The Art of Family Leadership: Insights from Chrissy Myers

What happens when family and business blend into one challenging but rewarding journey? Join us on the Everlasting Fulfillment Podcast as we uncover the art of seamlessly transitioning a family business through generations with Chrissy Myers, CEO of AUI and Clarity HR. Chrissy's story is a testament to resilience, creativity, and strategic planning, offering listeners a blueprint for making roles within the company both appealing and meaningful. From the intricate discussions on retirement to the emotional reality of change, Chrissy’s insights are bound to provide practical solutions that can sustain any family-owned enterprise.

Ever wondered how to maintain balance when your dinner table conversations often pivot to business strategy? With a unique perspective on integrating family into the business, Chrissy introduces her "Team Awesome Sauce," reflecting a culture where even her children and pets play a vital role. This episode highlights the necessity of building strong interpersonal effectiveness skills, securing trusted legal and accounting advice, and establishing clear boundaries. We also tackle the challenge of ensuring that everyone involved is fully committed to the business's future, sharing experiences that emphasize the importance of open communication and firm decision-making.

But it’s not just about internal growth. We also explore how impactful leadership within a family business can ripple out to the community. Chrissy’s compelling narrative, driven by her personal commitment to mental health and wellness, underscores the significance of positive leadership. Discover how creating a resilient workforce can transform not just your business but also the wider community. Packed with heartwarming stories and real-world advice, this episode is a must-listen for anyone involved in, or considering, a family business transition.

Guest Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrissymyersceo/
Guest website: https://auiinfo.com/
Guest book: https://a.co/d/5cSwjO6

Sponsored by Nico Van de Venne CommV

Chapters

• 0:00 Family Business Transition
• 9:21 Navigating Family Business Transition Challenges
• 21:04 Balancing Family and Business Dynamics
• 25:51 Leadership Transition and Growth Discussions
• 39:24 Impacting the Community Through Business

Transcript

Chrissy: 0:00

We're afraid to talk about death, we're afraid to talk about retirement and transition because we're afraid of that change. It's uncomfortable and, as a result, we put it over on a shelf and we ignore it. And then, when the time comes and it's really important that we have that conversation we still ignore it. So I think that a lot of family businesses you talk about the elimination or when they don't make that transition to the next generation Oftentimes it's just because we're afraid to have a difficult conversation. Because what happens if someone says I don't want to retire, I want to die here? Then you're like okay, what does that look like?

Nico: 0:40

Does that mean that you want to be in the same position, doing the same thing? Let me invite you to sit back, drop your jaw, tongue and shoulders, take a deep breath and, if you wish, close your eyes for a moment and feel the beat within. In a few seconds, you just jumped from your head to your heart and felt the beat within, opening up to receive even more value and fulfillment out of your business and life and today's episode. I'm your host, nico van de Venne, confidant to successful CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs striving to achieve everlasting fulfillment.

Nico: 1:16

Welcome to the Everlasting Fulfillment Podcast with our next guest, chrissy Myers. Chrissy is the author of Reluctantly Resilient and CEO of AUI and Clarity HR, which provide insurance benefits and HR services to small and medium-sized businesses in both profit and non-profit sectors. Chrissy describes herself as the chief cheerleader for both companies, setting direction, steering, marketing content and finding creative ways to disrupt two established business sectors. I really like that. Chrissy is also the author of the aui gives back and clarity cares, two community impact programs where employees serve in the community, track their impact and share what they are doing on behalf of their customers Another thing I like. Welcome to the show, chrissy, and, like I said, I've got a question for you. Could you tell me about your team members, maddy, caleb Ziva and Rocco your?

Chrissy: 2:26

team members Maddie, caleb, ziva and Rocco. Yes, I can tell you about those are all the members of what we call Team Awesome Sauce. So when you have a family with four people, three different last names, a mom who builds businesses and a dad who played team sports, you get a team name. So we're Team Awesome Sauce. Our team motto is we put more awesome in sauce and then we have our purpose statement we radiate awesome to the world. The core values that all spell out Team Awesome Sauce is when you've got a 16-year-old and a 12-year-old Maddie and Caleb who are also our cheap marketing individuals or marketing rock stars with our organizations.

Chrissy: 2:59

It gets really fun. And then, of course, rocco and Ziva are our wonder pups, that kind of work, the mascots of AUI and Clarity HR that absolutely are here, depending on the day, spreading their joy and their cheer in our organization.

Nico: 3:13

Wiggling their tail. Yeah, those are our members.

Chrissy: 3:17

Yeah, family business, aui and Clarity HR. We have family members in the business at this point. There are marketing rock stars, our team mascots, and then Steve Bunch, our facilities manager, cool.

Nico: 3:27

That's just so fun to hear. Yeah, I told you, I did a little bit of research. I went on your website and I looked at the team. I was like I need to ask about them because it's so much fun. I've seen it in other companies as well, where they have the four-footeded, four pawed team members. You added your children, which I love very much because I've got two kids as well. They're a little bit younger. We got three cats, so they wiggle their tail differently and they're stubborn. I don't get them in the office.

