4 Must-Have Business Boundaries for CEOs

[00:00:00] Corey Winter: Hey there bosses! Corey from the Being Boss team here. I'm popping into let you know about a new way for you to stay up to date in the world as a creative entrepreneur, Brewed. Brewed is a weekly email curated by the Being Boss team just for you. We share articles, podcasts, and resources from around the internet on the topics of mindset, money and productivity to help

[00:00:21] you show up and do the work in your business. Learn more and sign up for free at beingboss.club/brewed. That's beingboss.club/ B R E W E D.

[00:00:37] Emily Thompson: Welcome to Being Boss, a podcast for creatives, business owners and entrepreneurs who want to take control of their work and live life on their own terms. I'm your host, Emily Thompson. And today I'm joined again by Corey from the Being Boss team to have a chat about four must have boundaries for boss CEOs.

[00:00:55] As always, you can find all the tools, books, and links we referenced on the show notes at www.beingboss.club. And if you like this episode, be sure to subscribe to the show and share us with a friend.

[00:01:09] Sometimes seeing someone else's path to success helps us clearly map out our own. It's why we all like a business podcast. Right? Well, I'm here to share a show for you to check out the Female Startup Club podcast, an amazing resource that shares insights and learnings from the world's most successful female founders, entrepreneurs, and women in business.

[00:01:31] In a recent episode, I loved hearing about how Michelle Grant, the founder of Lively, the lingerie and swimwear brand built and sold her company for $105 million in just three years, total boss move. So if you're looking for a new pod to inspire your next steps, listen to the Female Startup Club podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:02:00] Hi Corey! Are you ready to talk about boundaries?

[00:02:03] Corey Winter: Nope. I've been dreading this conversation because I have no boundaries. And I'm just going to be sad this entire time.

[00:02:14] Emily Thompson: That's funny that you say that because I was going to open this conversation with, can you rate your boundaries on a scale of like one to five and it sounds like maybe zero would be your answer.

[00:02:23] Corey Winter: So like how many boundaries I have or like how efficient they are?

[00:02:28] Emily Thompson: How effective they are or the presence of them.

[00:02:34] Corey Winter: I'd give it a solid two out of ten. So I went on to five.

[00:02:41] Emily Thompson: Congratulations. Alternatively, I think on a scale of one to five, I would probably have to say a four most days, maybe five, some days, sometimes a three.

[00:02:52] Corey Winter: So why is it not all the way to five.

[00:02:55] Emily Thompson: Because I am underestimating myself. Ooh. I know, right. I actually, I think I have really great boundaries personally.

[00:03:06] There are definitely times when I maybe don't have the best actually yesterday. I was no, yeah. Yesterday I was having a conversation with Meri on our team and I told her we were looking at my calendar and I was like, look, my calendar this week is a little bit nuts in the future. I want to make sure that it doesn't end up this way.

[00:03:24] And I was like, and here is why it's like this. I will often sacrifice myself to get things done. So I know if I literally said that to a team member yesterday, then I can't say a five today.

[00:03:39] How about that?

[00:03:41] Corey Winter: My issue is that, well, one of many is that I work with clients and people all over the world. And so like, When they're working hours are like normal I'm asleep, but like, I felt compelled to answer it right away because it's like a normal time for them.

[00:03:59] Now I'm going to have to ike, wait a day to like, actually have a conversation with them. So it's just,

[00:04:05] Emily Thompson: Wait, are you literally waking up from sleep to talk to people?

[00:04:09] Corey Winter: Well, if I'm asleep on the couch, yes.

[00:04:14] Emily Thompson: So your boundary is your bed?

[00:04:17] Corey Winter: Pretty much actually. Yes.

[00:04:19] Emily Thompson: That's hysterical. And I feel like we should have a conversation about this later for short grip.

[00:04:25] Like I need to help you build some stronger boundaries. Everyone should know that I do not Slack Corey in the middle of the night. This is not me.

[00:04:35] Corey Winter: She only Slack me on Sundays, but she's very adamant about making us know that she does not expect us to respond on Sundays.

[00:04:43] Emily Thompson: Exactly.

[00:04:44] If I ever am working on a weekend and often I will, sometimes I'm working in the Almanac shop.

[00:04:49] And so I'll tell the team, you know, in our usual Wednesday meetings, look, y'all, I'm working this weekend just because I'm in Slack, doing things does not mean by any means that I require a response I'm just in there doing things. So I do, I do always make that very clear. I'm not expecting anyone to work outside of their boundaries on most cases.

[00:05:11] Corey Winter: Then there is me that doesn't have boundaries and I'll

[00:05:13] Emily Thompson: just respond anyway. Well, you're not the only one.

[00:05:18] Corey Winter: All right. So before we get too far into this, can you define boundaries for us and why they're a core principle of what Being Boss is all about?

[00:05:26] Emily Thompson: Yes. So boundaries are a core principle core foundation of what we do here.

[00:05:32] If you haven't picked up the Being Boss book, or if you haven't dove very deep into what it is that we do here. We identify a couple of core foundations of Being Boss and these are things that we defined for having these conversations years ago and still hold true. They are the chapters of the Being Boss book, where you can buy anywhere.

[00:05:53] Books are sold and they are as follows boundaries. Nope, that's a lie. First is mindset versus mindset. Then boundaries, habits, and routines, community, work and life. And these are the things that we're always talking about here. These are sort of the framework through which we have caught or the lens through which we have conversations with our guests.

