Ep 67 Transcript: What’s Really Holding Back Your Business? The Mindset Shift You Didn’t Know You Needed

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.

The skills that got you into your business are not the same skills that are going to help you lead in. Today, we're exploring that critical gap between being great at what you do and being great at running the business that actually does the things that you do. Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And today I'm going to be sharing some practical strategies to help you to bridge

the leadership gap without losing you, without losing your authentic voice and without losing the passion that got you started in the first place. In fact, I'm going to help you to actually reignite that passion. We're going to cover four critical mindset shifts that you need to make in order to be a thriving leader and be able to embrace that leadership CEO role to be able to move your business forward. So let me start by just talking briefly about

the accidental CEO because I've spoken about it previously on the show. But if you're just joining us for the first time, I want to make sure that you know exactly what we're talking about when I refer to my accidental CEOs. This is a very endearing term that I like to use for my passion driven entrepreneurs who followed more passion than plan. Here's the thing. You woke up one day, maybe not one day. Maybe this was coming for some time, but essentially you had this passion. You had this drive. You had this calling. You had this thing that you were really, really good at.

and you knew you were great at it and you knew you could help other people. Maybe you're fulfilling a gap that you are seeing in the world today where you're like, you know, no one else is filling this gap and I can serve these people and you followed that passion with so much of who you are with all that you had. But here's the challenge. You don't necessarily have all of the business tools in your tool belt that you actually need in order to ensure that you are moving this business forward.

You love the doing. You love doing the things that you do that you're so great at. But some of the business stuff often ends up getting a little bit lost in in all of this because we've got a lot of passion. You've got a lot of passion for what you do. This is what got you started in the first place. But you're afraid that you're going to lose too much of that doing if you try to step into that leadership or that true CEO role. But the beautiful thing is that when you do this with the right strategy and the right steps,

You get to actually keep all the things you love about the doing while growing into something that fuels even bigger passions and even bigger dreams and helps even more people. So first of all, let's talk about some of the signs that you might be stuck in what I would call doer mode. So first of all, are you finding yourself that you're making very reactive decisions? And I know what you might be thinking like, listen, this is the life of an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, we need to make split decisions.

split second decisions pretty often sometimes and you're not wrong. But if you find that you're constantly reacting, especially for some big decisions, if you're finding this is constantly very reactive or very last minute or maybe like a decision opportunity has come to you and you put it off for weeks because you just don't even want to look at it. So by the time you are making the decision, it's a very quick and somewhat rash decision that you're making because you haven't given it the time and attention that it really needs. And the reason for that

Is that you don't have a real filter to be able to evaluate whether or not you should be doing that. So we're going to cover that in just a moment. You might have a bit of an inability to delegate. You might be finding that it's difficult for you to give up control over certain things. So we're going to cover that as well. And then you also might find yourself working in the business more so than on the business. And in fact, you may not be working on the business at all, and you are strictly working in the business.

These are some very clear signs that you are stuck in what we call the doer mode. And I know the cost of not transitioning into a more leadership role, into a more intentional CEO, is that it is going to burn you out at some point. And I know anytime I mention this term burnout, I can almost hear people just like clicking this podcast off because they're like, that doesn't apply to me. I don't want to talk about burnout. I am good.

I am running things. I'm doing great. And the problem with burnout sometimes is that it really does sneak up on you. And I experienced that firsthand, let me tell you. So if you haven't experienced burnout yet, just know that it could be on the horizon for you if you are continuing in doer mode and trying to do all the things. Another thing that happens, though, when we get stuck in doer mode is we stall the growth of our company. There's only so far that you can actually take your company.

by yourself. You do need other people to be able to help you with this. And you do need other resources in order to be able to help you with this. Whether it's maybe, maybe you're like, listen, I just want to be a solopreneur. I don't want to actually have a team. I don't want anyone to work for me. I understand that. It doesn't mean that some strategic outsourcing wouldn't be beneficial because let's face it, do you really want to do all of your own accounting for the rest of your life? And maybe you do, but maybe there's another aspect of the business that you just know you shouldn't necessarily be doing. But even if you're

the main person who's going to be doing all the things, bringing in someone like an accountability partner, a business coach, working as a part of a mastermind group, getting some outside perspectives really can help you with getting the focus and the clarity that you need to build that strategic vision for moving forward. Because the other symptom that I see from people where they're not, when they're not making this transition, what it ends up actually costing them more than anything is their passion.

