How To Build A Life-Changing Business Without Selling Your Soul with Christine Carillo

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Hey everyone, thanks for making the time. Very excited to chat with Christine here. For those who don't know, you know, Christine, you've had a really amazing career that I'm excited to dig into as both an entrepreneur and now as an executive coach. I'm sure like most people, you've probably dabbled in a bunch of other little things along the way as well. The big thing. Well, selfishly, I want to dig into the business stuff, but I guess first, first we'll ask for context for everyone. When did you start writing on the Internet? And more specifically, what? Was there a piece that you wrote that all of a sudden kind of showed you, like, oh, this is something that I can do. I want to keep doing. What was the magic turning point for you?

Yeah, so I started writing probably April, February 2021 on the Internet. I've been writing before that, but like actually going crazy and putting it out there so someone could see it was. Then I wrote a piece on my. It was a fairly vulnerable piece and it was around my experience in going through a concussion when I was scaling. I was right at a critical point in a hyper growth venture backed company. It was my first tech company. I had a company before, but not a tech company. And there was a lot of pressure. I was super controlling. I had a small team. I did not want anyone to mess anything up. And we were growing fast and I was doing all the things I should be doing or that I was told to do. It was a techstars founder, all these things, right? And I walk right into a glass window, just freaking walk right into it like, as if, like it was intended to. And I went, you know, the concussion got so severe that within four days they were like, you're going to get brain damage if you don't absolutely stop doing everything, including reading. So I had about five minutes to hand over the reins and have a call with my team. The team was like maybe 16 people at the time, very small team. And I was like, okay, well they're going to fuck everything up and I'm not going to have a company and this is over. And I was just so scared. I was out of work for six weeks. I came back. It turned out the company ran better than when I was running it myself, controlling everything because they knew what to do. And so I wrote about That I posted it on LinkedIn, and I got a lot of response from a lot of DMs, people saying, thank you for even saying that you can have a different way to running a company, for being vulnerable, et cetera. And so it just struck me to dig into where my niche was, was probably my personal stories more than anything, which I took for granted. It just was like, I don't know, everybody does this, right? Whatever, nobody cares. But as I started sharing a little bit more of that, I started to try to figure out where was I taking this. How vulnerable do I want to be? How raw? I'm pretty direct and raw, and sometimes it serves me and sometimes it doesn't, depending on what the population or the audience is telling me. So that's been the trickiest part for me. I think navigating that piece and after.

You published that and you got all those DMs and people were messaging you was your. Was your motivation. I want to keep telling stories to help other people feel understood. Or I guess what was kind of the link of, okay, this resonated, but now, like, what's the next step?

I guess I wanted to help people not go through what I went through. Like, I felt like nobody, like, everyone tells you what you should be, you know, And I bought into all of it. What type of leader you should be, what type of CEO. Nobody really tells you the stuff not to do. And that's the stuff that I felt like, needed to be told. I also think that people overwork on things for. Because when you're building a company, you have to be a little crazy to do it. And for the most of us, there's an ego involved, which is not a bad thing. It's just our need for validation and building something great. But sometimes that gets in the mix of thinking that we have to do more to produce more, and it can be at the cost of ourselves. And I'm not by any means saying you shouldn't work. I love to work. I just think that sometimes we don't focus on the right things. And for me, my CEO coach at the time, his name was Jerry Colonna from reboot, had said, I wonder if you caused this concussion because you needed to. You were moving like a. Like a freight train. I mean, like, you needed to stop. You were too controlling. It was going to blow up eventually. And so that, you know, all these experiences, I just felt like more people needed to know the other side of what it meant to build. And just understanding what kind of company do I want to build how do I want to get that capital? How big do I want it? What does that mean for me as an entrepreneur? Where's my threshold? And it's, these are questions we don't get asked. It's just like big, right? That's it, go. And there's a lot more layers to it. And I don't think I understood all of those. I had built a company before. I'd ran large initiatives on behalf of boards of executives, insurance company. I'd been on corporate side and ran a boutique consulting firm. But this was so different now. And my, my self worth got tied up into that company, which was another not, you know, it happens so often. I mean, that's probably the biggest reason people come to me for coaching is how do you separate that now?