[00:06:17] Like I said, they are the chapters of the Being Boss book. Boundaries are a core part of what it means for us to show up and do the work and otherwise be boss to be boss, you have to have boundaries and boundaries exist to help you protect your resources. They help you protect your time, your money and your energy, all of which sometimes we'll just sort of refer to collectively as energy or they are your

[00:06:47] most important resources, and this can be your time, money, and energy. It can be someone else's time, money, and energy that you are responsible for. Boundaries are there to help you protect your resources without them. You will find yourself feeling scattered and spread thin and likely not actually achieving what it is that you want to achieve.

[00:07:08] But with them, you're able to prioritize what you need to do in your work. And in your life with them, you are able to show up and be boss. So I will, oftentimes in my conversations with other bosses have discussions about boundaries and the presence of boundaries is oftentimes the presence and respect of boundaries is oftentimes the gauge by which I can determine sort of quote unquote, how boss someone is, right.

[00:07:42] Are they able to define boundaries for themselves and uphold them in the areas of their work in life that are important to. And today's conversation is about to see owes and in particular. So the people who are here to run a business from the top to be the chief executive officer, to be the person who's making the decisions and moving your business forward.

[00:08:07] And oftentimes CEOs are thought of as you know, those sort of boss of corporations. But I think that even a solo preneur can be a CEO. There are times when you need to put on that hat, and do some important things in your business to make sort of overarching and bird's-eye view decisions in your business.

[00:08:28] So whether you are a company of one or a company of 2,500, you sometimes need to be the CEO and a CEO has great boundaries. So today I'm excited to dive into what some of those boundaries are.

[00:08:47] Corey Winter: Hold up so you're saying with boundaries, I can be happier, healthier, more productive, and more successful. What is this nonsense?

[00:08:57] Emily Thompson: Corey, how many of these episodes have you edited in your lifetime?

[00:09:01] Corey Winter: Well, over time they just kind of like become white noise. I don't actually know what you're saying anymore, but

[00:09:08] Emily Thompson: now that you're here actively listening or you're engaged and enthralled,

[00:09:13] Corey Winter: I think the only actual boundary I have is with my email.

[00:09:18] Like I don't respond to emails on weekends and stuff. That's really gonna be the only one I have. I think

[00:09:26] Emily Thompson: Corey , okay, well, I've got four for you today, right? Are kind of like big overarching ones that trickle down into some smaller boundaries. I do identify these as being some of the most important ones.

[00:09:43] I have friends, y'all all kinds of really cool business friends, and I'm able to have some really great conversations with people who are CEOs of their creative businesses. In the C-suite in particular, we have bosses in there who are making multiple six figures up to seven figures. I have long-term relationships with amazing people in both online and offline industries, and we're often talking about boundaries.

[00:10:13] And so today it's, it's a nice culmination of these years of conversations that I've had with these people about what boundaries they have in place to help them be successful. So these are the boundaries of successful CEOs. And I want to first sort of define what I mean by a successful CEO, because there are a lot of.

[00:10:38] I think incorrect definitions of what a successful CEO is.

[00:10:42] Corey Winter: It doesn't necessarily mean millionaire.

[00:10:44] Emily Thompson: No, no, because if you're a millionaire and miserable, not successful in my eyes, I define successful as you have a good work-life flow. So there's like this. I don't want to call it balanced because that's a weird place.

[00:10:58] Actually. We talk about work-life balance a bit in a recent episode that we did. I think it's episode 2 75. Hustling. It's like, there you go. That one, we talk about what it means to have work-life flow versus work-life balance. So I think a successful CEO has a good work-life flow. They're able to work and live their business makes good margins.

[00:11:24] And by that, I mean, not necessarily that you are making millions of dollars, but that you are making money. And some, a good chunk of that money is profit. I have met CEOs of businesses that make a couple hundred thousand who aren't, you know, making 25 million, but they have really healthy, amazing margins in their business that has a CEO.

[00:11:52] That is someone who is making really smart decisions in their business. They sort of have their fingers in all of the important parts of their business. And they're, they're making very wise choices for their businesses. And I identify a successful CEO as someone who has good relationships with their team and their family and their friends.

[00:12:12] And like some of that has some asterisks because you can't always like choose your family in particular. And sometimes things happen with friends and like some team dynamics, whatever, but in general, you have good relationships with the people in your life and you have good relationships ties back to that idea of good work-life flow.

[00:12:32] You are able to pay attention to the people in your life who need attention when it's time, because you're able cause you have boundaries basically, which we'll be getting into. So for me, a successful CEO is someone who has good work-life flow. Their business has good margins and they, for the most part have good relationships with their team, family and friends.

[00:12:53] Corey Winter: We also have worksheet to help you get started with finding your work-life balances, the work-life balance worksheet. We'll make sure that's in the show notes.

[00:13:02] Emily Thompson: Perfect. Thank you.

[00:13:03] That's actually, I guess the actual worksheet it's called being a balanced boss, but it's the work-life balance worksheet.

[00:13:09] There'll be there.

[00:13:11] Perfect. Glad to hear it. And I do also want to throw in here that when it comes to being a successful CEO in those sort of three ways that I identify someone who is successful, as a business leader, leader of their business, is that even though there are those three things that I think in general, hold true, these people aren't getting it right all the time.

[00:13:33] Right? Sometimes boundaries slip, but the difference is that they are always working to hold them and redefine them both against others. And here's the tricky one against themselves.

