How Founders Can Smartly Shift from Managing Chaos to Leading with Clarity

Welcome to Inside the Speakeasy Mastermind Podcast, the private room where today's sharpest founders, innovators, and renegade thinkers come to trade the ideas that move industries. This show is brought to you by HighLevel, the AI-driven business operating system trusted by over 2 million businesses to help automate, scale, and create real leverage. HighLevel isn't just a tool, it's the engine behind some of the most agile and high-performing teams on the planet. If you're ready to streamline everything, amplify your reach, and actually build a business that works for you, you're in the right place. Visit www.gohighlevel.com/speakeasy-mastermind-promo to get an exclusive 30-day trial for being a listener of the Inside the Speakeasy podcast. Enjoy the show. Welcome to Inside the Speakeasy podcast, and I am so pumped to be flying outside the US border all the way south. We're making our way to Playa del Carmen, Mexico to meet one of our amazing members, Alex Snyder from Leaders Who Build. And if you are stuck in the trenches, firefighting in your business, running around in, in crazy chaos, that'd be me and many others in this community and others who are listening, then you're going to love this podcast because Alex literally works with tons of CEOs and executives and helps them really just find ways to have a calendar that aligns with the life they want to live and get out of the crazy chaos. And she's got so many tools and systems that she's done over the 20-plus years of being in major corporations to now consulting with lots of other businesses and providing magic for many. And she's going to drop some words of wisdom today. Welcome to the show, Alex.

Eric, thank you so much for having me. I can't wait to dig in. It's been so exciting for Speakeasy Mastermind to be coming to Playa and us starting this chapter.

That's right. We're going to get into that because, yeah, we are in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and you are from Canada and now living in Mexico. Interesting story. And before we get into that, you have such a cool background. I mean, you were a major athlete in Canada. You were going to be going for Team Canada for a while. And I understand equestrian and rugby, and which I already know athletes, they're such badasses anyway, because they know how to create goals, push hard, achieve. And so I love working with athletes, especially I remember when I was hiring people, I'm like, oh, you're an athlete. That's great. So there's a lot of the skill sets you take out of that. I didn't know you're applying now. And then you were in the corporate world doing stuff with KPMG and other big companies and other, other organizations. You did a lot of work with Chevron and other major mining companies out there, learning this incredible set of skills that you're now teaching. Which we're going to get into, but before we go there, just real quick background. You know, you're even sharing a cool story about right before COVID and I don't want to mess up the story, but you know, let's walk through all these things here as I, as I ramble on. Oh yeah.

I mean, as you said, Canada born and raised, and I've lived abroad majority of my adult life, the last 20 years. Majority of my work experience is cross-border. So, you know, I've lived on 4 continents, probably. Yeah, 4 continents. And what you were referring to, after I decided to leave strategy consulting and M&A advisory in the energy natural resources space, in the, you know, the big leagues, the corporate space, and sell everything, become nomadic, and then partner into a startup and co-found another. Because why do one easy thing or hard thing at a time? Don't do one easy thing at a time. Yeah, there's a quite a long story, but we got to the point where we looked for an exit on one of the startups. And we, within about 6 months, we had a leader, someone we were kind of getting to LOI, getting ready to like finalize this deal. And I flew from Indonesia to Toronto because I was still nomadic. I was living in different places, but I thought, I said, you know, I can operate and run companies from abroad, but I gotta be with my business partner to round this deal. Yeah, I landed on March 13th, 2020, and I'm, you know, pretty sure everybody remembers that date because the next day the border's closed. Not the deal. And long story short, the deal died within about 3 weeks. The company we thought might be dying about 2 months later. We had a pretty ambitious pivot and we ended up 3xing the company in 10 months and then exiting in April of 2021. Whoa. So a lot of application. Of what I had learned so far. A lot of lessons, a lot of stress testing our beliefs, our hypothesis of what allows a company to beat the odds. What is the infrastructure you need to truly have that, what I consider culture of high performance, innovation, and resilience?

Yep. So you're gonna share some of those nuggets that you, so you apply that, you get that nice exit and, um, where you are now, now teaching others this. I mean, I mean, let's go back. So you're out in Canada and you're now, what, entering the corporate world and doing what?

Yeah, so I did a lot of things between kind of the end of my athletic career and heading into my MBA, so my master's in strategy, finance, leadership. And then I graduated during the housing crisis when nobody was getting jobs.

