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Not every good idea deserves your energy and attention as a CEO.

In this episode, I’m talking about the difference between being in that free-flowing place where ideas are coming fast and actually deciding what belongs in the company strategic plan.

I naturally want to move into action immediately. I like structure. I like knowing the plan. But I’m realizing there’s a lot of power in letting ideas exist before deciding what they mean or what I’m going to do with them.

We also get into stillness, reactivity, the first and last 30 minutes of the day, and what it looks like to be more intentional about where your energy and attention go.

Key Takeaways

• Why I force myself to sit with ideas first, without taking action
• Why this is super hard for me as an action taker and entrepreneur – but it’s growing my business to 8 figures
• How the first and last 30 minutes of my day became the place to connect to myself

 ____________________________________

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh:

There’s, like, this difference in the energy of having ideas and letting them flow freely and just kind of exist and then moving them into action. Because not that any of my ideas were bad, it’s just they all don’t actually deserve my energy and attention right now. But there are times where taking very fast action is actually not what is needed. And you have to know when that pause is so important.

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 having a great week. Ah, I decided today I’m gonna do a little bit of a, I have, like, multiple things that I wanna bring on the podcast, and I feel like the last episode was very tactical. If you didn’t listen to that one, I broke down our weekly webinar strategy in great detail with all the data, like, all the behind-the-scenes, how we set up the funnel, all those things.

And so there’s a few, like, smaller things I wanna talk about on here, and so this will be a more conversational podcast. I currently feel like, I don’t know if you guys feel like this right now, maybe it’s just, like, kind of towards end of summer and kids, but I feel very pulled in many directions and I wish that I had the ability, like this week especially, to give some areas of my life more depth than I do.

And I feel like, you know those weeks where you, you can only just, like, get done what’s on your calendar and what’s, like, the most important? But there’s actual projects I wanna work on that would require two hours, you know, two, three, four hours of focus time and I just don’t have it, and it’s making me want to…

Like right now I’m like, “Man, I gotta record this and I’m gonna go work out,” and it’s making me actually wanna be like, “Maybe I’ll just skip my workout and give myself back like three hours.” My workout’s like two hours. But no, we’re not gonna do that. We’re gonna go work out. We’re gonna s- we’re gonna keep to that training.

I’ve been injured most of this year and it’s honestly really frustrating So I feel like my, I’ve kept up my training in terms of volume. I just can’t do a lot of the things I wanna be able to do, and I haven’t been able to compete, and I don’t think I’m gonna compete this year because I’m just not…

My body’s not where it needs to be. I have, like, an SI joint issue that, to be honest, I probably didn’t let it heal, and now it’s ligaments, and they take forever, and I’m not gonna t- fully take off training anyways. My motivation is not there because I’m frustrated that I can’t do a lot of the things I wanna do.

But I still show up and work out. Anyways, that’s my thoughts today is I’m like, “If I skip my workout, it would buy me hours of focus time to work,” which is what I want to do ’cause I have these projects I wanna work on. But I’m gonna go to the gym. Anyways. Okay. So it was crazy. After my live event, I, I had this experience that I don’t know if it’s happened to me before, where it took me five days to be fully back after the event, which that does happen.

And in the past, I didn’t give myself that time, and I didn’t necessarily fully give myself that time this time. I gave myself one day, two days if you count Sunday. But the business is just not in a place where I could host the event and then be immediately, like, off for four days. Sso I felt it in terms of I was like, “My brain is not all the way there.”

And I very rarely feel like that. I usually feel pretty mentally sharp. I take really good care of myself. I sleep really good. And so I’m usually pretty on it. But I was just fried for like five days after my event. And then by that Friday, which was five days after, I was like, “Okay, I feel back to normal,” which is good ’cause I was kinda getting, not worried, but I was like, “What is wrong with me?”

Like, I’m sleeping, I feel, like, fine in terms of my body, but mentally and cognitively, I was just not fully back. I could feel the difference. So then I felt fine Friday, and then it was the craziest thing. Saturday, I- I had a normal Saturday, you know, with my kids, wasn’t working, and the amount of just, like, ideas and inspiration and just, like, thoughts that were in me, I could hardly l- keep up with writing them all down.

