I'm Sarah Beth Herman and your host and today I want to talk about a topic that I feel hits close to home for so many of us small business owners I want to talk about what it truly means to be a CEO not just someone with a title, but someone who actually runs their world with this incredible clarity, this incredible trust and this incredible purpose.

Sounds kind of like a dream, right? It felt like that for me too. And sometimes it does feel like a dream for me When I leave the path that I'm supposed to be on the one where I'm actually directing my energy appropriately, I've had a ton of conversations this last week with fellow business owners, and I am reminded of the chaos that we all face in this entrepreneurial journey.

We often get stuck in this grind, right?  Trying to control every little thing, wishing there were 40 hours in a day versus a week,  wishing that we just had a few more hours to get all of it done.  I think that sounds familiar for you. I think what might sound even more familiar is the places I've put myself in.

Where I get to three o'clock in the afternoon, and I think, wow, it's three o'clock. Where did my day go? I really need about eight more hours. Tonight, I'll just work until nine o'clock. I'll close my laptop at nine, and I'll have finished everything I wanted to get done. Trying to get an SOP finished, a document finished, approve things that I sent out to my admin team. Going through all of the different chats and conversations and following up with everybody. I'll just get this one more thing done.  And before I know it, it's 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock. My husband's looking at me out of the side of his eye, wondering why I'm still working. 

You've been there too. And you're thinking, well, if, if I don't do it, then who?  And then sometimes my husband and I, we would have these conversations that go something like this, who's giving you this list, who's telling you that needs to get done better yet, who's reprimanding you if it doesn't get done. 

I don't have any of those answers. I don't have them for him. And I don't have them for you. If you're asking that same question. 

If you've ever felt this way, I want you to know that you're not alone  and that there's one thing I want you to know above everything.  We are not meant to do it all.  My husband and I have attended several different conferences together, and several years back we attended one, and one of the speakers on stage said something that kind of went like this, You can do anything, but you can't do everything.

And I think that was a quote by someone famous, I don't really know, but if you know who it is, let me know so I can make sure to properly cite them.  But you can do anything, but you can't do everything.  So, the world is your oyster. You can do anything,  but I can't do everything.  Sometimes I tell people the long laundry list of all of the things I've ever done in my life.

And today I had that very conversation with someone and they said, It's like you've lived a thousand lifetimes.  Really? Because I feel like I haven't accomplished anything.  Some people would think that was crazy. I'm sure you think that's crazy knowing what you know about me through this very podcast. 

Today I want to take the time to share with you things that have helped me shift from being stuck in a rut to truly running my businesses as a CEO and then learning to add more and more to my portfolio and keep it going. 

I know some people work one job their whole life and that's all they ever do, but I was never meant for that path.  And I want to continue to build and build and build.  Somebody a few days ago said to me, Sarah Beth, it looks like you've just like totally reinvented yourself these last two years. Like you've put so much time, energy and effort into just literally transforming your whole life.

What's that about?  I don't know.  I feel like I just keep doing that.  I remember when I decided I was going to go to seminary school at 33, people were like, why are you going back to school? And right now I'm in the middle of my MBA. I finish in about 10 months. And I just sit here and I think, well, 

this is just what I'm doing right now. I'm still going, I'm still doing it.  Let's get started.  Let's start with the hardest pill to swallow. The letting go of control.  For years, I thought that if I just worked harder and put in more hours and tried to control every aspect of my business, everything would fall magically into place.

But the truth is the more I tried to control, the more overwhelmed I felt. And I think you've heard other people say that I'm not the first one.  But I want to hope that some of the ways I say something or how I share a story with you will ultimately resonate in such a way that you'll change your behaviors too, because your future self depends on it. 

As business owners, I know exactly how we are wired. We're wired to think that we're the only ones who can do things better. But the reality is that trying to do everything ourselves doesn't make us more successful. It just makes us exhausted. The turning point for me came when I realized that trusting others, even if they make mistakes, was the only way that I can grow. 

You can do this by starting small, delegating one task at a time, and trusting what that process looks like. You see, trusting the process means that you'll learn how you trusted, and how you can trust differently. How you can delegate differently. How you can delegate differently. How you can give instructions differently the next time.

You see, part of the reason we hold on so tightly to the control is we don't know how to tell someone to do it how we want it to be done. We don't understand that element of the teaching part.  You have to learn along the way to accept that mistakes are part of the journey for both you and your team.

You see, you're trying to do it perfect because you have the idea built in your mind. You've thought through it all, you got it, you're just gonna go ahead and get it done. But the reality is, is sometimes there are mistakes that have to happen along the way, so the idea can come to the full fruition it was supposed to. 

You've got to learn to focus on only what you can do as a CEO and learn to let your team handle the rest.  I can promise you that the CEO of Amazon or the CEO of Apple or the CEO of Google isn't doing the grunt work. They're not out there selling widgets to other people so that the business can keep thriving.

They're doing the CEO stuff. And one day you're going to sell your business. One day you won't be here anymore. And when you're not, how will it run long after you've been here? You've got to be thinking about that, even if you're planning on passing it down as a legacy through your family. Beautiful, I love that, but there's more to it than just passing it down. 

