There I was, standing in my closet, staring at a pair of candy-apple-red stilettos covered in rhinestones. 4.5 inches of pure terror.
My quartet was gearing up for a big singing competition, and we had this fierce, head-turning costume lined up, red tops paired with sleek leather-look Spanx. It was a mix of sass and class. But we needed shoes. After what felt like hours of online searching, I found THE shoe. The rhinestones practically screamed, "Look at me!" and the red was the exact shade I'd been hunting for.
But the heel? 4.5 inches tall. And while I've worn plenty of heels in my life, nothing that high.
I slipped them on and instantly thought, "Oh no, there's no way I can walk on stage in these, let alone stand and sing!" I felt like Bambi on ice. My first instinct was to send them back.
But something inside me whispered, "Try again."
So I did. Day after day, I strapped those red stilettos on and practiced walking around the house. Slowly, the wobble disappeared. After a few weeks, I could walk and look straight ahead instead of staring at the floor.
Then came the real test: standing and singing in them. The first time was rough, I was so focused on not tipping over that my singing suffered. But I kept at it, practicing over and over until I could stand tall, walk confidently, and sing my heart out in those heels.
Conquering those stilettos became so much more than learning to walk in shoes. It was a confidence booster like no other. Those red heels woke up a part of me that was ready to push past fears and stay outside my comfort zone, even when everything inside me wanted to quit.
There was a voice in my head telling me to give up, to take the easy way out. But I knew I had to keep going and push through what I call the "Fear Zone", that uncomfortable space where everything feels shaky and uncertainty tries to pull you back.
And on the other side of that Fear Zone? That's where real growth begins.
This complete guide to moving from your comfort zone to the BIG Zone will show you exactly what's happening inside your brain when you feel stuck, why your subconscious fights change even when you want it, and the specific brain science and mindset mastery techniques that will carry you through every zone on your journey. In LIVE BIG, I teach that understanding your brain is the key to unlocking everything else, and by the end of this article, you'll understand yours in a whole new way.
Table of Contents
The Four Zones Every Entrepreneur Moves Through
In LIVE BIG, I describe four distinct zones that every entrepreneur moves through on the journey to building something extraordinary. Understanding these zones is essential because when you can name where you are, you can navigate forward with intention instead of fear.
The Comfort Zone. This is the warm, cozy place where everything feels familiar. Your brain loves it here because it's safe and efficient. But here's the truth: nothing grows in the Comfort Zone. It's where dreams go to collect dust.
The Fear Zone. The moment you step outside your Comfort Zone, fear shows up. That little voice inside your head starts whispering, "I'm not cut out for this. This is too much work. Why does everything have to be so hard?" Every instinct wants to pull you back to safety. This is where most people retreat.
The Learning Zone. If you stay in the Fear Zone long enough, if you keep putting one foot in front of the other despite the discomfort, you enter the Learning Zone. This is where skills develop, confidence builds, and new neural pathways form. It's not comfortable, but it's exciting.
The BIG Zone. This is the promised land. You're consistently operating at full potential, living a life filled with joy and purpose. Your behaviors are aligned with your outcomes. Your mindset supports your ambitions. And fear? It still shows up, but it no longer has the power to stop you.
The journey from Comfort Zone to BIG Zone isn't a straight line. It's more like a spiral, you'll pass through fear and learning multiple times as you tackle bigger challenges. But each time you complete the cycle, you expand your capacity. Your Comfort Zone gets bigger. Your tolerance for discomfort grows. And your BIG Zone becomes your new normal.
Stacey Says: "Stepping outside your comfort zone isn't easy. But it's a secret ingredient to unleashing your inner rockstar and blossoming into your most powerful self."
Why Your Brain Loves Comfort Zones (But Hates Achievement)
Your brain is the most powerful organ in your body, a 3-pound universe of complexity packed inside your skull. It conducts a full orchestra of organs, runs your immune system, and coordinates every movement you make. But when it comes to achievement, your brain can be your own worst enemy.
Why? Because your brain prioritizes two things above all else:
Safety. Your brain's number one job is to keep you safe, physically, emotionally, and mentally. It's wired to remember every close call and avoid anything that feels risky. Even if that risk isn't real.
