I Trusted My Gut in Business for 30 Days Here's What Happened

Especially as a founder, right? You know your business better than anyone. You've built this baby or you're working on this project. There's no one that's closest to it than you are. The greatest times in my career have been when I doubled down, when I listened to my gut and I went for it. I also look back and think about all the failures that I had, all the lessons that I, that I learned the hard way. And every single time, guess what? I ignored. I ignored my gut.

Hey, guys. So we work with my good friend Sunera Madani. How are you doing?

I'm doing fantastic. How are you, Stephen? I'm so excited for this conversation.

Ah, me too. You know what? I was, I was. I got a chance to share with you a little bit off camera that I, I feel like I'm a rare breed of sorts. I like to accelerate my female leaders because.

You get the benefit of their, their working knowledge, of their skill sets, all the things that they've studied, all the experiences they had, all the things they've fought through and, and most female leaders that I'm aware of have fought through in a man's world, so to speak, all kinds of adversity that men typically don't have to face. And that's the truth. We could call it like it is. The second thing is, is you also get the benefit of their gut, their instinct, their intuition. And for me to you, I want to just congratulate you first on the enormous accomplishment that you have done in building companies, exiting in the building like this. It's. Your story is incredible. And one of the things I love about you and watching some of the other content you filmed is your humility about saying, hey, it wasn't all me. I had this person, this person, this person, these people helped me. And by the way, it's okay to screw up as a CEO, because I did that too. That kind of thing. So tell me a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey. How did you kind of find your way into fintech and this ultimate passion of really helping be build female thought leaders now and leaders.

Well, thank you, Stephen. That's super kind. And I, I love that you started the conversation about intuition. Right. And I think that that is probably one of the strongest anchors that I have as a CEO. But I think that, you know, most successful CEOs have. And if you can really tune in to your gut, to your instinct and I mean, it's, it's the biggest indicator of everything. And I think that, you know, as, especially as a founder, right you know your business better than anyone. You've built this baby or you're working on this project. There's no one that's closest to it than you are. And the best thing that you can do is bet on yourself and bet on that gut and listen to that instinct. I think I can look back at a million times through, you know, my, you know, I'm a young CEO still, but over 15 years of experience in building companies. The greatest times in my career have been when I doubled down, when I listened to my gut and I went for it, even though there was maybe other indicators that were telling me no, maybe there was other people that were telling me no. I didn't have all the pieces in place, but I knew in my gut that it was the right decision to make, and I doubled down on it. And I also look back and think about all the failures that I had, all the lessons that I. That I learned the hard way. And every single time, guess what? I ignored. I ignored my gut. I ignored listening, and I had. You have those red flags. You get those feelings on people, on hires, on money decisions, on time decisions, on so many things. And your gut was telling you every step of the way. When you look back, you're like, oh, I knew it. But we just didn't listen. So if you can really find a way to channel and to trust your gut and to listen to it and to use it wisely, definitely my biggest tool. And I was. You asked about building with people. I am so grateful. I had such an incredible journey on my first company. I didn't go to CEO school. So my journey started off.

I didn't go to CEO school. I was the first person in my family to graduate college. I come from the most incredible family of immigrants and entrepreneurs, but entrepreneurs out of necessity. And I saw firsthand my parents just build their life from nothing. And I'm so grateful that I got to be part of an upbringing like that. I got to be part of just seeing the work ethic and the resiliency and the value of. Of community and family. And, you know, we didn't have everything, but everything we had was more than enough. Like all the things that I learn about now, you know, as I, you know, I'm a spiritual person, and I think about things like abundance and just different mindset philosophies. And I'm like, I actually am so privileged that I got a chance to grow up around that I got a chance to grow up with the most incredible love and supporting, like, just such amazing support system that my family unit had and we were really close as a family and we had dinner every night. Just traditional values in that way. But what's really interesting is that so my parents like although I, you know, I grew up in this and it's maybe a traditional household of that matter. I never saw my gender as anything. I never knew I was a firstborn. And so my, my dad was always like, you know, anything scenario wants like, you know, I was you know, father's princess. But it was like yeah, but he started. No, like everything was like if your sister says this, I had a young, I have a younger brother, we're two years apart and fast forward, he's actually co founder of our businesses. So we've, we've actually worked together our entire lives without knowing it. And then formally when I started the company in my first company which is tax payments which we ended up exiting for over a billion. So it was a wild ride, big journey, but I got to do it alongside my brother. So those like family values, I mean I have like one team tattooed on my, on my arm because it, it really is like how you lead with your, you know, culture is everything in your value system is what drives it. And so I had an opportunity to build alongside the most amazing, amazing humans. And one of them was my brother and my other, you know, family of work, family, great investors, all the things. Also so many challenges along the way. But I look back and it didn't, it wasn't just me that was able to take this ide and turn it into a company that did 40 billion in payments. I ended up starting a financial services company, a fintech company at the age of 26. I was the first person in my family to graduate college. I got a degree in finance. I went down the corporate route. I was that, you know, very noisy employee that saw so much opportunity and was constantly.

That just means you were a leader early on. That's all that means.

Yeah, it's exactly what it was. And I saw that the industry was very outdated. We saw so much great technology coming and I with a data junkie, data nerd. And I was a marketing major, finance major. And I saw so much opportunity in the payment sector and in financial services and credit card processing.

Yeah.

