did to get through it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And so it can feel really good to have people there in your corner that are going through the exact same thing.

Okay, I hope that this episode was helpful for you.

I would highly encourage you to read the book.

Like I said, it has really shifted the way I thought about business.

I have essentially in June taken a lot of things off of my business plate.

I have raised some of my prices and I have truly looked at like, okay, how do I play to win?

Where am I wanting to win?

How do I win there?

And what core capabilities do I need to develop in order to get to that point?

And been very eye opening for me.

This has been a really cool journey so far this year and I can't wait to see where it all goes.

But okay, hope you got some value out of this.

If you did, please send it to a friend.

And with that, I hope you have an amazing rest of your day.

That's it for this edition of the Elevated Edit.

If this episode hit, don't keep it to yourself, screenshot it, share it, tag me on Instagram.

And if you're ready to structure your business like the CEO that you are, you know where to find me.

Sam.