Efficiency. Your brain juggles a million tasks every second. To save energy, it loves familiar routines and ingrained habits. It has an "autopilot" mode that conserves energy for daily life.
These priorities are excellent for survival. But they create two massive problems for achievement:
The Comfort Zone Trap. Your brain's focus on safety makes change feel threatening. Anything new gets flagged as a potential risk. This is why starting a business triggers fear, or why a delicious dessert might win out over a healthy salad, your brain craves the familiar "safe" option.
The Habit Monster. Your brain relies heavily on ingrained habits for efficiency. This is great for brushing your teeth but terrible when you're trying to break a bad habit or build a new one. The familiar autopilot keeps pulling you back.
The bottom line: unlocking your best potential requires a little reprogramming. And the key to that reprogramming lies in understanding the two most powerful characters living inside your brain.
Meet the Tiger and the Elephant: Your Brain's Power Players
In LIVE BIG, I use a metaphor that makes brain science tangible and unforgettable. Picture yourself standing at the edge of a lush jungle, the intricate landscape of your mind.
The Tiger is your conscious mind. It's logical, analytical, and ambitious. This is the voice that says, "I will LIVE BIG! I'm ready to create the business I want and the life I deserve!" Your tiger sets bold goals, crunches numbers, and charts the most strategic path forward. It holds a spotlight that illuminates what's right in front of you.
The Elephant is your subconscious mind. It's the strongest creature in the land, a giant powerhouse of intuition, habit, and deeply ingrained beliefs. It runs on emotions, routines, and stored experiences. While your tiger is consciously planning a product expansion, your elephant is already making decisions based on past experiences and emotional triggers.
Here's the critical fact: research suggests that your subconscious mind controls roughly 95% of your behaviors and decisions. Your elephant is running the show, whether you realize it or not.
The elephant is also a creature of habit. It loves routine and autopilot. Think about brushing your teeth, do you really need brain energy for that? But this preference for routine becomes a double-edged sword when you're trying to build new habits or break old ones. The elephant resists change, even when change is exactly what you need.
And because your elephant is so much stronger than your tiger, it can easily trample your tiger's ambition.
But here's the beautiful truth: once you understand the elephant's power, you can transform it into your greatest ally. Imagine your tiger as the driver, setting the direction, and your elephant as the powerful engine propelling you forward. Together, they're unstoppable.
"Your mind is a garden, your thoughts are the seeds. You can grow flowers or you can grow weeds." Unknown
Neural Coherence: When Your Brain Works Like a Symphony
When I was a kid and the summer Olympics came on, my mom was glued to the TV watching synchronized swimming. I remember those women in matching caps performing in perfect unison, creating a beautiful water ballet.
Now imagine what would happen if the neurons inside your head could work together in perfect harmony, like synchronized swimmers. That's the magic of neural coherence, when your brain waves synchronize, creating a unified rhythm that allows your tiger and elephant to work together seamlessly.
In neural coherence, your tiger's spotlight illuminates the details right in front of you, while your elephant's massive map provides the big picture. You see how everything connects. It's like having a built-in GPS for life.
The superpowers of neural coherence are extraordinary:
Laser focus. You filter out distractions like a boss, no more constant ping of notifications derailing your flow.
Creativity explosion. Information flows freely between conscious and subconscious. You're brimming with fresh ideas.
Emotional mastery. You manage emotions effectively, riding the waves instead of getting tossed around.
Intuition amplification. Your GodRod, your inner knowing, gets stronger and clearer.
When you're in neural coherence, every thought and action is aligned. You navigate challenges, focus intensely, and take strategic actions without second-guessing. You're not fighting the current, you're flowing with it.
Cognitive Dissonance: The Inner Battle That Keeps You Stuck
Here's the kicker: the tiger and the elephant don't always see eye to eye. Your tiger craves change and adventure, it wants to hike up the mountain. Meanwhile, your elephant sees the steep climb and says, "No way!"
This inner clash is cognitive dissonance. It's when your conscious mind is all about progress while your subconscious clings to routine. It's that push-and-pull between wanting more and staying safe.
And guess who usually wins? The elephant. Because it's the strongest animal in the land.
When you try something new, your subconscious throws doubts, fears, and roadblocks into your path. You get frustrated. The goal feels impossible. You retreat to your Comfort Zone, letting the elephant win.
