745 Winifred Bragg:

Let’s face it: Women often struggle, deep down, to know and appreciate our true value, and we all need to get better at self-love and self-care – and learn to sing our own praises. My guest today Winifred Bragg is all about what she calls the Bragg Factor, and we’re going to break down a formula for your success in every area of your life based on the letters in her name, starting with B – for ‘behave as if’ and ending with the G for gratitude.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur who has lived and breathed the ups and downs of starting and growing businesses, currently the game changing social podcast app Podopolo. Wherever you are listening to this, take a moment and download Podopolo. Follow Wings of Inspired Business there and join the Wings community so we can take the conversation further with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice for other female founders at whatever stage of the journey you’re at! Because together we’re stronger, and we soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who helps business owners and entrepreneurs learn how to appreciate and communicate their true value and learn effective self-promotion skills.

Winifred Bragg is the creator of The Bragg Factor®, a system that propels your personal and professional life. She’s also written a number of books, including the Best-Selling, KnockoutPain®: Secrets to Maintain a Healthy Back. She’s a pain doctor by profession and learned firsthand about self-love and self-promotion as she built her profitable practice.

So today we talk about your value and how to communicate it, plus Winifred shares her journey and all the lessons learned along the way She’ll be here in just a moment, and first,

We all have it. You know, that inner “bully voice” that talks inside our heads telling us all the ways we’re not good enough. You know, not thin enough, not rich enough, simply not enough to realize our true wants and desires for ourselves.

Problem is, we can only achieve what we believe inside and out is our true value and worth.

Winifred Bragg is the creator of The Bragg Factor®, a system that propels your personal and professional life by teaching you how to own and communicate your value and make self-promotion and supporting yourself a priority.

Winifred shares today how to create your own 30 second Bragg, a powerful statement that describes your unique qualities in a memorable fashion. This statement, coupled with executive presence, can give you the edge you need to advance in a competitive job market. Plus, we dig deep into all her other powerful strategies and practices.

A nationally recognized speaker, Dr. Bragg delivers keynotes and workshops customized for companies large and small, whether “Take Your Daughters to Work” at the U.S. Capitol or workshops with Fortune 500 companies, like Merrill Lynch, and major universities.

She’s been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX, as well as Redbook, Women’s World, and Self Magazine.

So let’s get into Winifred’s entrepreneurial journey and the break down the Bragg process, letter by letter. Be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Winfred, welcome to Wings.

Winifred Bragg:

Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here today.

Melinda Wittstock:

And you have the perfect name for your business, which is teaching women to know their value and not be afraid of sharing their accomplishments. How did you come to found the Bragg Factor?

Winifred Bragg:

Well, the Bragg Factor actually found me before I knew I had found it. When I was in college, I found myself in a class of about 400 people at a chemistry class. And I knew that I needed that chemistry class to reach my goals. For some reasons, the teacher love to call on me. And you could imagine being 18, 19 years old, having to stand up before 400 people that you didn’t know. I was afraid and didn’t know the answers and frustrated. And I told my parents, “This college thing is not working out.” And my mother said, “You don’t allow anyone to make you not reach your goals when you have goals to meet. And you must have this chemistry class, so you need to turn this into the Winifred Bragg Show.” So I had to change my mindset and had to fake it till I made it. And so I would study hard and eventually I learned that with clear communication, even when I didn’t know the answer, I was able to say it with confidence that by the end of the semester he left me alone. But it was a bad semester. And so I really didn’t know. But I think that was when the Bragg Factor was really born. And as I had other challenges as a young doctor in a male-dominated field, they all are, aren’t they?

Melinda Wittstock:

Yes.

Winifred Bragg:

We love to say male-dominated field, but everything is. Males have the money so they dominate the fields. Isn’t that right?

Melinda Wittstock:

So what do they say about the golden rule? He who has the gold makes the rules, right?

