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If you feel like you’re working all day but not actually moving your business forward, this episode is for you.

In this episode, I’m breaking down the three things I see in every successful entrepreneur, no matter the stage. These aren’t traits you’re born with. They’re decisions you make every day in how you show up, take action, and use your time and energy.

This is what grows your business no matter what.

Key Takeaways

• Why knowing what to do isn’t actually the problem
• How I actually focus on what moves the needle
• 3 ways to unlock your maximum impact as a CEO

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh:

What is the top priority, what is the biggest needle mover? Only you can answer that. That is like the job of A CEO. To be able to move your business forward, we have to consistently be leveraging our time and energy to the highest output possible. not allowing themselves to get stuck in a place of overthinking, of perfection, of worrying, because all of that, it’s like it does nothing for you. As long as we are clear and we are aligned, that is the best next step.

That what we are doing, the action we’re taking, the choices we’re making come from a place of intention and not reaction. We can’t fail. Embodied CEOs don’t chase trends. They pave the way they lead from within. Move by purpose, unshaken by noise. When you are the source, you do not need permission.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you guys are doing amazing and having the best day when you’re tuning into this. I am having a great productive day. My favorite days of the. Week are the days that I have zero meetings, nothing on my calendar, and can just go through a massive to-do list and focus.

And so that has been today and I’m getting content done. I’m still like in my. I’m ahead and things feel spacious, and I haven’t been late to something in, I can’t even remember how long. I don’t know. I’m just in a different, I’m in a different energy in my life and it feels really good. Today’s podcast episode, I wanna talk about three things that I think are the most important characteristics, but not really.

A characteristic is something that’s like innate in somebody choices. That entrepreneurs can make. I was doing a bonus call for somebody and they asked me the question of, if you look back on your whole journey, what is a decision you made or something you did that created the most amount of success?

And immediately what came to me was my constant ability to take action. And I didn’t wanna just do a podcast on that, but that kind of led me to, okay, what are the things. That have created my success that I see create success in others every single time. Like when I interview people on here, when I talk to my clients, when I help mastermind members, like every successful business owner I meet people.

I look up to people in my mastermind, what they do, and also what is like matter what stage you’re at, like whether you’re just starting out or you are already making seven figures, going to eight or whatever, these are. True always in business. So first of all, I wanted to share that question in my answer to that question on here because I like that question.

When you think about what is. She asked me for a decision and I couldn’t think of a decision, like a single decision, but I said in general, I think like over the last 10 years, the biggest thing is the amount of action that I take. And most people don’t actually see behind the scenes at the amount of action that we take and the things we try that don’t work or that have to evolve and have to be optimized.

Like you see the end result of things and what we put out in the world, but you don’t see the behind the scenes. And I do try to represent the behind the scenes as best as possible, but you have to understand like the moment that I am clear on a direction we’re going or what we’re shifting or what we’re evolving, I take radical action.

So that’s not, that’s one of the three things, but. I wanted to share that question on its own. So the first of the three things, and I was reflecting on this today as I had a very productive day, and I look at the way that I set up. My schedule as an entrepreneur and how much I get done in a week because I’m really committed to training in CrossFit.

I have three kids and just my life I can work about 25 hours a week. That’s not a number that I set out and was like, this is how much I’m gonna work. I work as much as I can without sacrificing any of the non-negotiables. I’m not willing to sacrifice. So a lot of weeks that looks like 20 to 25 hours.

Some weeks it’s a little bit more, some weeks it’s a little bit less. I love to work. I am not someone who’s I wanna build a business that I don’t have to work in. I love working. I love being productive. I love being able to get things done. I love it. However, I have found in my life what it means to have it all and for me.

There are things that I’m unwilling to sacrifice in order to have it all, and so my work has to fit in that bucket. So when I work, like I am crazy productive and I have this ability to know what is top priority all the time and to tune everything else out. And to be hyper-focused on something and ignore other things.

And I think this is actually something I’ve worked with team members to train them on because it is a skill that you develop. I think that it comes natural to me which I’m really grateful for, but it’s also something I’m constantly like keeping discipline on. So I’ll give you an example. Today I had a full open white space day.

Big to-do list. I was clear before I actually wrote my to-do list two days ago because the day before yesterday was packed with calls. So I knew I’m getting basically nothing done but showing up for these calls. And so I wrote my to-do list at the end of the other day, so I knew going into Friday I was like already set to go.

Up and I sit down, I have my whole to-do list and the first thing I do is I prioritize that to-do list, but then I open Slack, right? And of course there’s things that people need. There’s things that people want approval on, there’s questions that they want answered. There’s something they want me to review.

