How to Eliminate Stress When Growing Your Business

I want you to start shifting the hard work you do and say, okay, I'm building this business. I've got this vision of where I want to go, and these things need to happen for me to get there. Meaning, this is what I want. This is where I'm at, and I need to close the gap. If you start looking at it and saying, hey, I'm just closing the gap right now between where I want to go and where I'm at, then the hard work becomes temporary and becomes worth it. Balancing your two roles, okay? And you might have, you know, probably do have more than just two roles, but for the purpose of this, this lesson today and this discussion, I want to separate it into the CEO, okay? And then the operator of the business, all right? CEO and the operator of the business. So think about, you know, and under the operator, you might be the salesperson, you might be the manager, might be the bookkeeper, you might be all those things. We're going to just put those under the operator of the business, okay? So you got CEO and you've got the operator. And, you know, when I talk to people sometimes about imagining themselves as two different people, you know, I get some looks like I'm crazy, and some people get it and they understand it. I want to make sure you guys understand this today because it's an important distinction to help get the most out of yourself while also eliminating the overwhelm and the stress that comes from that inner conflict that happens between the push and the pull of like, I want to be working on the big picture, I want to be working on the things that I know are going to get me to that next level, but I'm stuck working in the day to day. And if we allow ourselves to just in our mind, separate ourselves into two people, two different hats that we have to wear, CEO hat and the operator hat, it'll allow us to start to define what's required of each and every one of those, right? Each person. Each person. You have more roles. Great. Today it's just two. Two hats. So imagine you got two hats. Literally envision CEO operator, okay? Because you have to kind of stand in two different sets of shoes to be those different people. The stress part of the stress comes is that conflict. Like I said, you know, when you're trying to focus on the long term, but you need to handle the short term. Those are conflicting interests. All right? So it starts with understanding the CEO gps and how do we split that? So for those of you not familiar with the CEO gps, all right, this is it. Here. All right. It starts at the top with vision. Okay, so let me just give you a quick overview. This is your whole. Everything you need to do is on this sheet of paper right here. If you're ever feeling lost, if you're ever feeling unsure, if you ever don't know, you know, what the next. What the next step is, or you're just any uncertainty at all, or you just want to check in to make sure you're on the right path. I hope you guys are drawing this because my arm's getting tired here. So draw this so you have it. And it's important to have it there in a circle because this is how it goes. This is where you check in. You're like, okay, I've got to have the vision, right? I've got to have the vision. That's my job as CEO. I've got to set the vision of what I want in the business. And what I want in the business should be a reflection of what you want in your life. So the ultimate vision of like, what you want in your life comes down to, then what's the vision for the business, right? That needs to be set by the CEO. Then you've got the strategy, right? Then you've got the strategy. That's how do we execute? You know, what's the strategy we're going to use to execute on this vision? How do we get there? You know, this, this is the vision and this is the actual, like, strategy. How do you do it? Right? Then you've got to lead your team to execute on that. Because none of you are a one man show. Even if you're a mover on the truck, you've got at least a couple helpers. So no matter what, you're in a position of leadership. And then you've got to make sure that you and your team are executing on the strategy. And then it's back to vision, right? Because there's always going to be a new vision. Like if there's some new initiative, like you might take away some distinctions today from this training that you want to bring back to your business that might update or change the vision, right? So you've got to be able to express that vision to your team, decide on the strategy, lead them and execute. So when we look at this, we now need to say, okay, I get that, Louis, I understand that. But what about splitting this, right? Who's responsible for what? Because today's conversation is basically splitting you into two people. You're the CEO and you're the operator, right? And just Defining what you need to do as each person went. So the vision, the vision is all CEO, right? The vision is all CEO. All right? Then we go to strategy. The strategy is going to be CEO. And the operator. Okay? You share that because, you know, as CEO, you initiate the first strategy. However, your. Your operator, right? And you'll, you'll know why it's important to split them out here in a minute. But your operator is the one that is boots on the ground, the one on the front line, the one running the day to day of the business. So they're going to be able to help come back to the table and modify the strategy with you. Same thing with