And I took this idea back for the first subscription based credit card processing system to my old company and they thought it was like not going to be a thing and also transparency and fees and investing in technology. And I came home one Sunday dinner like back from a very disappointing board a meeting. It was actually not even a board meeting. It was. I got, you know, a chance to pitch this idea to my executives at my company, which was like an all male team. And I was just, I was pretty much laughed out of the boardroom. But it was mostly little girl, right? It was this like, who am I to come with all these daring big ideas? And I have no experience. And I don't blame them. When I look back at, you know, even the conversation, people ask me all the time of like, what were some turning points. But I mean, I was 26 years old with no experience, no money in my bank account. And I was like, here are some big ideas that I have and I didn't get em to champion them. And I came home that Sunday and we had family dinner. And my dad looks to me and he goes, well, Sonny, which is my family nickname, he's like, well, why don't you go do it? And I'm like, dad, where do I go find Mr. Visa? Like, how do I go start a financial services company? And he's like, you'll figure it out. And if you won't, you'll fail. And then you can go back and go get your MBA or go do the next thing. And so something that was, I think, unique about my upbringing was that I think failure was always okay. And that as long as we tried, like as long as we went for it, that was the thing that was like very much instilled in, in us as kids was like, we had to try, we weren't quitters. And you had to give it your best and it's okay if it didn't work out, but you had to like, really go for it. And so I think that's really where the, the starting point of my early journey. You know, starting stacks came about. Built this incredible organization from the ground up with just that idea to over 400 employees. We did multiple acquisitions. I did, you know, over $250 million in venture capital raise. We ended up exiting the business in 2020. And then I recapitalized the business to private equity in 2021. And so it's a different exit. And I still am like a huge champion of the business and a big shareholder of the company and it's doing so incredibly well. And I never thought that I would ever part from my first baby, but big journey and ended up exiting north of a billion.

Yeah, I was gonna say for me, I don't know about you. This last year post exit has been both fun and challenging. Right? Because I.

This your first year post exit?

Yeah. Because, you know, last year. So I was gonna say that, you know, I went to a. So Patrick bed, David did a. A conference literally a few days ago, and bad the Rock come out and speak and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, there was a couple of entrepreneurs that stood up in the crowd, and their biggest struggle right now is I've exited. I don't know what to do with my life kind of thing, you know, And I wasn't necessarily in that position. Like, I already had my next thing kind of at least thought about, was beginning to strategize how I was going to execute it and things of that nature. But still, I was sharing my fiance last night because, you know, one of the things that we have a. I have a thing on the door here. Nine figures in three years. So from scratch, zero to nine figures in three years, which I feel like I can do because I've. I did the long road last time. But as part of that journey lay just laying out, okay, what are the. What are the revenue lanes going to be? What is this going to be? What is that going to be? That kind of thing. But I was sharing my fiance, who we've only been together a year at this stage in the game. So she. She missed the entire first 25 years of what it took to build an organization from scratch.

Right?

The hours, the challenges, the ups, the downs, the. You know, because there's a point in time, you're just. You have this all this time, just, okay, well, how am I. How am I going to figure out the payroll? How am I going to figure out this. This process? How's this system going to work? And anyway, I sell that to say that a lot of times entrepreneurs who exit, they. They call it. I forgot what the term that they call. But essentially it's a year after exit before they really find their footing again. Did you struggle with that? Because I know I had a hard time going and not the office.

No, that's why I asked you. That's what I just said. I was like, is this your first year? Okay. It is the hardest thing I would say I've done. I think people think that building the company is hard. Exiting the company is even harder, I think, because you tie so much of your identity to your. Your worth is your work, right as humans. And that's currently, or like, at least that was for me, that was my story. What I had put every ounce of my being into running this organization. And for me, I had such a chip on my shoulder, like, going through the whole thing I was always told that I, you know, I was always the youngest. I was the woman, I was the. The minority. Like, I was all the things. Right, all the labels. And then you start labeling yourself too. And I carried this huge chip on my shoulder to prove everybody wrong. And that was probably some sort. Like there was probably some of that.

For a little while. It's just not.

Serves you for a little. It does serve you for. It doesn't serve you in the long run, though, right? It's it you. That's where like the maturity and the evolution just, you go through. You have to go through the things, you have to go through your hards. And building was really hard. Scaling was even harder. And then you have these options to exit and then making the decision site, you know, even going through the private equity, even going through the processes, that's even harder. And in 20, so my journey. So I sold the company in 2020. I ended up staying on. I did the majority recap. And then you kind of almost like fake excite yourself over the next milestone. Because all we do is chase. That's the human in all of us. And that is the external world that we live in, that there's always something bigger and greater and better for us to like, go achieve. So we keep setting the bar. Before we even reach the. The bar, we. The bar goes even higher. So that's just the human nature in all of us. And so I was falling down that path of like, okay, 100 million, right? That was like, first it was like the valuation, then it was like, you know, you know, not the valuations. I'm going to do it based on my revenue multiples. Right? And so multiples were always like, intact. They're always changing. Yeah, I knew I wanted to go, you know, there was this fictitious, like in tech, it's, you know, the unicorn. I was like, oh, we're going to, we're going to do that thing. And we did that thing because there was. That was the goal, was the mission around it. But what happens when you actually achieve the goal? And when, when we. And I was. I kept moving this fictitious goalpost and this next big goalpost. I stayed on after 2020 to, to scale the company from, you know, the. It was, you know, to go past that 150 million of revenue mark to go get to this valuation, to go scale at that point. And then we did it. And then here it is again. We do this other recapitalization. So we were making everybody money. Shareholders are making all of this stuff. You reach the Point. You get the milestone, you have the party, Right? So we had this, you know, the press is everywhere. You know, one of 20 women that have built a billion dollar business. It's exciting stuff. I'm super proud of it. So I don't want to take anything from that. But when you're at the top, when you reach the thing, when you aim for the moon and you actually land, like, what next?

Yeah.

And then I get this new board plan. It's like, oh, we're going to take it from 1 to 1.6 or 1 point, you know, 1.8 or 2. And you have to really ask yourself, like, is that what I really want? And before that.

I'm glad you said that.

Yeah. Because we don't ask.

I was sharing that with my fiance last night. I was like, I know me, right? If I, if I have a, if I have something that I know needs to be done, I throw myself completely into it and I make it happen. But in this stage of life after, you know, becoming on paper what people refer to as, you know, very successful or whatever you want to call it now, I just want to do something I actually want to do, you know, and then make that successful. And I spent the last year figuring out and pivoting, I don't know, probably six or seven times testing different things to see do I like this, do I enjoy this. This is a good mission. And I could follow this road and I can make it, I can make it successful. I can do that. I could do it over here or I could do it over here and I could do it over here. But I know me well enough to know that if I'm going to make it truly successful, it has to be almost like a calling. Not just a, not just a business.

