Think and Act Like a CEO, not an Employee

Before you can fully re-engineer your business and your life, you must first re-engineer your mindset.  You need to tame and calm your mind to free it from reactive, counterproductive habits.  You must adopt a strategic mindset and focus.

Please adopt this simple change management formula -- BE-DO-HAVE.  In order to have, you must do, and in order to do effectively, you must truly be.  For example, want to have a better golf handicap?  Then you must do certain things: take lessons, practice and play more, get better clubs, etc.  However, all this doing won’t be optimally effective unless you first change your mindset – you must be a better golfer on the inside.  You must start to see, feel, think and behave like a better golfer in order to be a better golfer. 

Similarly, in order to have more freedom, joy and financial success as an owner, you must do new strategies (i.e. systematize your business, utilize marketing, etc.).  In order to do optimally these strategies, you must first be a more effective business owner – mind, body and soul.  Like an award-winning actor, do not just play the part, become the part.  You must change from the inside out before your external realities change. 

How do you escape the nauseating details and headaches of your business?  How do you gain greater freedom?  You must make the great mental leap from that of employee to that of a business leader.  First, you must acknowledge your technical bias, your addiction to being busy, and your uneasiness with delegation.  Next you must adopt the “big picture” mindset of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO).  You must be a CEO in mind and spirit to get the results you seek.  You must think, feel, see, taste, smell and hear like a CEO. 

If you don’t start thinking like a CEO, it will be nearly impossible for you to start behaving like a strategic business owner and truly working on your business in a proactive, purposeful manner.  For many owners, jumping this wide chasm from employee to owner is tough and terrifying.  However, you will never escape a workaholic existence unless you stop being a detailed-oriented technician masquerading as an owner.  Stop focusing on the technical work of the business; focus on the entire business.  The choice is yours.  Step up and be a leader, not a micro-manager!