022: You May Be Bringing Your C-Game If...

The Modern CEO Podcast Episode 22 hey, have you heard? There's a new style of CEO on the block. The Modern CEO. And she is changing the way businesses are run. She's setting her own hours and her own salary. She's creating a business around what matters most to her. Freedom, family, and impact. And her corner office looks nothing like what you'd see on Wall Street. It's a kitchen table, your grandma's lake house, a spacious home office, the living room floor, maybe surrounded by kids and crayons or the local coffee shop. Your business, your way. This modern CEO is here to stay. Because when you embrace your role as modern CEO, you will have more freedom, more profit, and more fun. Most importantly, you'll fall in love with your life and a business in a way you've only dreamed. Trust. This isn't a pipe dream reserved for only a select few. You are the modern CEO. You are creating a business and life you love because a better business means a better life. Well, hey there. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host, Amber McHugh. Hanging out here as always on the Modern CEO podcast. And I wanted to ask, first and foremost, if you listened to our last episode, that is. What did you think of Hustle Hard Harriet? And Right on Time Rita? Yes. Right on Time Rita, because you cannot be late for your destiny. Sometimes when I talk to people about this idea that you can't be late for your destiny, people challenge me and say, then I don't have to plan. Then I don't have to do anything. Then things are just gonna happen, right? Wrong. I remember when I first started learning about the law of attraction and manifesting that, I had these same exact thoughts. Oh, well, I just have to manifest it. It'll just happen, right? Like I'm just gonna sit back and wait for things to show up. Nope. That is not how this goes. You are right on time. But you still have to show up. You still have to meet your plans halfway if you want to reap the benefits of being right on time. You can't just sit back and throw your hands up in the air and not do anything and then be upset when nothing happens. Right on time requires planning. It requires you meet your dreams halfway. It requires that you are open to the possibility that your dreams will come true. And no, my friend, procrastination is not the answer. So if you are sitting there thinking about something. Oh, my gosh, Procrastination. I've got this idea, but I've been putting it off. Or I've got this thing I want to implement, but now's not the right time. When I think about the process of right on time, I definitely feel that it's an idea that can be misunderstood to be interpreted as everything's right on time so I don't need to plan. And that is a procrastination trap that you could potentially fall into if you are going to go on this right on time journey with me for a long time. I got away with this procrastination approach to being right on on time. But using right on time as an excuse for being where you are today, as an excuse for delaying on projects till the last minute or not planning for meetings does not serve you. Not planning for your goals, not planning to meet your goals, not taking action, productive, strategic, focused action towards your goals is not going to help you. Right on time for me wasn't about being late for meetings and it wasn't about planning. In fact, I was usually early to meetings. My write on time instead started probably in my early 30s, maybe my late 20s when I realized I could crack out deliverables. Crack out. I could crank out. I could crank out deliverables. I am, I wasn't. I wasn't doing crack while I was cranking out the deliverables. I could crank them out last minute and everything was fine. In fact, it was probably more than fine because I was in the zone. I was getting it done. I had a system and a process so I could move through that. But it didn't feel aligned. It didn't feel like I was putting my best foot forward. It didn't feel like I was energetically all in. So this approach probably started for me when a mentor in my MBA program reviewed all of my personality assessments and she observed me in class and she got a sense of how I worked based on my360 review and some papers that I wrote. And after reviewing all of my information, really digging into who I am as a person, she suggested I could probably work a little less and really exceed and still shine in the federal government. What? The federal government? You want me to perform less and do worse and shine and something just fell off. Like bringing my C game could still make me an A player in this environment. And that's when I started to rethink how I was showing up and how I was getting last minute to my deliverables even though they were fine. But I was working late and I was working extra, but I was showing up in a way that didn't align with who I was. Because when she shared this with me. When she suggested that I could bring my C game and still be an A player, I thought, why in the world would I want to bring my C game anywhere? And I realized that doing everything in the nick of time is most definitely not a game behavior. I was bringing my C game already, but it was her saying to me that, yeah, bringing your C game is fine, that really, really shook me. C game behavior is what keeps me from writing my book. C game behavior is what kept me from reimagining my business for so long. C game behavior keeps you playing small. So while we go and enter this series in the Modern CEO podcast, we're really focused on how you are showing in your business as a leader. How are you showing up in your business as a leader? Are you bringing your C game? Are you procrastinating? Are you using the idea that, hey, everything is right on time as an excuse for stepping up and being the person, you know, that you are meant to be? Yeah. My mentor had this idea that bringing your A game was hard work. And in fact, what I was doing and what I was showing her is that, yeah, I was working hard. I was working a lot, I was putting in a lot of effort, and I was in motion a lot to bring my A game. And for you, it might be hard, it might be stressful, it might just be fine. Might just be fine. But if any of this is resonating with you and you're like, yeah, okay, maybe I'm putting in effort, maybe I'm rocking like the rocking chair, but not getting where I actually want to be going, then maybe tap into this as a leader in your business and in your life and ask yourself, is what you're doing, is how you're showing up right now aligned to who you know you are? And for me, shifting my life so I could bring my A game without all the hustle, without all the pressure, without all the stress was a challenge I was ready to accept. Because procrastinating, on the other hand, the idea of bringing my C game stresses me out. And it was in that moment with my mentor saying, ah, just bring your C game, that I realized I. I was already bringing my C game and it wasn't working. It was not working. I was staying up late working into the middle of the night. In fact, I worked at a consulting firm, and it was not uncommon that people would be up late working. So someone would write me