Yeah.

But I was very fortunate. I got my dream job in my dream company. So I worked in a boutique firm. I worked on strategy, I worked on operational, I improvement methodologies. I also did some random things around like, you know, lots of negotiation projects, which was really cool. I had dived deep into that during my master's, so it was very serendipitous. And then I worked all over. So I worked, got loaned out to projects in Africa and all over the place. I met other country teams and then relocated to London where I actually reconnected with people I'd known while I was living in Singapore at the end of my master's. So I really have moved around. Built analytics tools and methodologies in the global strategy group internally, and also did a lot of M&A advisory at that time as well. So I may have skipped over, we got acquired by KPMG, so I joined a boutique and then we got acquired, and that kind of gave me that more international path, which I had been aiming to forge for the boutique, but then we got acquired. So yeah, I've been through a lot of things.

That's amazing. And then, so in your— you grew up in what, in Toronto? Out in Canada?

Ottawa and Montreal.

Ottawa, Montreal. Okay. So I mean, we'll have, if we have time, we'll get into some of the travel because I think those even listening, we have so many people that love to travel different places and thought about moving from wherever they're at to somewhere else. Is the grass really that greener? Maybe we could talk about which grass is the greenest from your perspective. I mean, let's dig in. You know, what are you finding? You've worked with a lot of different companies out there and especially, I mean, just, I mean, I don't know, do you see it more in the bigger companies, smaller companies? What are you seeing as a common thing that We're all just like, okay, here we go again. There's chaos, you know, frustration, CEOs pulling their hair out, getting grayer faster than they should, et cetera, et cetera. No sleep.

There are definitely different drivers. And I guess I'll start with this thought because I think it's really important. As you grow a company, and I mean, I believe in this so much in life and in business that the spiral of life is part of the tattoo on my arm because as you grow an organization at a million, at 10 million, at 100 million, you are going around and you will come up against similar things. And if you look at things from the wrong angle, like you look at it from the top, it just looks like you're going in a circle and you're like, but I dealt with this. How am I coming up against this problem again? But if you look at it from the side, you see the spiral. You see that, yeah, you're coming around the circle, but at another level and another level. And so you will face process issues, you will face people and team structure issues, you will face market issues, you will face all kinds of things, but you will face them with more knowledge, more resources. And typically, if you're able to harness that, you will be able to address them more efficiently. And so there are lots of drivers that keep CEOs up at night. And I think one of them is not understanding that perspective. Right, is not understanding that this isn't actually the same problem. It's just that point in the cycle of growth. And so if you don't realize that, then you don't typically optimally draw on the knowledge and resources because you get stuck in the frustration first. So I think that's a really important perspective. But if I were to think about, you know, like you were saying, you know, the chaos and the being stuck in the trenches, what I see and the clients that I work with the most are over-functioning leaders. And these are people who, through the best intention, are trying to do everything for everyone to the detriment of everything and everyone that they're trying to be there for. And that comes from, as you grow an organization, and I see this at all levels, I would say it's maybe a little more prevalent in founders, owners who, you know, grew something from day zero. Okay, you do something and you become good enough that you bring people in, and then you have to learn a million skills and wear all the hats and keep all the plates spinning. And then you're a manager, you're a founder, and that is great. And you have to learn a certain amount to be able to then build the company further. But at some point you have to start also delegating those things out and moving from a manager who touches everything, makes all the decisions, oversees everybody, really drives everything forward to some degree themselves. To a leader, puts the right people in the right place, like equips them and enables them and fosters their growth. That's scalable. That's sustainable. Manager, you're capped. And so that shift from manager mode to a leader who understands how to let things go, how to delegate, how to really get the best out of people. Is a very uncomfortable transition and one which requires a lot of emotional regulation, self-awareness, communication. And frankly, we hear this all the time, but like not being the smartest person in the room, asking for help, all of these things that seem antithetical to what I think sometimes we paint the entrepreneur personality. And there are big extreme personalities that we see on magazines, but those are not the majority of successful entrepreneurs.

