6 Happiness Boosters for CEOs

TRANSCRIPT AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED Hey, Hey, so we are hurtling into Q2 already. I'm not a hundred percent sure how this year is going so quickly, but before you dive head first into that quarter, I want to pull you back for a minute and I want to ask you how happy you are. As the CEO of your company. Whether you're a solopreneur or you have a team working for you. I don't think we step back often enough to ask ourselves if we're actually enjoying our business. So today I want to highlight a few areas that I think would be really helpful for you to think about in this regard. When I'm thinking about somebody's business, I think of it in three steps. Number one, we need the happy CEO. Who then leads a really happy team who then managers and delivers on the client experience. Which then creates the results, which makes a happy CEO. So it's a wonderful cycle, but too often we're focused too much on the client experience. Instead of checking that we are set up to lead that business in the best way possible. As our starting point. So I'm going to suggest six areas that you can think about in this space. And maybe that's the next time you sit down to do one of your weekly CEO times, or maybe it's just a journaling question you want to ask yourself. The first one is mission. I think mission is an interesting area. So some people are incredibly mission-driven . Since the first day that they started their business, they have had a massive Y. They're trying to impact great change, whether that's in the world and their family in their lifestyle. But others left feeling a little bit like, Hmm. I'm not sure I have this huge mission. I just want to really live a really good life and have a business that runs it. And there's nothing wrong with either of those. But I'm going to challenge both of those. First of all, if you are the super mission driven person, when was the last time that you stepped back and asked yourself if that mission you set yourself? All those years ago is still what's driving it. It's still, what's getting you out of bed now. It could be at a fundamental level. But maybe that's expanded. And the reason I want to push you to really think about that mission again, to revisit it, to ask yourself if it's still applicable, if you need to add to it is that you need to be really inspired by that mission. Not just so that you can keep going when things get tough. But also because if you're not inspired by that mission, how can you inspire a team to get behind that mission? Now for my friends who don't feel like that, particularly mission driven. I can relate massively. I can remember coming into entrepreneur war and being like people have these massive wise they have these massive origin stories and I'm like, I just had a really bad time in corporate. And. So I just don't want to go back to corporate. That was kind of my mission for a really long time. And it's only recently that I've stepped back and gone. My mission the whole time, everything I've done in my business has been around keeping small businesses in business so they can become big businesses. And that's evolved over time to wanting to help those small businesses. Really create an incredible culture where employees are happy and feel valued and seen and want to stay longterm because I think big corporate, very toxic cultures. That's really hard to change. That's a really big ship. You're like that. Like, what is it like the evergreen or whatever that was across the Suez canal. And you're the little like Digger trying to dig it out. Versus if I can support that in a small business. And make sure that it's a full of a happy CEO and a happy team and happy clients. When it grows into a big business, it can take that culture with it. So it's kind of a grassroots level for me. And so for my people who don't have a mission, I want to challenge you to step back and ask yourself. If you look back over the last few years, what are the types of clients that you've worked with? Telling you. What's lighting you up. Is there actually a mission and you do not have to talk about this publicly, but is there actually a mission? Underlying everything that you just, maybe haven't noticed. And again, the reason I want you to feel that you have a mission is so you can offer that to your team as kind of a north star for your business. It's something for them to get behind as much as you. The second piece I want to dive into is really. Doing the things that you love. As much as possible. I think as we're building our business, we really do lean into those natural talents. If we don't lean into them, we're burning out. It's as simple as that. It might not happen today. It might not happen tomorrow, but it's coming. So the more you can stay in those natural talents and design your business around them, the easier things are gonna feel for you. And so you probably look back at your success and you can see that what you were doing to build that success with staying in your natural talents. But now as you have a team you're less in the doing so there's about what is my natural talent? What is the natural thing I'm good at, but how do I naturally lead? As you step up to lead a team and to lead a business, your self-awareness. Is your. Most valuable skill. Your ability to say to yourself, I'm really good at this. I'm really not so good