Winifred Bragg:

That’s right. And they have the gold. And so we sometimes as women get a little of the bronze, not even the silver. And so again, in medical school, I’m finding the same thing. People calling on me and this kind of thing and I realized that I was able to speak in front of audiences and I could do it confidently. And my classmates started saying, “Wow, you really did a good job on rounding for those patients. Could you show me what you were doing?” And so they said, “That’s the Bragg thing.” Well, nobody wants the Bragg thing so as time went on in life, I called it the Bragg Factor. And it was about knowing and communicating your value, how to own and communicate your value. So it probably was born when I was in college. I perfected it in medical school and then I really made it a system when I became a doctor and I found myself with $100,000 of medical school loans.

And I would go to these networking events. People say, “You need to go there and get some patients.” And I would go, “Hi, I’m Dr. Bragg,” and guess what the people would do? So what? In their minds, looked like they would say, “So what?” And they would start back talking to their people. So I had to learn how to introduce myself and do things that medical school didn’t teach me, like marketing and networking and how to do it effectively. So along the way, I coined what’s known as the Bragg Factor about 13, 14 years ago.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so tell me about that process, so what you learned. So you’re standing there in a networking event and you don’t know anybody and you’re introducing yourself. That’s terrifying for a lot of people. How do you do it right?

Winifred Bragg:

Well, when you have $100,000 of loan coupons in your briefcase, it helps you push you a little bit further [inaudible 00:04:06].

Melinda Wittstock:

A motivator.

Winifred Bragg:

What I learned, I created a process that I call a relationship power square. How do you create long-term powerful business relationships? And so when I learned that when you speak to people, you want to introduce what you do but how you can help them and you move the focus from you to them. So how could you serve them? So during that process, I would say I learned that I’m Dr. Bragg. I focus on treating people with back pain non-surgically. Did you know only 5% of people with back pain need surgery? But in the United States, more than 600,000 people have it a year. I would love to help you. My name is Dr. Bragg. So when people heard that 5% number and realize, “Well my God, why did I have back surgery?” You introduce yourself, what you do, how you can help them, and if there’s a little fact that you could put in there that’s going to make the people wonder and want to talk to you more, that’s what you do when you introduce yourself. And so people start saying, “Hey, that’s the lady there. She does non-surgical treatments on backs.” And so I was in a group with all males and it ended up by being a speaker and explaining that and learning how to do effective networking, I ended up having more patients than all of them. So that’s how I subsequently had to leave and own my own practice.

Melinda Wittstock:

The power of the “did you know?” Because what’s wonderful about that, Winifred, it raises intrigue. If you get people’s eyebrows raised, they want to know more so they’re intrigued and they’re asking you questions. And then if you’re asking them questions, you can gear what you’re saying to create value for them, it’s conversational.

Winifred Bragg:

And it’s all about rather than what they can do for you, what you can do for them and service. And I know you’ve noticed that Bragg, a lot of people are intimidated and think bragging is negative. But I want people that’s listening here today to never think of brag as B-R-A-G. It is B-R-A-G-G, my name. And that second G stands for Gratitude. And when you do this from a standpoint of gratitude, people accept it. You see, I was telling people, did you know how this can help you? So regardless of what field you are in, you tell them a little bit about yourself and then how you can help them. That’s going to put it in a state of gratitude. And what we know is that fear and anger cannot occupy the same space as gratitude. Isn’t that nice?

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s so true. I find whenever I am consistent with a gratitude practice, I end up attracting opportunities to me. And it starts with being grateful for even the small things, just being in the zone of gratitude and you start attracting more things to be grateful for.

Winifred Bragg:

And that’s what research actually says. People who are grateful and show gratitude are more successful and healthier. And if you didn’t know anything about gratitude, I would hope that the last two and a half years should have taught us all about how to be grateful for this, the small things. Who would have imagined as big powerful United States of America, we would be in a lockdown with masks on scared to touch people, and lost all of our con nection? So if that didn’t put you in a state of gratitude, then something’s wrong with you.

