Case Study
Tanya worked at least 80 hours every week and still hadn’t been able to grow her business in two years.
The Problem

There was always emergencies, last-minute requests and things that had to happen yesterday. And while Tanya was always able to satisfy her clients, her revenue was flat.

She kept thinking "once I get caught up, then I'll focus on growth." But she never got caught up. There was always another email, another request, another urgent thing.

Plus, burnout was coming quickly.
A day didn’t go by that Tanya didn’t think about burning the whole thing down.

Tanya wasn't lazy or unfocused but she wasn’t making progress due to weak thinking skill.

You see, we’ve got 28 thinking skills that we use as we go about our day.

The thinking skills that are strong help us do what we do well, well.
The thinking skills that are weak, make it harder for us to do what we want to do.

Tanya had a weak thinking skill of projecting virtual relationships. That’s just a fancy way of saying “seeing invisible connections.”

Tanya couldn’t see how she can be proactive in her actions in a way where it helps both the clients and the growth of the business. She was just reacting to everything that was happening instead of being intentional about her work.

Once we improved projecting virtual relationships, Tanya was able to take the same work and turn into something that had a greater ROI


Projecting Virtual Relationships

Most people can see obvious connections. "I eat food, I feel full." That's clear.
The more abstract something is or the further away it is from the result, the less obvious the connection is.

Understanding how two people can be cousins may seem less obvious.

Seeing how your brand is making your ads work better is even less obvious.

It requires you to use a higher level of projecting virtual relationships.

Tanya's brain couldn't trace the path from her daily actions to actual business outcomes.

She struggled to see how she could be proactive in a way that will help both her clients and her business growth as she was always reacting.


For example, when Tanya’s clients would often ask her similar questions. It meant that Tanya would often have to be responding the same thing over and over again.

Tanya thought she was doing her job, taking care of her clients. And she was.
But what she missed out on, was seeing the connection of what would happen if she put together a welcome package that answered all the questions. This way she just needed to prepare it once and be able to send it out to all clients after. PLUS, if it was done well, clients will know what to expect, so trust in her and the business would go up, making it more likely they’d want to stay as clients longer.

See the invisible connection there?


Here are 3 exercises I did with Tanya to help her improve projecting virtual relationships:

Exercise 1: Remove the obvious reason

Think of challenge your having in your business.
Then tell me why this is a challenge.

For example: My team isn’t executing because they lack motivation.

The why, the because, is the most obvious reason.

Now give me a few more reasons why this is the case without saying the obvious reason.

They’re lacking skill.
They don’t know what’s expected of me. Etc.

This requires you to think deeper and see more connections that you haven’t seen before.


Another example:
I struggle to collect payment because I hate dealing with numbers.

Now give a few more reasons without saying “hate dealing with numbers”

The numbers are all over the place.
I thought clients would just know.
My books are a mess.
I don’t like confrontation.

You see how when you remove the obvious answer and start giving more reasons, you end up going deeper. You’re making less obvious connections.
You don’t like confrontation so you prefer not to get paid.


Exercise 2: Map Your Actions to Outcomes
This exercise changed how Tanya saw her daily tasks.
We listed her common daily actions, then traced where each one actually led:

Client service emails → client satisfaction → maintaining current clients
Social media graphic tweaks → prettier posts → same engagement
Outreach to prospects → conversations → proposals → new clients

Now with every task Tanya did, her brain didn’t just think of the immediate result. Rather what happened a few steps down the line.

This exercise has a different effect by writing it out instead of just thinking it. Especially if you’re visual. So map your own actions. See where they actually lead.


Exercise 3: Reverse engineer results
I had Tanya write down results she wanted and reverse engineer the actions that needed to happen to get there.

For more clients, Tanya needs to get on more discovery calls, inorder to get more calls, she needs to send more DMs, for her DMs to work better, she needs to post content.

Often we get stuck on actions we have no control over. For example, we say we need to get on more discovery calls, but you can’t force people to get onto the call. The call is connected to something else. In Tanya’s case it was DMs. While you can’t force people to respond to your DMs, you can send more, better DMs. And you can post content so your DMs do better. Posting content is invisibily connected to getting more clients. That’s projecting virtual relationships even though there are many steps in between.

Your turn. Think of a result you want. Then map out ALL the steps to get there. While this might sound overwhelming and may not be a plan of action, it does help your brain see the virtual connections.



A few months after OYB Tanya forward me an email she got from a long-time client: "I just want to say, working with you has gotten so much better. Everything feels smoother and I feel more confident in the process."

That client referred two more businesses the week before.
Meanwhile, Tanya had finally started the podcast she'd been "too busy" to launch for two years which helped build her brand.

She told me, "I spent two years thinking I was working hard. I was just working reactively. Now I work intentionally and everything's easier."


Cheers to Peak Brain Performance!