Yeah, very, very common for founders. I mean, that's what happens right when you, when you exit the company or if you sell the company or if the company fails. Like all of a sudden you have this existential crisis.

Right.

I want to get into the business stuff and just for context for everyone, you know, Christine, you've built three companies to the $200 million mark, if not higher. I have a bunch of questions there that I think are really interesting. But it sounds like that first piece that you wrote, you kind of were doing all the things right. You know, I mean, you told an interesting story. You pointed out the mistakes. You posted it in a social platform on LinkedIn. You didn't go try and start a blog first. Like it seemed like you were kind of already making a lot of the right decisions. So what caused you to then want to go and sign up for ship 30 and kind of deepen the education?

So the venture backed company that was probably the largest, I grew. In the end, we lost the bet and I had to shut down the company. I had to let go of 160 people. And I was. One of the things that's the hardest for me is people. I'm incredibly good at chaos, problems, all this other stuff, but people just devastates me. And so these people that I was in love with turned on me, rightfully so. They'd lost their jobs and it made me very small. My voice got very small again. I didn't want to poke the bear. Took me about a year to maybe get back up on my feet. I posted that writing that I did on LinkedIn. It was doing pretty well. About a month later I posted a thread on Twitter on, I was trying to, had a lot of CEOs at the time saying, how do you Work with the ea. There's no way. Like I don't even have enough to give them. And I was like, okay, I'm going to write a thread on how now I work so little because my EA is so great and I can leverage her. The thread went viral. I went to sleep. I was like, oh, this is awesome. I woke up in the morning and ended up on the other side of viral. And so I was back to being attacked for a couple of weeks. I got death threats, all sorts of stuff. And that was again, very hard on me because I just finished this attack from my employees. So I then thought about ship 30, where I was like, I need to get through this somehow with people. Like, I need a support system because I can't let this other side make me small or continue this. So that, that was the reason for coming to ship 30. And it did exactly that. I mean, that was, that was exactly what I needed. When I started to, to then write again with a group, it's like my analysis paralysis started to go away, you know, the overthinking. Because now I was afraid I was going to poke a bear again so then I would never publish, you know, so that all that started to disappear. And yeah, it just was like, I think the tipping point for me to actually start to do what I, you know, was transitioning into, which was to become a writer that made money, a living from writing, which to me growing up, that seemed like something, like ridiculous. It didn't seem like something you could do.

So how do you. Sorry, one last follow up question then. Dickie, I want to have you jump in here, but so now kind of after having taken ship 30 and also in that thread that Dickey LinkedIn, in the chat, you also took rite of passage as well. And I've read a bunch of your articles on your site and on your blog and they're great. Like I found them really interesting. What's your process? You're welcome. What's your process moving forward of how are you balancing the things that you want to write in social environments versus maybe the longer form things that you want to write on your site and kind of what has been your writing strategy as of late?