Melinda Wittstock:

So why do you think women deep down struggle with this I guess fear of putting themselves out there or shining their light or promoting what’s good about them?

Winifred Bragg:

I think a lot of women lack self-confidence, actually. If there’s a job that has 10 qualifications, we know statistics say that a woman could have 9 of those qualifications and she’ll say, “I’m not good enough. I can’t apply. I don’t have but 9 of the qualifications.” Yet a man can have only one and he will qualify. It’s because we are used to putting ourselves as secondary to our husbands, to the children. Even with health, a woman would make sure the children are taken care of. She’ll urge her husband to go to the doctor. She will urge her parents to go and she’s the last one to take care of herself. So it’s what we do. They say psychologically it even comes back when we were in Brownies, the Girl Scouts. If you and I were doing something and you made an accomplishment as a Girl Scout and I didn’t make it, a little girl’s going to be emotional, I don’t feel good about that.

I don’t want to brag about it because Winifred didn’t make it. You follow me? Whereas a boy if he makes Eagle Scout, he’s like, “Hey, I outdid everybody.” So it’s that mindset that we have. But what I tell you, if you practice and practice your 30-second, I call it your 30-second Bragg is what I did in that networking. It’s 30 seconds, it’s all it takes is a good power for 30 seconds that you practice it with a friend, someone who’s going to critique you. You practice it with a recorder. Most people have an iPhone or some type of recording phone. You practice it in the mirror. And when you get that down good and people respond to you, it’s going to give you confidence. And I think it’s the lack of confidence that keeps women from propelling forward because we love to say, “I am not good enough.”

Melinda Wittstock:

I think there’s a lot of fear there too, and fear of being somehow cast out of the tribe. We’ve all, as women, experienced other women that when we do stand up and we do have some accomplishment, another woman is going to take you down.

Winifred Bragg:

Yes, that’s just that old hen-pecking women thing. Surprisingly, as much as we have to fight the other world, it could be another woman that could take you down. But sometimes we have to take from a man and say, “This is about me now. I can’t worry about her being the one taking me down because I own this and I have to communicate my value because I deserve this.” And sometimes we may lose that little girlfriend. I am a gardener. And sometimes you know that in gardening, in order to make a plant grow, sometimes you got to prune a little bit and cut off some of those leaves so that the nutrients can go to the other parts of the plant. So sometimes you have to prune those people like that other woman who’s taking you down. And you have to look at your circle of friends periodically and say, “Is that person stretching me or shrinking me? Every time do I have a good business idea and I share it with Sarah does she always take me down?” But then why do you keep going to Sarah? Why do you keep doing that? That’s self-sabotage because you know Sarah is going to take you down.

So that’s why our computer has a delete button on it. Our phones have a decline button on it. We too in our circle of friends need to do like I do in gardening, take out those clippers. And sometimes you have to prune those people from your life because they’re not moving you forward. There’s a guy named John Rohn who said something really powerful and he says, “What we are the sum of the five people we spend the most time with.”

Melinda Wittstock:

So you think about, okay, who am I spending my time with? Are you spending your time with people who are uplifting you, encouraging you, telling you that you can do something, all of that? Or are you with people, and it could be your family who may be well-meaning, but they’re stuck in their own subconscious fears? It’s not even about you, it’s about them. Are you hearing that all the time that makes you feel like you are being diminished?

Winifred Bragg:

That’s right. Sometimes it can be your family because that’s the way they see you, that’s the way they’ve always seen you and they’re not going to let you grow beyond that. And sometimes it could be your family and I’m not saying to prune your family. That’s one of the people that we didn’t pick those, but we have to sometimes just say that even that family member told me that and it’s not what I’m going to dwell on. I’m not going to allow myself when I’m trying to move forward, discuss this with Aunt Sally because I know that Aunt Sally is the one that always puts me down. And I tell people to practice positive affirmations. In the morning when you get up, go to that mirror before you leave that house. Do some things that’s confidence boosters and remind yourself. Write down 10 things in a book and tell you about you that how skillful you are, how valuable you are.