It's. And you're going to go. And the best advice that I can give you from post exit is take your time, right? Take your time and really ask yourself, like now it's not about, you know, when you start a business, it's about, you know, freedom of dollar. Right. Freedom of time. Like, and the more, you know, the more success you have, the less time you have as well. Right? So you're just constantly in this next chase of the thing it took me. I feel like I have just gone through the most beautiful evolution. My first year was really rough. I made the decision after that milestone that it was time for me to go. It took a little over a year to make that process happen as well. And then from there, it took a year post just to shed My identity. I felt like I was having like so many times I would get, I can, we can. This is probably not going to relate to most people, so we probably should move on from this topic. But I would literally get in my car and like drive to the office by accident. Like I even in my cerebral brain, like had, I didn't, I didn't know where to go. Like my brain would automatically go to work.

And so it's a, it's definitely a big shift, but it makes you. And wherever people are in their journey right at the end of the day, like work, you have to find that purpose. And I would just encourage people to ensure that you're checking in on what are the right milestones like, not just for the sake of the milestones. I think we live in such a comparison. We see. And there is always something shinier, there is always something better. But really enjoy that journey along the way. I did feel like through that journey over the last 10 years I did lose a huge part of me. I literally, you know, and I gained a lot. So there was a lot of value that came from it. But if I were to look back and like I literally was 25 to 35, like huge prime parts of my, you know, my growth. I became a mother during that, during that time. So I have two young girls. I feel like I put so much pressure on myself of trying to prove everybody that I was still capable of being. Like, I had so much imposter syndrome of losing my job. Right. Like as a CEO, I had investors, I had shareholders. I was constantly over producing over, I was way, way over qualified. I didn't, I didn't have any. Like there's stories in my head that I was constantly trying to over prove myself so I could prove my worth to my company. I didn't have to do all that. And there were so many things that like I wish I looked back and I just enjoyed it a bit more. And it wasn't about the chase. The chase did serve me well. So we did end up with an incredible outcome. And, and, and, and that was great. But there was definitely some reflection on that Jo journey. And this time around I'm doing it again, which is absolutely nuts. I've. We started our second business Worth. So I'm building the business credit score which I can share about later and why we're building this. It's super mission centric. We onboarded a hundred thousand small businesses during my time as CEO, as a financial institution onboarding customers. But I also am a minority woman and struggled Firsthand and getting capital for the business, even, even as basic things as like lines of credit, svo, like all the just financial services. The industry is very outdated when it comes to underwriting and onboarding. But as consumers, we can go by and I have, you know, based on my credit, I can go buy the, you know, the, the G wagon that I want or I can go buy whatever, but if it's on my business name, then it's different for my business. And so there's no standardization of how the credit worth process is done for small businesses, regardless of whether you are a woman or a minority or not. Just in general, it's just done individually, institution by institution by institution. And there needs to be standardization. We've got to hold the systems accountable and make decision making through data and not through human decision making. Right. This is where you don't want your underwriters trusting their gut on looking at a name on an application and denying it or approving it. You want them to look at the business and there's good and bad conscious bias, right? So, you know, I know you went to, you know, you're a gator or you went to UF. I'm like, boom, yeah, let's give you $10,000 more. That's also, there's, there's good conscious that doesn't work in a financial institution's favor. And so standardizing it, we're building the business credit score. It's called the worth score. We've amazing partners like Equifax that are at the table and doing it second time around, we could talk about that is like 10 times easier, right? Because you've got resources, Steven, you've got connections. But you also come from a place of experience. And not only from a worldly experience of an experience of like trusting yourself a little bit more and being able to lean in a little bit more the second time around. So that's a little bit about my post exit.

No, I'm loving it. In fact, we're gonna come back to a lot of that because I don't know. So you said earlier, I don't know if this will resonate with the majority of your audience. I think it does because I think they need to know what to expect, whether they're at their first six figures or seven figures or trying to cross the eight figure threat, whatever the thing is. So I think, I think all of this is relevant because there is an emotional journey that is tied to.

What should be logical principles. I just released a new free resource for our audience called Eight figure mindset. Right. So because I'm trying to help, because most businesses never go across a seven figure threshold, let alone get to eight figures. Now you get in your world where you're at nine and 10 figures, that's amazing. Right? That's like less than 0.001%. Right. But one of the things that comes up that you've, you've actually hit on a couple of times while we've been talking is the importance of making data driven decisions. Every single, every single business owner I know that has gone from 8 to 9 to 10 figures. And I've got, I got a slew of friends in all three categories. All of them learn to stop operating by emotion and make data driven decisions in a big way. The other thing that I, that I feel like I've heard you say before is you already have a proven track record of success and still went back at different times to get additional capital and stuff like that and still ran into roadblocks as it relates to kind of people not making that data driven decision, if I recall correctly. So how did you overcome that? Because I had a guest a few weeks on and she exited the business 4 or 500 million, did fantastic. And she was telling me that her, the, her entire mission now is to help women fund their businesses. So she literally took part of her, you know, equity that she pulled out of the business and literally created another business to then loan that money to women entrepreneurs who have a proven tracker of success so they don't have to run through the brick walls to try to make this happen.