There’s conversations happening and I can see those things and immediately like press, I put ’em unread and I just put them away. Until it is time for me to get there. And so the discipline to be able to focus consistently on what is the top priority, what is the biggest needle mover? Only you can answer that.

That is like the job of A CEO. And also what are the things that only you can be doing. And so I’m consistently looking at how I am, what I’m gonna do that day, and going, what are the things that only I can do, record content, get my team approvals on things, work on a bigger project, like there are focus work projects I have to work on as we’re planning a new thing, we’re planning a new initiative, we’re planning a new launch, whatever.

I gotta set the foundation for things. So my list is always changing. I don’t do the same things every week. However, I am very consistently very proactive in how I spend my time. I’m very proactive in where my energy goes, very disciplined with my focus, and if I know that something is going to require like.

Two hours of focus time, I tune everything else out and I just focus on that. If I know that I don’t have that focus time for that thing, I don’t even start it. It’s compartmentalize it over here and I’m gonna work on these things. And so I think that to be able to move your business forward and consistently, we only have so much time and energy.

It’s a limited resource, so we have to consistently be leveraging our time and energy to the highest output possible. like how it works for me, you have to figure out how it works for you. But how it works for me is at the end of most of my days, I plan the next day and I look out what did I not finish, what is still on my list?

And then I prioritize it and I shuffle it around and I make decisions like. Okay. That, while yes, I would like to get it done, it is not as high priority as this. What’s gonna move the needle the most and all the areas of the business. Sometimes marketing gets more attention, sometimes delivery and operations gets more attention.

It’s always changing, but I look at, I plan my day, usually the day before as I end the day because it helps me feel more complete as I go into the next day and I go transition to be with my kids at the end of that day. I have constantly like outta that list, there’s only one thing I can work on at a time.

So I’m not like jumping around and going to my email and going to Slack and working on this project or working on that project. Like when I am locked in, all my notifications are off. I will not, I could see something and even still be like not the time, compartmentalize it, put it over there in the drawer for a second, and super focused on what is the most important.

And I think that is the job of A CEO, because also then I can help my team. Organize themselves in the same exact way. So this allows me you give me a full day like today to work and I can get done what would take most people a week because I am so focused. And honestly, I think that’s how I can work 25 hours a week and have a company the size that I do because I am so efficient with my time.

I do not waste any time. So that’s the first thing. The second thing, it goes hand in hand with this, which is. Protecting your time and energy, and when I look at the most successful business owners like sometimes I get to be around someone who’s at a much higher level than me, and I realize like how they’re doing this at an even higher level than I do.

I also watch this as a transition for entrepreneurs. when they go from solopreneur to starting to have a team and having people help them, they have this like thing that happens where they’re like who am I to get this help? Who am I to have somebody else do this for me that I could technically do?

And they don’t understand that by valuing their time and energy, not ’cause you’re better than anyone else, but because there are things that only you can do. And you only have so much time and energy to give. And so you need those things to be on the highest leverage places in your business, which this oftentimes looks like getting support.

I think that a lot of business owners wait way too long to get support because they operate from a place of fear, from a place of scarcity, from a place of, you know what, if this doesn’t work out and I have this payment and dah, and now you’re just operating as the CEO of your past company and not the future.

When I look at the most successful entrepreneurs I know, they are constantly investing the resource of money into buying back their time and energy, like at a rapid pace. How fast can I get this off my plate? How fast can I build a system to offload this? And they do it better than I do. because as you grow your business, if you can place yourself into Tasks, the projects, the brain, creativity, the visionary, all those things. If you can put yourself in those places that are only you can do and that are your magic, that’s why you’re an entrepreneur. You come up with the ideas, you have the visions, you have the expectations. You are the leader.

You’ve gotta be leveraging your time and energy in that way. Or it’s like you’re doing a job, you’re doing the job of somebody that you could pay them to do it. So the more you can protect your time and energy and that capacity, what it also does is it creates capacity for growth. I find that the more I protect my time and energy, this is why I don’t have slack on my phone.

This is why I don’t have email on my phone. This is why I am like ruthless with my notifications, ruthless with my do not disturb, ruthless with my social media consumption because I know that the more clear and clean my energy is. The more grounded I am, the higher capacity I have to handle pressure to handle tough decisions, to handle tough situations, to handle stress, to handle chaos, because I can stay regulated in that.

So I’m in a conversation with somebody who I had a call with who I was talking about, like this misconception that I think people think a regulated nervous system means I’m never stressed or i’m calm and I’m super rested and I’m meditating and I’m like, in this state of zen, no, I think, and I’m pretty sure a regulated nervous system means even in the chaos, the overwhelm, the stress, the challenge, the obstacles that our life.