You are a good friend, you are a good mother, you are a good wife. I am good at my job. And remind yourself of that. And then I say also keep what I say, a celebration log or a log of accomplishments. Every day you should not go to bed before you write down three things that you won that day. Three wins. There are three things that you do at the end of the day. Maybe your children told you, “My God, Mom, was that a wonderful meal?” That was a win when everybody said… Or something you accomplished at work. And that’s going to remind you. And these little things will help women and help people to move out of that where they’re so down on themselves because the world is down on you. You need to do some self-love talk for yourself.

Melinda Wittstock:

So when you do your celebration log, Winifred, what are some of the things recently that you’ve been celebrating?

Winifred Bragg:

Well, I’m working on my health and so when I celebrate that I was able to get my exercise. I run a busy medical practice and I scheduled the patient such that I was able to get home and get in my mile walk. That’s a big celebration for me, a big celebration. I log what my goals are but I’m not really good on logging what I’m eating. So doctor tell other people to do it and not do it yourself, right? So now I am really celebrating that I am logging what I am eating to keep my, to be more healthy. So those are some of the things that I’m doing. I’m on a health thing because a lot of times in business we can also neglect ourselves. And so I put in that as a priority. You got to make sure you take care of yourself. And so I’m logging my exercise, logging what I’m eating and that’s really a major accomplishments for me to be able to take time and log those things.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh God, that’s so important. Because we as entrepreneurs are so consumed with it. It’s like a constant macro going on in our heads. And I’ve found that the only way that I can just take some moments in the day where I’m not stuck and always thinking about the next thing, the next thing, all the things I have to do is to go lift heavy weights. You know what I mean? Because if I’m thinking about that, I’ll like drop the weight, you know?

Winifred Bragg:

Drop the weight. You drop the weight, yeah, and you drop the weight. And so that gives you a chance before you go to bed you need to do something that’s relaxing for you. I’m big into watching sports and so tonight’s Thursday night, I’m going to make sure I’m done with my work and I’m going to watch that football game because that brings me enjoyment. And I’ve had to learn to put that on my schedule because if you decide you’re going to walk in the morning or walk in the evening some kind of way with a business, someone can crowd into that space. But I had to learn, it took years to learn this, to put down those things that I need for relaxation, for my own health, for my own, as you say, enjoyment, on my schedule and be firm about it as you are with making another appointment. I call it making an appointment with yourself because without you being with your mindset and rested, and getting this sleep, and doing the things you say, and lifting those weights to get rid of that mean person you encounter today, you put another 10 pounds on the bar and lift and get that person out of your mind. But you can lift them out of there, can’t you?

Melinda Wittstock:

I mean so much of it comes down to creating that space, not only for our own self-care but getting to that space in your mind where, I don’t know, you have space, your mind is empty enough. I have all my best business ideas and all my most creative solutions to any challenge that I may be having in the business when I’m doing hot yoga or working out or walking the dog or in nature or gardening, like you. That’s when I’m my most creative. I advance the business more. The other thing that I’ve learned that’s interesting is I could have a long to-do list, if I try and do it all myself, it can take longer than just setting an intention that it’s going to be done. I don’t know how or who or whatever it’s going to get done. And invariably when I’m at the gym, something that was on my list gets done by somebody else. This is something that started to happen to me a lot more recently where you start to become more in a position of flow rather than in the hustle and grind of the business, the old way of doing business.

Winifred Bragg:

And that’s a growth process. At some point, you think the only person that could do this right is me. That’s what you saying is tearing you down. And I had to learn as far as my speaking business because I do a lot of speaking and coaching and consulting now, in order to have time to do that, I had to hire people to delegate some of the things that I was doing for that business and then it helped it to grow. Because you only have so many hours and that’s why there are other people and we don’t live here by ourselves. And that really helped me when I finally said, “Listen.” People say “Well go to a class, you need to learn how to do websites. Go to a class, you need to do that.” Yes. But you find you know how to do that but you don’t have time to do it.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. That’s why you have to learn to hire people to do it.