So it's been kind of all over the place, frankly, the last few months, which I think is good because I've been trying to figure out my own authentic voice because I grow companies. One of my strong instincts, I guess is in marketing. And in marketing, what you do is you look for where there's less noise so that you could stand out Right. So, like, you wouldn't go put digital ads on Google if every one of your competitors was doing digital on Google. That's stupid. You can find something else, and that's where you'd shine and find a new audience. So right now I'm really focused on Twitter and LinkedIn, playing around, experimenting with it. But what I've been trying to find is what is my unique way of writing on these platforms and experimenting with the ideas I'm sort of messing around with and trying to test out. And. And so I think I found my own niche right now, which is I have a lot of tactical stuff that a lot of people could use. And so that has worked for me in sort of getting reach, you know, from a lot of different types of people. So what I'm starting to do is nail in on a topic, and that topic may be something I want to put in my newsletter. And I'll start to. You know, everyone told me not to do this a while back. They're like, this, this is just silly. It's the wrong way to do it. But I would write a newsletter and then take a thread out of it and some tweets from it, and people are like, that's the wrong way to go. You need to test it first on Twitter. And maybe it was wrong, right? But to me, that just felt like it was a little more focused, and that's. That's my jam, is just like, finding where I can focus. Like, I just need a one place. If it's too many directions, I don't feel like I can move the needle. So I've been trying to do more of that, like, figure out what is that one place. So this week, like, I'm trying now. Okay, we're going to share a lot about what happened during raising 30 million in capital. So first was like, here's 12 questions I would ask at a meeting. And I tested it out on Twitter. Not so good on LinkedIn. Lots of people looking at it. I'm like, all right, well, let's see. Today, maybe I'm going to test out what it's like to be in a meeting. Should you stand up? Should you sit down? Why shouldn't you stand up? How should you speak? You know, when do you change the conversation? Like, some more tactical areas? Again, I'm staying away from, I guess, what everyone talks about, you know, the. The stuff anyone can read anywhere. I'm trying to go really deep in, I guess, like, things that I really experienced in there that you just don't find anywhere. Like, Even on something like firing someone. Like, I have that on a topic for a couple of weeks. Like, how do you fire someone? With grace. But not just that, but CEOs are worried about getting canceled. That's a real thing, but nobody wants to talk about it. How do you do that? When do you do that? What do you have to take into account? So that's been my process at this point, where it's sort of shaking out right now. Yeah, I don't know. See, it's still all over the place. I'm still trying to find what it is. But I'm writing a lot, which has been amazing. I write about 90 minutes in the morning, and then late in the evening, I write for another two hours, which has been amazing.

What I love about this is you're on a exploration right now of figuring out this incredible experience that you have. How do I take all the ideas that at this point have probably become obvious to you that are amazing to others? It's a great quote from Derek Sivers that I love. It's, you know, 90% of writing is getting comfortable with the fact, sharing ideas that are now painfully obvious to you. You know how to fire someone. You know what it was like to ask those 12 questions. You know, the different tactical things that you're about to share. And I think that's a valuable lesson for anyone listening is, how are you? And I think you could share this. What is your process right now for figuring out what those tactical things are? Are you writing about them? Are you, like, brainstorming on them? How do you say, hey, I fired a hundred people in my career, I need to go write about that specific thing? Because I think that trips a lot of people up. It's like, I don't think I have anything worth saying. And uncovering those is such a hard problem.

It is. And I think I started out, like, trying to find the best thing, which was like. Because you're right. They're so obvious to me. There was no best thing, because I don't know what. What it was. So what I started to do is. I think you had said this actually in one of your sessions when we were together, when I was in your cohort. But I started to look at. I didn't want to look at two years behind me because I've done this so many times, but I did want to look at, like, what if I was starting my first company? Let's just go through what I did. And I went and looked at emails, and I went and looked at notes. I had Taken in meetings. I have a bunch of notebooks and moleskins of just, you know, from all the years of working. And I just started looking at stuff and I was like, well, that was a crazy meeting. I can write about that. That was really interesting. Or right. This is when our finances were falling apart and we had to get a new CFO and we didn't know how. And so I started to pull stuff out, just create this massive list which, you know, I do have an ea. So she starts to help me categorize things and whatnot. But that's how the ideation started. Another process that I do now is I talk to so many founders that I take what we talk about also as an inspiration. You know, I mean, it's obviously something that's a pain point for somebody else. And then I take that and add it in.

And for anyone unfamiliar with the framework Christine's talking about, we call the two year test, which is looking back. For some people it's two years, for some people it's 10, 15. And saying, what are all the problems I've solved, habits I've built, new routines I've had anything like that, mistakes I've made, lessons I've learned. And writing directly to that person 10 to 20 years ago, because if you were starting a company now and it was all, the only person you got to talk to was current day Christine, that's going to be a baller company. And that is kind of the way to think about it from a writing online perspective is there are a ton of people who are in that 10 years ago, Christine, who would benefit massively for all the thing and knowledge that you're kind of sitting on right now.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

All right, Cole, where do you want to take it from here?

