Focus on THIS to be a successful Fractional CFO.

Can you just speak to some of the maybe non obvious things that you've learned that are important to focus on outside of technical competency or you know, even emotional intelligence that are really requisite to being your best?

When we become obsessed with something to such a degree that we make it all of life, it smothers wisdom. It smothers our competence with regard to the reality of what life is actually like.

Like. When it comes to entrepreneurship or leadership in general, you really have to take, in my experience, a holistic approach as a person to showing up for your team and for your clients in the best way possible. And so there's a lot of other, we'll call them dimensions. Alex, I think to being your best, like sleep and mental health and, and relationships and nutrition, you do a good job, at least in my perspective as a third party observer of really taking a holistic approach to leadership and entrepreneurship. Can you just speak to some of the maybe non obvious things that you've learned that are important to focus on outside of technical competency or even emotional intelligence that are really requisite to being your best?

Yeah. Well, I appreciate the kind words on the topic of balance or holistic growth or making sure that we're focusing on the many dimensions and arenas of life that actually matter. Because I think this is a state that I am in right now that I'm very grateful for. In so many ways. It's a blessing and I would say it was hard won too, right through doing it wrong for a very, very long time. One principle that a mentor and friend of mine shared a while back that resonated with my previous experience that in some ways is countercultural, especially for entrepreneurs, is obsession smothers wisdom. What is wisdom? I love Tim Keller's definition of wisdom. Wisdom is competence with regard to the realities of life. So wisdom is knowing this is how life works and this is how I am set up to thrive and flourish within the man or woman or leader that I was created to be. That's what wisdom is, right? Obsession smothers that. I have a propensity and I have experience obsessing over my work. I have a propensity to go all in on my business and to be thinking about that 24, 7, 365, to always be focusing on problems, opportunities, challenges, threats. And what's crazy about that obsession is the world that we live in rewards me for it, right? People cheer for me. I get financial gain from obsessing. People say they look up to me because of my obsessiveness. They say Man, I just love how single minded you are. And you think, man, this is the right way to do things. There's a great proverb that says there is a way that looks right to a man, but in the end leads to destruction. I think this is what that's talking about. When we become obsessed with something to such a degree that we make it all of life, it smothers wisdom, it smothers our competence with regard to the reality of what life is actually like. One more note on that is just I've heard a definition of addiction be needing more and more of something that works less and less. And I, I wrote a LinkedIn post once that tied a obsession and addiction as being pretty close together, right? Because obsession in so many ways can be an addiction. And someone responded and they said, okay, but what is healthy obsession? And I think that's the problem, right, is we think that there's healthy obsession. And in reality, if you look at any life of anyone that actually lived out obsession, that actually lived out single minded focus only on one thing at the expense of every other thing. If you actually look at how that plays out over a longer time horizon than one year, people can decide for themselves what they want. It looks nothing like what I want long term, it looks nothing like that. And so what I have to remind myself is that there is more to life than just business. And I need to remember the holistic picture of what matters most.

What is that picture for you?

Yeah, thanks for asking, Michael. There's a great principle that we teach with Empath for Growth that says if you want to put your business in order, start by putting yourself in order to which then that begs the question, kind of like what you asked, how do you put yourself in order?

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I'll never forget, he's one of my greatest mentors. I've known him for over a decade now. His name is Mike Valatin. He married Aspen and I. And if you, if you were to ask me, Alex, who's a picture of someone that embodies healthy growth, like they're constantly growing, they're always moving forward, there's always expanding their capacity and they're like deeply content and grateful and humble and faithful where they are today. And they just love life as it is today. Mike would be one of the first people that comes to mind. And you know, he's, he's double my age and he's just one person that I really just look up to as it relates to that topic of healthy growth. And he taught at one of our in person experiences a couple years ago, a session where he just got up to the whiteboard and, and he got up there and he wrote four words. He wrote God, marriage, kids, work. And the entire talk could have been summed up in three more words in that order. And what this isn't saying is, it's not saying I need to get hyper pragmatic of, well, I spent more time in the office this week than I spent with God or reading the Bible this week. That's not what he's saying. He's saying, where is the allegiance of your heart, right? And I've got to remember that my relationship with my creator, seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you. I actually believe that matters most. And regardless of whether your audience believes what I believe or what you believe or things like that, I would just really challenge your audience. Just know what you believe. You better know what you believe. And then you better regularly renew your mind by being reimmersed in the core principles and tenets of what you believe and why God. Marriage. You've been married much longer than I have, right? I got married a bit over a year ago. And I am just consistently reminded already a year in like man, there is no relationship on earth that has the ability to be as rich and life giving and powerful as that one. Consequently, there's also no relationship on earth that has the ability to be as destructive and toxic and mutually degrading as that one. And I have seen a lot of people make their business better because they made their marriage better. I have never seen A single person make their marriage better because they made their business better. Right. And so a healthy marriage, if you really focus on the health and vitality of the relationship that you are involved in every single day, man, your business is going to benefit from that because it's, it's been the outflow of a team instead of just an individual that's going home every day to a place that they, they're miserable in. And so we, we have to remember to prioritize our marriage even though we don't have a marriage dashboard. Right. Kids, you know, I've got a one month year old daughter, so I'm learning that one right now. But it just strikes me that a mentor of mine shared with me that his vision for him and his wife, he sold one of his company, I believe he sold 85% of his company for $126 million. But when I asked him about his vision and his goals, he said, you know, the, the vision that my wife and I talk about most often. He said, we're on the beach and we're there with our grown adult kids and we're just having a blast and we're laughing. And he said, and the reason why we're there is just because we want to spend time together. And they chose to come to the beach with us because they want to spend time with us. And that this guy sold his business for $126 million. And that's his primary vision that he and his wife talked about. And then out of that comes work. And it's not, we are not degrading the value of work. Work is just not who I am. It's where I get to serve. And that's what we need to keep in mind.

It's interesting when you think through that list. There's some spiritual component, spousal component, rest of family component, and then the work component. Right. Based on how you kind of believe, if that is the priority. And then we reflect on where do I spend my time, energy and financial resources on leveling up. It's normally in the exact opposite order. We focus so much on our business and leveling that up. Then we're focused on our kids and their sports and all the things that they're doing. And we're pouring so much time and money and attention into those things. And then with whatever is left over, maybe we are doing something with our spouse. And then, oh gosh, maybe on a couple holidays a year, key holidays a year, I'll go to church or do something on a spiritual side. It's interesting how inverted those priorities end up being, you know, from a practical level.