at this. So that's where I'm going to hire. That's where I'm going to delegate. Andrew, our ability to reflect back on your leadership over the past week or whatever, and go. Hmm, that really didn't go so great. How could I do better next time? And it's about you finding that leadership style that works for you. So that you can be successful versus you falling into a leadership style that you believe you need to exhibit. That is going to be as exhausting and lead to burnout. Just like if you were running a business that wasn't really connected to your natural abilities and superpowers, now, that's not to say that you can't grow as a human and develop a bit more EEQ around things and tone down parts of it. But the same way you needed to be aware of your natural talents need to be aware of your natural leadership style and where you can really lean into it. And where maybe you need to pull back a bit, to get the results that you really want. On the flip side of leaning into what you're really good at. Comes the. The recovery element, so we can all do hard things. Just because something isn't your natural talent or your natural superpower. Doesn't mean that you can't do the thing. It just means that thing is a bit harder for you. And then it might be for somebody else. And when we do hard things, it's important that we are really intentionally creating space. To recover from that heart thing. when I say intentionally creating space, I mean, there is white space in your calendar on a regular basis for you to step back and take stock. Yes, 100% bubble boss. Yes, 100% green juice. Coming in as healthy as you possibly can, making sure that you're getting enough rest. These are all kind of baseline. But where is your actual, like self care in the CEO space? Where are you allowing yourself time to think the space to create the vision, right? Where are you creating gaps? That if something happens, you've got space to recover so that you're not running from fire to fire, you're not running from meeting to meeting. You are allowing yourself space as a normal part of business. Especially if you're new in the leadership space. And I'll finding your feet there. . It's important that you intention, you have space. In your calendar. As often as you can. I re really pushing you to have some space in your calendar every day. To just allow yourself to decompress. If something feels hard to allow yourself that recovery moment to allow yourself to have a little mini meditation at your desk, or just take a few deep breaths away from the situation. So yes, to bubble bath, but also yes, to intentionally. Building in self care to your daily work routine. Next up. I want you to think about your goals, right? I think when we step into that CEO space, we have a whole bunch of goals that a whole bunch of our team on measuring and we've got KPIs up the wazoo, managing all of it. But what are our goals? As the CEO. So we probably have a five-year vision. Maybe it's a three-year vision. What does that look like in small increments? Not for the team. But how are you showing up? So yes, your team are going to hit some of those goals for you, but you've got a really big five-year vision or three-year vision or 10 year plan. That ability to take that goal, like the same way that you would take a big goal for your team. And. Break it down into manageable chunks by year, by quarter, by month by week, whatever it is, we need to figure out how to we. Put those same little boosts, those same little rewards. Into your goals as a CEO. Maybe as a CEO, some of those goals feel like much more soft skills, but thinking about what would be the markers on the route to that really big goal. That would allow you to give yourself a pat on the back and be like, I'm on the right track. Yay me. Little mini reward, little happiness chemical boost so that you can stay motivated so that you can stay the course. I think when we delegate a lot to our teams, we can sometimes feel disconnected from anything other than like the big company goal. Because we're no longer really in control of those goals, especially if we've delegated an outcome to somebody else. Yes. You care if that outcome is met, but when that outcome is met, it's not you meeting it, right? Yes. You're proud. Yes. You're happy that the team did it, but it's not the same as if you had done it yourself. And I think this is why we see CEOs suddenly diving back into the detail and getting all caught up in the weeds because it's that little boost of like, oh, I achieved this today. Versus when you're in a really soft skills role. It's hard to get to the end of the day and be like, well, I thought, wait hours today. It's hard for that to feel measurable. And so we crave the measurable and we start like digging into things that we should be keeping our nose out of. So really taking a step back and thinking about, okay, what is my longterm plan? What are my goals? What do I want to achieve? What would that look like as a success measure for me? And what are like my mini tasks on the road to that goal. The next thing I want you to think about is how are you? Building. Personal resilience. So I think there's resilience that comes from contingency plans for the business. Comes from backups and backups and plans. Great. If you've been listening for a while, you know that I can talk the hind leg off that donkey. But we also need to be