I see so many talented accidental CEOs who are getting out of their businesses because they've just not only burnt out, but they've just lost that passion for it. Somewhere along the line, the vision that they had, the way that they wanted to serve people got a little bit twisted up in demands from clients and backend paperwork, and they just lose that actual passion and drive for things. So in order to make this shift from accidental CEO to an intentional leader, we need to make four

critical mindset shifts. Now, the first one is from I need to do it all to I need to lead it all. Okay, this is very distinct difference from I need to do it all to I need to lead it all. The skills that made you amazing at your craft are potentially just holding you back from being a CEO. And let's talk about why this is happening. See your business has

likely outgrown your ability to personally touch every single aspect of it, right? True or false? Are you still trying to have your hands on every single thing that happens in your business in some way or another? If that's the case, that's actually going to hold you back from being able to be the CEO. But here's the cool thing. If you feel like you need to be touching everything and your business has outgrown that ability, though, this is actually not a failure. This is a success.

We just need to move you into that success in a way that's going to feel comfortable and good for you while also helping to better serve your clients and better serve those people on your team if you do have team members as well. So one of my clients, she was an incredibly talented interior designer and she had staff, she had a full service team, but she was still personally a part of every single decision that was made for every client.

And so she was actually like getting her hands on every single fabric swatch and actually going to the stores to select the fabrics, to select the actual furniture pieces. And so instead she learned how she could delegate some of those things to her junior designer. Because let's face it, with like 15 projects all at once, there's no way that that's a good use of a CEO's time. And, you know, she was actually essentially the bottleneck in her own business.

So we started asking who can do this instead of how can she fit it into her schedule because she was coming to me saying, just I'm not getting everything done that I want to get done. I'm overwhelmed. I don't feel like I'm a very good mom right now. I don't feel like I'm very good daughter. I don't feel like I'm a very good boss for that matter. You how do we fix this? And we started diving into the things that she was doing. And don't get me wrong, I got some pushback at first. And I'm using the fabric swatches as just one example of the various things that we learned or she learned how to delegate.

So now the second mindset shift you need to do is from perfection and execution to excellence in direction. ⁓ So your Swiss cheese knowledge that you have about business. these foundational gaps and holes that might exist in the business, they might be showing up as more of a perfectionism in those areas that you're really comfortable with. So the things that you know and you know well, you're actually, not only are you doing them well, but you're doing them so well.

that you're spending more time on them than you potentially should actually be spending on them. And this is going to stall your growth. And it's also got you focusing on some of the wrong priorities at times, because some of these things that you're super comfortable with doesn't necessarily mean that you should be doing them. Again, going back to the fabric swatches, she loved picking out fabric swatches. I get it. But doesn't necessarily mean that that's what she should be doing. ⁓ Remember when you first started and...

You know, every client felt like the right client because you just want to take every job you wanted to serve every client. You started realizing, I'm sure along the way that not every client actually needs to be served by you, but you might find yourself still saying yes to all of those clients and that perfectionist service that you're giving to everyone is now keeping you from being able to actually serve your ideal clients in the excellent way that we know that you can.