leadership. Leadership needs to be CEO and operator, all right? Because you need to lead as well as the operator also needs to lead. But then execution, that's all operator. Okay? So it starts with CEO. Then the CEO and the operator share execution as well as leadership. They're both responsible for that. And then execution is the operator, the operator is executing, right? So we just need to kind of look at this and, and see how we split out the GPS to see who's responsible for what. You know, whoever feels like you're just all alone. It's just you, you know, you've got the whole burden of all of it, right? We all do. This little mind game of saying, all right, let me split myself out into a few people will help you to look at it and go, okay, I need to be this person and I need to be that person. Even though all of a sudden now you're more people, it's actually relieves the overwhelm. You know, it's like you need to make the distinction of, I'm a business person, but I'm also a father, right? I'm also a mother. I'm also a husband. I'm also a wife. Like, you've got different roles in your life. Well, in your business, you can't just have one role. I'm the owner of the business. That's how it just all becomes a traffic jam of conflicting interests, conflicting desires, conflicting balancing act of the short term and the long term. And then you're overwhelmed, you're stressed out, and you're like, you're done. Or you lower your ambitions, or you work hard and you break through, but you could have done it a lot easier. All right, so that's the first distinction. So just write down GPS split, right? You've got to split the GPS between CEO and the operator. CEO and the operator. Now what we want to do is we want to Take a look at the role descriptions. Okay, We've got to write out the role descriptions for the CEO and the operator. We have to write this out for ourselves. We can't just keep it in our head. What are the role descriptions for the CEO and what are the role descriptions for the operator? Right. You guys should be doing this for all the positions in your company. These are really the most important too. But you are these two roles. And so part of the freedom that comes with being the owner of the business is like, nobody tells you what to do. Well, if nobody's telling you what to do, then you're just kind of, where are you going? You're lost, right? That's why we need the gps. But you've got to be able to define what it is you do yourself. So that when you're in the day to day, you know, when you're on the field, when you're on the court, when you're in the battlefield, however you see yourself in the day to day, you know what to be working on, what not to be working on, what's important and how to keep yourself on track. So in order to do this, I like to bring in a third archetype of person here, third imaginary person that's still you and that is the chairman of the board. So imagine for a minute there's somebody above the CEO, there's somebody above the operator, right? We look at CEO, we're like, that's the ultimate thing. Well, you know, I was just Monday I was on the call with private client who you know, by the way is just absolutely crushing it. Had his first million dollar month last month. If you're here like, I'm so proud of you, I don't see it. But. And it started off on advertising on Craigslist, by the way, like rental trucks. The whole thing built up the business, a lot of the courses, all that helped them get their hard work working smart. But now we're having a conversation about, okay, I've got the team of operators, right? So like he's got people that are like operating the business and he spends most of his time in CEO because remember your CEO and your operator. And what you want to try to do is you want to try to move more of your time away from being the operator into being the CEO. It doesn't mean that it's bad if you're still an operator today because literally it was only a couple, a month ago. Maybe he had to go back in the warehouse and reorganize his forklift. Reorganize his vaults, you know, because he was the one that had to do it. Because sometimes you got to jump back in. So it doesn't make it a bad thing that you're CEO and operator. What we're trying to do is we're trying to move you away from being the operator into more of the CEO role. So back to the story is that we're having a conversation and he's like, all right, we're talking about where do you want to go next, right? Because that was one of the big milestones, was like million dollar month, right? You wanted to become an eight figure company. And so it's like, okay, what's next? And he's like, you know, I want to get the business to a position where I could hire a CEO to replace me. Not an ops manager, a director of ops or a coo. He's got those positions. He's like, I want to hire a CEO to replace me to go pursue this other business that I'm really passionate about. You know, I like moving. It's great. It provides a great, you know, I built a great business. I make money. It's, it's, you know, but I'm more passionate about this other business and I would like to go pursue that. And so now the target is, okay, you know, we look at it, we're like, what's the, you know, one to three years, like, what do we want to, what do we want to accomplish here? And the target is get everything lined up in the business to where he could bring in a CEO to replace him. And now he's more of the chairman of the