So I think that there's so much to unpack here. I think that you're absolutely right that you kind of learn to, but I don't think that the instinct goes away. So like as we were talking about earlier, I do believe in fact plus gut. So you can't make decisions solely based on gut and emotions. That's not going to lead you far. You can make a few decisions based on that. You're not going to be able to scale a business just based on your intuition alone. Yeah, right. And if your business is scaling, you've got to know what your indicators are of what are the areas. Those levers exactly what you were talking about. You're like, here's my plan from 8, 9 figures. Here are my levers, here's my revenue streams. Right. As CEO, it's super important for you to be able to zoom out and know what direction you're headed and, and, and fact helps you in making those decisions. Not only for you, but it helps your team make the right decisions as well. So it's super important that you're not only from a, like, from a leadership down, that the organization is driven based on data. So I'm a huge proponent of whatever that there's so many great systems. We don't need to reinvent all the systems for us. Like we've, I've always used OKRs, I've always used KPI reporting. Right. And so we have key objectives, results, we have key indicators that we're measuring across each of the different departments. And you can't measure, you can measure all the things. So too much data is also analysis paralysis. Right. So you don't want to there, there's going to be certain things that are only relevant to certain departments. Let them measure that. But you as a CEO need to have the right indicators. Your leadership needs to have the right indicators. And we've always got to be focused on those needle movers and those, those key performance indicators that are leading, that are not lagging. So that's critical and. Right. And then when we add our instinct to it, right. And then you're listening to the human side of it, you're listening to your leaders. I mean you said you have an all female team. I mean you've got great intuition around you. Right? We're, we've, we're paying attention, attention to detail is super important in leadership as well. So although the data is telling us this and what is like, what is the underlying effect of it? Right. So sometimes what I, what I find is that the data can only tell you so much. Right. So the data is telling you those indicators, but what is the story behind that? That is what you have to be paying attention to. That's where your instinct comes in, that's where the intuition comes in. And so you've got to be able to have the story that's backing the data. And I think that that's where really successful CEOs, really successful leadership teams come into play is when you can have both that fact plus story plus plus instinct together. So fact plus gut. And when you talked about, you know, your friend who had, or the previous guest who exited, I think that super phenomenal. It's so rare. Yeah. And this is what I love. We're friends now too, right? There are, there are systematic challenges in the ecosystem today. You know, less than 2% of female founders ever even break a million in revenue. We're talking about hundreds of millions and you know, billion dollar companies here, even 1 million in revenue less than 2% of female founders. And this is from 2020. So I'm hopeful that the statistic has gotten better, but it is, it's a huge gap of even. And when we talk about funding. Right, so that's one, one component of it then. If we look at resources, that statistic is still applicable today. In 2024, less than 3% of venture capital went to women founded companies this last year. Right. And if you look at minority found these, you're talking in the decibels. Right. You're talking in the points. Percent. And so there are systematic challenges. It doesn't mean that it can't be done. I think, you know, the. Your friend myself, like, it is important for these stories to be told so that we can share that, you know, we can defy the odds, but the odds are not necessarily in our favor. And so it is important for us to be able to have the right networks. I think that's one of the biggest things that I really do encourage female entrepreneurs. I do a ton. And I think this is why most successful women, if you look at almost any successful CEO that has exited or that has done great things, that is a woman of a female led company, they are doing work in the fem sector supporting other female entrepreneurs. Every single one. And so I've got my podcast CEO school. We do so many resources workshops, court all the things to support women in business all day, every day. Because I know, like, I know the struggles firsthand and we want to do something about it. The way to change it is also our network. Right. So there's, there's so many ways we can go back and deep dive into the topic of why it's there. But it is important. I think this is applicable to all entrepreneurs. Your network is your net worth, period. And so if you are not constantly building, you know, I think sometimes we're, sometimes we get stuck on trying to have the seat at the table, right. And it's not our fault we don't have the seat at the table. So like I said, I had that on my shoulder. I'm constantly trying to get that seat at the table.

I finally got where I just wanted to build. I just built my own table.

Build your own table. Exactly, exactly, exactly. You don't need to have the seat at the table. You've got to go build the table. And we forget that. And I think that that's the message that is really important that that isn't being shared. That entrepreneurship, the way that it, the, the how it used to look in success was Maybe it was a solo man's job. And you know, he did it and he did this and he had this connection and that's how capital and this is. Blah, blah, blah. That's not how most successful companies are built today. We have an environment now that we have this global of a network. Right. It is, it is. We're one degree away from anybody that we want to connect with through social media, through. You know, I do believe the world, no matter how big it is, it's so, so, so small. And so focus on building relationships, meaningful relationships. I do think that the world has become so transactional. It's becoming really hard and it's not, it's not our fault. Like, we live in this transactional world like it's on demand. We have, we have the most amount of things at us all day long. Our, our time, everyone's time is the most limited that it's ever been because there's so much noise, there's so much at us. There's so much we have to do that we really do have to take space to cultivate those relationships and to cultivate that network and to give in to the right community and to be part of things and to show up into rooms and say yes to opportunities that you don't know exactly what that transactional outcome may be. And so that's what I recommend as like, been a huge part of how I've been able to scale was I, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't. I don't know what I. I didn't know what I didn't know. I just kept showing up and kept. Had this growth mindset of like, learning from as many people as I could, but the right people as well. I wasn't everything to everyone all the time. Was really focused on cultivating the right relationships and building that network. And that's why I always feel, I always say, like, it wasn't me that just built this thing. It wouldn't have been possible with. Yeah, that scenario. Who started it at age 26? Like, it wouldn't have been possible to go build it. I had so many people that were championing it to make it successful and so build that network. I think it's, it's a huge reflection of not only not not just where you are, but truly it's the path to where you want to go.

Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying the show. Steven Scoggins here. I've got something that I think is. I'm just going to blow your mind. Imagine taking Your life and your business to the whole nother level. I'm talking about eight figure level and beyond. You see, you've been working your butt off to build your business where it is now. But what if you could work smarter, free up more time, make more money and impact along the way? How much would that be worth to you? You see, I can prove that basic steps, basic mindset shifts and subtle changes can make the biggest difference. I want to introduce you to the eight figure mindset makeover. It's absolutely free and it's here for you. It's a powerful summary of my top strategies that help propel me from the streets, if you will, to upwards of nine figures in quote unquote success as we like to chase it. This is more than just tips though. It's a complete mindset overhaul with simple hacks that you can apply today to begin working on your unprecedented heights in your own business. I would like the honor to share these types of things with you that turn my dreams into reality so you can experience the same type of joy and freedom that I now get to live out in my own day. In other words, it's time for you to build your own unstoppable enterprise. And if you're really ready to take it to the next level and elevate your life and your business, this is an absolute game changer for you. So if you want to take advantage of this free resource, simply go to the Show Notes and click the link. Or you can go to stevenscoggins.com backslash8 figure that's Steven scoggins.com backslash 8 figure. Until then, much love. God bless. Let's get back to the show. Take care. This is what I want the audience to take away, right? I try to bring on guests that don't talk the game, they walk the game like and, and you've absolutely been doing that. It's clear that you spent a lot of time, even soul searching as you've been making this journey for yourself. Which is, I think it's.

