→ Get your ticket this week to my next Embodied Marketing LIVE event and save with early bird pricing. Join me at this intimate 3-day in-person experience where you’ll leave with your complete 2026 growth strategy and roadmap: get.embodiedmarketing.com/live 

→ Master our proprietary strategy and instantly reach 1,000s of ideal clients, radically reduce ad spend, and amplify the content you’re already making – in just 3 days or less! Join the FREE Ultimate Facebook Ads Challenge here: http://embodiedmarketing.com/challenge

Feeling pulled in a hundred directions and unsure what actually matters in your business?

In this episode, I’m sharing the ONE question I ask myself every week to cut through the noise and immediately see where I should put my energy as a CEO.

Key Takeaways

• How to identify the biggest constraint in your business
• Why you should ignore your to-do list
• Exactly what you should be working on next

This one’s about being intentional instead of reactive in your business!

 ___________________________________

More ways Embodied Marketing can support you:

If you’re ready to hand off your entire marketing strategy (from funnels to ads to copy) and finally get the expert team you can trust, apply here and let’s talk: helpmystrategy.com

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW THE PODCAST!

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of the Embodied Podcast! If this podcast has added value and helped you in your business journey, please head over to Apple Podcast, subscribe to the show, and leave us an honest review.

Your reviews and feedback will not only help us continue to deliver great, helpful content, but it will also help us reach even more amazing entrepreneurs just like you.

♥ LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh:

Clarity on what to work on next is one of the most critical components to success based on where I’m taking my business, based on my goals. What is the biggest constraint right now in my business that I wanna make a big dent on or solve by the end of the year? What are the actions that we need to take?

Let’s go all in on those actions and trust that the outcome is exactly what it’s supposed to be. Because everything that happens in that, what if scenario, something doesn’t work, it doesn’t convert, it leads to the next thing. Embodied CEOs don’t chase trends. They pave the way they lead from within.

Moved by purpose, unshaken by noise. When you are the source, you do not need permission. Welcome to the Emily riff show in gym clothes. That’s what I should call this podcast. Okay. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I just was kidding at the beginning. We’re gonna do some bloopers one day because I hit record in my studio and then I have to like walk around and get in my chair and get set up.

And I always talk to my team and I’m like, what are we talking about today? Welcome to the Emily riff about something show. We’re in gym clothes. What a week, and I got so many incredible messages from you guys from the last podcast episode, which really meant a lot. I really did sit down and record that podcast episode after some crazy stuff went down that morning.

That was like shocking. And so then when the episode came out, I was like, oh, I don’t even remember that I said those things. Like, okay, we are sharing that, that’s going out. But it was great. It it was a very well received episode. Today I am ready to bring you some business content, but I’ve had. Man, like the, I recorded that podcast and then went into a week of so much change, so much change in my routine and it feels really good.

It feels like, you know, it’s important to do this. Sometimes it’s, it’s really easy to get into the same exact rituals and routines every single day, and it really just takes away the inspiration of life and like the unknown. And so this week has been a lot of new for me because I changed. My gym, which I know for some people is not a very big deal.

But I spend 12 hours a week in the gym and so that means I’m actually driving closer to downtown, which is like changing my schedule ’cause it’s the opposite direction. And then now I’m finding, I’m so excited about it because there’s all these coffee shops and. Walking trail and like places I can go that I would never have gone to because I never drive that direction.

So I’ve been really enjoying the newness of, of everything, and I’m feeling really good this week. So thank you everyone who sent me messages, who checked in. And I’m also getting really excited for Embodied Marketing Live, which is happening January 15 to 17. It’s gonna be the best one yet. This will be one year since our first event, every one of ’em has blown me away, and this year I’m bringing in some new things, some AI workshops.

I’m actually bringing. Should I tell you guys this? I’m potentially bringing a guest expert in to do a workshop who has been on the podcast and she’s gonna workshop live with you guys, creating actual content ideas that have the potential to go viral and really stand out. That was her expertise, and so I’m bringing her in to do it like a hands-on.

We’re gonna come up with the ideas together in that room. So lots of new things. And then, you know, I’ve gone through so much growth myself in the last six months, and so I always bring new models, new ideas, new workshops. None of the events are the same, so I hope to see you there. If you go to embodiedmarketing.com/live, you can look.