Got it. So, no, I mean, that makes sense. You're saying it. I mean, to me, so it seems like so much, and I would imagine a lot of your work, and we're talking about really what you're doing, which is being the strategic growth architect for these companies. A lot of it comes out of, I mean, it's as simple as saying that, and I know it's not simple in practice and theory, but it is simple as saying that just that transition, you know, from manager to leader, although it's so easy to say, and yes, we all intuitively understand that's what we gotta do, but you're saying yes, but there's probably 15, you know, 20 habits and things to actually do to achieve that goal. And that's where we all tend to fail.

Oh yeah. Cuz it's really multifaceted because it's, do you have a mission that is clearly defined and that you communicate in a way that galvanizes people? Great. That's like one personality type and skill you can hone. Okay, great. Are you then able to engage with your teams and really break things down and have them understand their role and performance develop them and do this? Okay, great. That's like another skill set. Do you understand strategy and how to map the strategic direction of the company? And do you even know all the options of how you could get where you're going? Okay. That's like another, right? That's 3 of, as you said, probably 20 things. Like, are you able to break things down? Do you have KPIs? Do you know how to look at data? Like, No one person encompasses all of those things well. You may be tapping into all of them, but being able to do all of them at an optimal level at the same time is just fundamentally not sensible, right? And so how do you leverage— and we are in an age now where the options for support in your business are phenomenally larger than they ever have been. AI to fractional to outsourcing, fractional leadership, AI automations. I mean, so much out there, but again, even to know that, to assess what makes sense, you know, the strategic conversation is great. We've talked about where we're going, but are we getting there through acquisition or organic? Are we getting there as a lean with like tons of external support or a fully in-house? You know, one-stop shop. Those are all really important conversations that define how you build and are the guide rails for the day-to-day decisions and the operational planning. I'm good at it and I think it's a lot.

It's a lot.

I'm certain. Yeah. Just talking about it.

So most of us listening right now are probably, you know, playing too much in the business. I'm gonna guess, you know, I don't, you know, they intuitively understand that, but they're stuck. They don't know where to start. You know, what do you see as probably the most common thing that gets people out of this rut they're in? Or maybe just a commonality of what people are doing that they just like, God, just do this one thing. I mean, and try to simplify this. Is it a change of the way they're thinking? Like, what would be that starting point?

I think if I had to choose one thing, and I'd love to reserve the right to like have two additional, it's not breaking things down to the small enough unit. Because when you sit in planning mode and doing mode, you can't do both. So you can't kind of be the boss and the doer at the same time. Our brains don't function that way. And so what you need to do is do the planning, you know, unless you don't get to be a full-time CEO until your company is really massive. So you are going to be having time where you're in you know, visionary mode or CEO mode or whatever you wanna call it. And you're gonna be having time where you are doing, that's the reality. But if you don't define those and you don't, as the boss, give employee you clear steps, then you oscillate between these. And that's typically where we spin and don't really get much done. So having clear demarcations of the role and headspace you need to be in, and then creating really clear, this is the first step, this is what needs, this is the action, and then actioning that, that for yourself and even more so for your team is a game changer. And it's what is lacking is usually that level of depth and detail with also only an appropriate number of priorities because if everything's a priority—

Can you break that down a little further? Because I want to make sure, can you maybe walk me through an example? That maybe is pretty common that you're finding out there of that exact thing of being the idea, the doer, like, and how would I actually go about separating that?

Okay, so let's say that you're a leader and sales is a really big part of your role and you only have one in the organization that's supporting sales. You know, you have a lot of fulfillment but not a lot of sales, and you decide that this year in order to grow, you can't be the sole owner of sales.

Mm-hmm.

So you put an annual objective of build a sales team, right? And then you just go back to working and you're like, okay, I need to build a sales team, but I'm spending, you know, 65 hours a week running this company. So like, when am I building this sales team?

Right, right.