Winifred Bragg:

You got to learn to hire people to do it. And I had to learn to hire people to delegate it so that people could help me with social media and some of those other things that I just wasn’t having time to do.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. Because all that busy work, if you’re fixing the link on your website or you’re making a social post, there’s somebody who loves that. That’s what they do. They’re really good at it. It’s like the thing that they just, for example, you could think of anything on all the things that have to happen in your business but if you delegate that to somebody else and say you’re paying them, I don’t know, I’m just going to pick a number out of the sky. Say you’re paying them $40 an hour and then getting back into your own value. What’s the value to you of landing a major client or a whole new strategic opportunity for your business or landing investment or whatever. Your hourly rate is going to be $10,000 an hour. So you’re actually short-changing your business by trying to do everything. A mentor of mine once told me I was stealing from my business if I was fixing the link when someone who was, quote, unquote, “less expensive” than me was doing it.

Winifred Bragg:

I read a few years ago, to your point, an article in the Wall Street Journal that they laid it out very beautifully. I should have saved it or maybe you can Google it and find it now. But they did just that and they took the example like you said somebody you could pay 30, $40 an hour, and here you missed a $10,000 opportunity because it took you 20 hours to try to fix that link.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. This is one of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned in business and I think a lot of women have to learn this because I think inherently we’ve all been acculturated or brought up to be perfectionists.

Winifred Bragg:

Perfectionists, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

And I think at the root of perfectionism is fear, is not really accepting our own value. Because we’re continually in this proving game of, “Look, I can do everything, look at me woohoo,” but it’s not really the way to advance a business.

Winifred Bragg:

And sometimes that perfection can cause paralysis because you get stuck, stuck in one spot because you’re so perfect with putting that i over that little symbol that nobody else paid attention to but you were stuck. And it’s called perfection paralysis. In writing books, I wanted to write books and my best friend said, “You’ve been talking about writing books since you were in college. You must have a thousand books in your head.” And so during COVID, I had started a series of books that would help women with leadership and with goal-setting and with learning how to find their Bragg Factor. And I had lectured on them, got great feedback, and started writing on the books and my best friend said to me, “Why aren’t those books out?” I said, “Well I need to do this on this chapter and do this and do the other.” And she said, “Well,” because we had a lockdown period, “Don’t you think this is the perfect time to focus on them and get them out?” And she was right. But COVID for me gave me the opportunity to finish up my series and sometimes like I said, I was suffering from perfection paralysis that I had them ready.

Melinda Wittstock:

Mm-hmm. This episode, Winifred, is Episode 745 for Wings. I have yet to interview a woman who hasn’t had to recover from perfectionism in some way or another. Why I always joke that there needs to be an AA for perfectionists.

Winifred Bragg:

You see, now you’re saying that, but that’s a business idea. I know you have a lot of things you’re doing but somebody’s going to come up and you are going to be having coffee one day and says, “You don’t say? Are they meeting every Tuesday morning now, a AA for Perfectionism for Women?” And you’re going to say, “I told Winifred about that in September 2022.” And is that lady a new billionaire now?

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, the one other thing I’ve learned in business, it’s very easy to have ideas. It’s a whole other thing to put them into practice. And one of the things that we’re talking a lot about mindset here but the mindset of an entrepreneur is a really interesting thing because it’s hard. It’s not for everybody. You have to get very comfortable being outside of your comfort zone most of the time because with every new phase of growth there’s something different. Or you have to be a different person who you’re being, say at startup or a hundred thousand in revenue or a million in revenue. Or if you have the business that’s going to be like a ten million dollar business or a hundred million dollar business or wherever, whoever you’re being at, that’s different. And there are different challenges along the way. So how have you navigated that in your own life in terms of your own growth and the uncertainty I guess that comes with business?