We’re going to be upping the price from early bird tickets really soon, and. I promise you, like I have a hundred percent success rate of changing every life who walks in that room and trusts me and just goes all in. And your business, like bringing clarity, new strategies you, you’re gonna show up to an event like this, thinking you need one thing and getting something totally different.

That’s just the way that it works. But it’s an incredible room of really amazing people and an experience that takes you out of your day to day and gives you exactly what you need. To take your life and your business to that next level. So today what I wanna talk about is a question that you can ask yourself as it relates to your business that I think is really important regardless of what stage you’re at.

And I find myself asking this sometimes to my mastermind girls because sometimes during our weekly mastermind call, they all get a hot seat and some of them will come and be like, I don’t really know what to talk about today. Like. Things are good. I’m moving these things forward and one of my skills is to pull out of them what really needs to be talked about.

But there’s a question that I ask them a lot that helps pull that out that I wanna bring here because I think it, it will help tune out the noise that happens in business with all the things that you could be focusing on and all the things that you’re seeing online, and just the distractions and.

There’s just a lot of noise, and I think clarity on what to work on next is one of the most critical components to success, because without that clarity, you’re spinning your wheels and time and energy that we can put in our business is one of the only, if not the only limited resource. You can make more money, you can invest, you know, you can, you can regenerate money, but your time that you spend every day, the more dialed in that is the more productive.

The business, the more momentum, the more results. So that question that I ask is, where is the biggest constraint in your business? So when we look at your business and we look at, okay, there’s, there’s components to it, right? There is the attraction component. Like, I need eyes on my brand, I need people to see my stuff.

Usually that comes in the form of content and. You know, podcasts, social media, maybe guest speaking, there’s the attraction component of your business. Then there’s the lead generation component of your business of like, now I’m taking the attraction and I’m actually turning them into leads who I get to nurture, which is the next component.

So there’s the attraction and there’s the lead generation. Then there’s the nurturing of the audience and the nurturing of the leads. Then there’s the sales conversion that happens of all of those that come before. And then there’s the delivery and there’s the, the processes that go into operations.

Is it efficient? Is it profitable? When you look at a business, you don’t have to break it down like this every single time, but when you look at the different parts of your business, usually if one of those front parts has an issue, that should be the biggest constraint because if that’s not working, everything else is gonna be impacted by that.

And so when you look at your business and, and I were to, if I were to ask you, Hey, what is the biggest constraint right now in your business that you would say is stopping you from growing? And it’s not always actually gonna be marketing. I’ve got one of the girls in my mastermind who has a wait list of clients.

She actually has a wait list. She has like two or three people who wanna come on and pay her high ticket service. She’s blowing up her business and she can’t take them on because she’s lacking staff and she’s lacking the backend systems and. She has the systems, but really just like the, the manpower to deliver.

So her biggest constraint is actually all the way over in delivery and operations and hiring. And what I talked with her about and what we’ve talked about the last several weeks is like every week that you don’t fix that constraint, is money being lost in your business? ’cause you could be bringing these clients.

And so some of them, you know, and it’s gonna change like from week to week. The biggest constraint in your business may not be the same from month to month, quarter to quarter. It’s not gonna be the same. But if you can identify what is the biggest constraint holding you back right now, and then you can say, okay, what are the actions that I could take to remove that constraint?

And what’s the one thing, the main focus that I need to focus in on that would allow me to. Solve this constraint and then we move to the next one. And why I love this question is because it’s looking at a constraint versus like, what’s the thing that’s on fire? What’s the thing that’s totally not working?

I’m not talking about that. Hopefully you’re not in that situation. Sometimes in business we are where it’s like, it’s very obvious where the constraint is because there’s a fire happening and this has to work, or we’re gonna run outta money, or we’re gonna have upset clients or whatever. There’s definitely seasons in that, but you do wanna always be looking at this in a proactive place, ideally because for example, this, this client of mine in the Mastermind, her business is going really well.

Like she’s got leads coming in, sales happening, a wait list of clients. She’s having her best months, which is incredible. But we still look at it and say, okay, but where’s the constraint? Because there is something that is a block to the next level, and we have to solve that. And then that drives our actions.

And so that helps her go, okay. This week myself and my operator are going to really pour energy into. Hiring and we’re gonna crank the, the, the knob a little bit on that because instead of thinking, oh, it’s not that big of a deal, like yeah, we have clients on a wait list and that’s great. Business is going great.