You’re calm, and when you’re an entrepreneur, you’re just signing up for 10 times, that you’re signing up for 10 times. The chaos, the stress, the pressure, the hard decisions, the weight that is put on you as an entrepreneur that only you can solve. And so you have to have capacity or you’re either gonna burn out or you’re not gonna grow because you’re not gonna have the capacity.

And I’ve learned this lesson so many times in my business. I just shared with you guys recently on the podcast that I, after doing our third event, I was like, why did the same amount of people keep showing up to our event? We’ll sell more tickets, same amount of people show up. And after the event, I realized, oh, duh, because I’m not operating as the CEO, who has the capacity to hold more.

If I wanna sell 50 tickets to our live event, I need to be the CEO who can hold the space for a room of 50 people. That means we do things more ahead of time. That means I give myself more space leading up to and after the event. That means I have more support at the event. What are the things I need to do to be able to do that?

And then I’ll be able to hold that space. So if you want the seven figure business, you want the six figure business, you want the eight figure business, you want the team. You have to have capacity to be able to. Handled the challenges, handle the stress, handle the overwhelm that you signed up for. We signed up for this game.

That is the game. And so when you radically protect your time and energy and you understand it’s not that you’re better than everyone, it’s not that you’re better than other people, it’s that you are putting yourself in a position that 99% of people don’t wanna be in, which is CEO. And CEOs leaders have to have the capacity to make the hard decisions that nobody else can make to handle the hard challenges that nobody else can make to take on the stress that no one else can take on, and the pressure and that it stops with you.

You gotta have the capacity for it. The third thing that I know. Every successful entrepreneur has, and like the more I think you have this, the more you can turn the dial up on this, the better it is, which is not being afraid to fail, like taking that radical action and not even seeing I don’t even believe in failure and that is truly how I look at it is like as long as we are clear and we are aligned, that is the best next step.

That what we are doing, the action we’re taking, the choices we’re making come from a place of intention and not reaction. We can’t fail because it’s either gonna lead to the success we want, it’s gonna lead to hitting the goals that we want, or it’s gonna lead to the clarity on what we need to do that.

I saw a quote on Instagram the other day that said something like, if you knew that it would take 100 times. Of trying to get the one right thing. Would you get excited for the a hundred times of trying? I’m totally butchering the quote. It was something like that. Something like that to the concept of if I gave you a number and I was like, listen, for every 100 times you try something, you’ll have one or two successes.

Now it’s a numbers game. I gotta try a hundred times. There was a artist who shared, I don’t remember the song, but it was like one of these really popular Instagram songs and TikTok songs, that became Trending new song, new artist. And he posted that song, I think it was like 250 times or maybe more before it, it took off before it even got noticed.

And he’s I’d go and post it on, I had all these accounts and I’d posted all these times and I’d go post it before I’d even got noticed. Most people, you only see the success. You only see the actual like breakthrough. You don’t see all the times they tried before. And I’m telling you that in my business too, like there are so many things that we try that we have to evolve, we have to change, we have to shift, we have to optimize.

They don’t work that I can’t even remember them. But we are constantly in action. We are never paralyzed. I am not afraid of trying something and it doesn’t work. I’m not afraid of failing. I want to do that. If I am not doing that, then I’m not trying enough things. And I see this like this radical action, this like disconnection of associating anything related to failing to identity.

That’s the thing. You have to separate. Any connection that you have of, if this doesn’t work, then it means this about me. And if you can separate that and fall in love with the process, fall in love with the journey, fall in love with the actions it takes to get there and surrender the rest. You’ll take more action.

And so what does that look like in your business today? What it, where are the places that you’re so caught up in? It being perfect at being right, of having all the pieces together of getting it right, of knowing what to do, of having that certainty that you’re not taking the action and challenge yourself.

How could I fail more? Not fail recklessly, but fail because you are trying and because it’s feedback. Being in action and in motion and actually doing things as data and feedback. And if you start looking at it as data and feedback versus it means this, now you take more action. So that’s the third thing that I see over and over again in successful entrepreneurs is the no fear of failure.

Like they, they just know I’m gonna figure it out. I’m gonna figure it out eventually, whatever that is, big or small. And the relentless pursuit in action. Like not allowing themselves to get stuck in a place of overthinking, of perfection, of worrying, because all of that, it’s like it does nothing for you.

It’s not even real. It’s all made up in your head. You don’t know how it’s gonna turn out because you haven’t done it yet. So through action, you now become the person who knows how to do it. All right, guys. Shorten to the 0.1 today, but I wanted to share these three things with you. And think about how they apply to you.

Like where can you value your time and energy more? Where can you be more disciplined with how you’re spending your time and how focused you are, and how intentional versus reactive you are? And then how can you challenge yourself to take more action without any fear of failure? All right, everybody.

I’ll talk to you next week.