Winifred Bragg:

Well, one of the things that I learned in my Bragg Factor system is really five steps. We won’t go through all those steps today, but the first step is the be B in Bragg stands for “Behave as if”. And I think that one of the things that I had to learn was how to model greatness. Sometimes in business, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel that there are strategies and processes and people that can help you. And that’s why I tell people it’s important to have a mentor or coach or someone that you can bounce off ideas and can also share their journey with you because you may be stuck in a place that you think you can’t get over that hurdle that yet a coach can take you over that quickly and speed matters. So that helps you with your mindset. Plus what I always do, and I really believe in visualization, I did a lot of studying on what do billionaires and millionaires do.

Not that it’s about the money but what about the principles? What do they do? So that’s what I started having a morning routine by studying them and knowing that they visualize their goals. What are their goals going to be? What do they want to accomplish that day? And that’s what I do now. I knew I had this podcast and everything, I thought about a little bit what we may talk about and what it would be like. And I had that in my morning routine today as I visualize my goals for today. And a lot of things are mindset. And I think that how you wake up in the morning will determine your day. Turn off that phone is what the billionaires do. Melinda, they turn the phone off and they really get clear on what they want that day. Some do meditation, some of them lift weights like you, run, I have that garden and if it’s the weather’s appropriate, I go out there and get with my tomatoes and cucumbers and talk to them because they don’t talk back.

So nobody can criticize me when I’m over there with tomatoes and say, “Why are you blooming but not making tomatoes?” But I get that out of me and get my mind real clear and think about my goals. And then I think about who can help me get from step A to point B. See a lot of people think I have to just do this by myself but you don’t. You can get help. And when you do that you can have those aha moments and say, “Why was I so stuck?” And that helps you move along. In fact-

Melinda Wittstock:

A hundred percent.

Winifred Bragg:

… years ago, about 1954, they talk about a guy, Roger Banister, who broke the record doing the four-minute mile and all the doctors told him, “No way can you do that. The body doesn’t have the capacity to do this.” But this guy said that he practiced the running. But what he practiced equally as much was his visualization and wrapping around what you said, the certainty. And when you visualize what your plan is, you want to visualize what are the results, what do you want? And so I think about what is the result and when you put it with a result, that gives you some certainty so you move forward. And that’s how he broke the four-minute mile. And that’s what I try to do when I’m in a challenge.

I try to think about what’s the result and why. I try to look at why do I really want this. Because if I’m clear on the why usually the how will come. Earlier in my life, I focused on how was I going to do that. Sometimes you just don’t know how but if you clear on why you want it, why you’re convicted, and why you want it, that has helped me to be more successful than jumping out how I’m going to do it. When you get convicted on why you want this, Winifred, why you want it, that has helped me to be more successful than first thinking about the how. Get the why down and then the how will come.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, the how often presents itself if you’ve created the space in your mind to be open to the outcome. Sometimes we get so tunnel vision on the how that we ignore a better how. We’re not even open to it. You don’t even notice it. It’s right in front of our noses.

Winifred Bragg:

It’s right in front of your noses. But you were so into making your how work that you didn’t realize it was a simple how right here.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. That has been a persistent lesson along with things like gratitude and prioritizing self-care and all these things you’re talking about because really the journey to business growth is one of personal growth at end of the day. There’s no way you can do this or really succeed without going on that personal growth journey. I’m absolutely convinced of it.

Winifred Bragg:

You cannot do it without personal growth. And you have to acknowledge that that’s an area where you are weak and you have to lift the weights and make it strong, just like you did in the weight room. You have to say this muscle is weak. And what I found is faith. Faith is like a muscle and the more you use it, the stronger it would become. So sometimes you just got to keep the faith and keep using it and that will get stronger just like when you’re lifting a weight. But it is about personal growth, and as you grow personally, then you can grow professionally.

Melinda Wittstock:

So you mentioned that your surname Bragg, there’s certain letters that stand for different things, right? Let’s just go through them and recap and break down your name. The B again in Bragg is?