I think the piece that I'm. Well, an interesting bridge to get there, but something that I'm interested in, Christine, is this idea of overworking, getting burned out. Obviously it's super common in Silicon Valley tech world. Also very common in the Fortune 500 Big Company Corporate America world. What's been your relationship with that? How have you kind of moved out of that? We've noticed this trend in a handful of people that we've talked to in these sessions are people that had really successful careers building venture backed companies or being at really high growth startups and then reaching a point where they're like, you know what, I don't want to do this anymore and I'm okay to give up the status that comes with it, the opportunities that come with it. And then they just go, I just want to go be a solopreneur. I want to be a creator, I want to be a coach. I want to reclaim some of that life, that life balance. What has that been like for you and maybe what was your perspective and what is it now?

Well, you know, frankly, I mean, I became a CEO because I was good at doing a lot. That's what got me there, you know, I mean, most of us, we build businesses, we become really good entrepreneurs, you fucking execute like a beast. And where I was going wrong is I would find ways to do something better. And I, you know, I created a lot of leverage just in corporate jobs coming up the ladder and could do a job of three people. But then I'd take on more. Like I wouldn't leave that space open. I'd be like, give me more. You know, it was so validate, like just needing the validation that I was good at whatever I was doing. And growing up, I got accolades, as many of us do, for how much I knocked out of the park, not how much space I gave myself. Like, nobody gives you. That's not where our brain is triggered when we're starting out. So as I grew these larger companies and venture backed being probably the toughest because of the pressure that you have with having a high growth company. There's a difference between having a venture backed company that isn't high growth. The pressure is not the same. But when you get to a point where you are maybe one or two of the portfolio companies that your VC companies like, oh, this is the one that's going to do it. Pressure is insane and you feel like you don't want to disappoint. So, you know, I was definitely on the train of, you know, I'm just, you know, I'm going to give it my all. And I did. It came at a, at a high cost. You know, I mean, the concussion was one thing, but I mean it was, I just sacrificed so much of myself. My self worth was really tied to this company's success. And that just, that alone, the heaviness of dealing with that every day. And that's all you're thinking about is the success of this company is very different from a approach to I know we're going to take this far. I know this is going to do well and I'm not going to kill myself to get there though. Those are two very different things. Right. And I, I was on the, I'm okay with, I can do this. Like, I am in. Right. And so I think I think what changed for me was when I shut down the very large company I was running, I immediately went to start another one and it was like, this is what I do. This is what I'm expected to do. I'm a CEO, I start companies, I grow big companies. And as I was doing that, I was like, wait, Pandemic hit a lot of things, started really hitting. I was like, wait, what am I doing? Why do I keep doing this? Why do I build complicated companies like Hero Moves, Save and change health insurance, build an algorithm, a dating app, algorithm for matching therapists with people. This isn't easy stuff. And there doesn't have to be so hard. That was the thing that I didn't quite understand. So during the pandemic, I started to meet with a different set of friends. Friends who were not VC backed and had these large companies. 60, 80 million a year was good. They were trending towards the 200 mark probably in a couple years. And I was like, wait, how come you're not as stressed as I always am? What is happening here? They're like, oh yeah. And then I take like 30% of my company's salary. It's like, what? That's crazy. I don't get to do that. And so they're making more, have more freedom. And it just all kind of clicked. Pandemic, everything. It was like just a very, like, what am I doing? Why do I keep chasing this? And the more I spoke with my coach, the more it just became a really strong realization that I just, I needed, I was ready to transition out of doing something else. I needed to do simple models because my validation was chasing the big things, the big problems to solve. And so I did. I simplified the tech company. I just hired a CEO for that company. We got that company to be profitable very quickly. It was like two and a half months after launching it kept it very lean. And this time was like, I'm going to build the way I know how to build. No VC money. Very lean, scrappy, no, no, cheap, just like super high quality, but very lean. And focus on one or two things at a time. It grew very quickly. And then as I kept going through this experience, I realized that I didn't really want to do this anymore. I wanted small, smaller, I will say businesses. And I wanted to do things that I wanted to coach. That was just like a really a big calling for me. I just knew I did it. I wanted to help founders build their dreams without selling their soul. And I knew how to do that from my experience and so that's, that's kind of what led me to where I am now and the difference in perspective.