[00:13:47] Corey Winter: Even Oprah is not perfect. Oh, I'm just kidding. She's she's literally, maybe Brené Brown is not perfect. She's pretty perfect too.

[00:13:58] These are bad examples, [00:14:00]

[00:14:00] Emily Thompson: right? I'm not, how about that? We'll go with that one. We'll go with that. One's an easy one. Perfect. So the idea here is that sharing four boundaries that I've identified amongst successful boss CEOs that are in our audience and community. But also from conversations that I've had with guests who have been on this show, and I'm ready to do this, are you ready to do this?

[00:14:27] Corey Winter: Maybe we'll see how it goes, but yes,

[00:14:30] Emily Thompson: like trembling in your boots over there, Corey feels like he's gone to the principal's office.

[00:14:35] Corey Winter: I never went to the principal's office except for that one time. But that didn't count. So is that what this feels like?

[00:14:42] Emily Thompson: Maybe we'll see.

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[00:16:20] Corey Winter: So what is boundary number one?

[00:16:23] Emily Thompson: Boundary number one is boundaries having boundaries around your own energy. Think about that one, your, your face just went real blank.

[00:16:33] Corey Winter: That could mean a couple of things. So what do you mean?

[00:16:35] Emily Thompson: Okay, so this does mean a couple of things. One, it also just generally requires you to know yourself, which is another one of those sort of mindset, things that Being Boss. One of my favorite sort of maxims of Being Boss is Being Bosses, owning who you are, knowing what you want and actually making it happen.

[00:16:53] And you can't own who you are. If you don't know who you are. So you kind of have to do that work first, right? And to know who you are, you need to understand how your energy works. What sort of tasks give you energy or drain your energy? What kind of people give you, give you energy or drain your energy.

[00:17:15] You have to know these things about yourself, and then you have to create boundaries to protect your energy. One of the ways that you can do this is removing energetic drain. So once you know the things that drain you, remove them from your existence. This can be people, it can be tasks or responsibilities.

[00:17:37] It can be bad habits. Maybe you spend too much time scrolling on Instagram. Maybe you're a bit of a workaholic. Maybe you answer Slacks on the couch in the middle of the night. Maybe you have like a negative self-talk or are just consistently talking negatively about anything and everything around you.

[00:17:54] Maybe you just simply need to turn off your notifications, right? So you need to identify the things in your life that drain your energy and remove them by doing that. You're able to, in one case, Create boundaries around your own energy. Corey, you look pensive, what do you need to?

[00:18:15] Corey Winter: I'm actually kind of proud of myself.

[00:18:17] Cause I do remove like the toxic people. Like I do not have toxic people in my life and I haven't in a long time. Like just, bye bye. But yeah, Slack gets me. Notifications get me.

[00:18:33] Emily Thompson: You know, what I love to do. And we've talked about this in a previous episode, but if you guys haven't missed it or if you missed it, if you go to the top right corner of your Mac, there's a little like three lines and three dots.

[00:18:45] If you click on that, scroll down or scroll up, it's like above what you can see. There is a do not disturb toggle that you can just click and for the next, I think 24 hours, or at least till the end of the day, your notifications are off on your computer. And see, I

[00:19:06] Corey Winter: do that. Like, I, I only have Slack on my computer and my phone and I just turn off my computer when I'm done working, but it's always on my phone and I have that little do not disturb thing.

[00:19:16] Like I know where it is. I know how to use it, but I'm afraid to use it because what if like there's an emergency, but I've turned off all the things. And I can't answer that.

[00:19:30] Maybe. You know my life

[00:19:35] Emily Thompson: a little bit, but also now, right then I don't think there's an emergency that turning off your notifications for a few hours, you know, could keep you from dealing with. Just saying, just saying,

[00:19:50] Corey Winter: okay. Okay.

[00:19:51] Emily Thompson: Okay. Yep. That's what it looks like. Sometimes there's a lot of mindset work that goes around building boundaries for yourself, for sure.[00:20:00]

[00:20:00] Another way that I like to encourage people to build boundaries around their energy is prioritizing self care, health care, and generally sleep, because this is just you taking care of yourself. And if you can't build boundaries around taking care of, well, I say that, but I feel like that's actually some of the last boundaries that people are okay

[00:20:17] creating. However, good practice everyone creates some boundaries around prioritizing your self. So for me, this looks like being in bed at 10:00 PM every night, but this is my boundary. If I'm up past 10, y'all, don't want to talk to me in the morning. You just, no one wants to see any of that. Right. Self care I've mentioned often.

[00:20:41] I like to take like Sunday self-care showers. They're very long, very quiet. No one interrupts me. It's fantastic. And there are other things that you can do define it for yourself, little things. And again, sometimes there's a lot of mindset work that has to go into this. So if you were one of those people who's sitting there and going, well, I can't, I don't want to mental block mental block, mental block work through that a little bit for yourself.

[00:21:06] Very important. I actually highly recommend for anyone who is, you know, let's say running a fast-growing business. Three kids at home. Like what, in all of your time as eaten up by all the things go back and listen to the episode that we recently did with Amy Koretsky around breath work, because I do think that if you are doing nothing else, breath work is a really great, easy way, accessible by anyone and everyone to facilitate a little bit of self care into your life and hopefully improve your health care and sleep while you're at it.

[00:21:41] Corey Winter: That is episode 2 71.

[00:21:43] Emily Thompson: Thank you, Corey.

[00:21:46] Another way that you can build some good boundaries around protecting your own energy is to be very careful what you say yes to and to otherwise practice saying no. And this can be to clients who drop into your inbox. This can be projects that, you know, fly across your desk.