Now when you let go of control, you still need a strong foundation to make things work. And this is where the art of training comes in. I can't stress this enough. Mastering your SOPs, your Standard Operating Procedures, is a non negotiable. Your training programs need to be clear. Replicable. and aligned with your personal business values.

But you've got to remember that training alone doesn't guarantee perfection. What it does is create a framework that sets your team up for success and gives you peace of mind.  Whenever I talk about training, I could literally stand on my soapbox of training for weeks, years, days, months, I don't know, a very long, long time I could stand on that soapbox.

Because I have hired And trained well over 600 people in my career and to some that isn't many and to some that is holy cow a lot. And I've learned how to train people that have absolutely zero experience into fully qualified individuals who are exceedingly great at their job with me. 

What I want you to recognize is how people learn. How people understand what you're saying. The average person learns at a 5th grade reading level.  That's how they learn. That's how they read. That's how they understand what's in front of them.  Learn that people learn in different modalities.

Some people learn by reading something written. Some people learn by watching something visually. Some people learn by hands on.  Learn to regularly update your training materials. I tell people this every six months. You need to update something every six months.  Set clear non negotiables, like how to handle patient or client or customer problems.

How to meet deadlines. When you have hard, fast non negotiables, it sets up bumpers for your team members. Think about it like bowling, right? If you were to throw a ball down a bowling alley and you had bumpers on the end, that bowling ball cannot go in the gutters. It can only go forward. Now, without those bumpers, it can end up in the gutter and it won't knock any pins down.

But if you were to train someone and have that same mentality, what are my non negotiables that they're going to bounce off of that are going to keep them centered?  Oftentimes for me, it brings back our core values or our brand statement, our vision of the business. I bring things up that are hard, fast, tried and true things, non negotiables they cannot deter from. 

Businesses with structured onboarding processes improve employee retention by 82%.  82%! That's how powerful good training can be.  If you aren't scaling to a place where you need to hire 1 to 5 team members every single month because of the business growth, something is off kilter.  I want to talk about something that's been a true game changer for me  and it's learning that every business has a C word in it.

A C word. What do you think that C word is?  It's learning  that C word is a shift. It's a shift in mindset from competition to community.  What is the C word that is the center of your universe in business?  When I started out, I saw competitors as threats.  And over time I realized that mindset was holding me back. 

Your one business could never possibly serve everyone. In the niche that you are currently serving. And that's a good thing  because I've learned over time that when I focus on building community instead of competing, I attract the right clients and opportunities for my business.  Collaboration beats competition every single time. 

I've partnered with many others in my industry and it's led to unexpected growth. Things I never thought would happen. I remember one day about four years ago, I got a call from one of my biggest competitors. And they said, Sarah Beth, I can't handle all the business I have and I don't know how to get any more team members in here to get things done.

And the first person I thought of was you. So I'd love it if I could have a relationship with you where I can send you business. Absolutely. That's the best call you could get your competitor calling to give you business. I love it.  Brands that prioritize community experience experience a 66 percent increase in customer loyalty.

66%!  If someone handed you a fully functional business on a silver platter, do you think that you would really learn how to be a great CEO?  Probably not.  The struggles, the late nights, the mistakes, the people that totally burned you, the backstabbers, the people that tried to steal your business idea and tried to do it just like you do it, only to realize that they weren't you and it didn't make it.

The family members that doubted you, the friends that didn't support you, the people that asked for a discount because of association.  You see, all those experiences are what shaped me. They shaped me into who I am today, the entrepreneur that I will forever be, the serial entrepreneur that I will forever be. 

I've learned a lot over the course of my time owning businesses, but one thing that has always stayed true is realizing that I can do anything. But I can't do everything and I want to be a CEO. I don't want to be doing the grunt work. I want to see the fruits of the labors all working together. The team that I built, the leadership I created, the ripples that formed when I chose leadership, community, collaboration versus letting my eyes wander to the competition in my peripheral vision. 

What other people are doing is none of my business. I need to stay the course, stay in my lane, and learn to trust the process of trusting people that I have hired, that have come my way, that they're going to do the right thing.  I want to recap this episode by sharing what our That's Good moment is.

Every episode, I love to take time to just recap my thoughts, bring everything together so that you know what I truly hope you'll take away from this episode. 

One. Letting go of control is the first step to true leadership. Delegate trust and focus only on what you can do  to master your training programs and SOPs. They are the most important thing for a strong team and dare I say it, the foundation of a strong team. Three, trust your team. Even when they make mistakes, growth comes from learning.

Let them make their mistakes. Nothing is ever so broken that it can't be repaired.  Four, shift your focus from competition to community. Choose the C word in your business. It's not about serving everyone. It's about finding your right people.  Number five, embrace the journey.  The struggles and lessons you earn as a business owner are what make you a great CEO. 

If you've ever felt overwhelmed or stuck, I hope today's episode inspires you to take a step back, rethink how you're running your business. Being a CEO isn't about doing it all. It's about doing the right things and empowering others to thrive. Thank you for tuning into this episode and don't forget to follow me on Instagram at nosilverspoons  underscore podcast for more tips, inspiration and leadership and growth in your business. Until next time, remember you don't have to stake your claim everywhere. Your work will do it for you. I'll catch you guys on the next episode.