Now, if I was working with you, I would say, okay, great. So what is this sales team supporting? What is the size of the company gonna be? Where are we going? Great. Now let's come to 12 months from now. What does the sales team look like? And then what is the rest of the operating model components that are going to be needed to deliver on what's sold, support what's sold, etc.? Cool. Let's focus in on sales. Okay. So at the end of the year, what do you want the sales team to look like? Okay, well, I want 2 people, one who's going to do outbound, one that's going to build, you know, our partners and handle inbound and structure this and that, whatever. Okay, cool. What are their roles? All right. So we may not know exactly when we're going to hire them, but who should be hired first? Cool. Well, what do they need? Okay, well, they need processes. Do those exist? No, they live in my head because I'm the only one who does sales. All right. So let's start listing out what they need and then determining, do you want to build that before or do you want to build that with them? My view is whenever you can build your processes with your team by having them intake your knowledge, develop the SOP, and then vet it with you. So from there, what we would start to do is say, okay, So in Q1, are we hiring a sales team or are we building foundations? And we would map it down to a level of detailed actions, deliverables, outcomes, and milestones or timelines. And it would be very, very clear when that's for. And then we would look at, again, coming back to the zooming out picture, okay, well, financially, what does that mean? Do we have the capital for the runway? Do we have onboarding? Okay, who does onboarding? Is it you? For sales, probably, but for the rest of the company, who's going to be involved? Do they have bandwidth? Do you have the systems and processes? Do you need any technology to support this new way of working? Maybe you don't have a CRM. Well, if you have a sales team, you're going to need a CRM. It can seem really overwhelming, but we have all of that, we document it, and then we start to organize it along the year so that in Q1, we're only dealing with these 3 steps or 2 steps or 1 step for that 1 priority, which is build a sales team. We get that done, we commit to less and get more done, and then we have the benefit of whatever that first step was, which is some kind of resource, more time, more money, more employees. Then we leverage them to the next one.

So what you— so let me recap what I'm hearing you say, because I think it's great. And I think it's almost like a lot of what you're saying is probably intuitively— everybody intuitively understands, but their ability to execute on that is where they get stuck, because it is a You know, we always go to the quadrant 2, right? It's definitely not urgent, but it's important. Therefore, I put it off. And what you're saying is, nope, you got to make it important right now and urgent. So you are helping people and even people listening here. I'm hoping you're taking away the nugget that Alex is sharing here, which is you have to make that urgent and important. It's not just important, which is we tend to probably think, meaning you're going to continue to be spinning your wheels and still be here stuck a year from now, wondering why you're working as much as you're working while you're still in the business. And then even though you said seem to like a lot of questions, that's just a matter of sitting down, whether you're hiring a coach like Alex or not say coach, that's the wrong word, but a growth architect like Alex who's really walking you through the right questions or you're figuring out the right questions yourself. You got to do that exercise and then start breaking it down to the bite size of, okay, I've laid out the next 12-month goal. What am I doing this month, next month to get to that goal. Otherwise I'm in the same hamster wheel.

Yes. And I will say priority rollover is momentum murder and frankly motivation murder for your team.

Okay. So what I think I'm translating that is if you thought it was a priority, but you just keep kicking the can down the road, your team was excited that you were gonna build this plan and now you haven't built it yet and you just keep delaying, delaying cuz you're going putting out fires all day long.

So it's either that you didn't apply yourself to the priorities because yes, we didn't Or you had too many priorities or you didn't break them down, right? Like I just said, the year was build a sales team that can deliver on X, but the first quarterly priority was 2 or 3 elements of that. Very clear. You succeed and then you have the next quarter, you have the next element of build the sales team, but by breaking it down and making the priority defined and definitive, and measurable, you succeed, you check, and then you have a different priority. And if something rolls over, it's fine. But if you have 5 priorities and in Q3 they're the same ones and none, they were never completed, that kills your team. Nobody ever wants to hear about those priorities again.

Yeah. What I'm taking away from this, Alex, is, you know, and I'm not trying to, I know there's a lot of complexities in this, but at the end of the day, this is a simple concept of saying this is goal setting. And if you don't take a moment to set goals, list your goals and actually act upon your goals, then you're basically going back to square one. And so maybe one of the takeaways I'm just thinking for myself, we probably are struggling because it goes back to having the value of having somebody who can help you stay accountable and somebody on the outside that can really do it. Because if we're struggling to do these things, which we know we should be doing, and you know what, then it's time to probably delegate and get somebody that's going to you know, crack the whip on you like an Alex or somebody else that you like because you just need it and you need someone to hold you accountable because it's too easy to fall back into the fire mode. Is that where you're finding a lot of your clients and what's happening for it with the, in your world?