So want you to identify what is your zone of genius? What is something that you do that no one else can truly do as well as you? And then let's build some systems around everything else for you. And this is something that I do work with my clients to get that clarity as to where is their zone of genius? Because like I said earlier, I understand that you're one of the resistances that I get in terms of moving into that intentional CEO is because you feel as though

You are the only one who can be doing certain things. You need to be doing all those things and you don't want to stop doing the things that you love doing to be a CEO. But you don't have to give up everything that you're doing. You can hang on to the best parts of it while giving everything else away. So we want to build some systems around everything else. And some of those systems, and when I'm saying giving things away, it could just mean automating things. It could mean outsourcing things. This does not honestly mean hiring an actual team.

But that is going to be a big shift, though. So if you can go from that perfection in execution to excellence in direction and be able to guide whether it's an automation or an actual human being into how to do this. So the next mindset shift I want you to think about is going from immediate results to strategic vision. Your business is running you because you are constantly reacting instead of responding strategically. And so this is where we're going to be incorporating some rest.

into your routine. And no, I'm not talking about sleep. I'm talking about actual rest. We need the mental space for strategic thinking. So in our Real Women Real Business Mastery program, our group coaching program, we actually work with you and teach you how to make the space in your head and in your day to allow yourself some creative freedom. And this is when the million dollar ideas truly emerge. This is where you get that real clarity of your vision.

And here's the thing, we live in a world of immediate gratification, right? And that immediate gratification, that gives you this quick little whoop boost of dopamine, which feels amazing. But if you want a high that's really gonna last, if you wanna be on that dopamine trip for hours at a time, days at a time, weeks at a time, years at a time, then the more strategic you can get, the bigger the high will come from because you're going to get

really excited if you just had the space and freedom to dream and pursue these big ideas. You want to get those big ideas that you're really going to get that super that incredible excitement about and you need the space to be able to do that. That's where rest comes in. So I've spoken previously about some time management tips that I'm not going to get too far into that here, but you do want to block out some CEO thinking time in your calendar. Even if it's just starting off at maybe

15, 20 minutes twice a week, that will really start to transform your business. And the more you block out that time and the more you allow your brain that rest that it needs, the more these ideas are going to come to you and the clarity of how to move forward will come to you. So it'll be easier to continue to incorporate more and more of that time into your schedule because you'll see the real results from it. So how do we do that? Well, I want you to start with, like I said, maybe just 15, 20 minutes, couple times a week.

Maybe you start with some breathing exercises. One of my favorite breathing exercises is inhaling for four seconds, holding it at the top for four seconds, and exhaling for four seconds. And what that does is it's almost a form of meditation. It helps you to expand your lungs. It helps you to really pay attention to the physical parts of your body and how they're reacting to that breath work. There's a ton of different breathing techniques that can be applied when you want a little bit of rest in your mind.

⁓ And I recommend downloading an app potentially or following something guided online. Maybe you're following a guided meditation, but all of this will help you to improve your breathing. And with improved breathing comes improved clarity. Another option is simply going for a walk. Maybe it's only a 10 minute walk. You might say, like, what am I going to get done in 10 minutes? You know, a 10 minute walk is better than no walk at all, right? But if you're really saying, know what, Sean, I just don't have the time.

I don't know how I'm going to make any more time in my schedule. I'm constantly running from one thing to the next. I can tell you where most people can find some time and that is to stop scrolling. I get that it might feel like, but that's my mental break. That's where I take a break. I go on Instagram and I scroll through things. But the problem is that's not actually a mental break, is it? In fact, if anything, it's over stimulating you because there's so much information being thrown at you all at once. It's where you end up getting into your imposter syndrome ideas and you end up getting

some challenging thoughts potentially of like or even like maybe it's just your next recipe idea where like, I need to go bake this thing right now and I need to go figure out what the groceries are going to be like. This has got your mind spinning in a thousand different directions. I want you to stop scrolling and go for a walk instead. The next time you think I'm just going to scroll on my phone for 10 minutes. I want you to step outside and go for a walk instead. Okay, now the fourth and final shift I want you to make in your head that mindset shift.