And it was a cool experience because I recognized how old me would have moved into action. Like, there were things that even I wanted to be like, “Oh, I could build this,” you know, “on Claude.” and it was an idea I had, and I would have wanted to be like, “Let me do it right now.” But I could feel that it wasn’t complete, that all of the thoughts and ideas, and some of them were about the event, like, “Oh, maybe if I switch this, I’m gonna switch…

I’m actually gonna switch the VIP dinner to be Wednesday night instead of Friday night,” and my thoughts on that. It was just like these flowing ideas. And, and they were coming out of, out of nowhere. Like, I wasn’t thinking about business. So that was really interesting to experience. But with that, what I want to share is, like, as a visionary and a CEO and somebody who is creative like you guys, there’s, like, this difference in the energy of having ideas and letting them flow freely and just kind of exist and then moving them into action.

Because not that any of my ideas were bad, it’s just they all don’t actually deserve my energy and attention right now. Like, some are cool idea, let’s write it down and we’re gonna revisit that in three months, in six months, whatever. So what I did that day is I just kept writing. Like, I would have thoughts, and I got a massage, and I…

Like, the, the thoughts j- I could hardly keep up with it. It was also,… What is that day? 8/8 Lion’s Gate. I know I’ve got like woo people on here. I don’t know how much I really actually believe that stuff. I think it’s a little new agey, but whatever. I was like, “Okay, I’ll have fun with it. I’ll do like a little manifesting, you know, journaling thing.”

But it was that day, so maybe that energy is powerful or maybe it’s just five days after my event. I don’t know. And I don’t really care about the why. But noticing that energy of … Like, when you’re in that energy of inspiration, you guys know what I’m talking about. You’re in that energy of inspiration and ideas are flowing, and they’re flowing fast.

And, and it’s like it’s easy to think that every single idea that comes forward is something that you should act on immediately. And I pride myself in being somebody who takes action quickly. I think that’s one of my strengths. I think that is something that has contributed greatly to my success as an entrepreneur.

But there are times where taking very fast action is actually not what is needed. And you have to know when that pause is so important. And so what I did was I literally filled like I think three or four pages in my journal. I’m just like free flow. Like, there are bullets of ideas and thoughts, and I didn’t care about judging them and saying, “Oh, you know, here’s why that’s a good idea, and let’s analyze it, and let’s do this.”

I just kinda let them be. And I actually haven’t gone back and looked at them yet. There’s a few that I Pass to my team and then, like, made the decision about the VIP dinner. That’s easy. I was clear on that. But now what I’m gonna do this week is I’m gonna go back to the list and then say, “Okay, what of these deserves the most attention?

What’s gonna move the needle the most? What’s the most important? Like, what’s an idea that’s good, but it’s not time, or it wasn’t fully thought through?” Like, sometimes I do come up with ideas that seem good, and then I sit on them for a few days and I’m like, “Actually, let’s change that a little bit.” Like, there’s some things I didn’t think about and, and fully flesh out.

And so you have to get yourself to that energy and to that place of grounded. Like, that’s the best way I could describe it, is when you’re in ideation of, like, a lot of ideas flowing and that creativity, it’s very, I guess, chaotic but not in a negative way chaotic. Chaotic in a way of, like, it’s not organized.

There’s not a structure to it yet. There’s not, like, a rooted thought-through part to it. And, and I think that that’s a very necessary part of the creative process. I think you could compare it to, like, feminine energy compared to masculine energy. But it needs to have that space and then be brought into the structure.

And that’s… I think that people oftentimes go either way here and don’t know how to balance the two, and I think actually I’ve learned better how to balance the two. I used to not be able to sit in the more free-flowing, chaotic, it doesn’t have a plan, it doesn’t have an action, it’s not being analyzed yet space.

I’d have to turn it into action immediately or I would, I would actually feel anxious about, like, open loops there. And then I think there are some people who stay in the more chaotic, free-flowing ideas, and they don’t bring it into the structure and then turn it into action. So it’s like you, you have to have the space for both.

And you almost have to know what, what your life and your business and your own energy is calling for. And clearly I needed… I think I, I think that I was, like, blocked after my event for several days ’cause I was just, like, recovering my nervous system. And then all of a sudden it, like, became unblocked for whatever reason that it was that day.