board, if you will. He's just kind of running the business with a CEO that's taking his spot. So that's why it's important to make the distinction between CEO and operator. Every, you know, you got CEO, you've got operator, you've got everything that's under the operator, from the different managers to your moving consultants, to your movers, to your warehouse people. And what we want to do, those of you who remember the system, stairway, you want to start at the bottom, right? Your movers, right. Like, not that that's the bottom, but you know, the movers and the salespeople. It's kind of in the chain of command in the business. That's the lower end. So you want to start there, define your processes and your roles, make sure people know what they're doing, and then step your way up on the ladder and do that for every position, right? So he's done that. So now he's basically doing it for the CEO position to be able to even step beyond that. So again, the reason I'm sharing this is because we need to write the role description for the CEO. So you're like, how do I write the role description for the CEO? You want to, you know, role play in your mind and you want to say, hey, I'm now the Chairman of the board. I'm in this position, I've got this eight figure company and I'm going to hire somebody to run it in its entirety. What do I want from that person? What are my expectations of that person? What are the outcomes that they need to hit to be able to run the business the way that I want it to run? Because if we start making a list of what do I need to do and we write it down and we're just, we're just in that same mindset, same thing, different mindset, we start to feel the overwhelm because our mind starts to immediately say, how am I going to do that? When am I going to make time to do that? Right? So we step out, we say, okay, I'm the board of Directors or Chairman of the Board, right? And you write the role description for your CEO. Then you write the role description for your operator. Now you could put your CEO hat back on and write the operator's role description. You do this in a way where you're writing it as if it's not going to be you, it's not going to be you. If you were to hire somebody else to run it, what would you want them to do? Because the reality is you can do that. The best CEO you could imagine, the best operator you could imagine, you could fulfill what you need them to do. If you just get some clarity on what that is. And then we'll build it into your schedule to where you're able to actually execute on that so you know who it is that you are in each moment. Am I CEO right now or am I operator right now? What's required of me at this moment for what's going on? You write the role descriptions, right? So you've got the, you understand the gps, the role descriptions. Now for each of these roles, CEO and operator, what are the must outputs? What are the must outputs? So what are the things that the CEO must do? You know, it's like we could look at our day and we could look at our week, we look at our month, we could look at everything we have to do and just say, I'm going to work hard and get as much done as I need to get done. Or we say, you know, what, what are the musts? What are the musts that my CEO, who's yourself and my operator, which is yourself, maybe some of you have moved out and you're not the operator of the business. Most of you are still both. What are the musts that they must do? The outputs, the things that need to happen. You know, CEO would be something like, must review financials every month, must meet with leadership team every week. Right. Must have a strategy session once a week to make sure that we're, you know, that I'm writing about where we're going and where we're headed. I must, as CEO, architect, the systems map of our business. Meaning, you know, sometimes people get overwhelmed with the idea and the concept of writing out processes and writing out systems. Well, as the CEO, you don't need to sit there and write all the steps necessarily. And like how to click here, click there, click here, click there. But what you want to do is you want to, on a high level, map it out for the operator to then go and do it. In other words, you're the architect, you don't have to be the builder, but you have to decide, this is how I want it to go. So, like, give an example, a systems map, which is, you know, the 30,000 foot view of your processes would look like this, right? It would look like. I mean, this is a very basic version, right? So you know, like a sales, a sales process map, right? Lead comes in, then it goes and they get an estimate. Did you book it? Yes. No. Okay, what happens next that moves on to the next phase, right? Like, this is just the beginning of it. But this right here is powerful. And as the CEO, like, this is your job to map this stuff out, to say, here's how I want the business to work. Goes from here to here to here to here. Now, each of these will have process, maybe more than one process within it or underneath it, okay? But you're able to now take this to the operator and say, here's how we need to operate our sales process. Now, obviously this is not done. This would kind of go on and on. I just put this together quick, you know, operations, here's how we do it, right? So, you know, I do this, by the way, on a program called lucidchart. You could use whatever, you know, but when you do it in marker. If I wanted to make a change, the