We need to look at it as revenue that is actually being lost if we don’t solve that problem. Now, it’s also important to realize the goal is to never not have a cons. Any business that is growing, that has things happening, new clients, new act, you know, new, new activities and new you know, campaigns and projects that are happening to grow the business.

You’ve got the economy, the industry, all the changes happening. There’s always gonna be a constraint. There’s always probably gonna be multiple constraints, but it is what is the biggest constraint. Holding back your growth right now and can you kind of compartmentalize the different components of business from, you know, if we go back to right now and you say, my biggest constraint is not enough.

People are seeing my stuff, not enough people are seeing my business. I don’t have traffic. Even if I have an incredible lead generation funnel or incredible content, if people aren’t seeing it, then it doesn’t matter. I need to solve that issue. Okay. How do we solve that? Well, ads. Increasing our social media content, maybe getting in front of guest expert opportunities where I can get in front of other people’s audiences.

So you can really get specific of like, okay, if I’m gonna solve that constraint, what are the actions I’m gonna take? What I would do if you’re listening to this episode, is I would think about what is the biggest constraint that I could tie to my business for, for the rest of the year, for this quarter?

Because some of these things. Take longer than a week to solve. If you can figure out, okay, what, what is the biggest thing that we focus on right now in my business? The biggest constraint, holding back my growth? And then we’re like, all right, what are the actions to solve that? If I really wanted to make a big dent in solving that, maybe it doesn’t even fully get solved in 90 days, but I make a big dent in the progress of it, what would that look like?

Okay. What are my priorities? And then that should really drive, okay, what’s the monthly biggest focus that we have? What is the weekly? But then what I would do is be looking at this like when I meet with my mastermind girls, we meet weekly and sometimes unexpected things come up, right? And, and the constraint that they had last week is not the same constraint that they have this week.

So asking yourself this also on a regular basis, maybe it’s every single week and maybe some weeks, the answer’s the exact same, but asking yourself this to constantly be proactively. Kind of future forecasting, like things might be going well, or I might think I’m working on the exact thing that I should be working on, but have you really given yourself the full clarity around what is the biggest constraint in your business?

And I ask myself this question all the time, and here’s the thing, as the CEO, you should have this like. Bigger bird’s eye view. I know that some of you are, are working in all the pieces of your business, but this is the opportunity where you pause and kind of pull yourself outta the weeds and outta that day to day.

And this is what I do for my team because they’re in the weeds. Like they easily can get into a place where they’re doing the same thing every day. And you know, they’re really hyper-focused on these things. But we need to have moments where we pause, we take a step back, and we say, what are we not seeing?

What are the constraints that we’ve kind of tolerated, that we are like, oh, that’s normal. That’s just how it is, and what are the actions that we can take to be able to solve that constraint? And then you can kind of take inventory of like, where’s your time going? Because I see this a lot where, you know, there’s never a shortage of things that you could be working on in your business or you should be working on.

There’s never a shortage. The key is not can you get through the list and can you finish all the important things. It’s can you channel your energy into the most important things, because if you constantly are only focused on the top priority, the biggest needle movers in your business, you’re gonna make the most progress.

And I, I definitely learned this skill in my business over the years as like. The goal is never to finish my to-do list. My to-do list has always got a million things on it. I just ignore it all until. I’m focusing on the most important thing and that most important thing should be aligned with what’s the biggest constraint in the business.

And sometimes there’s gonna be a few, like I will, I’ll say in my business, sometimes we simultaneously have the constraint of we wanna up our marketing and we need more leads while also saying we need to hire because we know as soon as we do that it’s gonna create the need for more team and more demand on our delivery.

And so we can kind of. Proactively. You know, as you grow your team, you can be like, all right, this department and these people are gonna work on this constraint. This department’s gonna work on this one, but still, your time and energy and your business’s focus is decided by you. So my recommendation is you sit down and you say, based on where I’m taking my business, based on my goals.

What is the biggest constraint right now in my business that I wanna make a big dent on or solve by the end of the year? Okay, now, based on that, if I were to successfully solve that, here’s all the things that need to happen. That should be driving your weekly actions, and it should be driving not only your actions, but also the resources of the company.