Yeah, there's elements of, you know, I have done this in so many different companies, so many different sizes, so many different contexts. Experience helps, right? Because I know what's out there. If you've never built it before, you've done it once, you don't necessarily know all the options. So there is that element. There is the accountability element. And the thing I will say, and I know you, you kind of said, even though I don't love to be called a coach because there's so much more, yep. But there is also— this is where, you know, I facilitate people through a structure that a lot of other people do. But something that really is my superpower is being able to marry that with an innate ability to see when things are being glossed over, to see when you say something and I'm like No, let's go back. Let's talk about that because there is, look, entrepreneurship leadership, it's the personal development course none of us signed up for, right? There are things that you have to grow. You have to grow with your company. Otherwise it gets really messy and uncomfortable. And so sometimes it is just the accountability of having somebody with you for however many hours of the planning workshop. Or the check-ins where you do deep work, right? Our working sessions. Sometimes there's accountability of knowing that if you don't do it, I'm gonna ask for it.

Right.

But sometimes it's not realizing that you have a way of seeing things, a belief, a fear, or whatever, and you are unable to get past this thing or let go or delegate because you don't know how. Or because you believe that it could whatever, insert limiting belief here. And so there is that element of having a strategic copilot, a second brain, a sounding board creates a space, right? Speaking out loud is a different neural pathway than thinking, than writing. So all of those are flowing things through different parts of our brain. You get different outcomes. But then there's also somebody who can create an environment. I tell my clients when we first start, I need you to get really honest with yourself so that you can be honest with me, because we are going to work extremely hard to build this organization one way or another. It would be great if at the end it's something that lights you up and that you don't resent.

Yeah. Would you say— and I love what you're saying— would you say, because you just caught on a couple of things. Yes, is the goal setting and all that. But you touched on the other thing, it's fear. You know, the word fear, there's probably, what are you seeing as, and I can probably make some guesses here, but I want it from you, is what is the number one fear you're having, you're seeing in these entrepreneurs who can't get to that next and can't get out of the way of themselves?

Oh, it varies. A lot of it is fear of loss, right? Like fear is bigger than, I don't know what the right word is, hope. Like we are evolved to survive. And so if you are worried about the survival of your company, that makes, that takes a toll. I also see a lot of, and I don't necessarily want to call it fear, but it's very much a parallel. It's the desire to protect what they've built and protect their team. And I'm very familiar with this feeling.

Giving up control, fear of letting go of control.

Yeah, it's fear of letting go of control, but it's also fear of you know, hanging someone out to dry as well, right? Like, I talk with my clients, I'm like, if you want ownership, if you want a team that acts with ownership, that owns outcomes, they need to understand their role in the organization, just like you do in a sports team, right? You gotta know where you are in the play, what your role is, where you're going, what to look for. You need to understand the mission and care about it. So as a leader, it's your job to communicate in a way that galvanizes people. And then if people aren't on board, as in a smaller organization, they gotta go. But you then have to help them understand why the widgets that they work on drive the success of the organization, right? And then you have to give them a chance to like go beyond that and really own it and really, you know, push the boundaries and do that. And if you are this like safety backstop at all times, keeping them comfortable, They won't do that.

Right.

They will either stay safe or they will be like, fuck this. And they'll go somewhere else where they get to fly.

Yeah.

Right. And you don't want those people leaving. Those people are great. Those are the ones you want to keep. And so this desire to protect people, this fear of letting them fail, either because of the impact it will have on the business or the impact it will have on them, ultimately ends up clipping their wings and creating a chasm between them and you or the leadership team. And that is what keeps you up at night. It's like, well, why isn't my team stepping up?

Yeah. So therefore you're doing all the work. You're proving everything. They're not going anywhere. And they're just like, what the hell? Why'd I even bother doing the work? I'll just let you wait to— yeah, no, I agree with that. I've seen that. You know, I call it the safety net. I always joke around sometimes when executives go on vacation for 2 weeks, I'm like, good, go away. Let your team fail. Let them have— there's no safety net. Now they're gonna have to flourish and actually get the job done and imagine what'll happen. And you'd be surprised.

Talked about creating safe place to fail, right? You wanna give them a place to stretch that if they're, if they do fall, they learn a lesson without tanking the company.

Right. Learn a lesson. Did you understand a lesson? Great. Now you've reiterated they understand what happened. They'll probably not do it again. Now, right?

What their capability is.

That's right.

Whether they ask for help from their team, whether they grind through the night to get it done. Not that should be the way, but usually it's you grinding through the night to get it done and being like, oh no, don't worry. No worry.

Exactly. So, okay, second question. So you built a high performance team across 4 different continents all over the world. What is the one universal truth you learned about people and performance?

