Are you ready to step into the mindset of a 7-figure CEO?

In this episode, I break down the key differences between running a 6-figure and a 7-figure business, and what it really takes to make that leap.

I’ll also share insights about the different seasons of business, how each requires a unique approach, and why the hustle phase is not something to skip.

Whether you’re just starting out or looking to scale, this episode is packed with lessons on becoming the CEO you aspire to be.

Tune in now!

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh:

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Happy Tuesday if you are tuning in live. I had an amazing weekend this last weekend. It was so fun. It was such a representation of having it all when I get to do so many cool things. On Friday night, I got to go to an event here in Austin that was a retreat of a friend of mine for female entrepreneurs. And I was on a panel with another good friend of mine. And then the next day I had a CrossFit competition and then it was my birthday and I got to spend some great time with my family and some of my best friends. It was just a really beautiful weekend.

And at this event on Friday, it was a panel where I was just asked a bunch of questions, which is one of my favorite ways to speak because I love being able to respond to questions. And I also love hearing the questions that people ask and the founder of the event, you know, the questions that she wanted to ask. And so it was really fun. I love it. I could literally do those conversational type of panels, podcasts, whatever for hours because you just go so deep and just have such a good conversation. And it’s so important as entrepreneurs and you know female entrepreneurs, but all entrepreneurs too have opportunities like that and multiple times in the questions I found myself really making sure that I was very honest and representative of the true journey of entrepreneurship and being a mom and an entrepreneur and I think my answer to like three questions was It’s messy. Like I will not sit up here and tell you that I have everything figured out perfectly. Like that is not the game. So anyways, I’m kind of inspired from that to talk about this topic. It’s also come up in a few different ways and people I’ve coached or conversations I’ve had. And so I felt like this could be a good podcast episode.

And that is really breaking down the difference between a six figure CEO or below six figures, but a CEO from zero to six figures and a seven figure plus CEO. And I want to be really clear here. I think a lot of people teach this in a way that like one is good and one is bad. And I think that both of these CEOs require completely different versions of somebody. And I think as a CEO, you have to go through the initiations from zero to six figures to multiple six figures into a seven figure CEO, because there’s so much learning and maturing and wisdom and experience that has to happen during that time to set you up to be a seven-figure CEO. And so it’s not that one has more than the other or is good and the other is bad or whatever. You know, I know one has a bigger revenue number But honestly, what it takes to be a six figure CEO takes a completely different CEO than what it takes to be a seven figure CEO. And sometimes in those beginning days, like you just don’t have the capacity to understand how to become that person. 

Now, what I have seen often,is because it takes a completely different version of that person from six to seven figures, a lot of times CEOs hold themselves back at the seven-figure level because they continue to operate as a six-figure CEO. Again, neither are good or bad. They just require different things. And so I’ve had conversations a lot over the last few months with multiple six-figure CEOs who I’ve been coaching or in whatever capacity and a lot of it has been, you you know, we really have to shift your beliefs, the way you see yourself, the way you show up, the way you spend your time and your energy into a seven-figure CEO now in order for you to become that seven-figure CEO. So I want to break that down.

A six-figure CEO and the season of business that that is in calls for a lot more hustle, a lot more bootstrapping. Obviously, the more beginning you are in your business, the more and I think more this is required. And I think as you continue to grow your business and you go from you know hundred k a year to multiple six figures and you get closer to that seven figure than this kind of goes down and diminishes but in the beginning of business and all the way up you know through multiple six figures. You are hustling. And you are having to bootstrap and figure things out and probably do things that are not fully your zone of genius. And you’re having to do things like maybe write copy or figure out some tech, or maybe it’s run your ads for the first time or respond to customer service emails. like That is a season of business that really is necessary in the beginning. And I always say you have to earn the right not to hustle. And all these people and and you know influencers out there shit on hustling but there’s a season for it and you earn the right to not have to do that anymore as you grow your business. It is normal that that is your reality in the beginning zero to six figure to multiple six figure stage. 

You’re also probably not out of your business yet. You are, again, doing things in the day-to-day that are required for your business to operate. you are not into that level of a CEO yet where your company runs without you and you have that freedom. That has to be earned through building up a business, building up process, building up a team, building up a foundation, that then that can be your reality. And so the version of you in a six-figure CEO is one of those CEOs who jumps in to fix things, who’s involved in the day-to-day, who may have to work sometimes late nights, who is in that more hustle grind phase. And again, as you grow in this stage, that gets less and less, but that’s the reality.