[00:22:06] Do things still fly across people's desks? I don't mind.

[00:22:09] Corey Winter: Yes. Okay. Candy and stuff, not actually

[00:22:14] Emily Thompson: tasks say yes or no to those two.

[00:22:18] Corey Winter: I can't say no to those.

[00:22:20] Emily Thompson: But this could be really cool or not so cool opportunities. It can be meetings or events, or you being asked to do another thing or whatever. It may be learning how to say yes.

[00:22:32] Identifying what to say no to is really important for creating boundaries. And I think particularly about a boss recently, who was having a conversation with a group of us about why it is that she says no to so many meetings and shared with us the snowball effect that happens when you say yes to one meeting that you don't have to go to.

[00:22:54] And how saying yes to one 30 minute meeting could equate to three or four hours of your week being eaten up because a meeting always has followup. It always has action items. It always has all of these things that go into it. And simply by saying no to one meeting, you could be saving hours of your week, every single week.

[00:23:14] A good CEO knows that and knows a when it's worth it to say yes. And when simply to say no,

[00:23:22] Corey Winter: I think of a very specific example. So with my work at Biddy tarot, I'm the. Fronted wealth website developer and their CRM specialist. And I work very closely with like pretty much everybody, a marketing team, the help desk team.

[00:23:37] But we noticed that my time was being like sucked dry by like these very sneaky tasks. So like we use Asana for our task management, everything, and we have Slack for team communication and I live in die by my task list, but people on Slack will like, see me very like sneaky DMS. Like, Hey, can you go take care of this real quick thinking like a very quick task, but really it's like a hour long task.

[00:24:03] And like, if I go and do that, thinking is important. I won't get to my task list that day. And so we've like very intentionally said, Hey, if you need Corey, go do something. And it's not actually critical. Like it's not breaking something actively go task it to him. He can get to it later this week or next week.

[00:24:22] Emily Thompson: Yeah. Perfect. Great example. And like, feel free to raise your hand if you can connect, like, identify with that at all. Because everybody, there are so many sneaky little tasks that come in, you have to know how to manage your time. And otherwise just when to say yes to something, when to say now, as I was thinking about this, I went back to the Being Boss book, obviously to see what to Cathleen and Emily said about this years ago.

[00:24:46] And boy, did we say some great things, but, well, I'm actually about to say, who did a better job though? Is Brené Brown. We have, right. We have a quote from Brené in the boundaries chapter of the Being Boss book that I think perfectly defines anyone who's having any struggles with this. And she says very geniously that daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves even when we risk disappointing others.

[00:25:17] Corey Winter: So that's the other thing that we discovered is that. I don't want to

[00:25:22] Emily Thompson: say just now discovered that Corey,

[00:25:25] Corey Winter: I hate saying no to people because I want to make everybody happy, but it's usually got the detrench myself.

[00:25:33] Emily Thompson: Indeed. And so the goal here is not for you to build boundaries around everyone else's expectations of you as around building boundaries to protect your energy, because you're able to show up better, happier, all the things when you are taking care of your energy first.

[00:25:51] I do think that one of the key elements of defining this for yourself for anybody is to know your values, to identify what energizes you and to know what drains you. And there's a couple of places around the Being Boss fear, where you can find help with some of these things. One is in that Being Boss book, that really is very fantastic

[00:26:14] when it comes to talking about boundaries, you can buy that anywhere books are sold again,

[00:26:18] Corey Winter: beingboss.club/book.

[00:26:20] Emily Thompson: Thank you very much. There's also a values quiz that we created several years ago. That's still really great. You can do that quiz at beingboss.club/values. It will give you some intro values to begin you down.

[00:26:35] That path of, I have really pinpointing just the ones for you. And values is a part of the CEO day kit, which is a kit of tools that we've created to help CEOs do 12 months of business planning in a single day. I'll be talking about that more in a moment. But identifying your values is one of the steps of that, where I via video and worksheet and walking you through that process so that you can identify your values for both yourself and your business.

[00:27:08] So that sort of wraps up boundary number one, and that is for you to create some boundaries around your own energy, protect yourself because you are the most important asset to your business. If you're not protecting yourself, you're not serving yourself or your mission.

[00:27:26] Corey Winter: So boundary number one was a huge one, boundary number two biggest, but number two is also kind of a biggie.

[00:27:33] It's important. All of them are important, but number two is also like kind of a biggie. What is it?

[00:27:39] Emily Thompson: It is having boundaries between your work and life. Simple, simple as that, the most successful CEOs that I know work, and then they live and very rarely is there a ton of overlap. And sometimes there are sometimes there's a bit of overlap, but it's very intentional overlap.

[00:28:02] Like maybe they're traveling for a business thing and going to have fun while they're doing it. Or maybe they are taking a vacation and really just want to play with that spreadsheet while they're there. Not because they have to, but because that's their idea of having a good time raises hand, that would be me sometimes, but great CEOs have grit, I think successful by my boss terms, CEOs

[00:28:32] have really great boundaries between life and work. So this looks like not answering emails at the dinner table, right? Oh, dang Corey. I don't mean to shame you, but ouch!

[00:28:51] I mean you do you, but if you want to be as successful CEO, you're going to create those boundaries. And here is why, because you have to make sacred to place an utmost priority, family, friends, personal time and alternatively work so that you can give the things that you are there to give attention to your full attention.