Is they're so focused on the, the business that it's not, they're not paying attention to other areas. Clear you've been doing all of that. As I'm thinking through the, our female listeners and viewers, one of the things that keeps coming up is actually something I'm watching my fiance kind of walk through a little bit right now. She's in the process of building her first business. We've got a new TV program we're working on for her and then we'll have things come off of that for her and she's expressed and I'll share. I'll. I'm not gonna, I won't share too much. Cause I don't break any confidence that she trusted me with. But I would say that outside looking in, a lot of female entrepreneurs that I've met, including my fiance in the female sector specifically struggle with a little bit of guilt. Like they're putting so much time in the business and they feel like they're not at home enough. And then they feel like they're at home and they should be working on the business and then trying to find the balance approach. They're trying to, you know, they're. Especially when they're married and spoused up or you know, have a partner, they're trying to balance. Okay. You know, it's been however long since we had a date night. We've connected all that like all of that stuff. I'd like for you to unpack it from your experience if you're okay with it. You can be as vulnerable as. Or non vulnerable if you want. Because again, I think this is a major. From what I've seen, this is a major boulder for a lot of female entrepreneurs is because they are in many respects they are. Because they're female. They are a nurturing spirit. They have a heart for their children, they've got a heart for their spouse, they've got a heart for, you know, harmony in the home. But they also. There's some great leaders that get some crap done, you know, and then, you know, so they're kind of like almost blondie.

Have to energetically get back in their feminine. And I don't, I don't know. It's a dance that I've, I've been watching.

Figure out and you know, any insight that you can offer or female whether you're on that dance. Because again, I think you can do it all. I mean, I think you can have it all. That you can have a beautiful marriage, a beautiful family, achieve your dreams, build a great business, lead teams, take what you learn, then, you know, impact the world with that. You know, believe those things. Maybe if someone shares kind of like maybe.

How some of the approaches that you and your husband use.

I love this question and I totally feel for your fiance and I feel for every woman. Every woman feels this. So every woman feels it's hard because it is. If you think about it just. I just. The men today that are listening to. Hold some space for me here. Okay. Think about it from the longest. Like we've just come into the workforce as women. Fortunately or unfortunately. Unfortunately. Right. The world has just been designed in a way. The workforce has been designed in a way that's patriarchal. It's just the natural way of things. Even from our primitive, primitive days. Right. The men went out to go hunt. The women stayed back to take care of children. This is naturally how our. We're designed. This is naturally. That's what has been our natural habitat. This is what has. Evolution has created between, you know, our, our gender roles. And if you think about the change that's taken place over the last less than 100 years. Right. We haven't even been in the workforce for 100 years. But the work systems, the work styles, the whole world has been designed for us to have these two roles. Now if I had one job, I could do that one job really, really well.

Yeah.

And I'm. And I'm not saying this is true for all men because I think that this is also shifting on, on both sides. I think what's really great is this fluidity that's taking place that we're all now flexing across our, our roles between masculine and feminine or whatever the, the definitions are. But I do want to hold space that as women we do have to wear multiple hats. That's not to say. So I want to share before there's any judgment, before anything comes through. I have been married for 11 years. I've been with my husband. We've been together. We built our whole lives together. So we've been together since I was 21. So we've have a very strong marriage. I've got two of the most incredible girls, eight and five. And so I've been doing the mom thing and it. And I'm excelling at my home life as well. So my home life is not something that is like just because I had. And I never saw. I didn't get to see a lot of women showcasing both the success at home and the success. Easy years.

Yeah.

Not only that it's not easy, but it's because even through our systems are not designed for us. If we're showing that we are successful here, the judgment is that we're, we're. We're too tied up here. We don't have the time to dedicate on a work standpoint or. And that's. And we've been. That there have been patriarchal, patriarchal systems that it's, it's not. And I'm not blaming the guys. It's just the way that it's been Designed for so long. We've just come into the workforce, you know, you know, since post World War II.

Yeah.

And so that I do believe is one a challenge because everything is designed in a way or has been designed in a way where it has been one way. And there are like, if you, if you take a look, there are the emotional burden on women. Right. At the end of the day, my husband is the most fantastic father. He is super dad. I literally have such a great partner. Partner in life, partner in business, partner and all the things. At the end of the day, mom knows where everything is. Mom knows like there are things that just as we carry the mental load of the family and I don't. And I'm glad that my husband is sharing that load with me. And I do think that partner, like I think there is an amazing evolution of where that is being shared. I don't think that it's perfect for many families and many women. And it is very hard in that capacity. But I am lucky to have that partnership. But there is still that extra load that we carry as women. I actually interviewed a, a neurologist who studied the female brain versus the male brain. And if you actually even were designed differently. So even our frontal disagreements, we are, we are able to. Even so naturally I'm able to take on all these multiple things and I can carry the space across these multiple different avenues. Whereas a male brain is designed to go to do the thing, complete the thing and then to move on to the next thing. And so I do think that it's not our fault that the system is designed in the way and it's going to take time for, for us to all be able to adapt to this new system. And what's also taken place is that, you know, now we do have this amazing. We like there is an opportunity for us to have both, right? And so we can do the family thing. And we. And, and I do believe exactly what you said. I believe that we deserve to have it all. However, all is really hard. And with that, the burnout, the heartache, the pressure, it still falls like there is a lot of emotional mental bandwidth that there's just extra on every working woman that there is. And I care how much help there is at home. I do not care what are the different systems. I. This is the con. These are the conversations that we're having in closed door settings with the women in our community. And I just want to hold space for every woman that's listening. I just want her to know that it is hard and that you know, things will fall and that. It's not, it's not, it's a. It is, it's. It's messy. It's super messy. And we do have that capacity to be able to compartmentalize, to be able to do the things. And the guilt will never leave. Every single time like that I am away, my heart is still always like my heart is at home. Right. I have to travel so much for work, so many different things. And I have to have hard rules, hard boundaries. And I do give up more opportunity than my male co founders because I have, like, I know where my priorities at the end are going to keep.