So when you look at the version of someone who does that, they have to be willing to sacrifice time and energy doing things that maybe are not ideal, but they know it’s for a bigger picture. Also, this CEO typically is much more able to see like the day to day and to see like, okay, this is what’s coming next month and doesn’t have as much of a zoomed out vision or experience creating a bigger vision or thinking bigger picture. When I coach CEOs who are in the six figure multiple six figure stage, I notice that they’re thinking a lot of times is more so short term it is it is very much and it makes sense right because their actions and the way that they spend their time and energy is still in the day to day of the business so they’re not able to switch their brain to thinking you more bigger picture and being able to see that bigger picture and see that longer game and so They very much live in the day-to-day week by week versus here’s what we’re doing three months from now, six months from now, 12 months from now, and it makes sense. Again, not a good or bad thing. It makes sense because in this stage, you’re still figuring out what works. You are trying a bunch of things and you are getting feedback on like, oh, that didn’t work. Okay, that did. Let’s do more of that. Oh, that failed.

And I feel that that experience is so critical for what I’m going to say next, which is a six figure CEO I oftentimes find has less maturity when it comes to business. And let me explain what I mean by this. You have to go through experiences where it was very challenging to build the capacity and the maturity to handle the bigger problems. So if I look back at myself as when I had a business size, six, you know, six figures, multiple six figures, I was very much the CEO, hustling, working late nights, doing things i I didn’t want to do, but I was willing to do it because that’s what I needed to do to grow my business. I didn’t have the vision of the million dollar company. I didn’t know What I was gonna do. I didn’t have the five-year plan or any of those things. I was very much living the day by day also when something happened that Today if it were to happen is like a very small problem to me back.

Then it could have been like shattered my week like I was so stressed over it and here’s why because I never handled it before so I had never had to handle things like team member quitting last minute or client not paying and a cash flow issue or whatever, the things that come up in business that cause that stress for the CEO, which usually stems from finances and cash or team and delivery and capacity and energy, right? Causes burnout, causes all those things. You have to go through those situations to build the capacity to handle them. So a lot of CEOs in this phase don’t have that maturity, that experience, that wisdom that can only come from having those experiences. Now I have something that happens, team member quits, client doesn’t pay invoice, cash flow. I’m like, we got it. You know, I know how to handle this because I’ve done it dozens and dozens of times. I built the capacity that can only come from experience.

I think this is also why a lot of six figure CEOs have a little bit more, again, day by day frantic, chaotic, overwhelmed energy because that’s the reality they’re living in. Now here’s the thing. Again, I want to really make sure I’m clear on this. There is nothing wrong with being in that season. If I say you might have less maturity or more chaotic energy, it’s like you have to be there to grow the capacity for the more grounded person. When you make the transition to seven figures, you literally cannot be that person anymore and have a seven-figure business. Because if you are a CEO with a seven-figure, multi-seven-figure business and you’re operating out of chaos overwhelm, something happens and you lose it and you’re like only living flying by the seat of your pants day by day. Can you I mean, people do it. People have seven figure businesses like that. But what happens is it blows up because they get completely burnt out. They have you know team issues. like Everything’s always on fire. It’s completely chaotic.

So to make that transition from six to seven figures, and this is why I love entrepreneurship because it is like the biggest personal development journey you could ever go on. You have to become a different person. You have to completely dismantle that version of you who was living day by day, who was chaotic, who was more overwhelmed, who was hustling, who was working the late nights, who was not looking at the bigger picture, who was doing so much more than being. And you have to understand that version of you was necessary for that season of success in your business. Because the same thing I could say, which is you can’t be a seven figure CEO and be that version of you. You also probably couldn’t be a very good six figure CEO and be like a seven figure CEO who’s like, well, I’m not going to do anything. I want my business to run without me.

And I’m not willing to step into the data day to day. I’m not willing to hustle. I’m not willing to grind. I’m not willing to look at this week and figure out what we’re going to do. Unless you have huge capital, that’s not going to work. You have to be able to be that six figure CEO who’s in that state. And then you have to completely dismantle that person and create new beliefs and become a new person, a completely different person. And this is why when I look back at myself five, six years ago, I was a completely different person, completely different. How I operated, how I spent my time, how I thought, how I held myself, my energy, my capacity, all of it.