That’s just how long I needed. I didn’t do something. Like, I got a massage the day after and I slept a bunch that week, but it’s not like I did something to kind of change my energy. I just woke up Saturday and it was like, “Whoa, I’m in a different state.” And then I knew, you know what I, needed, and I needed to allow myself to be in that, like, dreaming state and just write down the ideas, be unattached on if they’re gonna get implemented or not or if they’re a good or bad idea, or thinking through the logistics, thinking through the plan, and then there’s a time for that plan.

But first you have to get through, and there’s a lot of power in that free-flowing lack of structure because you might think of things that you wouldn’t think of if you were limiting your perspective in the overly structured. So I said, you know, people swing one way or the other. I often see there’s a lot of entrepreneurs, myself included, who lean towards heavy masculine energy, and that’s how I naturally operate.

That’s how I probably always will naturally operate. It is actually a superpower and a gift of mine, and I definitely see it that way. It can also become imbalanced, and that’s something that I am aware of. But you either have that structure, and that comes natural to you, and you live in that structure.

And what happens if that becomes imbalanced is you kinda have a disconnection from your intuition. You have a disconnection from thinking outside of the structure, from uncertainty, from unknown, from deviating from the plan, from y- you know… I think, I think a lot of it for me is, like, uncertainty and the unknown is very scary but is necessary to embrace because there’s magic in it.

Then there’s, there’s entrepreneurs who I’ve coached and I know who do a great job being in more of the feminine energy. And also, by the way, if you’re listening to this, like, it doesn’t matter if you’re male, female. The, we both have these energies, which is the dreaming, and it is no structure. Like, the masculine is supposed to hold the feminine energy.

but what happens is if that becomes imbalanced, you have all these amazing ideas, and you’re so creative, and you’re able to, like, flow and have that connection to your intuition, but if you’re imbalanced there, you don’t turn it into action. And you don’t actually turn that into the structure that’s required to bring something to life.

So anyways, that was my process, on the weekend is I allowed myself to be in that place. I wrote down, like, three or four pages of just bulleted, like, free flow. Didn’t judge it, didn’t think too much about it, didn’t even think about it. Just, I just went about my day, and I would just keep writing as things were coming.

And now I’m gonna revisit it in a more grounded place and go, “Okay, now how do we actually build this in to the company strategic plan?” Which is one of the things I wanna work on if I have the, when I have the time to sit down and work on it. So I’m, like, itching to do that, but have not been able to yet.

The other thing that I did do is then the next day on Sunday, I did sit down, and I kinda revisited my goals for the year. I wrote out eight basically statements that I was like, m- that I wanna… Manifestations you could call them, goals you could call them, but wrote them as if they were already true, and really as, like, the, the driving, force of what I wanna focus on right now.

And, and if I was to fast-forward a year, kind of what I wanna read and all of them be true. And so I wrote those. I got really clear on those. I got really connected to the emotion that I would feel if all, when all of those are already my reality. And then I thought about, What would move the needle the most on all of these things?

And for me, personally, like, the biggest thing that I would say I struggle with, and that is a poor habit of mine, and I’ve talked about it on here before, is my phone. And is, like, the… It’s scrolling, but it’s like, once I get into the mode of being on for the day, of working, there’s just this, like… It’s my brain, and this, I guess it’s dopamine, but it’s also, like, intensity addiction.

It’s like I’m not gonna say I can’t. It’s hard for me to be still once I’m already in the fast pace. I can be still on a weekend. I can be still on a trip. But I have to literally ignore it, right? And I’ve set my phone up to have no email, no Slack, no notifications. Like, I really have it set up, and I have to do that.

But if I jump into work, and I jump into that fast pace, I have noticed that my nervous system is addicted to intensity. I feel better when things are intense, when there’s a lot happening, and I’m juggling a lot, and I’m a little bit overwhelmed, and it’s like I’m getting all these things done, and I’m moving at a fast pace.

That actually feels normal to me. It is a superpower because I get a ton done. But also, I think that it creates disconnection. And I know that in order to really be who I wanna be and show up in that energy and the, and be fully clear and grounded and connected, I have to continue to have more time for stillness.