Because if your biggest constraint, let’s say, is marketing and you know that you can’t go build all your funnels and do all your marketing and implement it to the level that it needs to be implemented to solve that constraint, then if you are not actually. Taking the action of hiring help or outsourcing something or getting the copy done or moving things forward, you are going to be staying in the same exact place.

And I do see this a lot where entrepreneurs know they have this problem, like, I’m not getting enough leads. I don’t have a marketing strategy. My business isn’t growing. Traffic is an issue, attraction is an issue. I also know that I can’t do this by myself because I’m not a copywriter. I’m not a tech va, I’m not a strategist, and I’ve been trying to do this by myself for however many months.

Then they still keep doing that because they’re afraid to commit and go all in. And I think a lot of times the fear comes from a lack of clarity. And the fear comes from what I talked about in my last podcast episode of a fear of the unknown. What if I invest in this and it doesn’t work? What if I put myself out there and it doesn’t convert?

What if I build a funnel and it doesn’t make sales? What if I spend money on ads and it doesn’t work? Okay, all you can do. What’s the biggest constraint in the business with where we’re going? What are the actions that we need to take? Let’s go all in on those actions and trust that the outcome is exactly what it’s supposed to be.

Because everything that happens in that, what if scenario, something doesn’t work, it doesn’t convert, it leads to the next thing. So the worst thing you can do is inaction. And the next worst thing you can do is spin your wheels with action. That’s disjointed. The best thing you can do for a business is get your vision and if you have a team or if it’s just you, all the actions lined up for that vision.

And in order to do that, we also need to consistently look at where are we not looking? What is the biggest constraint in the business? So if you’re not sure, if you’re focused on the biggest priorities right now, and really challenge this because I also think a lot of entrepreneurs feel like they have more time than they do.

And so if you’re continuously, like every week, it’s like I only got done half the things that I told myself that I absolutely would get done. Then you gotta get more real with yourself about what’s possible. And it’s like, if I only had half the time to do the things that I’m thinking I can do, what are the most important things?

And until those are done, I don’t move to the next things and be just radically. Strict and intentional with your time and energy. But in order to do that, you have to understand where it’s going and why it’s going there. And this is, this is not a. A stagnant process, like there will be a lot of movement here because you might start to work on something and then that causes a problem or that causes a realization or that gives, gets some sort of feedback that you’re like.

Ooh, that just unlocked this idea, or that just unlocked, you know, this, this new funnel we could build or offer that we need to create in order to sell our bigger offer, whatever. So it’s, it’s also a very fluid process where you wanna keep asking yourself that question without becoming distracted. So constantly of like, where are we going?

What’s the biggest constraint to get there? Are the actions I’m taking on a day-to-day basis backing up that constraint. So my goal is always to give you guys some clarity in the noisy world of business and marketing, and at the end of the day. You know, as the CEO you make these choices and you drive the business whether you have a team or not.

And these decisions are really important in the, and, and one of the, the worst things you could do is not be intentional with this. Be reactive. And I do see this a lot where it’s like, oh, my coach said this this week, so I’m gonna work on this. And then I saw this Instagram post with this idea, so I’m gonna go work on this now.

And it’s, it’s very reactive to the environment. Versus intentional and proactive to what you’re building. You don’t wanna be like a DD in the business of, of like, this week I’m working on this, and this week I’m gonna work on this and I’m feeling really productive and I’m feeling really good, but like, where’s it going and what’s it connected to?

And is it actually solving the biggest constraint and the biggest goals and the vision we’re working towards? And get radically strict with the amount of time you actually have. Because I always complete. The most important things every week. Like I always, I wouldn’t say like always, let’s say 90% of the time I complete enough to where I’m not a bottleneck to our growth.

Sure would I like to get more done always, but I’m, I’m consistently blinders on to everything that’s not the most important right now, and that is not the most critical to the health of the business and the different components of that business. Everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in. I really do hope to see you guys at Embodied Marketing Live.

I haven’t talked about it enough on the podcast and we are raising the price. If you have any questions about it, feel free to message me. We have so many people who have come the last few times in the events that we’ve had that would be willing to share their experience, but. It is truly a magical experience for you as the CEO and the human being behind your business, but also for your business and the strategy and the marketing, and just the, the inspiration that you will walk away with that can lead to action and actual results.

All right everybody. I’ll talk to you next week.