I think, Christine, that. Okay, whenever you end up getting to writing a book, please note that subtitle how to build you'd dreams without selling your soul. That is a legendary subtitle. So just sock that away somewhere. But I think an interesting follow up with this is, you know, that makes all the sense in the world. These are conversations Dickie and I have all the time. You know, it's like when you're building a business, like, what do you want it to be? And the piece of yours that had the biggest impact on me, I went down a rabbit hole one night. It was like 10:30 at night. And I was just reading all your articles, which is usually what happens. And there's one where you talk about fundraising and how everyone's like, should I raise money or shouldn't I raise money? And the question you pose back to the person is like, well, what sort of life do you want? You know, like what? It's not really, should I do this for the company? It's like, is raising money the right thing for you as a person? And that took me a really long time to learn and understand. I'm curious. I just would love for you to expand on that a little bit. And also, like so much of the entrepreneurship world, even creators all the time are like, you know, everything from should I get a book advance to should I have someone invest in me, to I want to launch a business, should I get an investor? To I want to build a 200 million dollar company too. But we don't really talk about, like, what are the costs of making those decisions and what's the pro con of, you know what? Life is a lot better if you just build a lean, small, high cash flow business. You know, there's pros and cons to both sides.

Yeah, I think, I think what it comes down to is what kind of life you want to live. And I don't think we ask ourselves that because we're, you know, we, we want to build something that. Again, the validation. Right? So there's, there's a cross with that. When you can put away the validation for just a second, which is just, you know, I mean, people, you can call it the ego, whatever is. I don't know why ego gets such a bad stigma to it. But, you know, it's just, it's something we have for some reason. I know I needed validation that I was good. You know, just tell me. I'm good at what I do and never. It was never good enough. So I kept going for more, no matter what. What you told me that, you know, you're so good at this. I just be like, yeah, I don't know. I go for more and more, you know, like. But let me show you what it'll be like in a year. It's going to be really good then, you know, and so. But the pandemic, what it helped me see is like, well, how am I spending my minutes? Like, not just my life, because that start, you can, like, make up so many bullshit excuses for it. But, like, when I started to think about my minutes, it started to just change for me when I thought, how many summers do I have left with my kids and how many, honestly, weekend dinners do I have with my husband? And how many surf sessions on my own do I have really in a year? And then in my life, what do I want to do? Do I want to spend all of that time in? Frankly, for me, it was like, a lot of anxiety because I'm constantly thinking of what's next. It's where my brain is, you know, just like, that's how I operate, I build, I execute, right? And I know saying what is enough is very cliche, but I think it's. It is about what kind of life do you want? I love to work, and I want to work. I just don't want to feel like I am, you know, I have to work. So that. There's a big difference with that, right? And, you know, the money thing can always be never enough. And so that's another thing to constantly remind myself of. I have more than enough. And it opens it up also for just making more. It's not about limiting your ambition. It's just about being very present, about where are you at and what do you want? And I think when you get to that point, you can then decide, okay, so do I want to do a moonshot? It could be fun. I might think to myself that, you know what, for the next four or five years, I'm going to give it my fucking all. I'm going to go raise money. I'm going to be right in the trenches. I'm okay with that. But, you know, be intentional about it, not just let it swoop you up, right? Or do I want a business that, you know, can get to 50 million, 100 million, but it's run differently. Maybe it's not a business that, you know, the whole world looks at as, like, the most impactful in the world. Who cares? It's a widget, it doesn't matter. But it feels good. I'm doing enough, I'm making the money, you know, But I have a whole life that I've built and get to live otherwise. Like kind of what's the point of building your life, you know, if you just don't get to actually live it? And then the other thing is I just think that we celebrate suffering so much as a way of oh, then you must be really good. Which is ridiculous, right? It's just ridiculous. I don't know if that makes a lot of sense, but that's a bit of, I think what I feel about when you're thinking about what kind of business to build, you know, thinking about what kind of life do you want and what are you really equipped for after raising VC money? I'm not equipped for VCs. You know, I am very opinionated. I am have a very strong personality. I know what I'm doing. I don't want someone else to tell me I have to build something a certain way. I don't want to have my competence be questioned. So like I, you know, I probably an asshole to work for with board members. I'm not fun, you know, and I pick these big crazy things to build too. Health insurance, like it's not a fun ride, you know, you got to have some big cojones to go in there and like sit at the table with me. And so I've just realized it's just not for me. I'm not a vc. I'm not good for VC world. You know, lots of friends in VC world, but just, you know, I'm not, I'm not a good soldier for that, that role for me.