in order to allow you to go from accidental to intentional CEO is to go from that technical expertise to a business more of a business acumen. So I know you probably didn't go to business school. You followed your passion. Now you are an accidental CEO and you're building that business acumen doesn't necessarily mean becoming someone that you're not. It just means filling in against some of those knowledge gaps that we talked about earlier. I remember one of my clients, she came to me absolutely terrified of

anything financial related. like, I'm not a numbers person. And this is a whole other conversation, but you your identity with statements like that does get formed. If she's if you're saying I'm not a numbers person, it's going to be very difficult for you to wrap your head around numbers. So if you say maybe I'm not a numbers person yet, but I am willing to learn that will help you to open your mind to the possibilities that you can better understand your numbers.

Now, I'm not looking to make her into a CPA by any means, but I did have her sit down with her accountant to go over her specific books. We then worked together with the profit calculator that we use as a pricing calculator in the Real Women Real Business Mastery program that helped her to understand for every service she was offering exactly how much money she was or was not making every time she performed that service.

And I've spoken about this previously in other episodes about how sometimes some of our big ticket items that we think are the most profitable actually end up being some of least profitable things that we do. So it's important that we understand exactly what those numbers say. Because I'm not saying this is always the case, but there's a reason why those ones are draining you as much as they are. You're like, but it was really good money. I couldn't say no to it. But look at what it took you away from. What was the opportunity cost of taking that on? Not to mention, was it actually ⁓ a very good

Was it a really good profit on it or was it a small margin that really wasn't necessarily worth your time? Oh, but I gained exposure and I gained experience. Those are great things if you are in learning mode still, but if you are in building and growing mode, then maybe you need to be looking at perhaps some additional efficiencies or raising prices or removing some of those services. It's a whole other conversation for another time, though. The point is, though, that she had this meeting with her CPA. Her and I worked on her pricing behind the scenes and about six months later,

she was confidently making strategic decisions based on her number. She would come to me, she's like, well, I'm doing this because, and she would show me the math. She would show me the numbers, show me the work, which was a bit of a proud mama kind of moment as her coach. It felt fantastic. So I want you to identify, you know, where are some of your knowledge gaps and can you work on filling some of those in maybe once each quarter? Now, when I work.

it with my clients and my members in the Real Women Real Business Mastery program. We cover what I call the 12 pillars of business success. And what I find for most of my Accidental CEOs is that they have some solid knowledge in some of these pillars. So it's not as though everything's missing. There are definitely some pillars where they're like, I'm going into this one pretty blind and I'm building from the ground up. But for most of these pillars, we're actually just filling in some of those knowledge gaps.

And that's helping us to strengthen the foundation of the business so that it can grow up taller. Because if you don't have those roots in, if you don't have that strong foundation, like you can't build the penthouse without having all the floors below it and that strong foundation built. Right. So I want you to transition your mind from thinking that you don't have those business skills to believing that you do and give yourself the ability to learn those things. One of the biggest transitions and mindset shifts that I had

when I was transitioning into more of that CEO thinking came around sort of encompasses sort of all of these things that I'm talking about in terms of being able to, I didn't want to lose my passion for the things that I was doing. I wanted to be able to delegate, but was also terrified of being able to delegate. So I'm like, I got to do everything myself. had my hands in everything. was the only, I was my own bottleneck. You know, I, all the things that I needed to be able to make strategic decisions. I needed to do some mindset shifts myself.

And so one of the biggest things was that I thought I really needed to make it big before I could hire someone like I thought I needed to be making a certain dollar value, a certain number in revenue every single month in order to be able to feel confident hiring someone. But here's the thing. I actually took some time and did the math on it. will admit numbers are definitely my game. That is somewhere that I do like to play in because I do have a mathematical background. And so I'm looking at the numbers.

And I'm realizing that because I'm trading time for money in order to achieve the revenues I want to achieve, I just simply didn't have enough hours in the day in the week to be able to realistically achieve them without burning myself out without burning the candle at both ends. And so I was doing a lot of things that I shouldn't have been doing as a CEO. So if I could get someone to take on that work, so I get to keep all the doing stuff that I really want to be doing, but get to give up some of the things like.