This is exactly what happens in the Fear Zone. Your tiger is charging forward, but your elephant is slamming on the brakes. And if you don't understand what's happening, you'll interpret the discomfort as a sign that you should stop, when it's actually a sign that you're growing.
According to Psychology Today, neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to change and adapt throughout life, means that cognitive dissonance doesn't have to be permanent. By consistently challenging your subconscious patterns, you can literally reshape the neural highways in your brain, creating new default responses that support your goals instead of sabotaging them.
Limiting Beliefs: The Invisible Cage
Your elephant stores everything: memories, experiences, learned behaviors. It creates a huge reservoir of information that influences your daily life without your conscious awareness. And sometimes, what it stores are limiting beliefs, deeply ingrained assumptions about what you're capable of.
Where do limiting beliefs come from?
Family and upbringing. The attitudes and beliefs of your parents play a huge role in shaping how you see yourself and the world.
Societal influences. Cultural norms can plant seeds about what's "possible" or "acceptable," limiting your vision.
Personal experiences. Past failures, or even a single traumatic event, can leave you believing you're not capable.
Education and media. Messages about intelligence, beauty, and what defines success can reinforce limiting beliefs.
Think of limiting beliefs like sunglasses permanently fused to your face, tinting your vision through a specific color scheme. Everything you see is filtered through those beliefs.
In LIVE BIG, I share the cautionary tale of lottery winners to illustrate this. Research shows that most lottery winners end up bankrupt within a few years. Why? Because their external reality (sudden wealth) doesn't match their internal beliefs about themselves (their sense of self-worth and financial identity). Their subconscious mind, in a twisted attempt to restore balance, self-sabotages through reckless spending and poor decisions.
Limiting beliefs can manifest as "I'm not good enough," "Failure is a sign of weakness," or "Money is the root of all evil." Until you identify and dismantle them, you'll keep repeating the same patterns.
The good news? Limiting beliefs are not set in stone. Here's how to rewrite them:
Shine a light. Pay attention to your self-talk. What stories are you telling yourself about what you're capable of?
Challenge the narrative. Ask yourself, "Is this really true? Is there any evidence to support it?"
Replace and reinforce. Swap limiting beliefs for empowering ones. Create affirmations that align with your new beliefs, write them down and say them out loud daily.
Taming Grumpy Greg: Your Inner Critic
Let me introduce another character in your brain jungle, the inner critic. I call him "Grumpy Greg," and he specializes in limiting beliefs. Picture him sitting in a cage on top of your right shoulder. When the cage is locked, Grumpy Greg is harmless.
But when your elephant is running the show on autopilot, it tends to leave the cage door wide open. Suddenly, you're hit with waves of negativity, and achieving your goals feels impossible.
Here's how to keep Grumpy Greg in his cage:
Catch him in the act. The first step is awareness. Notice when those negative thoughts creep in. Visualize Grumpy Greg getting back in his cage, and lock the door.
Challenge the narrative. Don't accept limiting beliefs as truth. Question them. Is there evidence? Probably not, it's usually fear masquerading as fact.
"I am done with that." This is a powerful strategy I learned from John Assaraf. Once you identify a negative thought, declare "I am done with that!" with conviction, stuffing Grumpy Greg back in his cage and slamming the door.
Affirm your power. Replace "I can't" with "I'm learning." Shift "I don't deserve it" to "I am worthy of abundance." These affirmations reprogram your subconscious over time.
Progress, not perfection. There will be slip-ups. Grumpy Greg will escape sometimes. That's okay. Acknowledge he's out, grab him, stuff him back in, lock the door, and give yourself grace.
"You are the zookeeper of your incredible brain. Now that you're aware of your tiger, your elephant, and Grumpy Greg, you hold the key to creating the life you've always dreamed of."
What Is the Comfort Zone to BIG Zone Journey?
What are the four zones entrepreneurs move through on the path to success?
The comfort zone to BIG Zone journey describes the four distinct phases entrepreneurs move through as they grow, as taught by Stacey St. John in LIVE BIG. The Comfort Zone is where routines feel safe but growth stalls. The Fear Zone appears the moment you step outside that comfort, bringing self-doubt, anxiety, and the temptation to retreat. The Learning Zone is where you develop new skills, build confidence, and form new neural pathways through consistent practice. The BIG Zone is where you operate at full potential, your behaviors are aligned with your outcomes, fear no longer controls your decisions, and you live with purpose, joy, and momentum. This journey is not linear; entrepreneurs cycle through these zones repeatedly as they tackle larger challenges, expanding their capacity each time. Understanding which zone you're in helps you respond with the right tools instead of retreating to comfort.