powerful part about this is if I want to make a change right now, I have to like cross this out, you know, make scribble over here or rewrite a whole new card. Whereas I could just take this, move it to this side and change it. So, like, for example, if you wanted to make a confirmation call or your follow ups, you know, which follow up do you do? You could say, you know what, change that to over here. Let's do that follow up on day two, and let's do this follow up on day one. All right, so this is a systems map. You know, from here you could drill down into the actual processes themselves. Right. So as CEO, that would be one of your must outputs is to create those, you know, and there's not many of them. You know, if you think about it, you've got like, all right, what's our marketing, what's our sales, what's our operations? How do we get reviews? You know, if you've got 10 of those, it probably covers your whole business, you know, so if you had time on your calendar to sit down once a week and go, how do I want this? Instead of looking at it like work, look at it as gaining clarity. Look at it, look at that. I'm just, I'm kind of going off on this because it's really important for you. Look at that as kind of taking the, you know, the rag and cleaning the window of all the smudge that why you can't see clearly, right? Or see it as like the windshield wiper with the fluid wiping it for you. So you can now see clearly what's going on. But not only can you see clearly, you could communicate clearly not only to your operator, but the rest of your team. This is how it works. And you'll be amazed how they go, oh, I get it now, right? If you're having trouble with your team, I was just putting one of these together last week because we have new systems like with the inner circle and all of that. And I wanted to make sure that the entire team is clear on all the steps along the way so that the balls don't get dropped. And it gives clarity to everybody involved. Really important. But like, we're talking about the must outputs. So for the operator, you know, the must outputs might be a weekly sales meeting, you know, a weekly operations meeting, generating and reviewing the sales reports, you know, coaching and training and hiring new staff, whether it's movers or whether it's, you know, salespeople. Right. What are the must outputs? You know, the things that. The things that have to be there for the foundation to be strong. Right. We're not talking about like things you'd like to get done. We're talking about what are the things that for you to really have a strong foundation, what does the CEO, what must they do, and what must the operator do? And then that becomes your job to make sure those things are happening. But you've split them out, which makes them easier to deal with, right? You're sorting them out, you're categorizing them. So from there, what we do is now we do split calendar blocks. Split calendar blocks. So you hear me talk a lot about time blocking, right? Which is essentially taking your calendar and creating blocks of time to where you work on specific things. Okay. If you're already doing it or you understand the concept, what we want to do here is we want to actually split out block time. So I would get, you know, you want to have different blocks for CEO, different blocks for operator, and then different blocks for personal. Okay, let's keep it real simple to get started. You could always now drill down further than that and be like, here's a sales manager block, and here's a, you know, finance block. And for now, keep it simple. CEO blocks, operator blocks, and personal blocks. So I'll give you an example. Like, you know, you've got maybe every. Every Weekday morning from 5 to 7 is a personal block. Whatever you do in that block, you do in that block. You could drill down and list it out for yourself. But I'm trying to let you keep it at a high level so that it doesn't, you know, create any unnecessary overwhelm and that you get the real impact of what we're trying to do here, which isn't plan out every single moment of your day. It's about, when do I wear which hat? Right? Because what we don't want to do is we don't want to spend our days going, see, CEO hat, operator hat, CEO hat, operator hat. And switching them out like that. Because it's gonna feel like you are in a manual transmission truck, shifting the gear without putting the clutch down. That's how it's gonna feel internally. You guys know what I'm talking about. If you feel that and you're trying to shift gears like that constantly between balance between the long term and the short term, and it's ineffective, right? It's going to cause stress, it's going to cause overwhelm. It's not going to allow you to be the best version of yourself that you could be. So what we want to do is we just want to know, okay, when do I need to be the CEO? When Do I need to have personal time? Because we need to do our best to not cross those boundaries. Right. Otherwise the work could always bleed over from the minute we wake up to the minute we go to sleep. Right. And so when we look at our time, maybe from 5 to 7 in the morning, it's personal time. Then maybe. Let's run two scenarios. How many of you are still like dispatching or sending your crews out in the morning? Like you go in and you send your cruise out in the morning. Okay. How many of you have someone that does that? And you don't need to be there first thing in the morning to send