The Topic We All Must Talk About

Welcome! This is, uh, Podcasting with Kris in the car. I am driving up the, uh, I-5 heading home after spending the week, uh, helping my youngest son get settled in his new place, uh, before he starts in a new school. And then I went to Anaheim and I had a really fun, interesting, wonderful day with a client. At Disneyland, uh, and then I had a lovely day all by myself at Disneyland yesterday and took myself to a fancy lunch alone at Club 33. It was, it was, it was quite decadent, I'll be honest. It's been a really nice time. So I want— I have so many things. I have a lot of podcast episodes queued in my brain in no particular order, so this is the one that just surfaced while I was driving. So I thought, okay, well, let's just talk about this one and, um and then I'll do some more maybe. But I want to talk about the thing that comes for everybody, and it's not a fun topic. It gets less fun the closer you get to it. But I, I think in my— in the grand scheme of, of all this work that I've done for so long, I feel like it's something that I wish I had had more, uh, more of my own insight into, and that I brought more into the work and conversations I did with my clients. And that is, uh, the The truth about aging and being a woman who has built a life and not having— so what we know is that, is that if you're a business owner especially, but even if you are a career, uh, careerist, it will end. There is going to be an ending to your business, for you anyway. There's going to be an ending for you and your career, that there it will end. So as a business owner, you're— you will have an exit. And it's not judgmental to say, it's just the truth. It's gonna happen. And we— I think I say collective we— there, there are very few people who are talking about this, offering help with this in a way that I think is constructive. And so, and why do I know that? Because I work with women who run businesses. And so I am in those conversations with women who are in, you know, their 50s and 60s who are now kind of like, oh shoot, I gotta figure this out. And in some cases, you know, maybe missed the window, missed a really vital window to do, to have that exit. And now they're sort of trying to figure that out on the other end. And as I've been really reflecting on this, I recognize that there's, uh, there's the work that I've done with my clients for so many years about really building that infrastructure. And I say that word, but I don't really mean it to sound like hardscape. It's more like how you think about, how you design, how you run with, how you orchestrate sort of the, the operating, uh, culture and principles of your business. Those are the same assets you build in yourself and your company that also make it sellable if you want to sell, that also make it pass-on-able if you want to transition yourself out and transition someone else in to lead it. There are a lot of ways to exit your business. In the, in the grand scheme of exit, the worst way that I have witnessed through the lens of other people seems to be where you have to stay. Because by the time you're ready to leave, like, if you really do— if you really are a person who is on the latter side of your business career, and if you really do— you're like, okay, I'm ready to— I want to not do this anymore— you're, you know, you've got to remember that you're 12 to 36 months out to get your business ready to sell it. And so I just think, why not do that now? So I know I've talked about this in previous podcasts, um, in different ways. I, I wanted to talk about that, that this is just a truth. And for any of you that are listening, and, and I have clients who are in their 30s, so I think you should be thinking about this now. First of all, because I think there aren't enough women who are business owners who don't think about having early exits and capitalizing on their asset, whereas a lot of entrepreneurs entrepreneurial men sell several businesses. Sell, create, sell, create, sell, create. And maybe you don't want to do that, that's fine, but why don't we start thinking about it? Why don't we build what you have as if, as if you could at any point sell? And maybe you could sell and it doesn't require you to go with it. You aren't a matriarch in your business. You aren't responsible for taking care of everyone. This, this— a lot of women, I think, use a business and even senior executive leadership to be sort of to heal kind of this mother wound they have where they want to take— it's their version of it, right? I was talking to another client about mother wound, that there are clients who can have a mother wound, and then they seek out the wisdom and relationship with a mentor who's a woman to heal themselves and/or satisfy that wound. But what I'm talking about is that I watch women who build businesses, and then they become so enmeshed in the business and all the people in the business and the caretaker role of themselves as this owner, founder of the business that they cannot extricate themselves. They don't see where they end and the business begins and vice versa. And they've used the business to create and nurture ongoing relationships with people in the business that need them so they can fulfill their desire to be needed. I see this especially in women who cannot, for the life of themselves, um, delegate, release responsibility, transfer ownership, remove themselves because they need to be needed. They need to be integral for their own sake. But then when they want to sell, that they're just— or they want to leave, they— because you— because it does have its tipping point. I've watched it now too many times. There is the tipping point. And if the work, the design, the structure, the belief system, the mindset shift that you have to go through, if that hasn't happened. It isn't simple to just walk away or sell or find someone to run it. You— it isn't. But there's a truth to the fact that— and again, this is not to be scary or anything, it's just the reality because we all know