What Is Neuroplasticity and How Can Entrepreneurs Use It?
How does neuroplasticity help entrepreneurs rewire their brains for success?
Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to form new neural connections and reorganize existing pathways throughout life, not just during childhood. For entrepreneurs, this means that limiting beliefs, fear responses, and unproductive habits are not permanent, they can be actively rewired through consistent, deliberate practice. As Psychology Today explains, the brain is a dynamic organ that continues to change throughout the lifespan, responding to experience by reorganizing its connections. Entrepreneurs can harness neuroplasticity by practicing daily brain exercises such as visualization, affirmations, gratitude practices, and mindfulness meditation. Each repetition strengthens the new neural pathways while weakening the old ones. Stacey St. John's LIVE BIG framework includes specific brain exercises, Power Breaths, the Gratitude Dial, Cloud 9, and the Experience Coin, designed to leverage neuroplasticity and help entrepreneurs move from their Comfort Zone to the BIG Zone by rewiring their default thought patterns for confidence, courage, and clarity.
Brain Exercises for Moving Through the Zones
The brain exercises I teach in LIVE BIG aren't just theory, they're practical tools I use every single day. Here are three of my favorites for moving through the zones:
The Gratitude Dial
Take six Power Breaths. Then picture a dial in the center of your chest, like the dial on a stove burner. This is your Gratitude Dial, and it controls the intensity of an imaginary Gratitude Flame burning inside you.
Think of something you're deeply grateful for. As you focus on that feeling, imagine turning the dial clockwise. Feel the Gratitude Flame grow bigger and brighter.
Spend several minutes fully immersed in gratitude. When you focus on what you're thankful for, you activate powerful brain chemicals. The more you train your brain to find things to be grateful for, the easier it becomes, just like turning your Gratitude Dial. No matter what challenges life throws your way, gratitude is a game-changer that refocuses your thinking and builds resilience.
Cloud 9
Set a timer for nine minutes. Close your eyes. Take six Power Breaths. Then imagine yourself gently sinking into a big, fluffy white cloud, softer than the plushest marshmallow. Take flight, feel the weightlessness, and let go of everything weighing you down.
Drift over sparkling oceans, soar above mountains, or visit that dream vacation spot. Let your mind wander wherever it wants to go. When your nine minutes are up, gently come back and jot down anything interesting in your journal.
When you let your brain run wild with creativity and wonder, it builds brand-new neural pathways. These pathways allow you to develop fresh behaviors. The more you do these nine-minute brain workouts, the more your brain adapts and grows.
The Switch Gears Exercise
Stand tall. Smile. Feel the energy of positivity. Now switch to sadness, notice what happens in your body. Switch to anger, feel the tension. Now switch to pure elation, picture yourself achieving a major goal.
You just proved you can shift from negative to positive emotions on command. This exercise shows you're not stuck on an emotional rollercoaster. You're the driver. The key is staying aware and actively choosing where your emotions go.
Common Mistakes That Keep You Stuck in the Comfort Zone
Here are the patterns I see most often in entrepreneurs who can't seem to break through:
Mistaking the Fear Zone for a dead end. The discomfort of the Fear Zone feels like a warning sign. But it's not. It's a growth sign. When everything feels shaky and uncertain, that's exactly when you're on the verge of your biggest breakthrough.
Waiting to "feel ready." You will never feel ready for a leap. Readiness comes from action, not from waiting. As I say in LIVE BIG: Commit first. Be the person. Do the things. The confidence follows the action, it doesn't precede it.
Letting Grumpy Greg run the show. If you're not actively monitoring your inner dialogue, your inner critic will make all your decisions. Awareness is the antidote. Catch the negative thought, challenge it, replace it, and move on.
Ignoring the elephant. Your conscious mind might be screaming "CHARGE!" while your subconscious is quietly steering you back to comfort. You can't outrun your elephant. You have to understand it, befriend it, and redirect it, through brain exercises, affirmations, and consistent new experiences.