out your cruise? Okay. So it's like split, all right. It's about half and half perfect. So let's say, let's start with the group that has to be there to dispatch in the morning. So who's going to dispatch? The CEO or the operator? Right, the operator. So that block, at a minimum from whenever you dispatch your crews to whenever you're done, needs to be an operator block. So your CEO blocks can't be first thing in the morning because you have operator functions that you personally still need to be doing right now. So your CEO block might be later in the day. Or maybe what I've found for me in the past works is, you know, if you've got a dispatch, you kind of take care of that morning event, that dispatch event, get the crews out, make sure they're all at the jobs, and then there's a little bit of time where you're able to spend before crews start calling in. Right. Unless you're also booking jobs, then you're booking jobs too at the same time. Then you might have to put your CEO time at the end of the day. So what we want to accomplish is we want to accomplish good amount of personal time and as much CEO time as we possibly can. In between the chunks of operator time and for our CEO time, we really want blocks, you know, we really want like a two to four hour block, you know, because if you just put an hour block, it's really hard to like shift gears, get into this, put the CEO hat on, get into that CEO essence and do what you need to do. So maybe right now you only have like a two hour block once a week that you could be CEO, right? Maybe that's all you could carve out. Carve it out, honor it, respect it. Like it's an important meeting that you can't get out of. Put your phone in, do not disturb, train your people not to bother you, you Might have to figure out when that is. Maybe that has to be, you know, when you're first getting started out, you've got to wiggle your way out of the day to day, meaning it might not be pretty. You might not be able to go, oh, I'm just going to create a little block and I'm going to show up on the block. Like, you might literally have to do it where you're getting up early and you might have to do it on a weekend. Right. But that time will allow you to work on the bigger picture, items that are going to really move the needle for your business. The strategy, the numbers, the vision, architecting the systems. Now if you're on the other hand, if you. My preference, okay? And my preference doesn't mean it's right. When you're doing your blocks, the thing you want to think about is what I call. It's called day stacking, meaning when do you do what type of activities? And you really want to base that on your personal energy. You know, I'm the best in the morning, right? In the morning, that's when my mind is clear. All the other stuff of the day hasn't come in. My energy levels are higher. So that's when I want to do my most important work. In the morning, all right. And then in the afternoon, I could be the operator. So, you know, you've got to, you got to be able to establish where you're best and what's good for your situation. But if you're like, hey, I've got the team, they run most of the stuff. I could define it. I would suggest, you know what, spend a couple hours every morning throughout the week as CEO and just focus in on CEO stuff and don't let any operator stuff creep in. And watch how you start really making progress to get to your next level, like really chipping away. And that's the key. The key is to grow the CEO blocks and to shrink the operator blocks. That's, I mean, that's the name of the game, right? But it all starts by just squeezing in that one CEO block somewhere. Somewhere. Otherwise you're always going to feel like, man, I should be getting to the numbers. I'm not doing it, man, I should be sitting down making decisions. I'm not doing it. I should be architect. I'm not doing it. And you're never going to get that leverage point that you need to really start making a difference. That one hour block or that two hour block once a week will get you another two hour block and another Two hour block. This is key, this is key. So we've got that. All right, so we've kind of figured out what the roles are. We know, okay, here's a list of what the, you know, the role description for CEO, role description for operator. We know what the must outputs are for each. And now we're going to basically go on the calendar and we're going to schedule them so that I've got time to do it. Because otherwise the day just takes over and it's just reaction and distraction, reaction, distraction, fire, fire. You know, essentially what you're doing is you're just telling yourself where to be and when to be, right? It's like if you think back at, when you were in school, when it was English class, you were in English class and focused on English class. When you were in math, you were in math and focused on math, right? I mean, you know, if you were, if you were like me, you might have been in English class and not really been focused on English class, messing around or not even there. But like, the point is this isn't school. The point is this is your business. This is important. So we need dedicated time to focus on one thing without the dings going off on our phone, without the alerts on our computer. And so I recommend you pull up whatever calendar system you use on the computer. Again, we want to be able to move the blocks the same way that we move, you know, parts of