back and then the cycle would begin, even during the day. And this is probably part of the reason that my deliverables Got pushed to the night. But an email would come in and I would make it a game to reply first. So someone would send an email to a group of people and be like, oh, I'm going to reply first so that nobody has to worry about replying and they can just focus on their jobs. And I am 100% going to take care of this. And I gamified it. So it was a lot of fun. I got a total adrenaline rush and I'm like, yeah, I got it. Nobody else has to worry. And sure, people appreciated that, but that was totally not necessary for my success, for my growth, and it was totally not aligned to who I want to be and who I am, right? But it was fun. I got my adrenaline rush and it kept me going and it gave me fuel to work until 2am on deliverables that I probably should have been doing during the day instead of gamifying how fast I could reply to emails and how fast I could take care of everything, Right? And this is all in my head, you know, other things were dropping, I'm sure of it. Right? But that was the pressure and this was my mindset. Procrastinating wasn't gonna work for me. So don't. As we're talking about right on time. Remember, don't use that as an excuse to take your pedal off the metal, so to speak, on the most important things. For me personally, procrastinating leaves me apologizing. Leaves me apologizing for missed calls, for being behind on projects. Essentially, it leaves me apologizing for not showing up in alignment. Even if people don't notice, right? Even if they're not looking for an apology. What I feel inside when I procrastinate is devastating. And this happens and starts to prompt things. It's a cycle, right? It's a cycle and it continues. And guilt layers up and those feelings of hustle and overwhelm start to creep in and know you can't do anything. And that's why we have to prioritize. Where are you going? Make a plan to get there. And then we've got to work the plan. And of course things are gonna happen that are totally out of your control. Like completely, totally. Like family being sick. Like a car accident. Like you being sick, right? Like your computer totally crashing and nothing's working. The Internet goes out for days. The power goes out for days. That's how it happens here in Ethiopia. And I gotta enable all of my backups. I've got backups for my backups, guys. I've got like four layers of Internet protection, right? But yes, things are going to happen. And I find people are pretty compassionate and people get it when life happens. And if they don't get it and life is really happening, I say goodbye for now because I've got to take care of life. Right? Goodbye for now to those people. Maybe you'll reconnect with them someday, maybe you won't. But life happens. And if you continually do not do the things you know you need to do, life is going to feel a whole lot worse day in and day out. If you don't build systems to support you in doing the things you need to do, things are going to be a whole lot harder than they need to be. That is procrastination at its best finest. I don't want you to procrastinate on your dreams. Get in action on them, even if you start small, take the tiniest step. If you have a dream, a desire, a calling that you are procrastinating. No, no, no, that is not right on time behavior. Meet the universe halfway, show up and the universe somehow conspires to make things happen for you. Now, what does this look like, practically speaking, Right? So maybe you know, you want to write a book, but you don't know the topic yet. It's not procrastinating to not write the book yet. It is procrastinating to have ideas and not write them down when they come to you, even if they're not fully shaped. Start capturing those ideas, start writing them down, start writing period. Right. There are still action steps you can take even if you don't have all of the answers. It's procrastinating to ignore the urge that you get, the idea that you get, and to not just capture it somewhere for a while. I've got a book idea in mind now. Actually, I've got three of them. One is published, the Fresh Start Workbook. The second one has been a long standing work in progress. It's the how to Clone Yourself book to accompany our how to Clone Yourself training, which is about building your team, getting your time back, building systems and you stepping into a leadership role in your business. And then I've got a third book that I didn't know what it was about for a while, but I still started to capture stories. And I just started writing and I started to sort of shape an outline when those ideas came to me. It's not a complete outline, but little by little this thing started taking shape because I was open to the possibility and I was listening to the Nudges that. That's the path I should be going down. It is procrastinating to not learn what it would take to put your book in the world. So just comparing and contrasting real quick. Procrastination. Ignoring ideas and letting them go. Write on time way of thinking. Write down the ideas when they come to you. And I'm continuing with this book theme, procrastination. Set the thought aside and you know, I'll think of it later. I'll think of it later. Oh my gosh, you guys, I cannot tell you how many times I have done that. I'm like, oh, you know, I'll come back to that idea. You guys. It's gone. That idea is gone if I don't write it down right? So write those things down. And yeah, I don't know about this book thing. I don't even have an idea for the book yet. Instead, you could learn about what it will take to publish the book. Right? Collect stories that might be in the book someday. Essentially, procrastination is excuse making. It's being in victim mode. It's ignoring ideas and it's not being present. On the flip side, when you embrace the right on time mindset, you take baby steps forward. You learn. You ask questions as you go, you collect notes, and you stay present and open to the idea that something is coming. But it doesn't mean you throw your hands up in the air and you stop taking strategic, focused action. Reaping the benefits of right on time thinking requires that you show up. You can't sit back and throw your hands in the air. Throw your hands in the air. That should have been a song for this episode. I didn't plan a song for this episode. So that was the song. Right on time thinking requires planning. Reaping the benefits of living a right on time life requires that you meet your dreams halfway. Right on time requires that you're open to the possibility this is going to happen for you. This is coming true. This will be realized. But not if we keep procrastinating. So what are you procrastinating on now? In the last episode, there was no call to action in that guided visualization. But we're back. We are back in focused action. And if there is something that you are procrastinating, step into that as soon as you are done listening to this episode. Right now, if you are stepping into action on something, I would love to hear from you. You can tag me on instagram @amber McHugh ModernCEO. I'll catch you in the next episode. Don't forget you are right on.