A universal truth about performance and building teams is that you as a leader, it is always your responsibility and it is your responsibility to have a user manual. For every team member because they are not copy-paste. And while you need to hire and build a culture intentionally, and that creates a component of how the team functions, you, or there often should be other leaders in the organization as you grow, need to connect with people so that you understand how they get feedback best, how they understand it, what works for them, What's important to them? What motivates them compensation-wise? What would be the most valuable for them? All of those elements. People, one, if they feel seen and heard, that is worth its weight in gold. If they feel that you care about their development, their future, where they're going, if they can see that alignment of that career trajectory and the company, they're much harder to poach. But they're also much more willing to go the extra mile for someone that they feel seen. And that's when, if I talk about leadership energy, it's this unique blend of inspirational and humble and grounded, right? It's somebody that, you know, you've met people where you're just like, oh my God, I want to impress that person. But I also feel like I can walk in and ask them a question.

Mm-hmm. You talk about, I mean, in the quote, virtual green room, you talked about servant leadership. What does that mean to you?

Servant leadership is my preferred method. There absolutely are other ways, but it's what is ingrained into me, I think, because of coming up through athletics. Servant leadership is your role is to ensure that everyone on your team knows what they need to do, has the tools, is equipped, is empowered, and is rewarded for it. And when they succeed, that defines your success. And so for me, how I function, I am very much— and it— but it is also a style of leadership in which it's very easy to overfunction because if you misinterpret it, if you kind of, you know, slightly mutate it, it becomes, let me protect everybody, let me do everything for everybody, let me overgive and overfunction. And so it is a fine line. Your role is to set them up to knock it down. But if they can't, as I was saying earlier, as a leader, performance, it's always your responsibility. Somebody isn't performing, it's your responsibility to address it quickly and either performance coach them or exit them. Because as a servant leader, their impact as a low performer on the rest of the organization is profound.

Well, in a weird way, you're actually serving them if you actually exit them and enter home for them elsewhere where they're going to be happier in life. You are serving them.

Absolutely. Nobody wants to be an underperformer. Nobody wants to not have a strong possibility to succeed. And so by keeping somebody in a role that they are not going to succeed in, you are doing them a disservice.

So, okay, so now you're talking about breaking out of the quote manager mode and get out of the weeds and all that. So in your clients, when you work with them, what does that actually feel like when somebody finally steps in with true leadership? What have you witnessed?

Well, the process to get there is supremely uncomfortable because you go from having a million tangible productive things that are very busy to much less tangible, less check the box at the end of the day. And it can feel extremely uncomfortable, like you're kind of useless, like you're not contributing. And so I always tell people like, I need you to hang in there and just trust. While we go through this part, because as high performers, it's fundamentally like antithetical to our desire to like get things done and tangibly see progress. But once you get there, it allows you to really change gears and like really accelerate. You live 80% of your day in, if you want to call it zone of genius, superpower, you know, where what you do and the way you do it, which I call cheat codes, like what is the way you work alone with people, is optimized. And so you are outputting at this optimal capacity into the business, which is a needle mover, and it is filtering down through this organization and people and roles and processes that amplifies it.

You know, I mean, you're actually sitting there being able to think, think about ideas and business and vision. And your thought immediately goes, you know, gets shot into the team and the machine actually then creates a beautiful output of your vision in an efficient way. And it's like, wow, this feels amazing.

Yeah. And a lot of the time that's because now there's like a translator or a filter between you and certain parts of the team and this, and you know, everyone's different, but that the speed at which you can grow and the space you have to think strategically, to pivot, to understand things and like collate information because you're not doing tactical things. Really is a fundamental change. And then the other thing, again, as I said, we speak about what is the company, where is it going, what is it going to achieve, and then what does your role and life look like. It means that you're living like in integrity as a leader too. I say employees are very much like children. They don't handle hypocrites. The whole like do as I say, not as I do or thing doesn't fly. So if you're trying to build a culture of this and you want your employees to be, you know, emotionally regulated and like emotionally mature humans, humans, and you're not sleeping, you know, not aligning your priorities that you say— your family, your health, whatever— but you're just grinding on, you know, 2 hours of sleep and caffeine for 3 years in a row. One, God knows when you're gonna like fly off the handle. Yeah, yeah, true. That— I do not care what kind of organization you have, people see it. Whether they see it visually and know exactly, or they just sense it, They know. And so being that leader in integrity is so important for how you connect to your organization and your team and having the things that are most important to you. And I'm not here to tell you what those are, but for a lot of people they are family, community, health and fitness, maybe building another company, whatever. Having those are what make you the best version of you, which allow you to show up as the best leader. Right. Nobody has their aha moment staring into Excel at 2 in the morning.