our system. So I use Google Calendar. So pull up a separate calendar and just call it CEO Operations Block time and just map it out. You know, put the blocks of time on the calendar. You can move them around, you can make them bigger, make them shorter. Don't use your reg, your calendar that has your real appointments on it, like go to the doctor, Tuesday at noon, don't put it on there yet until you become really good with the process and then you can merge the two, but put it on there, start messing with it and you do your best to try to hit those blocks. You're never going to do it all the time. There are going to be things that pop up. You're gonna realize, ah, you know what, that's too long of a block. I can't. I got too aggressive. Like 4 hours is too much for me to sit and focus on numbers. Let me shrink that down to two hours. Okay, that works better. You'll have to start messing with it. Alright, so just know it's not like you jump in and immediately you're good to go, but it is the game changer. You know, like you could have the vision, you could even have the strategy, but if it's not on your calendar, the likelihood of it getting done in between things is very slim. Very slim. Usually what will get done is just what happens in reaction, right? So with the balancing act of CEO and operator, you constantly need to be focused on two things. Short term and long term progress, short term and long term progress. You know, right now we're in moving season. And I just want to honor all of you for being here live with me today. I know it's busy, I know this. I know everybody's booked out, you've got a lot of jobs. If you don't message me, we'll make sure we send you in the right direction to start getting some jobs. But, you know, you've got to be constantly looking at the short term and the long term, right? You know, if, you know, you're here, you've been with me a while, you've been with me one month, it's your first time, I think by now, at this point in this session, you know, this isn't about quick hacks, right? This isn't about, you know, quick little hack. This is about real sustainable strategy for long term success. And, and in order to do that, we have to always be moving long term strategy forward as we're handling the short term priorities, right? So the fires will be there, the reaction will be there, but we have to also at the same time move the long term stuff forward because otherwise what happens, and I see it a lot, people are like, I'm getting busy. This is great, we're growing, we. But it's just kind of organic growth. It's just happening. I mean, right now there's a boom that's happening in moving that. You know, a lot of it is from what you are doing and putting in place, but some of it's coming from just the environment and the economical repercussions of COVID and the shutdown and all that. And it's a blessing, right? It's great. I'm sure everybody's glad they're super busy right now. But we have to not put off, you know, thinking about where we want to be one year from now, three years from now, right? And you know, I love the quote from Wayne Gretzky. Wayne Gretzky said, hockey player, right? One of the best hockey players of all time said, you know, I skate to where the puck is going, not to where the puck has been. And what that means is, you know, you're in your day to day. You've got to take care of your day to day, but you also have to be strategizing and implementing on plans, even if it's just a little bit to make progress, even a little progress towards where you want to go and where you want to head, right? And so I'm really encouraging you to fight for those blocks of time for the CEO on your calendar. You know, right now you're like, you might be like, Louis, I'm just all operator. Like morning to night to dreams, just all operator. And I'm just, you gotta fight. Find that. Find that one block and start with the one block, right? Because if you don't come up for air, It's a train wreck waiting to happen, right? We need time for reflection, we need time for strategy, and we have to fight for that. And so when we look at. When we look at, you know, the hard work, right? I want you to start shifting the hard work you do and say, okay, I'm building this business. I've got this vision of where I want to go, and these things need to happen for me to get there. Meaning, this is what I want. This is where I'm at, and I need to close the gap. If you start looking at it and saying, hey, I'm just closing the gap right now between where I want to go and where I'm at, then the hard work becomes temporary and becomes worth it. Your job, unless you've got totally, completely different values than me and most people, is to fight and work to get yourself out of the day to day. Like, that's step one, right? Doesn't mean you're not going to work in the business. It just means you're going to grow the time blocks for CEO and reduce the time blocks for operator. So what do you do? You know, it's so easy. Like, what we focus on in our mind and what we think and the stories we tell ourselves, it determines our entire emotional existence. Therefore, how we feel about the day, about our business. And if we're always like, this is just more work. This is just what Lewis is telling me right now. This is just more work, more shit I need to do, right? It's like, no, no, no. What's that one little spot that you need to get to that when you get there, things are going to change. Work to get