this too, right? There's a truth to the fact that there are people who wake— who wake up and then they can't go to work They have some sort of physical issue, they get sick, they have— and you can't go operate the business you've created. You literally can't do it. That is the truth that a lot of people run into. And so you spend all your days saying, I know I can't, I don't know what they would do without me, I don't know how to do that, I can't delegate, I can't watch them fail, I can't watch them make all these Well, there could be a day where you don't get to choose anyway. They're gonna, they're gonna take over, and, and whatever will happen will happen. And so this belief that if it's not you, it's not done right, and you're attached and you can't get out— this is— these— the, the biggest shift is in your brain, my love. If you have even started to think, God, I wonder if I could— I wonder if I should sell, I wonder if I should sell this business, I wonder if it's time to sell, I wonder if it's— I wonder if I should— if Where you are, the answer is yes, because like I said, you're 12 to 36 months out. So just because maybe even— I just talked to a client yesterday and she said, I'm not ready to sell yet. Okay, get ready, be ready, have it ready, right? Clean out the garage, get rid of all the extra clothes in your closet. You're not going to sell your house this week, but why not? Why not get ready? Why not be ready? Becoming ready invites opportunity. Closing your eyes to the truth about who you need to become in order to sell your business prevents opportunity. And if that business is still core, at its core, dependent on you to operate, you have, you are, you are beginning now And that doesn't mean it can't be done, but I just think this is a truth that you, you must accept. We will all have an exit, and I think given how hard you have worked to either build this career or build this business, you deserve the exit you most want. So what is it? And let's believe in that, because if we look at the life you've already built, you've built a beautiful life, haven't you? You're proud of what you've done, right? So what's necessary? What is left for you to truly unravel, for you to truly plan for? What hard decisions need to be made that you've avoided? What organizational systems need addressing? What team members do you currently have in place that are essential and key is what they would call that in a sale, right? Your key members, your key team staff members, key man. I just like key woman better. Who— what are your key people? Who are they? And then who are people who are not contributing to the ultimate goal of building a company that you can exit? Who is, who is currently your problem that you've tolerated out of loyalty that really doesn't belong anymore in your ecosystem for a successful business? Remember, as the, as the owner of a business once his business is thriving and making money and has, has good business model and all those things. So that's why we tend to focus on over a million dollar businesses, right? Because now we know your business model works. Could it be better? Yes. Could I— but it then it becomes a much more strategic, uh, process other than just you doing all the work. Once we get there, um, we have to remember that we transition from the founder, the person who's creating, who has created this with her sleeves rolled up and sweat and sleepless nights and laptop open at 12 and all those things. And now we've become the custodian to a thing we built that we created. And so it is not, it is not ours, it is not of us. It is this entity now in the world that exists exists for a purpose. It is not of you. For as long as you continue to make it of you, you're stuck. And so is the business, because the business can't operate without you. It needs what's between your ears to function. And what we need is for that to come out of you and go into other people, and then for you to learn how to let that process happen. So I always think that you listen to the podcast you're supposed to hear, and I just think that if you're listening to this, I really would invite you to ask yourself, okay, what am I really— what do I want here? And even if you're, you know, not even anywhere close to exiting, I, I would invite you to give it some thought. What do you really want? If you could design it to be what you want, what is it and why? And what are the current limitations to that? And what are you willing to do about that? It's an important part of being a business owner. And if you're a careerist and you are at the high level of your role, you can ask the same questions. What do I want? What do I want to create for myself when I'm done here? The careerists and business owners run into the same issue, which is not what we're going to talk about on this podcast. And that's that they don't know what they want when they're done with this. So they stay with this, even though they don't want to do this anymore, because they don't know what they would do if they didn't do this. They stay. They, they stay past their sort of mental commitment expiration date. Like, you, you exhaust it, but you don't leave. You don't exit because you don't know what you do with yourself. That's a terrible reason. If you still have energy and a working body and a brain, there is so much you can do with yourself other than keep doing something that you no longer have the passion or the fire for. So give it a think. I mean, why wouldn't you?

Right?

All right, mama.

The best news ever! SAGE has reopened for registration going into the 26-27 season. We will begin at the end of September and complete next year in July. And I'm so excited. We have some amazing gatherings scheduled and the focus for this year will be just wonderful. I I cannot wait to get started. There are still some spots available. So if you're interested, please go to thevisionary.ceo/sageinvitation. You'll see all the details. And the next step is for us to meet and have a call and talk about it.

Let's do it. Let's go.