Their families together, you know, and, and I'm not saying.

And it doesn't take away from what my male co founders are struggling with. They've got their own challenges and their own things. But as a woman's perspective, I can say that it is hard. I just want to share that it is hard. You can do the things. It is difficult. And I hope that the systems do change. And I do think that post Covid, we have seen just a more humanization approach to business, to the workplace. And, you know, I do think that the workplace has to continue to change a bit for it to be part of just how it works. Like we, I do think that even like this, like the systems of, you know, our business systems, our operating systems, they have been designed in a man's world as well. And so from our meeting, cadence is like, there's, there's so many things as women, I feel like I just view things differently. I can do things faster in a different way. I like. And so I do think that you have to be able to design your workplace in a way that also fits in. You've got to be willing to let go of pleasing everybody. And that's something that's also naturally innate in us. The perfectionism in us. We want to please, we want to serve. We're nurturers. Those are the things that we also have to. Then we have to check in our own psyche to put some boundaries on for ourselves so that we can be the right things to our family and to our business. Everything else is a no. And so I still, at every step of the way, have struggled with this. I continue to find ways to ensure that I'm always aligning with my why my family is my number one driver of everything. Like my kids, my husband are my number one priority. And then the business and the business is succeeding. And the last part of it about it that I learned really late that And I encourage the women to tune into my most recent episodes on the CEO School Podcast. I talked about this whole 2.0 transformation post exiting and my personal journey. I forgot to put myself in any of those categories. And so I was constantly burnt out. I was constantly pouring from an empty cup. And that's when it's even harder. And so if we can find a way to prioritize and it's so difficult to do because you have so much to do that you want to pour into all these things. You have to find the space to take care of your mind, to take care of your health, to take care of your body, to take care of yourself so that you could be the strongest and the most best to take care of everyone else. And so I learned that lesson the, the hard and long way. And now I'm learning to kind of recalibrate, to put myself first. I'm part of the family, so mom is also part of the family. And so I'm taking care of myself and trying not to add the guilt and I'm putting myself first and then everything else.

We covered a lot of ground already. And you know, one of the things I was thinking about, burnout, a lot of this obviously. So I, again, I have a team full of leaders, female leaders. My fiance is trying to build her first business. So I have a heart for female entrepreneurship and leadership just in general. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's because I was raised by a single mother, grandmother or somewhere, you know, kind of maybe all the above. But one of the things that you were touching on is this, this essence going to do a lot of different things, a lot of different places, a lot of different times, a lot of like that. And I, I see that right? I, I see the, I see the mom mode to spouse mode, spouse mode to business mode, business mode, spouse mode, spouse mode. Like it's a, a never ending loop, you know. And yeah, it is. And you know, and I, and I do feel like yes, it's a. And this is where I'm, this is where I'm going to ask a question around the burnout piece. Do you feel like. And I definitely want to tap into Worth and before we close everything out because I want, I want our female listeners and viewers to know about it. I also want them to go check out your podcast. You're. You're 300 plus episodes in. It's a fantastic podcast. I was able to catch a couple episodes ahead of the Our Call. And yeah, it's a great podcast. It really Is I want, I want to encourage them to go do that as well. But do you feel like maybe some of the burnout is trying to do it all at once or all right now versus understanding it's going to take time for it to all like shape itself out and things of that nature?

Yeah, I, I think that the burnout is because there is a lot to do, right? Those are a lot of roles. And so I think there's a natural piece there. And I also believe that we, we can have it all. We just have to choose what all looks like. And so when, when I was talking about that people pleasing tendency, that perfectionism tendency, we also have to know in order for this to be successful. I call it my three bucket principle. So at any given point, every quarter I assess it, it's usually mostly the same, but it's like what are my three buckets? Where am I pouring into? And that's it. Every single thing is a no. My first bucket is always my family. Like that is it. That is a big bucket. And I can't have perfect balance. So this kind of came about was, you know, post my second baby company scaling. We're probably did our series B. I fundraised while pregnant like all the things like scale the organization through it all. But I really struggled post, you know, if any, any parents out there. Like the first one you're like oh this is amazing. And the second one like totally kicks your butt. Like it like you know, like child man on man, like three. I know third one doesn't count anymore. That's what everyone says. Like third one just kind of raises itself. I only have two.

And so it was the second baby I felt like it was. I constantly, I just felt like I was failing everywhere, right? I was failing at work, I was failing as a mom. And these are all stories in my head, right? Because that's, that's the hardest part. It's all the inner work. It's all the inner stuff. So I'm failing. I'm failing and it's because I was living in this fictitious world of like perfect harmony and perfect balance. There is no such thing, right? And so I, instead of it being every day where I could be a perfect mom and a perfect CEO and a perfect, you know, I was driving impact with, with you know, women in business or all the things that I other other things that I was doing, I can't have a perfect balance day. It's just not, it's not, it's not possible. And so we set up these like false expectations of our perfectionism. So that's, like, the first thing that you have to come to grips with is that it's not going to be perfect.

Yeah.