And I have my meditation practice in the morning down. But one thing I’ve learned, side note tangent, I’m gonna bring this back, is I was doing… I am doing a… I love Joe Dispenza meditations. Love him, love his meditations. They’re very, like, I can stay, it, really in them and go deep in them. They, like, have that mystical element, the music.

But I started trying these meditations where it’s, like, it’s slightly guided, but it’s almost not guided. And all you really do is, like, pay attention to your breath. That’s it. And it’s really actually hard for me, which is crazy, because I’ve been meditating hardcore for the last two years. And in this one, he had us doing our breath and counting, like counting one when you breathe in and one when you breathe out.

And every single time, by the time I got to eight, eight, that’s not even a lot, eight breaths, I was going off somewhere else. My brain, my brain was going off. So that has been really good in getting me to recognize. I’ve actually been combining them. I’ll do a Dispenza, and then I’ll do, like, 15 minutes of that, and it’s been really great.

But it’s been making me realize how challenging true stillness is, and how much I need to change up the way I’m looking at my stillness practice, ’cause I got really used to the meditation. So I looked at those things, and the eight things I wanna bring to reality in my life, who I wanna be, how I wanna show up, and I was like, “What’s the one thing that would move the needle the most for me?”

And what I came to was this ritual of my first and last 30 of the day. First 30 minutes, last 30 minutes of the day, and how I’m choosing to spend them. And having a rule that the first and last 30 is a time that there is zero outside noise and stimulation So I know, like, kids waking up, in an ideal world, they weren’t, they’re not awake yet.

That doesn’t happen every morning, but I still have a way that I… My kids are now old enough where I can put my headphones on, put my eye mask on and meditate, and they kind of leave me alone. Anyways, the first 30 minutes are zero outside noise. That means no phone, like, no consuming anything, not even a book, and also for connection to myself.

So first 30 minutes of the day, last 30 minutes of the day. And I think that you can make this whatever you wanna make this. And I think for, so many of you who listen to this podcast, this could be very powerful, and it’s something that I’m gonna start referencing is, like, your fir- especially the first 30.

Because when you wake up and you choose to pick up your phone and, you know, even just quickly check social media or check email if you have it on your phone, or text messages, you are throwing yourself into this state of, like, you just woke up and you’re going into reactivity and high dopamine and noise.

And so my rule is first 30 and last 30 is no phone and no even, you know, consuming, like, TV. I don’t really watch TV. My problem is I don’t watch TV, I scroll funny reels on Instagram. So for the first 30, that’s easy for me because I already was doing that. That’s my meditation. But I can’t even, like, open the Instagram app for a second before I get my first 30 in.

And then the last 30, that is a new one because that’s where I was struggling, and so I was like, “What’s the one thing that would move the needle? It’s this,” I really think, because it would give me a lot more clarity. And so what I’ve been doing is making myself a cup of tea, going outside, it’s hot in Austin, so this works right now, and sitting out on my back patio with nothing.

And just, like, looking at the stars, listening to the bugs. I’ll talk to the universe. I really will. I’ll pray. I’ll talk to the universe, talk to God. And it has been so good for me. So I brought that here as an idea for you, because I do think… Like, for me, what, what I’ve been doing is I go out there and I just sit there.

And it’s actually not hard for me. If I’m… For, for whatever reason, it’s like if I was in my bed- I would need something or even in the bath. Like, I can’t just sit there. I need a book or my phone or something. And even a book, like, I don’t wanna learn. At the end of the day, I don’t have any more mental capacity.

Like, it’s hard for me. It either has to be a TV or scrolling Reels. And this is sad to say, but even, like, TV is not stimulating enough, which is sad where our brains are at. Like, I need the fast, the Reels so bad. So anyways, I don’t even take my phone on the patio. I go out on the patio, and for whatever reason, I can just sit there, and I can stare at the stars, and it’s not boring.

And it’s like, it’s stimulating enough. And time can go by, 30 minutes. I’ve, I sat out there last night for an hour and a half ’cause I was like, “I don’t even wanna go to bed. I don’t feel tired yet,” and whatever. I’m staring at the stars and, and just, like, thinking. And I’m not, like, making myself feel like you have to meditate, and you have to be, like, focused.