So, so let's get tactical here because I think where this transitions into what you're writing about now, calling and branding it the 20 Hour CEO, is you have all this experience of. I've built companies in the past. I've played this venture game. I have a lot of things people could learn that do want to go through the venture route. But actually what I really want to write about is my transition from that world to this new world, this happier world, more sustainable world. So let's pretend I've recently been in the venture world. I've raised a ton of money in the past. I've built out large teams. I'm sick of that. I don't want that anymore. My new company, I want to keep lean. I want a small team. What are two or three kind of things that I need to unlearn to implement this new way of being the 20 hour CEO when if you were to sit down and coach someone, how am I going to change my process so that I'm not building something that's going to burn me out immediately?

Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing is that really what this is is less happier world and more scaling you. Because if I can scale you, your business will scale. But you're not in there suffering. You're not doing all the things. So that's, that's like the big, like, aha. For most people it's like, oh, wait, it's about me, not all the, like, little things. It's a mindset shift. Right. So the first thing I do is you would look at your calendar for the last two to three weeks, screenshot it, and really look at where are you spending your time? Like, where are you really spending your time? Do you need to be doing all of those things? Are those the things that move the company forward and then figuring out what's your job and people have such a hard time with that? Well, my job is doing all 25 things. No, that's not your job. What is your job? Right. And so maybe for you, you know, I don't know. Maybe let's like do real quick with you, Dickie. What is your job?

Good question. I think mine is right now a mix of writing, operating ship, 30, kind of moving different pieces around. That's not an easy question. I think we'd need longer than the rest of this call to kind of sit down and describe.

So, like figuring out what your role is, that is so invaluable to the company that it could not do without you doing that. That's where you want to start focusing all of your time on 80% of it, at least. And that's a hard thing to do because we're scrappy CEOs. So that's the tactical pieces is calendar. What's your job? Let's look at everything you do. Like, really list it out. Look at your emails, look at what you're doing one by one. Like, where are you spending your time? And then let's create some buckets. All right, so this thing is something I'm not ready to let go of. Okay. This other thing I could probably have someone else doing now. This other thing could actually have been systemized now and off our plate. And then once we were like figuring out what your role is, then we take another step back and we're looking now at the company. So where are the different areas in the company that we can have more systemization in place. And it might just be, you know, there's like, automation is fun and great and that's amazing when we do that. But it's also like making sure that when you think about your company, you're thinking about it in a way where if you had to sell ship 30 to like 10 people on this call who have, let's just pretend, 10 of us who have no idea how to run a business just for the funsies and we have to keep it successful for the next 10 years. You'd have to build your business in such a way that it's like dead simple. Like thinking of McDonald's, right? Anyone can. You got money? You can go get a McDonald's, you can go get a subway, but you're not going to mess up the business model. So those are looking then at the business at like, okay, how do we do sales, how do we do marketing, how do we do our processes? Let's just write some outlines and which fancy word for playbook, you know, here's how we do it. And then you can start looking at whether something needs a system around it. And automation. I mean, that's really the beginnings of it, right? It's a lot of work to get in there. But the hardest part is that you have to keep your eye on what you really, what your job is and what you want this company to be. Like, what are you. What's the biggest thing you're going for? Right? Like for example, I started a new company called Alice where we help founders get an executive assistant, right? It's just coming out of beta. So like for me, like a goal would be for this year. I want to have 40 badass eas that are working with 40 very happy CEOs. Well, that's, that's. That at least gets me now to like, what does that take? Frankly, very little from me. But I want to do a lot. You know, I want to be in the whole mess of it, but frankly, I just have to keep writing and talking to CEOs. Someone else trains the EAs, someone else hires the EAs, but I can't start getting my mess into something else. I also can't start looking at all the shiny objects. Oh well, we can also do this other thing and it would be really cool if actually we did not just EAs, but engineers that are offshore or whatever, because then you're losing focus again and then we're back to working more than we need to. It's like super high focus on what.