And the only way I’m able to get to where I am today is through the experience and learning. A seven-figure CEO is someone who is typically with a healthy business and a sustainable long-term business, much more grounded, can see the long game, much more stable, much more able to like, something comes their way and they handle it calmly because they’ve done it a million times because they’ve had so many things that have happened that have built that wisdom.

A seven-figure CEO immensely values their time and energy. And here’s why. It’s not just because they’re so busy. It’s not just because they don’t want to work. It’s because the capacity of your energy and your brain that is required in a seven-figure or multi seven-figure company is so much more than six figures because the problems that come across your desk when you have a team of 15, 20 plus people and huge you know client rosters, I’m speaking to myself, obviously businesses are different, but when you have a company at that size, multimillion dollars a year, the problems are so much larger, so therefore your capacity to hold them has to be bigger, which is why you have to value your time and energy differently than when you’re at six figures or below. And so a seven-figure CEO, a healthy seven-figure CEO who’s not about to blow up their business tomorrow or burn out, it shows up much more stable, much more grounded, and they are able to do that because they’re out of the day-to-day of their business, because they value and protect their time and energy fiercely. 

They also have a very Very good vision of the bigger picture and you must have that vision of the bigger picture because if you didn’t when something happens this week or this month that puts you in a rough season You wouldn’t be able to get through it because you’d think that’s your reality But when you could see the bigger picture and you understand so deeply that Business is about seasons and ebbs and flows into good and bad seasons or I don’t even like using the word good and bad normal seasons of contraction and retraction when you understand that and you can see the bigger picture, you can handle the tougher season so much more grounded and easier. So a seven-figure CEO, and I see this with clients too, like when I work with a CEO who’s made seven figures or more, their energy is completely different.

They are not as reactive. They are much calmer. They can see this like they have a different energy because you have to. You cannot hold a seven-figure company in the energy of a CEO at the beginning. because You just can’t. They see that long game. They play the long game. They take the hits. They take the punches that come and they take the big wins. They spend probably a lot of their time when you’re at seven figures with the exception of maybe some companies, but yeah a lot of your time goes into team. It goes into investing in the resources, both time, energy, and money that support you in not having to be a part of the day-to-day of your business. And so these two CEOs are completely different people.

When I’m coaching and I see I have clients, I have girls in my mastermind at this multiple six figure level coming into seven figures this year. I’ve had conversations with them where I’ve literally said, I need you to see yourself as a different version of you. Instead of jumping in and handling that email or jumping in and handling that tech or not having that hard conversation with your team member because you just want to handle it and it’s easier for you to do that. That’s the bootstrapped six figure version of you. You need to start making decisions from the place of I’m making a million dollars a year. And so what do I need to shift?

How do I need to show up? How do I protect my time, protect my energy? How do I play the long game? How do I continue to lay a solid foundation to then be able to see where I’m at in a year from now? Look at my year from now goals and have today’s actions contribute to that. So the reason I wanted to do this is to get you thinking, number one, I want to normalize that beginning stage of business. Like if you’re in the hustle bootstrap phase, it is a season. It is normal. You’re not doing anything wrong. I think people glorify having a business that runs for you and works for you. And unless you have massive capital to start your business, that’s not a reality until you’ve earned that.

And the second thing is I want to get you thinking about becoming the future CEO before it’s already here. I’ve had that this conversation with my mastermind girls and people I coach at this level is you have to start making decisions as if it’s already true that you’ve made the million dollars this year like in everything. How would she show up in that conversation? How would she respond to that? What decisions would she make? How would you spend her time? Because you can’t have that business until you become that CEO. All right, everybody. That’s what I have for you today. The difference between the two and really sitting with no matter where you’re at in your business.

Are you showing up as the CEO of your future company in the best way you can? Again, brand new in business can’t be like, well, I’m a seven-figure CEO today. But you can start to practice them what you believe a seven-figure CEO would be acting like and responding like. And that’s the beautiful thing about it is you don’t get there and learn that without doing it. It’s such a journey of growth and development and wisdom and evolving and it’s why I just love entrepreneurship because you will personally grow so quickly in this game if you are willing to constantly reimagine the way that you should be showing up and the way that you you could show up to serve your business in the best possible way. Thank you so much for tuning in. I will talk to you guys on Thursday.