[00:29:25] When there is a lot of blend between work and life, you were like, you know, on a walk with your kid, but like scrolling through your email, or you are sitting in a meeting with your team and like looking at your personal Insta or whatever it may be. You're doing anyone and everyone that you were around, including yourself, a disservice, whenever you can be fully present in the moment, whether that be you walking down the street with your kid or sitting in a meeting with your team, you are able to make that much more impact and create better relationships in both work and life and or yourself.

[00:30:08] If you're sitting there, you know, yoga Inc, and your bedroom floor, and you end up checking your email, oh, Zen broken

[00:30:16] immediately..

[00:30:18] Corey Winter: Are you like holding your phone while like doing all these yoga poses?

[00:30:25] Emily Thompson: I'm just

[00:30:25] imagining you're like sitting there and child's posts, then you just pick up your phone for a scroll, right? You're not

[00:30:33] Corey Winter: doing anyone a good start holding your phone while doing yoga. I think you're doing yoga wrong

[00:30:39] Emily Thompson: fact.

[00:30:41] You though, you may answer your emails a little more kindly, but you're not doing your yoga a good job. So building some really great boundaries between your life and work, being very intentional when there is overlap and being very intentional to not have overlap in some big, important places as well is really important.

[00:31:05] Some of the examples that I love for this are things like having some clear boundaries around email or otherwise communication or otherwise just work in general when it comes to creating times when you're working in times when you're not. I also love the one where you don't take your phone into the bedroom.

[00:31:24] Like that's like a very physical boundary and that's not one that I like prescribed to necessarily, but I'm also, I have some good boundaries around not getting on my phone or not being on my phone at night or in the morning. I love that your hand is up.

[00:31:40] Corey Winter: Well, actually I have a question about the physical space.

[00:31:44] Yeah. Because I feel like, especially in the past couple of years with the whole, you know, quarantine pandemic thing, even before then, a lot of people work from home that are creative entrepreneurs. They're just small business owners. How do you separate the work from life? If you're working from home?

[00:31:58] Emily Thompson: Right?

[00:31:59] You say this to me as I see you at your desk with your bed behind

[00:32:02] Corey Winter: you. So yes, this is a very real thing for me. So I used to have a dedicated office in my house, but then my nephews moved in and I no longer have an office. My office is in my bedroom. So I'm literally working where I sleep. How do I separate them anymore?

[00:32:19] Emily Thompson: I do think this is one where there is no right or wrong. Everyone just has what works for them. Because I think a lot of the advantage of working for yourself of being the boss of your business, whatever is that you can work from wherever. And if that wants to, if that's you wanting to work from bed on a Wednesday, love that for you.

[00:32:40] Right. Or if you are in a work from home situation where your desk is in your bedroom or your kitchen table is your desk or whatever it may be. I think that's fine. What I do, think works well is having a designated place for work. And so maybe let's say you are working from your kitchen table at the end of the day.

[00:33:09] Like put your stuff up and put your things in your work corner. Right. Whatever it may be, and you can take them back out tomorrow, but otherwise having that bit of physical separation, I think for you just, you have your work corner and your bedroom, have like a backpack to put your things in like your work backpack or whatever.

[00:33:31] It may be just to sort of tidy things up and create that space. And I say that as someone who will likes really tidy spaces, like I personally just sort of generally need that. I think there is some separation you can create. But I think that you need to know if you're the kind of person who needs it or not.

[00:33:48] Some people don't mind keeping their things on their dining room table. Some people, it drives them nuts to have their things on the dining room table. That would be me. So know what kind of person you are create the physical space that you need between work and life and work with what you have? I, a couple of years ago went back to an office.

[00:34:07] So I have an office where I come to work and I love having the separation of work and life. I've gone through several cycles. Sometimes I'll work from home for a couple of years and I'll go to an office for a couple of years and I'll go back home for a couple of years because I've been doing this for over a decade.

[00:34:23] I have this sort track record to look back on. I'm currently in a season where I want really good separation between work and life. And that works really well for me that, but sometimes I do just work from the couch and I love working from the couch on the days that I'm working from the couch. Physical boundaries can be a little muddier depending on what you need.

[00:34:47] What is imperative is time. Creating those boundaries around time is super important. Make sure you have work time, lifetime. And if there is going to be a blend and making sure it's incredibly intentional and not detrimental to either.

[00:35:06] Corey Winter: My constant struggle is that because I'm working in my bedroom now and my dog is always with me and the sun is always shining in the windows behind me.

[00:35:14] He gets like bathing the sun on my bed when I'm over here, slaving away. I just want to go cuddle with them, but I can't.

[00:35:22] Emily Thompson: I get it. You should have like a little like Danny cuddle time.

[00:35:30] Good, good, good. I love that. Love that for both of you.

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[00:36:31] Corey Winter: Okay. So that's the first two boundaries. So boundary around your own energy boundary around your life and work what's boundary numbers three.

[00:36:39] Emily Thompson: Oh, this is a good one. This could be life or work. I'm thinking particularly for work, but I think it works great for life as well. And that is having boundaries around what it is that you are doing. Successful CEOs know what their core genius is.

[00:36:54] They know what their roles are in their business and they know, or that's just what they do. That's it? Anything that not only they can do is delegated to someone else so that when they are showing up to work, they are working on the things that are theirs to work on. That is their core genius, where they're going to make the most impact.

[00:37:18] And that's it.

[00:37:19] Corey Winter: And I have to applaud you because you've been really good about this lately. You have been awesome about letting things go and delegating and just not worrying about it. Like the whole brood newsletter. Like you're barely touching that.