You'Re doing, Is it fair to say, Christine? I mean, this is. It's amazing hearing you say this, because I feel like it's mirroring so many of the conversations Dickie and I have together. But is it fair to say that most CEOs and most people that you work with or observe struggle with Shiny Object Syndrome, where it's just like every day there's a new idea, there's something new you can chase. And it's like the power of saying no.

Yes. You've just nailed it. That's exactly it. Because we think we're missing out on something like that could be the thing. And so it's a lot of, like, really having to be at peace with that is a hard one, too, to know that you're on the right path. When do you take the opportunity and when do you not.

Yeah, that is. And Dickie, I feel like, you know, just, I guess making it a kind of real time conversation. But, I mean, I feel like you and I actually have a lot of clarity around that. You know, Dickie superpower is he can invent systems. I've never seen someone do what he does. And my superpower is being able to sit down and just like, invent IP out of thin air, you know? And so when we can both do those things, ship 30 grows. And if things distract us from those things, it doesn't. And so I love hearing you say that and kind of mirror it back for us, because then it gives us the opportunity to reflect and go, okay, this is right. You know, that's right. That is the right priority.

You're following instincts tactically.

How do you advise people on avoiding Shiny Object Syndrome? I'll share mine. I keep a list that just says someday. And anytime I come up with something right now that is not executing on our priorities at the time I put it on that list. But I still find, like, the. The little. My mind goes all these different places knowing that that is not going to move the needle. So what do you say to someone who they're not. They're doing a decent job, not chasing it, but they're still at least me. Like, I'll. I'll take 30 minute hour to brainstorm an idea that has nothing to do with what we're doing. And I feel like sometimes that ends up being a waste of time.

Well, I guess the question is, why do you do it?

I don't know. I think it's. I get excited about all the potential things we could do.

Yeah, it feels good. Yeah. And I think that's okay. I think you just have to be aware of how much of that you can do. This is weird. Don't judge me, all of you, on here. But for me, when I'm sick or have the flu or something like that, the thing that makes me feel good is looking at data. I'm an engineer, and my sweet spot is algorithms and stuff. So I will literally open up SQL databases in whatever company I have and start moving data around. It feels so good to see it in places. And it's a rabbit hole I can go down because I can slice and dice the data in different ways, but it serves me in that way because it feels good. I can't fucking do that all day because then my companies wouldn't grow. But it's okay for me to do that sometimes. I also love, like, notion and, you know, I'm just very good at all that kind of stuff, but I can't do that all day. So it's okay for me to give me some of that. It energizes me. It sometimes even recharges me. But eight hours of it makes me feel like shit. So there's. There's gotta be your guardrails, right? So I don't think it's about not doing it ever. It's just about knowing how much of it you do and what's okay to do.

Yeah, that's a great. A great point. I noticed. I mean, I struggle with shiny object syndrome, like the next person. But I noticed that there is a fine line because if you never allow yourself to do that thing that feels good, it starts to feel all bottled up and you're like, I don't have any autonomy. I don't have any creative freedom. I can't, I can't, I can't. But I noticed that whenever I do get really fixated on a shiny object, if I just journal about it for 20, 30 minutes, or I just allow myself to outline it, then it gets outside of me and then I'm like, cool. And then I can move on.