Like invoicing, for example, was a big thing. Even just answering the phone. And you might love being the first person that people get in touch with when they call. You might love that things are coming to your cell phone at nine o'clock at night. I personally was kind of over that by the time I was hiring someone. And so by by giving those things up, it gave me the space to truly grow the company. And that's when the real growth happened. Like, yeah, it was a little unsettling at first. I was responsible for someone else's livelihood. And that was no joke. OK, I'm not I'm not going to say that it didn't.

didn't cause a little extra stress in the short term. It definitely took some time to train them on how to do things, how I like things done. And that was a little stressful as well. So I'm not saying it doesn't come without its bumps, but all those things I didn't like doing, not only were they willing to do them, they were way better at doing them than I was. So I want you to start thinking about these four mindset shifts and how can you start incorporating them. And you know what? I think that's a perfect time to take a break.

and we'll be right back after a very quick message.

Alright, welcome back to the Real Women Real Business podcast. So now that we understand the four key mindset shifts that we need to make as a leader, we need to implement some actual practical leadership skills, right? I got to give me some actual skills to be able to lead. So the first one is understanding that overwhelm tends to come from too many decisions. You've got so many things getting thrown at you. So what you really need is a decision making framework, and that comes from having clarity of your vision and

It's important to understand where it is that you're actually going so that you can kind of dissect that and reverse engineer it to figure out whether or not a decision you're making today is going to take you closer to that goal or further away. Or is it more of a net zero kind of thing? There are certain things along the way that you might say, this might take me close to my goal, it might not, but I'm willing to try it anyway just to see. And there's nothing wrong with having some of those experiments in there, provided that majority of your decisions are being made from this streamlined thinking.

So I call this our power play profit filter. And this is what I help my clients to create is that strategic way to be able to evaluate every opportunity that comes to you. You're able to pop it into this filter. Essentially think about like a nice little little tunnel where you got all these ideas popping in at the top and then as it gets narrower towards the bottom, the ideas that actually make it through are the ones that actually make sense for moving your business forward. And then we need to ensure that we are delegating.

Okay, if we're going to be a strong leader, we need to be able to delegate. We need to be able to delegate strategically. And if you are afraid to delegate because no one will be able to do it as well as you do, you're not wrong. That is absolutely true. It's also incredibly irrelevant. And here's the thing. Effective delegation isn't about trying to find your clone. It's about having clear expectations and setting very clear outcomes. Remember what I was saying earlier about when I hired someone to do all the things that I didn't want to do and not only

Were they willing to do them, but they actually did them better than me. I showed them how I liked things done. I provided the reasoning behind how I did things and they improved on them. I've since learned better ways of training and delegating and that is to focus more on the outcome than the exact steps to getting things done. So the first thing I would suggest doing is outline what the process is, even if it's just for yourself, even if it's just some rough notes.

You can do a screen share video if that's easier for you as well. you speak faster than you can actually type things out, you don't necessarily have to have these things typed out, but there should be some sort of document ideally. If not, I also don't want that to hold you back from delegating because you can just record your training with this person or have them record the steps and document it for you. But I want you to focus on the outcome and not the exact steps. So again, I was showing.

my newest hire, I was showing her how I like things done, but also why I like them done that way. As in, well, I used to do it this way, and here's the challenge or the roadblock that I ran into. So she can learn from my mistakes, but still understand what it is that I'm trying to achieve. So if you focus on the outcome, what is it that you're trying to achieve? What is the objective? What is the goal? That will allow them to take whatever steps necessary to do it. Now, you do need to be very clear.

about the timeline for this as well, because I think this is where a lot of people get stuck in delegation is they're not providing any sort of urgency or understand as to what the timeline expectations are. You might say, well, I got that done like a couple of hours, so they should be able to do that too. That's not necessarily going to be the case. And you need to understand that that is going to be at their discretion as well. But you need to set realistic timelines for them. So then.