[00:37:32] Emily Thompson: Right. I come in and do my very top level sort of like planning and parsing and then just let the team do the thing, because I don't need to write it.

[00:37:41] I don't need to edit it. I don't need to put it in the email service provider. I don't need to press, I don't need to do any of those things. And it leaves me available to just show up and do like the high level things, or even sometimes the, the lower level things that are just my core genius that I'm really great at.

[00:37:58] Corey Winter: Yeah. And honestly, that's kind of how Being Boss started back in the day. Like back when we still had Indie Shopography, our website to sign business, when you hired a dedicated designer and who else did. A couple other people, you freed up yourself to only focus on the coaching for the clients, but that also gave you a lot of free time to just randomly go start a podcast.

[00:38:24] Emily Thompson: Right. And also just like get in more clients. Indie was growing in into quite to the agency there for a minute because I wasn't designing and coding all the websites. I was selling, coaching, like doing all of that very top level stuff. And then also was able to start this podcast and all the things that have gone along with it.

[00:38:45] Right. And so. I feel like this is what, this is an almost like really key factors of are you a CEO? Is can you delegate? And I know a lot of bosses really struggle with this. They don't want someone else messing it up. They think that they're the only ones who can do it, et cetera. Like I hear all of the things.

[00:39:06] I've heard them all many, many times before. And I will tell you that very beautiful things happen when you get past those a hundred percent, you are able to free up so much more of your time. Whenever you are delegating the things that not only you can do, I actually recently did this. I mean, it's something that you actually do all the time, but I did this recently.

[00:39:26] I was looking at my calendar. I had a lot of things on it and I was thinking, what of these meetings and things on my calendar, do I not have to do that? Literally anyone else or someone else on the team can do. And I passed off several meetings and check-ins and hosting things, to other members on the team so that I could have some time back to do some other bigger picture and otherwise necessary things that needed to be done.

[00:39:55] But there is also another piece of this as well. It's not just handing it off. It's also staying out of the way and letting your people do what they need to do.

[00:40:05] Corey Winter: So what have you don't have people like, what if you're just starting out and you don't have a team?

[00:40:11] Emily Thompson: Oh, that's such a good question. Let's say you're not even wanting to do team stuff yet.

[00:40:17] If you are really just a solopreneur and you plan on being a solopreneur for the foreseeable future, going through your task list and identifying the things that don't need to be done and otherwise deleting them instead of delegating, I think it was a really important task for anyone and everyone.

[00:40:35] Sometimes oftentimes we end up with these processes within our businesses that are no longer necessary, but we're still doing them because we've always done them. And the more often we can go through those things and I had to identify the things that no longer needed to be done and remove them the better you are going to be at putting yourself more into the role of doing just the things that you are great at the things that move the needle in your business.

[00:41:02] If you're in that place where it's about time for you to think about hiring, think about hiring, like really sort of start going there. And actually, I wasn't even planning on talking about this year, but there's another step of CEO day kit that is called crafting your dream job, which is a really great exercise for you to identify all the things in your business that you do.

[00:41:27] And if you're a solopreneur that gives you that bird's eye view of all the things that you don't need to be doing and the things that you need to be doubling down on or otherwise spending more time doing. And if you are thinking about making your first or 15th hire, it's a really great exercise for helping you identify who it is you need to be hiring next.

[00:41:47] If you want more information about CEO day kit, beingboss.club/CEO, I'm gonna talk about it more in a minute cause we have a live CEO day coming up soon that I'm super excited about, but being able to delegate the things on your plate that you do not need to be doing, creating boundaries around you, focusing on doing the things that you are great at, which sort of plays back into that first boundary of protecting your own energy and otherwise knowing when to say yes and when to say no.

[00:42:18] But having boundaries around what it is that you're doing is another one of those important ones for being a successful CEO.

[00:42:25] Corey Winter: So about two years ago, I created a couple of Asana task for myself to do something. And I gave myself like a month to do. And then that month comes along and I haven't done them.

[00:42:37] So I rescheduled them for the next month. Just haven't done them. So literally two years have passed and I just keep rescheduling these things. I'm kind of thinking I should just delete them. Cause it's probably not that important.

[00:42:51] Emily Thompson: I agree or delegate them to someone else on the team. If someone else can do it, because that's the thing to do.

[00:42:58] If you working within a team, if there is anyone here that finds themselves in this situation, and you are a part of a team, not the boss of the team, talk to your coworkers and see if someone else can help you. You can take the thing off your plate. If it is something that's imperative for the mission of the company.

[00:43:15] If it is not just delete it, we can talk about, is this a Being Boss thing, Corey? Okay, perfect. So identify what is it you're great at do those things and otherwise pass other things along or delete them as needed.

[00:43:35] Corey Winter: Number four. What is it

[00:43:40] linked to my game show hosts personality.

[00:43:45] Emily Thompson: I like you trying that on. I don't hate it. Okay. The last one I want to talk about is creating boundaries around your big vision planning as successful CEO is driving the company forward. And again, solar preneur or boss of 50. I don't care how many there are. You are making time.

[00:44:09] You were creating sacred space for working on your business, not in your business. CEO's successful CEOs take big visioning of the company of your business incredibly seriously. And you make sacred those days where you are sitting down to review your numbers, review your metrics, create the plan and making sure that plan is aligning with your vision for where you want to be.