Trying to skip the Learning Zone. Some entrepreneurs want to jump from Comfort Zone to BIG Zone overnight. But the Learning Zone is where skills are built, neural pathways are formed, and real confidence develops. It's not a shortcut, it's the path.
As Josh Kaufman explains in The Personal MBA, you can go from novice to competent in a new skill with approximately 20 hours of focused practice. That's just 45 minutes a day for a month. The Learning Zone isn't a prison, it's a launchpad.
For the Skeptics: The Science Behind the Journey
I know this might sound a little "out there." Talking to your inner elephant? Locking up an imaginary gorilla named Greg? Dialing up a gratitude flame in your chest?
But here's the thing: the more you tune into these exercises, even if they feel strange at first, the stronger and more confident you'll become in making decisions that truly serve you.
The science of neuroplasticity is robust and well-established. As Psychology Today reports, the brain is a dynamic organ that can change its design throughout life. Well-known research on London taxi drivers, for example, found that memorizing complex city routes actually changed the structure of their hippocampus, the brain's memory center.
Your brain isn't fixed. It's clay. And every thought you think, every exercise you practice, and every new behavior you repeat is reshaping that clay.
John Assaraf, the Brain Whisperer whose teachings changed my own life, talks about the brain as the world's most powerful computer. If you want different outputs, you have to feed it different inputs. That simple analogy resonated deeply with me, and I felt like it unlocked a hidden door.
The Tiger and Elephant metaphor from LIVE BIG makes this brain science tangible and actionable. You don't need a neuroscience degree to rewire your brain. You just need awareness, consistency, and the willingness to practice.
Stepping Into Your BIG Zone
Remember those red stilettos? The 4.5-inch rhinestone-covered shoes that made me feel like Bambi on ice?
I wore them on stage. I walked confidently. I stood tall and sang my heart out. And they became one of my proudest moments, not because of the shoes themselves, but because of what they represented.
Those stilettos taught me that the Comfort Zone is where dreams go to die. The Fear Zone is where courage is born. The Learning Zone is where skills are forged. And the BIG Zone? That's where you live a life that sets your soul on fire.
The journey from comfort zone to BIG Zone isn't about eliminating fear or pretending discomfort doesn't exist. It's about understanding the incredible brain you already have, your tiger, your elephant, Grumpy Greg, and the miraculous neuroplasticity that allows you to reshape all of it, and using that understanding to move forward with intention.
In LIVE BIG, I wrote about this journey because I lived it. I went from being stuck on a hamster wheel, wearing a mask of composure while crumbling inside, to building a $2M real estate portfolio, launching a business that fuels my passion, and becoming a person who pushes through fear as a way of life.
Every single one of those transformations happened because I was willing to step outside my Comfort Zone, stay in the Fear Zone long enough to learn from it, and keep practicing until the Learning Zone became my new normal.
Now it's your turn. Wherever you are right now, Comfort Zone, Fear Zone, Learning Zone, know this: the BIG Zone is waiting for you. And you already have everything inside you to get there.
Lace up your stilettos (metaphorical or otherwise), take a deep breath, and step forward. Brain science and mindset mastery aren't just concepts in a book. They're the keys to unlocking the life you were always meant to live.
The BIG Zone is calling. Answer it.
About Stacey St. John
Stacey St. John is the bestselling author of LIVE BIG: An Entrepreneur's Playbook to Boss Up Your Business, Show Up for Yourself, and Step into Your Dream Life and the founder of LIVE BIG®, the platform helping women entrepreneurs build businesses and lives that light them up.
A Certified Stagnation Assassin (https://stagnationassassins.com) and host of The STR Sisterhood Podcast, Stacey is an advisor to high-performing women and an architect of scalable, life-first businesses. She built the #1 training, mentoring, and mastermind program for women in the short-term rental industry and grew the Female Short-Term Rental Investors community to more than 60,000 members worldwide.
Stacey turned $50K into a $4M real estate portfolio, walked away from her six-figure corporate career at 48, and has been featured in Forbes, named a Wheel of Fortune winner, and recognized as a Guinness World Record holder. She now helps women stop building businesses that drain them and start building businesses that fuel them.
Learn more at LiveBigWithStacey.com.