⁓ Increasing your financial literacy. We talked about this earlier when I spoke about one of my clients who ⁓ improved her ability to review finances. So like I said, the first thing in this mindset shift is just taking away that identity of I'm not good with numbers. If that's if that's what you've been telling yourself, I want you to say that I am open to learning more about numbers. I am open to being better at understanding my financials. Things phrases like that will help to shift your identity and leave you in a position where your mind

will be that much more open to explore learning in that area. Your business finances, they tell a story. And if you're not listening to it, if you're just checking a bank balance, but not actually listening to your financials, you will find yourself in some pretty dire situations. So financial literacy isn't necessarily about becoming an accountant and not trying to turn you into a CPA, like I said earlier, but you can use those numbers to make better decisions. So the first thing you're gonna do is you're going to sit down with your accountant and help and ensure that you understand

exactly what the various spending accounts that you have are, what's affecting your financials, where's your profit, where's your loss, where are you spending the most money? And really get a strong understanding of that. And then identify some key performance indicators, also known as KPIs. So find, know, what are the top three, maybe up to five numbers that really matter. And then I want you to schedule regular financial review time for those numbers, whether it's weekly, monthly, quarterly.

I definitely don't recommend doing anything more than quarterly. If you're only looking at your numbers once a year, that's definitely not often enough. So try to look at them weekly, monthly, or quarterly. I do recommend weekly is a great, if you can do a quick check-in with maybe a bit of a deeper dive monthly and even deeper dive quarterly, that is also fantastic. And then start making some strategic decisions based on those numbers. Where are those going to take you? And I know it can be scary looking at numbers for the first time, but I promise you've got this, okay?

And then the other thing in terms of being able to move into more of that leadership role, more intentional leader, intentional CEO, as opposed to accidental CEO, is again, goes back to that strategic planning and tactical execution. Most entrepreneurs, they've got a lot of tactics, but they don't have actual strategy because you're busy without actually being productive. This is what I call the productivity paradox. And so when you can take a step back and actually identify the priority items that you need to be working on,

which I'm going to talk about in just a moment, to help you get out of that productivity paradox when you can take that time to ensure that you're working on the right items, you can be really strategic about it, but how do you figure out what those right items are? That's where the strategic planning comes in. So you want to start with that vision of yours, you're to work backwards to create that power play profit filter that I mentioned. So I want you to ask yourself, does this item take me closer to my goal? Does it bring me joy and does it bring me revenue?

These are three main things that I want you to use as that filter. Now you notice I said revenue and not profit and yet I've called this a power play profit filter. And the reason that I've done that is if you understand your numbers, you will know which items are going to be bringing you profit and therefore that falls into more of the does this take me closer to my goal? So is this something that I actually want to be doing going forward? Because if it's not profitable, you've already decided that's not going to be taking you closer to your goal and you've eliminated that service or found a better way to do it.

So in my Real Women Real Business Mastery program, we do show you how to craft a strategic plan for growing your business on your terms. It's not my formula, it's your own formula, it's on your own terms, but it helps to give you the strategic decision making tool. And so then the last tip is just some time management tips. Like I said, I don't want to get too far into this and I spoke about this a little bit earlier when I talked about incorporating some rest, but I want you to create those CEO time blocks that we mentioned.

and strategic thinking time. And while we've covered time management and other episodes, here is the main tip that I want you to take out of this. When you understand your strategic direction, when you have that clarity of your vision, each day I want you to identify either at the end of the day prior, which is ideal. If not, you want to do it first thing the following morning when you wake up. And I want you to identify the top three things that you are going to work on that day.

And sometimes these are things like client invoicing, for example, if you are still the one who's doing the invoicing. But I want you to ensure that you've got your three clear priorities set for the day, because what ends up happening is all of a sudden we start getting messages and emails and all of those are considered urgent and they take away from things that are important. So if you have identified your top three things that if nothing else gets done, those three things are going to get done. You're going back to that list.

