Mindset Isn’t Enough: The Shift That Transformed My Business and My Life

Aug 18
3 min read

By Nicole Lewis-Keeber MSW LCSW Business Therapist

The biggest mindset shift of my career was realizing that mindset on its own isn’t always enough.

That might sound strange coming from someone who has coached hundreds of entrepreneurs. But here’s the truth: what many people label as a “mindset block” is often something deeper. And you can’t “mindset” your way out of trauma.

This shift didn’t come to me overnight. As a business therapist and licensed clinical social worker, I was already aware of how past wounds show up in our present. But when I began working with entrepreneurs and founders, I noticed something consistent: smart, driven people would hit an invisible wall in their business, and no matter how many affirmations, productivity hacks, or mindset strategies they used they stayed stuck.

They thought they had a mindset problem.

What they had was an unrecognized trauma pattern playing out in their business.

And I knew it intimately, because I saw it in myself too.

In my own business journey, I found myself exhausted, overextended, and teetering on the edge of burnout. I kept telling myself I just needed to shift my mindset, be more grateful, hustle smarter. But I wasn’t facing a mindset problem—I was caught in a nervous system loop rooted in early trauma. The more I tried to override it with surface-level tools, the worse it got.

That’s when everything changed.

I began asking a different question: Is this a mindset issue, or is this a trauma response?

That single question became my anchor. It allowed me to stop gaslighting myself and start offering myself care, compassion, and the right tools for the job.

This is now the foundation of my work.

As the founder of Love Your Business School and author of How to Love Your Business, I teach entrepreneurs to identify and heal the emotional undercurrents shaping their business decisions. We explore how early life experiences of neglect, pressure to succeed, dysfunctional family systems, and even subtle emotional wounds can create distorted beliefs around money, visibility, leadership, and safety.

Most importantly, I guide clients to develop what I call an Emotional Sustainability Plan™—a blueprint for running a business that honors your nervous system as much as your revenue stream. This includes identifying personal patterns, setting boundaries that actually stick, and creating business structures that support not exploit your energy.

Because let’s face it: entrepreneurship is emotionally intense. I also say starting a business is a high dive into personal development whether you like it or not. It stretches every part of us. And if we don’t build in emotional sustainability from the beginning, we risk building businesses that replicate the very systems that hurt us.

The shift from “fix your mindset” to “understand your trauma” is liberating. It offers a deeper kind of self-trust. It makes space for complexity. And it allows people to stop fighting themselves and start healing.

Mindset has its place. But it’s not a magic wand. When we mislabel trauma as a mindset issue, we blame ourselves for not “trying hard enough,” and we miss the opportunity to do the deeper work that actually creates transformation.

My mission is to help business owners build companies they don’t have to recover from.

When we bring emotional sustainability into business strategy, everything changes—creativity returns, relationships deepen, and leadership becomes more grounded and generative.

The most powerful shift isn’t thinking differently.

It’s learning to treat yourself like you matter.

And that’s not mindset. That’s healing.

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