S02 Episode 02: The Magic of a CEO Breakdown

The magic of the breakdown for CEOs. Here we go.

Hello, everybody. Welcome. I'm Chris Plackey. Thank you for joining me on Leadership is Feminine podcast. This is the season where we're talking about CEO magic, and it's my favorite thing to talk about. And today I want to talk to you about the breakdown. And, oh, dear, I have a lot to say.

My coach said to me, right. Always precede the breakthrough. So what do I mean by breakdown? Well, I can certainly say that over the last many months, I've had the opportunity to work with well over 150amazing entrepreneurs, women. And the last two years has been incredibly lucrative for a lot of people in many ways, in the circle that I'm in here, the women I work with. And yet a lot of that abundance or a lot of that success has also come with a lot of, you know, putting your head down and just getting it done, which is what we do. That's what entrepreneurs do. And what I have certainly seen over the past several months with both myself and many of my clients is an awakening to.

Pieces and parts of the business that you might have been tolerating and at your own expense. And the other thing that's happened is that a lot of people have had significant adversity. And I'm speaking directly. You know, I speak to my. Of myself with last year receiving a cancer diagnosis and having to have radical surgery and what that does to you when that happens. And I have two clients, actually, who are recovering from an incredibly bad battle with COVID And that changes you. And it also reveals to you.

How much things can operate without you.

When there is absolutely no option. So it's interesting, right? The. The magic of a breakdown, the magic of illness, the magic of adversity is like a highway speed train to showing you what you're capable of, even though while you're in that train, it's awful, it's uncomfortable, it's miserable, it's disquieting. But for many of us, it's really important because it's kind of the only way we wake up, right? It's the only way that. That we can be touched. And so one of the things that I'm working on as I'm introducing the sage CEO work into the world is.

This complimentary knowing of this is awful. And I don't want to deal with this, and this is hard, and I can't see my way out of it. And I'm going to crawl under the covers, and I want to cry, and I want to yell and also having simultaneously the same wisdom that says, oh.

This is going to be really good.

I know this is going to get me to that next step that maybe I was unwilling to take on my own.

And so for anybody listening to this, who has struggled, who has had them found themselves in moments, you know, I. Because I work with women, I hear all of the things I. You know, there's challenges with the business. There's challenges with the team. There's challenges with your product and sales. There's challenges in your marriages and your partnerships. There's challenges with your children.

There's challenges with your own health, with your own psyche, with your own wellness. There are pieces and parts that touch you. I appreciate as a human being that because you run your own business, we don't isolate out. Like, it all comes together.

And I want to. I want to help you in this moment. If that's you. If you. If you're sitting on the bathroom floor listening to this, if you just left your house to go on a walk, to get away from it all, a breakdown is terrible.

But it's sometimes the only source of magic that will get you there.

And so instead of cursing this moment and asking, why me? And why is this happening? And how do I get out of it? And. Right. I've had several women say to me in the past few weeks, should I just step out? Like, should I just get back to being me? Should I get rid of this business? Should I? How about instead, we sit quietly with ourselves and a trusted advisor, someone that loves you and cares for you, but also holds what's best for you, holds.

That part of you that maybe you can't see right now, but maybe I could. Maybe someone else could. We could see it. We see it there for you. And instead of asking, why me? Why is this happening? What am I doing? Let's ask instead, what's next?

What now? The magic of a breakdown.

Is the paralysis that comes because what you've always done doesn't work anymore.

And if you choose to instead see that as an opportunity for silence, an opportunity to listen instead of fear. An opportunity to ask, what now?

What's next?

And to answer that with the most empowering choice. Not the one that pulls you backwards, but the one that your future self says, yeah. No, no, no. Maybe this is now, the chance we have to do this. You know that thing I've been whispering to you about for five years? Maybe now is the time to do this. If that's you and that's where you are.

What if it was magic?

Not pain. What if it was really here for you? And I will say, you know, having. I had a really kind of difficult November for a lot of reasons, and certainly nothing I couldn't handle, but, you know, not the best month. And when you're in that moment and someone says to you, oh, this is so good for you.

It's gonna be so good, you're gonna figure so much out. It's not necessarily what you want to hear, but. So I'm trying to. To balance that for you to recognize that in my experience, breakdowns lead to breakthroughs. And if you are willing, even in the mire, even in the misery, even in the challenges that you're facing right now, whatever those are, if you are willing to listen to the whisper.

Of the breakthrough, you'll find it. You'll find it. You will know it's there.

And if that is hard for you, if you struggle with that, I understand and know that there are people who can help you there.

And that's what I mean by trusted advisors, people who really can hold that space for you. Because sometimes we just can't do it for ourselves. And the reason that this age CEO program is being born is because I know that there are women like you, like me, who are other people's sage. But where do you go? Because just because you have amassed talent and resources and insight and wisdom that you can support others with, and they seek you out, where do you go? Where do you go that's safe, where you can be you. Right? That's what I find happens in the circles that I create, especially when we go to Hawaii. I work with amazing women who are incredibly accomplished. And yet as we grow, we have our next breakdown. And sometimes we have very unexpected ones. Where do you go?

So wherever you are, if you're listening to this, listen. I know there's some other people who are like, this has been the year of the best year of my life. And if that's where you are, I think that's awesome. I would tell you from a business perspective, this has been the best year of our business ever. But it's also been the most challenging. Right? It kind of goes hand. Hand to glove. Is that how you say that? So. But that's not a bad thing. Part of our experience as a human is to experience discomfort, dis ease. But those aren't stop signs. And that's the goal here, is to see the magic of a breakdown, the magic of adversity, the magic of an unexpected moment that in that moment, you think is derailing it might just be resetting the course for the breakthrough. So I wanted to give you that today as we end up into we move into the end of the year. This will release on December 6th and December 3rd is my birthday and I always think of my birthday as the new year for me. And so I'm actually going to spend the weekend with my girlfriend and we're going to do a lot of dreaming and scheming and planning because I love to think about I'm starting my next year and we're wrapping up an annual year calendar year. And so where have those breakdowns been for you? Are you in run right now? And what is the whisper of breakthrough that you have? I know you have and are you willing to listen? We are in the process right now of registering for our how to CEO wait list. We will be launching a new cohort advisory group in January. And so if you haven't joined and you know you want to work with us in the new year, this is an incredible time to do that. We have upgraded this program without giving you a ton of boring details. I will tell you it's slightly shorter than it used to be, it's less expensive than it used to be and also equally as robust because we now know after over a year of doing this program what you need and how to help you triage those immediate needs that you have right now as a woman running a team, who's running a business. So if you aren't on the wait list and you know this is something you want to do for yourself, go to howtoceoregister.com join the wait list. We're going to be doing several really cool things for people who are on that wait list. I don't want you to miss out.

It's an incredible time to be a woman. It's an incredible time to be running a company. There have never been more resources available to you than right now. This is the time to invest in yourself. Because how you go, so too goes the business. My love. Let's do this. Alright, thanks for tuning in.