[00:44:36] And, you know, five plus years, whatever it may be, or maybe it's not five years, sometimes creatives freak out. I'm one of those, whenever you think about a five-year vision, maybe it's just like in six months, right? What is this company look like in six months? And what do I need to do to get myself and my team, if that applies to you to that space.

[00:45:01] So making the time prioritizing. Putting it on your calendar showing up and doing the work to do big vision planning. It planning is one of those key boundaries for being a successful CEO. And what this really does is it makes you proactive in your business as opposed to being reactive in your business, which means you're driving it, not being pulled behind.

[00:45:27] Corey Winter: And once you actually scheduled this, this time, don't get distracted by Slack or your emails, like turn off all of those things. So you can actually focus on the task at hand.

[00:45:39] Emily Thompson: Yeah. I love that you're saying that. Absolutely. Whenever I'm doing my CEO days, I and the team knows everyone knows I am basically dead to everyone.

[00:45:52] Pretend I do not exist. I'm turning off my Slack. I'm closing off my email. I am do not disturbing every device I have. Right. And I am making sacred this day or two that I have set aside to work on to gain this big vision sort of perspective of what it is that we're doing. And I'm putting the pieces in their right places so that we can move forward.

[00:46:19] It's one of the things that I hear bosses struggling with all the time. I don't have time to work on my business cause I'm always working in my business. I hear ya. Put it on your calendar, make it a priority, hold those boundaries. So hardcore and show up for yourself and your company and move it forward.

[00:46:40] Be the CEO. So this little, this little blast boundary is the one that I do hear bosses concerned with the most. And I also identify as being the boundary that if you put into play sort of snowballs into so many other things, whenever you can get that gain, that big picture vision. I know what it is that you're doing next.

[00:47:05] It's easier for you to protect your own energy because you see where you're going. It's easier for you to create work-life balance or flow or whatever you want to call it whatevs. Because you understand what you're working for. It plays into so many things, which is why several years ago, we created CEO day kit setting aside this time, I think is imperative.

[00:47:27] Now I know it is it's imperative for you to move your business forward and to the place that you want to go. So we created a CEO day kit, as a seven step day. Basically I don't, I don't call it a course. It is not a course to me, there's something Corsi about it. It is a toolkit that you sit down and you use at least once a year, years and years later, I still use this every single year.

[00:47:53] I already have scheduled for myself, my Almanac CEO day and my Being Boss CEO day for the first full week in January. And I'm going to sit down and go through the seven steps to help me identify my values. And now I do, I know my values, but like check in on them, hanging out with them. Think about how much money I want to make and work on some money, mindset, things, craft my dream job and look at the roles of my teams because that's one of the ways that you can, you can use this tool as well, business model out what we're creating in 2022 Corey

[00:48:32] so ready for that?

[00:48:34] Corey Winter: I guess it depends on what's coming.

[00:48:36] Emily Thompson: Well, you'll know soon, knowing your numbers and otherwise creating a one year plan for your marketing and creation and revenue. I love CEO. It

[00:48:49] Corey Winter: doesn't have to be one year. Does it? And when it gonna be six months at a time, it could be a quarter at a time.

[00:48:56] Emily Thompson: For sure. We created CEO daycare. So it's 12 months of business planning in just one day. I use it once a year to do a 12 month vision and not even vision, but a 12 month roadmap to get me towards a vision. But I also touch base with it every single quarter. So there are seven steps. I think ten-ish worksheets.

[00:49:19] If I'm not mistaken and probably five of those worksheets I use consistently, there's a couple of them that I even pull out just when needed every time I'm making a hire, I will pull out the crafting your dream job worksheet and identify who it is that I need to hire next. What roles am I hiring for is a toolkit that I don't just use once a year, but consistently.

[00:49:42] And it's not just me. So many bosses, hundreds of bosses, actually, I know I've taken over a thousand bosses through CEO Day Kit in the past couple of years. Yeah. Easy peasy. It has become the tool that Being Boss has for helping creatives do business. And it is the peace of Being Boss creation that except for the book that I am most proud of, I'm really proud of that book, baby, for sure.

[00:50:14] CEO day kit is number two. If I had like a second favorite child.

[00:50:21] We did a redo all the videos for CEO day kit. Last year, I went into it thinking that I would redo so much of the content. And when I listened to it, I was like, y'all, this is great. This is still wonderful. So we have CEO Day Kit. If anyone is interested in having a toolkit to assist you in creating that boundary and number four for yourself of prioritizing and creating space for your big vision planning in your business.

[00:50:57] And oftentimes I'll get questions around, you know, I'm just starting my business or I haven't started it yet, or I'm making a million dollars a year or whatever it may be. Will your CEO Day kit work for me. And yes, we, I have taken bosses through CEO Day Kit who would just have a sort of inkling of what they want their business to be.

[00:51:16] And whenever they are done, they have a roadmap for starting their business and getting it going for the next 12 months. I know bosses who have million plus dollar businesses who use CEO day kit to continue helping them stay in their values, identify their dream job. As their business grows to set goals for revenue and otherwise creating a 12 month action plan.

[00:51:44] I use it for Almanac, which is a retail slash product company. And I use it for Being Boss, which is an online, info, content creation, community company. And what do we do here? We're a digital media company. I use it for Being Boss as well. Almanac is a couple years old, four years old Being Boss will turn seven this year.

[00:52:08] So it doesn't matter what kind of business you have. CEO Day Kit is so wonderful for helping creatives, especially set aside some time and work on their business instead of an it CEO day kit, is there for you to access literally, anytime. 24 7 access. You get all my videos, all my worksheets. Yes, Corey.