Anytime you find yourself being pulled away from the right direction for getting those items done. So it doesn't mean that you're not going to respond to some of these messages and these emails, but I want you to have a way of pulling yourself back. So bring yourself back to those three items. I will admit I have a couple of systems for this. One of them is my click up system. I do have my click up lineup where I put my top three items in there, but I will admit even my click up lineup sometimes ends up having like 10 to 12 items in there for the day.

And so I still like the Post-it Note method where I put my top three, like these three things need to get focused on. If nothing else gets done, these are the top three things. So the biggest fear that I hear from people about becoming this real CEO or intentional CEO is that they're going to lose the connection of with what they love about their business. But true leadership isn't about changing who you are. It's about just amplifying your strengths and your vision through others.

And so identify the aspects of your work that truly light you up and build your CEO role around protecting that flame. And I can help with this as well. Again, this is something I work on with my clients as well as we ensure that we are creating that CEO role that still allows you to ignite those areas of passion that got you started in the first place that are fueling you for that you really want to keep. But that's where your strengths are and how we build on that. And you can't say.

You want all the things, okay, but we will identify will work together to identify which are the things that you really, really want to hang on to. We'll make sure that we build your role around that. And then I want you to lead with your values as well. Ensure that your entire team understands what those values are from day one. And they're not just some powerful phrase that you put on your website, but something that you actually encompass and embody and practice on a daily basis. The transition to strategic CEO doesn't mean losing your passion actually means creating space.

for that passion to flourish. So I want you to identify, first of all, where you are on your accidental CEO journey and what are the steps that we're going to take in order to move you into that intentional CEO. So I've got a great tool that's going to help you with this. I've got, it's the Accidental CEO Assessment. And what this does is it asks you just a few quick questions, but it helps you to...

identify the current stage that you're at, as well as the specific next steps to move forward. I talked about some of those gaps in your knowledge that you have. And so what are those areas that we want to fill in and what are the priority areas that we need to be focused on? So this helps you to identify where those biggest gaps are and where we need to build those strong foundations before we can move other areas of the business forward. So if you want to get that accidental CEO free assessment, there's a link in the show notes or you can go to AboutShaunaLynn.com/CEOQuiz

Alright, you know, this has been a fantastic episode that I've really enjoyed leaning into. And one of the reasons why is I am an accidental CEO myself and I actually came from a business background though. It doesn't mean that I actually had all the knowledge that I really needed to be an entrepreneur because having some general business tips is one thing, but being an entrepreneur is very different.

An entrepreneur allows for creativity. allows for that passion. It allows you to take some risks sometimes, but we still want to ensure that we have that strategy behind it. Let me tell you that every successful CEO that you see out there, they didn't necessarily start that way and they took some risks and they made some strategic decisions along the way that didn't always pan out. So strategy doesn't guarantee that every single idea that you have is going to be perfect. But the lessons from that will move you closer to your goals.

and will help you to continue to fuel that passion that you have inside. And I'd love to be a part of it to help you along the way as well. So take that free assessment, see where you're at, and then let's hop on a call. We'll review your assessment together and help you to create some steps for moving forward in a way that's truly authentic to you as the Accent Bill CEO, becoming the intentional leader that you truly are. Thank you so much for joining in.

and for checking out this episode of the Real Women Real Business podcast. It's my honor to host you each and every week and I appreciate you tuning in this week and every week going forward every week that you've already tuned in. Of course if you are enjoying the podcast and you want to continue on this journey with me I really would love it if you could leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. This really helps other female entrepreneurs to find us and of course if this is really resonating with you and you know someone in your life who can really benefit from it.

What better way to show them how much you care about them and how much you support them than by sharing this specific episode with them. It helps us, it helps them, and it helps you as well. So we're all in this together. Let's continue to support each other. And until next time, keep thriving.