And. And I think it's really hard because in a day of social, right, You're. You see the per. Like, all this. Everything you want to see on, like, every business that's, you know, that's doing amazing. Then you see all these moms who are like, you know, making ice for their kids and like, in, like, you know, strawberry ice for the strawberry ice. Right. Like, there's you. You see so much. You're. You're. We're living in this really unique time of constant comparison. So it makes you also feel. It's. It's. Maybe other people felt that way long. Like, you know, maybe my mom felt that way when she was a working mom. But I feel like it's in my face a lot more. Right. That I'm. And so those are the stories that are building up. And I was trying to balance everything on this, like, perfect balance day. And at one point I just felt like I, like, threw in the towel. And where it really clicked for me is that when I'm at work, I'm gonna do my best. And it's like, really about, like, the, you know, the concept of being in the now and being present wherever you are and you're just giving your 100% to. And so creating those rules for myself of, okay, here's my three buckets. It's my family is my. My first bucket. At that time, it was building st. Right now I've got another tech company that I'm building. So that bucket has changed. And then, you know, my third bucket, which is like this additional bucket. What is the one other thing that I'm going to put in? Is it going to be that I'm going to be amazing at fitness? Is it going to be that I'm going to, you know, take on this community, like the community board? Am I going to be doing podcasts? Like, what is this third thing that I can add to my plate? But if you think about it, life isn't a. I don't want to have a buffet. I want a curated plate. Right. What's a healthy.

More fine dining.

Yes. And so you have. But you have to have balance, right? In order for you to have a healthy body. Healthy. You know, you have a balanced rate. You have your protein. You have to have a balanced approach. You can't just dump everything on it. Then you're going to be unhealthy. You're going to be burnt out, you're going to be tired. It's not going to work. You're not even going to like it. It's not even going to taste. Right. Right. And so, but if you can find this, here's the three things that are going on my plate. And then everything else, we're going to say nope, we're going to pass on that buffet. Okay? So we're going to say no. And it's hard to do when everything's coming at you. It's hard to say no. But you've got to be disciplined on saying no. You've got to be disciplined on your three buckets. And I stopped measuring how I was filling up those buckets on a day to day. I viewed it from a week. So if I could fill my family bucket, it might not look perfect. So if I'm traveling for a conference, right. I'm heading to 2020. I'm at Vegas, in Vegas for two days, right?

Yeah.

Those are things that I have to go do. Two days I'm going to be fully present filling that cup for my work bucket. Right. As soon as then I know that this week I've already taken that time. I need to be consciously present with my girls and creating those moments and those. And so that I'm doing that, I'm not skipping more than two nights of bedtime, whatever that is for you. It's about being consciously filling those buckets, not just filling everything else. And then it's great. This is my third bucket through the week. How can I fill that bucket? And at the end of the week, if I zoom out, and I always do a Sunday zoom out, which is every week, my husband and I sit down. It's like our most important meeting now. The girls actually are part of our meeting and Mila takes notes for our meeting. But it's like, what is up ahead for the week? Right? How are we filling these buckets? And that at the end of the week, if there's balance, I feel like I did my part in filling the three buckets and so that approach and now I've been able to create like a little formula out of it. But that's how I was able to compartmentalize, to take the pressure off, allow myself to say no to the things that I don't need to fill up. And it's not a no, it's just a no. Not right now. So when that other bucket is filled and I'm like, great, I don't want to. This is. This can Change. That third bucket is usually that bucket that I would swap. Right? So I'm like right now I'm in this era. I'm in my podcasting era, I'm in my fitness era, I'm in my whatever era. I can put those things into that third bucket. And as I was sharing with you earlier that I wish going through that the one thing I put in the bucket and I'm like now the family bucket. I'm part of the family. So me filling the family bucket includes filling my bucket. So you can't, you can, you can have it all for sure. You just have to define what all looks like.

Yeah, no so good. In fact, there's a couple major takeaways. This is why I was so thankful that you the. Because this is, this is gold, especially for our female leaders. This is the stuff they're feeling that they don't really talk about. And so when I have somebody for.

Male leaders, I think that this also, this is for all of us. Right? It's not, it's not male or female anymore. This is really. We're all. I see that all day long with my co founder, with my husband. There's so much coming at us. We are living at a time with their just be being present, defining what those key thing in life. If we can all just focus. We all want great healthy plates. We all want a balanced approach to it. And so I do think that focus is. And if you look at most successful people, they're. They're. You can. They are aligned in that they're even there. Even that third bucket that might be right. That might be external or other things is still value aligned to the. It all makes sense. Their plate makes sense. Sense.

Yeah.

And so I do think this is applicable regardless of your gender identity.

No, I, I don't disagree with that. I just, you know, I just. It's specifically trying to help our female audience and viewers. But I totally, totally, we all struggle with this, like trying to be good parents, trying to be good spouses, trying to build great businesses, impact the world, you know. But there's a couple takeaways. So recently Chastity, my fiance, I asked her, I said, what are your priorities? Right? And I asked her because I wanted to understand from her perspective how she, how she was already carpenter compartmentalizing the buckets. And you know, she, at first, you know, first thing she said, well, self care, mental health, then, then, you know, family meaning my, you know, the kids, myself, then business like. And then she, she did it that way. So I thought that was pretty cool that she was able to kind of almost frame kind of what you just mentioned. And the one thing that you mentioned that I don't want people to underestimate because when you were. All right, so you got myself. He's going to, he's trying to, he's going to try to build another nine figure plus business. I'm gonna try to help chassis kind of do the same thing with where, where it makes sense for me to engage long term. Right. So you've got two high, you got two folks who want to do great things, big things in the world. Okay. You've also got all the things that life has happened. We've got a, the middle son struggle for the Crohn's and we're in on the hospital from time to time. You know that we have all these different little things. Right. And you brought up this, this, this fact of the Sunday zoom out. I don't know if you understand how genius that is because this is something. Most of the conflict that Chastity and I have in our, in our relationship has to do with lack of communication which then creates communication breakdowns.

Yeah.