Right.

They have it at the gym, on the back of a jet ski, like doing other things. That's when your brain processes. And I'm not, I'm genuinely talking about neuroscience because I'm a giant nerd. Like, yeah, that's how it works. You intake, you learn, you work hard, but you need to disconnect in certain ways for your brain to create connections.

Love it. And that magic happens. Okay. So, so I think last couple questions here, you know, a lot of this is about trust and team delegating correctly, building systems. You know, what's something that, that would you say a lot of people that you work with get wrong about the delegation or trust of things?

Yeah, I think there's a spectrum that people tend to live in the extremes. Mm-hmm. And the first one being just holding onto everything and micromanaging or not delegating. And the other extreme is abdication. And abdication is not delegation. Just giving someone a task and, or a responsibility or whatever, and then setting them free isn't delegation. That's abdication. That's right. You know, this is now your job.

Bye. Right.

Every job I ever got, I came in and firefight and had to figure it out and like, fair enough.

Fine. Yeah.

But it's suboptimal. I'm sure I would've performed better in the first 3 to 6 months if someone had actually been able to Train me.

There's the A players that figure it out, but I mean, that, that was luck that they had you on the team. Yeah.

Yeah. So finding, understanding what delegation is, understanding like the way to match, you know, people's capabilities and delegation, and then how you delegate. It's just basically like tapering off, right? But if you either don't instinctually know how to break something down or don't go and find like a brief. Or structure that you can use to create this like repeatable, this is how we delegate and things like that. And we spoke about earlier SOPs. That's a great way, right? When you own something and then you're either handing it off or bringing in people to do it, you have them take copious notes while you walk them through how you do it and you dump your brain into them. And then they structure it and then it becomes a document that not only they follow to do it the way you want it. And if you bring experts, you may want them to do it the way it should be done. And you don't really care how the sausage is made. That's fine. But in this case, you are creating a very clear process and potentially systems and other things for things to be done in the way you want them repeatedly. And not only for those people, but for anyone new entering the organization. And so processes are also really important for scale and also really important for operational security and redundancy, that if somebody leaves, they don't leave with all that knowledge and now we don't know how to do that part of the business.

Yeah. Yeah.

That was a bit of a bigger answer than just delegation, but I think it's operating at the two extremes of just not delegating or micromanaging that no one ever actually takes ownership. They just do tasks for you.

Yep.

Or abdication.

No, that's helpful. That's a good way to look at it. Okay. So last question too, before we go into some fun, you know, if you could give every high achieving entrepreneur one reframe about success that would save them years of burnout, what would it be?

Gosh, I mean, in Leaders Who Build, we talk about wealthy leadership because the goal is to build the company of your dreams without it feeling like a nightmare. And the only way to do that is to define what wealthy leadership means to you. And what I mean by that is success on your terms. It's what fundamentally does your life look like? What is important to you? What gets you out of bed? What lights you up? All of the things. And so for me, impact gets me out of bed. I need to see that what I'm doing makes a difference and is helping. Gets me out of bed. Freedom lights me up. And health and fitness and mental and physical is a foundational pillar for me. So my healthy leadership is, yeah, I want to build a company. I want that company and what I do to be really meaningfully impactful and also have maybe even space for things that I don't worry about how they compensate me but are making a difference. And I want to have enough funds to support people that are important to me. And I want to have the freedom to be wherever in the world with people that are important to me. And the time to share experiences and take care of my health and wellness and, you know, build communities. I can put a business model around that. I put probably about 8 different business models around that. I can put a financial target around that. But really, without those pillars, those business models and those financial targets, yep, aren't wealthy leadership. They aren't success for me.

Right, right. That very well said. So I'm going to go back to what we talked about earlier, close the loop a little bit. You live in Playa del Carmen, Mexico right now, which for those that don't know Playa del Carmen, you know, somewhat, it's a bit south of Cancun and before you get all the way down to Tulum, very fun place down there. And I know we have a great chapter that's now off and running out there with some amazing expats and others. How did you, I mean, how did you land there and what are some of the places you've lived?