there, don't work just to work, right? Or just to stay afloat. Find that leverage point. And the leverage point is growing those CEO blocks, right? That's how you start saying, this is where I want to go. And this is where I'm at. I want to close the gap. Even if all that is, even if you don't have a grand vision for the business. But where you want to go is, you know what? I need a moment to think. I need some time to spend with my family. You know, I need to just be able to breathe and take a beat to chill out for a second. Okay, well, how do you close that gap? What do you need to do to get there? What are the obstacles in between? And then the hard work becomes mission driven. Little micro missions to just get you to that, like, next level of breaking through to freedom that can allow you to say, you know what, I've got a plan. I know where I'm going, right? I'm breaking through. I'm getting to that level so that I could get this. Because I know that I need these CEO blocks on my calendar. If I haven't convinced you by now, let me know and I'll keep going on it. But, like, you need the CEO blocks on your calendar, so that's what you're fighting for every day, right? Like back in the day, you play the video games, right? What do you play? Mario Brothers or Zelda or whatever. Games, right? I'm not into the new stuff. I don't know anything about the new stuff. I know about the old stuff. And what do you do? You just try to beat that one level, right? Like, how do I get past this one level to get to the next level? When we talk about getting to the next level, that's what it's all about. It's not some miraculous leap from like, working out of a truck rental yard to $20 million a year. It's like, no, next level, next level, next level. And on each level, there's certain things you need to figure out. And I'm saying to you, if you don't have enough CEO time block on your calendar, that's what you need to beat. I'm giving you the cheat codes to get there. Like, these are the steps. Get there. From there, you get to that next level. And then just, you know, you got the plan. Have some patience knowing that you're working towards something, not just an ever ending, you know, shitstorm of work coming at you and have the persistence to get it done. All right? So then once you have all that, now you've got to have the personal board meeting. Personal board meeting. This is a meeting that you now go and put that, that chairman of the board hat back on, right? And with the CEO and the operator, I Mean, literally, I'll do this and I'll talk to myself like I'm a weirdo. Like, I'm just kind of like, you know, all right, so you know, I do it, I do it on paper is how I do it. I do my best thinking on paper, but I'll literally write it from the, for the perspective of the chairman of the board and just say, you know, CEO, like, what's going on? Talk to me, right? How are we doing here? You know, same thing with the operator. How are we doing there? And like have your own personal meeting. Like, how many of you would love to have a CEO, a chairman of the board, high level people that are surrounding you that you could have a meeting with once a week or once a month. How many of you would love to have, like real people would love to have me and another, you know, some, A couple other people that were, knew what they were doing in the business. And you got to brainstorm and have ideas once a week. If you don't have that, create that for yourself, right? You've got to create that. Most people don't have that. I do it myself and it helps for me. Maybe it's crazy for you, but it helps for me to have that distinction of like, all right, I'm chairman of the board, CEO operator, you know, and what, what are we doing? What's the strategy? What could we change? What could we pivot? And when do you do that? You do that in a CEO time block. Like, just think about if you, if you had that meeting, if you sat down for an hour or even two and just kind of like brainstormed it, talked out loud, wrote it out, you know, went somewhere where nobody sees you, they're gonna think you're nuts. Just kind of like if you had that type of discussion and looking at it from through the lens of like, hey, I'm the one just looking down on this business. I don't even want to know what's going on in the day to day. I just want to know you guys are executing on what needs to happen. Then there's the CEO setting the vision and the strategy. Then there's the operator who's taking care of the leadership and the execution and we're all there and you're just thinking in those terms. Powerful, powerful, right? And you'll start to feel supported even though you really haven't brought anybody else on. You've just taken all these conflicting desires and these thoughts that you're having against yourself. Cause usually the thoughts come against yourself. I should be doing more. Why am I not doing this? Oh, if I only had. Or you're blaming somebody else. If I only had them. If they knew how to do their job. You know, when you start to have that, you start to gain clarity. You start to gain confidence. You start to believe in what's possible for your vision and being able to execute on that vision. And that's how you balance the CEO and the operator. Hey, my friend, before you go, you've got to hurry and watch these next few videos over here. They will absolutely help you take your moving company to the next level. Go watch them now, and I'll see you over there.