Like you just miss each other. Right. And just. I know, I know I wanted two things. I'll, I'll just let you, I'll let you go on both because I know you have to run. But one, maybe share with us the importance of that zoom out what it's done for your marriage and your family as you're kind of doing it. And two, share us, share the share with us about worth so we can help these women get what some more support they need.

Yeah. So first worth is for everyone's. We're building the business credit score so it's not just for women entrepreneurs. We are underwriting and risk platform. It's in. It's the most incredible patent pending technology. We're built like we're connecting the full Financial360 profile of a small business instantaneously. We connect through like your QuickBooks, your payroll, your just the tools that you're using. Just imagine rocket money but for your business, monitoring your business. And there is, there's no standardization on your credit worth, your credit score. So we're creating something new and we're giving businesses the insights to grow their business in one ecosystem. As a business owner I have to go to nine different places to go look at my cash flow, to go look at my, my payment, to go look at my invoices, to look at my payroll, to look at my taxes, my irs. We've Integrated all of it into a single platform. It's incredible. I'm super excited for it. Everyone can check that out@worthscore.com so I'll be sharing that. We can share that in the show notes. So that's a little bit about worth. It's very mission centric because we do believe that if we give financial institutions the tools to look at businesses will create lasting change because they're making decisions based on data and not through conscious.

You can always force them to make decisions based on data. But I tell them the gender. So here's, here's the data. Look at it.

Yeah, that's what we're doing. Right. So there is no. It's based on business business business financial data. That's how decisions should be make made for financial institutions. They're not today it's supposed to be made on business business decisions. However, it's a lot of back and forth. It's manual, it's static data, not dynamic data that's constantly playing. So that's a little bit about worth. And now for the first the question that you had asked on marriage advice or partnership advice. You're totally right. Half the time we're like two ships passing through the night. Right. So I've got. My husband is also an entrepreneur. So he's not a stay at home dad. We got it. He's a huge real estate developer. We've been building our businesses since we were 20 years old. We are super type A, extremely ambitious. We've got big goals. We want to change the world together and we do it. We like that's what this is like part of what makes our our couple are like foundation so strong and our we're raising two amazing daughters who are also going to do that. So you are talking to the right two people that are constantly crossing communication as everything in a relationship. And I do think that just, just like in work process, right. We organize things, we have our scrum meetings, we have our leadership meetings. Why are we not applying that to as I mentioned it's 2024. It's the most chaos it's ever been. So I'm just trying to use the tools that I know as CEO and apply them to my day to day life. Like everybody should have these tools to sit down and take, be present, take 10 minutes. Even as a family we pull up our calendars. We literally just do that. It doesn't take very long. We'll run through and it can be as basic as you know who's doing. There's obviously logistics on you know, and we've got help, we've got support, but it's who's doing pickup, who's doing drop off. What are the schedules? Am I traveling this week? Is he traveling this week? How are we dividing and conquering? We've got the most amazing rules for our family. Like if I'm gone, he's home. So our girls always have one of us at home, even if we've got grandma or a nanny or whatever else. And so first priority is the kids. Then it goes into like, what's, what's happening with work. The moment for us to, to communicate, to be on the same page. Even as basic as I kid you not, half the time we used to like, argue about like what's for dinner and like, and who owns dinner. Responsibility, divide and conquer. Dinner and dinner. Responsibility doesn't mean that I have cook or he has to cook. He's just responsible for making sure that dinners. And whether that means that my mom's cooking or the nanny's cooking or we've got, we're ordering takeout or he's cooking or ordering pizza, whatever it is, I don't have to worry about the thing. And I think that that's another thing, that's teamwork, right? When you do assign things to each other, I have full faith and trust that he's going to do it. And that's part of building this process with each other is when I say I'm. When I'm signing up for something, we're going to sign up for. And with our family, of course, if I'm going to say if I'm taking the girls to tennis this week, there's no shot that I'm not going to be there no matter what meeting, right? And if something happens, I'm. Of course we're there. But we know our schedules, work schedules, life schedules. And the most important thing is that Sunday. So we put our workouts in. So we put. So fitness is a huge part of it. Spirit is a huge part of it. We put, you know, I put in my times of like, this is when I have my, this coaching or this is when I'm going for my, you know, for all of our life stuff. And we find time for a date night. So it felt there's date night. And date night doesn't have to be actually at night, whether we're meeting for lunch, whether he's coming to the office, whether we're doing a coffee date, whether we're even doing a walk because we're dropping the kids and we've got that hour and that's going to be our date walk. And we're going to do a walk and we're going to have coffee. We're going to go to the coffee shop that's right down the street. We ensure that we find at least that one meeting, one date between the two of us that is just for us. And so that's how we're able to do it. And that's our Sunday Zoom out meeting.

I can't thank you enough.

God's honest truth, you're so wonderful. I could feel your incredible energy. I wish you so, so much success, Steven. I'm excited to have you as part of our friendship. I'd love to have you back on, like, on our show. I'll come back for part two. Whoever's listening here is here for the right reasons. You are the real deal and I can feel your heart and your energy. And thank you for allowing me this space to be so open and honest. And it was such an incredible, incredible conversation. It was so fun. Everyone can find me everywhere. I'm online everywhere. So I also have social media that's pretty active everywhere.

And we're going to load you in the show notes, too. We're not going to make it hard for them to find you.

Yeah. Senera Madani, you can find me everywhere.

Thank you so much. I can't wait to do this again. I already kept you over time, so we're going to bounce. But you are amazing, and, yes, fast friends. And I'm happy to obviously do your show. We're happy to have you back on anytime.

All right. Bye, Steven. Talk soon.

Bye.

Bye.

I hope you liked that video. And if you did, make sure you check out this next video right here. So a lot of the time, one of the easiest way to be able to figure this out, actually, is to think about the people that come to you for advice. If you were to look at what they needed advice on and how you provided that advice, it's very likely there's going to be pretty strong needle move towards one particular subject. And that's because you, you just responsibly emanate the fact that actually, I'm really good at this. I'm great at what I'm doing. I know I can serve you and help you.