Yeah. People always ask what's the favorite, you know, where's the favorite place you've lived? And I'm like, every phase of life has been different in each place. And so the place was synonymous to the phase of life, you know. I've lived in Singapore, amazing time, just where I was in my life, phenomenal. Singapore will always have a place in my heart. I've lived in Indonesia, you know, totally different phase of life, totally different lifestyle, but beautiful culture. It's where I really found this mix of very communal local culture and expats, high-performing expats, and that intersection is really interesting for me. I've lived in England, in the UK. I spent extended periods on projects out in South Africa and Tanzania. I was nomadic for 4 years from leaving England to arriving in Mexico. And I honestly came for a month. I knew there was an expat community. I knew the infrastructure was pretty good. The borders were fairly open at the time, and I was still in my VP role and running this company. So I knew needed to be on the time, North American time zone and be able to get somewhere relatively quickly. I came for a month and then I thought, oh, if it's good, maybe I'll stay through the winter. And, um, yeah, 4 years later, here I am.

Wow.

A resident of Mexico with, you know, a fairly global setup, a global network. My clients are all over. So what I guess to expand on the Indonesia point, Playa del Carmen is a lifestyle choice. Arguably New York, Mexico City, a ton of other places for my business would be very sensible. And I have lived in a lot of metropolises over time and the size, the hustle, the intensity, and my intensity amplifies. It's really easy to isolate the smaller geographic footprint, tap climate proximity to water. And community is really, really great for my health and wellness. And again, being the best version of me allows me to be the best version for my clients, for my company. And so here in Playa, you know, I can be outside and eat really healthy. There's a fairly, you know, easy way of, of living. I've got everything I need. I can walk everywhere. And then I've actually been so fortunate. This community has shifted in the 4 years I've been here. There's a lot more people who live here full-time like I do. And we have friends of mine, and I've gotten the privilege to support this, of building a wellness community. We're building a fitness community. We have a fitness club that offers 8 free workouts, including 2 run clubs per week. We now have expanded out PDC Fitness Club. Shout out, you know, has expanded out into the community. So there's all these partnerships with local businesses. We do these like big sponsored morning runs at sunrise, and then there's ice baths and coffee and DJs afterwards.

Sounds like you've had a nice home for a while. I love it. I love it. And anybody listening, hopefully, if you're out that way, definitely find Alex in our community. Look her up. I'm sure she, her, along with Carla and Alex and Kate Buck and all of her other great, amazing people out in Playa del Carmen, would love to host you and show you around the amazingness out there. Last question, Alex. How has— I know it's only been a few months, for you, but have you enjoyed Speakeasy so far?

Oh, fantastic. I have been really loving, you know, getting into the space. I mean, I will say, Eric, you gave one of the best onboardings I've, I've ever had to a platform. So the community platform, the layout, all the tools, it's a lot, but it is so well organized that it's really exciting to get in there. People are wonderful. The virtual conversations are great cuz for me the global footprint is a big part of why I decided to join Speakeasy and I can't wait to drop into other chapter events. And then, you know, not being a chapter leader, but just being here in the first phase and having, you know, Carla and Alex are really good friends of mine. Seeing this development, it was something I was actually thinking of starting a Mastermind in Playa before this came up. And so the serendipity and timeliness of it feels amazing and I can't wait to see what we build. We are also a great location for, you know, bigger multi-chapter events. That's right.

In the future. I love it. Maybe we'll set a goal, maybe 2 years from now, maybe not next year, the following one, we'll do a fun annual event there. That'd be amazing. I think we'd do that. Actually, we're thinking about doing more experiences anyway. So we'll talk offline about that. I think that's a great idea. So we'll have some fun there. Well, Alex, thank you so much for your time and coming into the show today. And I truly look forward to more dialogue with you and conversations and doing some big things. And so we'll see you soon. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Eric. This is a pleasure.

And that's a wrap from the Speakeasy Podcast. If something sparked for you, don't keep it to yourself. Share it, review it, and pass it to the one person who needs to hear this right now. Want in on the real mastermind? Tap the link in the show notes to apply. Until next time, keep scaling, stay sharp, and don't be the smartest one in the room.