I’ll just think, and I will actually talk out loud, to God. And I will focus on bringing myself back to my body. That’s what I noticed, is now I’m starting to be able to feel when I’m in my head versus in my body. And I can notice when I’m in my head because my thoughts are very much like thinking about something that happened, analyzing it, worrying about something that’s could happen in the future, like that anxiety.

And then I notice, “Oh, you’re not in your body right now. Like, that’s your head. That is your h- that is your brain. That is your head.” And then I can bring myself into my heart. And one mai- main thing that I focus on is gratitude. Like, I literally just sit out there, and I, and I just don’t even just say it, like logically say it.

I feel it. Like, I am so grateful, grateful for my life, my house, my kids’ health that day. And I just feel this, like, immense gratitude. And something just washes over my body with ease and peace and connection, it’s wild. So that’s my new routine. I came to this by going… Here’s how I got to it, and I think this will help you guys.

It’s like, I was like, “What is the one thing I could change as an action every day that would make the biggest difference for me?” And I know it is consuming, on my phone. And because that impacts me in many ways. It impacts, like, just my mental state, my nervous system, my patience with my kids, but also clarity in the business.

It impacts where my energetic state is. If you’re focused on gratitude and abundance, that is the, the, the key for manifesting. So I was like, “What’s the one action?” And then I sat with myself and I was like, I have said this so many times, right? Like, every week this goes on my list of what I could do better.

And some weeks are better than others. and I was like, “Why is it not working?” Okay. Why… I’m not able to, like, willpower this because I, at the end of the day, all my willpower is gone. I’m tired. I’m mentally tired. I’m physically tired. I’ve been either running the company or with my kids all day. I’ve been going all day.

There’s not much that I can do. Like, the phone is winning. Okay, why? And so then I was like, “Okay, how could I make this easy for myself?” And the first night it wasn’t like you have to leave the phone in the house. I brought the phone outside and I just set it down. I didn’t even wanna scroll, but I was like, “Oh, whatever.

If you wanna check your messages a few times, you can.” And so I didn’t make it, like, crazy rigid, where it was like you have to leave the phone and then you have to do it this many. And I was just like, “How could I make this so that it, it flows and easy for myself?” And that’s how I came up with it, was like, what’s the one thing that’s gonna make the biggest difference that I could take action on starting tomorrow?

And then how do I make it easy and not, like, forcing myself to do it? So that’s my invitation for you guys with this is, you know, anything I said in here, you can write out your eight things and really think about that version of you. I think emotion and, and feeling that version of you is so important.

And then Asking yourself like what is one thing that if you changed it starting today, starting tomorrow, it would have a domino effect in many different areas? And for a lot of us, it’s the first and last 30 of how we spend our day. Because I know for me, if I get up in the morning and I were to skip my meditation and I was to go straight to my phone, straight to taking care of my kids, it really does impact the entire rest of my day.

And there was women at my event who, same thing, it’s like a reset. It’s like we know this, but we fall off of it because life and because our external environment is very powerful at pulling us out of this. And it doesn’t just take willpower, it takes intention and commitment and awareness because it can be so easy to just slide back and allow the external environment of kids, partners, your business, your team.

All of those things are constantly pulling me, and only I can decide when those get my energy and attention, and that takes energy for me to do that because it’s easier for me to start reacting and to start being like, “Okay, let me respond to these messages. Okay, my kid needs breakfast. Okay, we need to do this.”

And then if I start my day that way, it really does impact the whole rest of the day. I’m less clear. I’m less grounded. I, I’m, I’m just not as focused. Like I notice even working, if I don’t start my day intentionally, like it will be easier for me to get pulled in all these directions in terms of communication and reactive.

Not, not reactive in a way of, of negative in terms of like I’m angry reactive, but just like I’m letting my environment decide where my attention goes and where my energy goes versus being intentional with, where it goes and, and deciding that. So there’s my chat for today, you guys. I hope it was helpful.

All things that have been on my mind, but this nighttime routine feels really good. I’m sure it will change, but the way that I was able to get there, and decide that this was my routine i- is something I will repeat. Like what’s the one action that’s gonna move the needle the most? And then number two, how do I make that easy for me to get there?

All right, everybody. Thanks so much for tuning in and I’ll talk to you next week.