thinking about personal resilience. And, you know, sometimes resilience comes from experience, right? From going through the hard thing and knowing that you can come out the other side of it, what I'm talking about here is how can you. Maybe look at something that's already happened. So something that's, you know, you're completely through it. It's not something that feels raw or painful to you right now. I want you to look back at that experience and go. Who could I call on? Who could I talk to in that moment? Who helped me? What tools did I have? Like what got me through that experience. And I want you to write it down. Okay. It's not just thinking through like, actually write it down, write down what got you. Throat. And. Because I want you to see that in black and white. So the next time you feel something bubbling up, you can look at that list and immediately have a set of resources that you can lean into. You're not thinking you're not requiring your brain in that moment of panic or fight or flight of crisis to come up with. Like, how can you recover? So you were coming back to a list of resources that are already there for you. I think. Especially when we're in a leadership position. Our ability to just stay calm in a storm. Is really helpful. To our team and their ability to stay calm in a storm. And so. What happens when we don't have this kind of resilience plan? When we haven't really thought through what that might look like is sometimes. We can be verbally processing the crisis and living the experience out loud to our team. And that can often create. Real uncertainty and real, like lack of safety for them. And it's not to say that you're not going to come up against something in the rollercoaster that is entrepreneurial land. And. You know, need to come up with a different resource. But the next time something happens and you lean on someone new and surprising, or you remember that you have a spreadsheet. That solved your problem. You can simply keep adding to that list of resources. I think this is a really important one. We often avoid it because we don't want to think about the horrible thing that happened. Because it wasn't fun to experience it. However, there were so much learning in that experience and you want to make sure that it's captured. For yourself and potentially for something that you could share with your team as a resource as well. And finally, the last piece of the puzzle, I think, is really the people that you surround yourself with. Hopefully you've got yourself to a point where you no longer work with clients who are. Pain in the ass clients, right? Hopefully your business has hit a point where you're like, I now have a boundary that I am enforcing really hard onto this one. So you're surrounded by clients that you really like. Hopefully you've hired a team who you love and enjoy spending time with. But I think even as both of these are satisfied, It can be lonely at the top. It's really important when you're leading a business that you are not venting. Or processing downstream. Yes, You're friendly with your team, but your team are not your friends. So it's really making sure that you have an established. Relationship. That you can go to who understand what you're talking about. So you're not spending time explaining, so yes. Partners. Family members are great for listening. But. They're not always going to get it. And I'm going to get why the thing that you did, you know, they're going to say something like, oh, you're overreacting when they don't understand the implications. They're going to give you suggestions that are completely not going to work and then be offended that you didn't take their advice. So that one's kind of fraught. I would say in those spaces it's going with, like, I just had a really bad day. You know, let's have a cup of tea or a glass of wine or whatever, what those relationships. And then I want you to make sure, that there is somebody in your life. That you can be 100% honest with about your business. Whether that is somebody who is naturally a biz bestie, where the relationship that you've cultivated, that has a lot of trust in it. Or whether that's somebody you pay. To be objective and be your sounding board. Either of those options is valid. What you want to make sure is that the person is objective. Did they understand your business to a degree? And that you are communicating whether you need to veins or whether you need assistance, that's really going to help you get the response that you need in that moment. So I know we've gone through a lot today. So what I'm going to suggest is that. In your next CEO time. That you take a moment at the beginning and you just do a little mini evaluation of these areas and how they're contributing to your business, to your role as CEO and to how happy you are as a CEO. So again, a reminder of them mission. Doing things that you're good at making sure you have self care. Having your own personal goals and many goals for motivation. That you're building a resilience plan. And that you're surrounding yourself with people that you both like and trust, and that you have that trusted advisor that you can lean on when you need to. Remember, it's important that you, as the CEO are happy. So that you can lead a happy team who can deliver a customer experience that leads to happy clients, . The create the results that make you a happy CEO