Yes.

You know, so. Yeah.

Okay. So honestly, I think that the way I'd like to maybe wrap this up is if you are. If you could share a little bit. I'm trying to think about the best question. I think it's if you are potentially talking to someone who wants to start doing what you're doing, which is share their expertise in a specific area. Right. You have this story, you've done a ton of your recent writing, has been around unlocking that expertise. What are you advising them on where they would start writing. So I know you have a coaching business and so have you done any coaching with anyone who has wanted to start writing as well and maybe advise them on that or how. What would you tell someone who maybe wants to do something similar to what.

You'Re doing on the writing piece? I think I would just say to start really looking at writing what you know, which you know, it's the hardest thing in the world, I think because like we talked about it, that you think it's the most obvious things, right? Yes, ship 30 exactly. But I would just start with writing what you know. It was very helpful for me to look at past emails, past notebooks, and just expand on things and even have things that I didn't even realize were important. You know, just like, what was I thinking at the time? How did I do that? How did we actually. Like, the thing I did recently was on team memos. It was such a funny, silly thing for me that I didn't even think anyone would really appreciate as it's. It's just a normal thing I've done forever. Right. But when I looked at it, it was like, well, how did this even grow? Well, it started off with me, you know, scrambling the whole company around figure out these team memos. And then it became, I wrote about all of that, but just what I ended up publishing was the piece on how to write the team memos. Not yet all of the other evolvement of it. Right. But so it just led to that. So I would say making a list of all of the things, you know, as you're going through it and then going back to expand on the ones that feel that like I. For me, it was like what was drawing me in. It was less about because otherwise I'd get screwed up in my head looking for what was the right thing to write. So it was just like what was calling me, you know, what was like, what was feeling like I could write about this for a minute. I didn't want the hard things. Like if I, if I. Some people tell me, you know, if you're struggling, that's the one to write. Not for me. I'm trying to find like the things that come with ease. Do you know what I mean? And it's the same thing in business. I look for where the water's flowing. So like if, if the water's flowing this way, that's what I'm going to write about. It comes with ease and I get more wins, which means I'll do it more often. You know, if I don't get the win. I stop doing it. And everything's like, man, it's too hard. I'll go find something else to do.

Yeah, that's great.

When ended. Because that is exactly how we say it. The. The days where you are, the words are flowing from your fingertips. That's a signal that you want to latch onto.

Yes.

And I totally agree. If. If you're struggling to write, it means you're not that excited to write about it. And the only way to write anything sustainably is I sit down and it's like, where did that hour go? Because I just churned out this incredible piece that was sitting right at the front of my head. Those are the type of things you want to start sharing because that's. The reader is going to sense that interest and passion from you in every single thing you write versus the thing that you struggle to. It's not going to come off as you. There's a ton we could go on there, but, Christine, this has been awesome. I have a bunch of notes I want to take away. I need to go look at my calendar. I need to think a little bit more about what my job actually is. I really appreciate you taking the time. This has been good. Where can people go to read more about you? Read more about the 20 hour CEO. Where should we send them?

ChristineCurrio.com, two Rs, two Ls and my name. And I just want to really thank the two of you for all of the support over the last. It's been like a year together. So thank you so much. You really have helped me in just such an extraordinary way to find my voice. So thank you.

Well, thanks. Thanks for implementing it. I mean, it doesn't do any good if we share and you don't do the work and you don't put it into practice. So props to you. It's been amazing. Really, really cool to watch your writing evolve. So I just look forward to reading more of it.

Thank you. I appreciate you guys.

All right, thanks everyone for joining Christine. This has been awesome. People can find you at. I think it's Christine Carroll on Twitter as well, right?

Yes.

Awesome. Okay, we'll link to all that in the show notes. If anyone has any questions, you can reach out to all of us. Thanks again for listening and we will see you on the next one.

Thanks, guys.