Winifred Bragg:

Is Behave as if. So you want to behave. Say if someone says they aspire to be a podcaster like you, then they need to study what are you doing. Look and model greatness. You have some strategies that you’ve done. The reason you have 745 episodes. So to another woman who wants to have a podcast, not trying to give you competition, but to get one a podcast, look at what you’ve done. Consider maybe having you as a mentor, a coach to see what does she do, how does she make it? Behave as if, and that’s when I say, “Get up in the morning starting your day with confidence. That’s the B. Visualization because there’s something in our brain called the reticular activating system and it’s a filter. When we wake up in the morning, we have 90,000 thoughts, most of them negative. But the filter in our brain, the reticular activating system, filters out things. If you stay positive, will you move toward opportunities?

Otherwise, if you dwell on why I can’t do it, the mindset thing, I can’t do it, then you are going to be moved toward obstacles. So you want to put in positivity. That’s why affirmations and thinking positive really matters because then your brain will try to move you toward what you want and it will get you opportunities rather than obstacles. So that’s the B. The R stands for Resist the urge to. You’ve got to resist the urge to quit and complain because as an entrepreneur, a businesswoman, there’s always going to be, as you say, another woman or another person pulling you down. But you can’t quit. You have to stay the course. You have to continue to lift those weights. And I say we don’t grow until we learn how to work our discomfort zone. People say you got to get out of your comfort zone.

Yes. I hate to say it, but when we are in those painful times, that’s when we learn the most, when we are challenged. Through that pain, if you study it and study it, that’s how people really create great businesses by looking at what pain someone else had and solving that pain. So Resist the urge to is what the R stands for. A stands for, Accept no limitation. Stop saying, “Well, my family was poor. My family was this, my family was this. I didn’t finish college. I didn’t do that.” Accept no limitation. For everything that you say you don’t have, the account is examples of someone else who didn’t have it. They accepted no limitation and what did they do? They moved on. The first G stands for Grow your gift. A lot of times we use our skills to start businesses but sometimes you have a gift, just a natural gift that you could grow that is a great opportunity or a great thing for a business.

I once coached a young woman who was majored, had a degree in marketing but she wasn’t moving anywhere, wasn’t doing anything. But what she really loved was graphic arts. That was just her hobby, something she did. She then put the graphic arts into the marketing and now she has a successful business doing websites and graphic designs for other people. So people say, “Well what is my gift, Winifred? How do you know?” You can know it by what are people always coming to you and asking you for. What are people saying? “Oh, I’m going to a great dance tonight. How does this look? Help me coordinate my outfits.” Maybe that says you are good in fashion design. Maybe you’re good in interior design. So Grow your gift is the first G and the second G is Gratitude.

Melinda Wittstock:

I love the gift of your name and how you’ve broken it down. This is a blueprint for everyone listening that if we all just consistently followed this, it just leads to outside success and happiness. There’s no question about it. Winifred, I want to make sure people know how to find you and work with you and all the amazing things that you’re doing.

Winifred Bragg:

They can find me at thebraggfactor.com is my website and there they can sign up to get free resources. I have a success tool kit on there that’s free. They can get on my mailing list and they can also go to YouTube and put in the Bragg Factor. And every Tuesday I’m going to give entrepreneurs and business people A Tip for a Terrific Tuesday. Monday is up to you to stay motivated but by Tuesday you come to my YouTube, the Bragg Factor and Winifred’s going to give you a Tip for a Terrific Tuesday. And that’s how they can find me and on there you’ll see my email. But if I give you too many things you won’t remember. But you can remember thebraggfactor.com and that will get you to whatever I have and I have books and whatever. And you’ll find all about that on my website.

Melinda Wittstock:

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for being so inspiring, and putting on your wings, and flying with us today.

Winifred Bragg:

I enjoyed the flight and now we are having a safe landing, I hope.

Melinda Wittstock:

One hundred percent. Thank you so much, Winifred.

Winifred Bragg:

Thank you.