[00:52:33] Corey Winter: So we have a standalone version, but we also have a version that you can access if you join the clubhouse tier of the community.

[00:52:40] So learn more about that at beingboss.club/community. But what I was gonna say is that we also have a live CEO Day Kit coming up. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

[00:52:50] Emily Thompson: Absolutely. So we do have that 24 7 access. You can access it any time via standalone, just buy the kit. Enjoy, love that for you or get it on subscription basically by joining the Clubhouse where you get access to all kinds of other content and events as well and clubhouse people, because there are people there like love clubhouse members.

[00:53:14] I am doing a CEO day live with clubhouse. With clubhouse members on Tuesday, January 11th, in case you want to do it with community or otherwise needs some accountability, because I recognize that sometimes it can be really hard to show up by yourself and sit there and work through some worksheets and think about your business.

[00:53:36] You get distracted, maybe you see those notifications coming in because you didn't turn your email off and telling you, turn your email off, just turn it off.

[00:53:44] Corey Winter: Turn those things off.

[00:53:47] Emily Thompson: But if you want to come do it with some boss friends, you can join our Clubhouse at beingboss.club/community. Put it on your calendar for Tuesday, January 11th.

[00:53:57] And I'm going to be there taking you through live every single step. It's not extra. Is it just an event we're doing in the clubhouse along with many other events that we do, I'll be taking you through every step all day long, and I'm there for Q and A and otherwise shared community with what's working and not working when it comes to all seven steps of a CEO day kit and applying them to your creative business.

[00:54:25] Legit, I love this kit a ton a ton. So if you do want to learn more about CEO Day kit, which is the thing that Being Boss has created to help creative business owners run their business better, more proactively with more good feels because that's important for creatives. Incredibly important, go to beingboss.club/ceo, and you'll learn more about it and gain access to either a one-time purchase of 24 7.

[00:54:59] [00:55:00] Until it dies CEO day kit or join the Clubhouse.

[00:55:06] Corey Winter: Okay. So that's all four boundaries. Are there more? And like we're wrapping this up, but are they more boundaries than those main four?

[00:55:13] Emily Thompson: There's a million, but no, actually I do. I've sat a lot and I thought about this. I want to do like seven. Cause I love the number seven, for whatever reason, whatever I got down to it, it really is just these four.

[00:55:28] These are four overarching ones that I think if you can, if you can hit these, right. If you can create some boundaries that protect your energy and because that is time and money and just generally energy it's sort of, you know, is a nice umbrella for all the important things to help you do the thing, right?

[00:55:51] If you can create some boundaries between your work and life so that you can do your work and live your life. And if you can create some boundaries around what it is that you're doing so that you are showing up to do the things that you are great at and otherwise allowing other things to either fall by the wayside, because they're not necessary or delegate the things that need to be done to your team that either you have, or you are building and create some boundaries around your big vision planning, those are the must haves, everything else sort of falls either within those, or is it really just dependent on how it is that you need to be nurtured to show up and do the work?

[00:56:27] Because remember boundaries are about nurturing and protecting it's about you creating walls in the book. We, we give the metaphor of being given as your garden, right? You have. This green space that includes your health, your family, and friends, your work, your hobbies, and you have to build a wall around it to keep out the bugs and the weeds and all of these things, boundaries protect what you hold important, what you prioritize and keep everything unwanted out. Without boundaries

[00:57:05] you're going to have a weedy garden. You're going to have some, you're going to have an ant problem too, probably. Right. But with boundaries, with boundaries, you're going to have the most beautiful flowers ever. Some of the juiciest watermelons. I mean, it's a garden and I'm just thinking, you'll be able to harvest.

[00:57:31] Okay. How about that? Have a bountiful harvest. If you protect the things that are important to you, otherwise you're just gonna walk out with a bunch of weeds. And that's not what we're here to do. Y'all so, yes, I think that those are my four biggest must haves everything. I think outside of that, unless there's just a big hole in my vision of what a successful CEO is, everything outside of that I think is dependent on you as a person.

[00:57:59] [00:58:00] Maybe you need different kinds of boundaries because of the way you work. And I love that for you. These are not the only four that you should have by any means, but I think they are the big four, for sure.

[00:58:10] Corey Winter: So I've learned that I'm going to go turn off my notifications after like 6:00 PM. I can do this.

[00:58:17] Emily Thompson: I have discovered that my superpower is that I don't care about that red dot.

[00:58:23] Corey Winter: I have so many red dots.

[00:58:25] Emily Thompson: I don't even see it. Like what red dot. That means something it's not supposed to have a red dot. I had no idea.

[00:58:31] Corey Winter: So that explains why I can never reach you when I have like a super important question. You just think it,

[00:58:38] Emily Thompson: it just means that I've created some boundaries and I'm focusing on the thing that I'm doing and I'll be with you shortly.

[00:58:43] We're not brain surgeons.

[00:58:44] Corey Winter: We'll high-five.

[00:58:45] Emily Thompson: Yeah.

[00:58:48] I love it. Love it. Perfect. Well, there you go everybody. Build yourself some boundaries, have a beautiful juicy garden. Come check out CEO day kit. If you need help creating that space for yourself and otherwise want to create a really great 12 month plan for yourself.

[00:59:06] It's a ton of fun. I still use it every single year.

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[00:59:59] Now, until [01:00:00] next time. Do the work, be boss.