Chrissy: 4:00

Yes, insurance and HR can sometimes be stuffy and I think a lot of times they can be, especially in the United States. They're entrenched in like a specific type of culture, so a good way to disrupt that is sometimes in your website, your organization, just to be non-traditional. And we're we have a younger feel to our organization. Yes, insurance is something that's been around for a long time, but it doesn't mean that how we market, how we reach customers, has to be exactly the same, so we just try to do things a little bit.

Nico: 4:24

That's one way of tackling the challenges that we meet on the market, because that usually is one of the things like with this podcast the same thing I try to make people aware of certain things, but it doesn't always hit in the right spot, so that's why I love talking to people who've actually been there. So you're a CEO right now. You've got a growing team. I see that I think you've got about 20 people give or take, so that's quite a team already. So how did you come sitting in that chair right now? How did you get there?

Chrissy: 4:57

So it's a combination of family business transition and startup. So AUI is a third generation family business, turns 50 this year. I was of the mind that if you want a car, you'll work for us. If you want us to pay for college, you'll work for us. So I wanted those things. So I worked with my parents and then at some point in time my dad said do you want to stay here? And I said no, I do not. You've given me every crummy job on the planet. I've called dead people. I've boxed Christmas candy. I've walked probably 60 miles around the conference table trying to do all of these things for compliance that you needed. I don't want to be here. Insurance is boring. And he said, well, will you give me six months? And I said, no, I'll give you six weeks. And in those six weeks he gave me things within the organization that I wanted. So I decided to stay. Then, when I bought AUI, I arm wrestled my mom for the business. We talk about it a little bit in Reluctantly Resilient.

Chrissy: 5:44

Anybody that says family business transition is easy is lying to you. Oftentimes you think that you get the business gifted to you. No, I'm currently paying for it and I will like a lot of other family businesses you pay for. You pay your dues and you grow the business and at the same time, you probably pay more for it because you grew it bigger. So when I bought clarity, or when I bought AUI five years ago, promptly started Clarity HR five years ago at the same time.

Chrissy: 6:07

So I had legacy family business and startup at the same time, married them together. We're getting ready to launch one cohesive brand at the end of this year, working towards what we need to do. But yeah, that piece of we do insurance really well, will you do HR? Was something that was told to me probably about a decade while I was in the family business and continued to tell people no, I don't want to do anything different. No, we're not going to do that, our niche is employee benefits. We're not doing anything new. But then when I finally had the keys and owned the title to the business and AUI and someone said, hey, would you consider this? Yeah, I think we can do something new too. So that startup scale up and then legacy family business transitioning over a course of time.

Nico: 6:49

So AUI turns 50 this year and Clarity turns five, that's a nice number, those are very nice numbers. Yeah, yeah, five years. So that's just right before the little animal beastie thing went through the world then.

Chrissy: 6:59

Yes, yes, exactly Really good timing. So learning out of that.

Nico: 7:04

I know how it feels. I started my business in 2020. So yeah, it was something happening. I can't remember, but yeah, we got through it so you're saying.

Nico: 7:17

I love when you say you're taking over a family business. If somebody tells you it's easy, it's not. I believe you Absolutely. I've heard the stories. I am solopreneur in my family, as in the only person in my family who is an entrepreneur, I. I convinced my wife she doesn't know it, she's listening, no, she's not listening. I convinced my wife to start her own business. So actually we kind kind of she does VA, she's virtual assistant, she does language trainings and coaching on language and I am focused on the confidant business. But yeah, I understand what you mean by transitioning from, because it's still mom and dad or mom or dad or whomever had the business. It's their baby or it's a part of a legacy of a baby, so it's difficult to transition that to somebody else. How did that go for you? What kind of challenges did you actually meet in that position?

Chrissy: 8:12

if you want to share, oh, there were so many and I talk about it a little bit in the book Reluctantly, resilient, but really some of it was growing the business and having that point in transition. So at one point in time, my dad had some health issues and he took a step back from the organization. At the same time, I took a step forward and my mom was spending a lot of time taking care of him and then when he passed, she came back into the business and I thought that she was just going to be like you do what you need to, Chrissy. You've been running the business for a while. It's continuing to be successful. I took us through a seven-figure acquisition and my dad took one meeting. He took the first meeting and then his health declined. He said you can handle this, you don't need to do it. So I had already done a huge transition, grown the organization. He passed away a few years after that and so I'm continuing to grow and move and she comes back in with okay, we're going to change this system. I don't like what you're doing over here. I was like time out. Why are you here? You haven't been here for four years. You don't need to be here Like I got this. This is my business To the point, nico, that I changed my title before my dad passed from director of corporate planning to CEO.

Chrissy: 9:21

I was continuing to grow, be out in the community when we had to start thinking about this transition when she's moving in back into the business wanting to hold onto it. I've got my grip on it as well. It became this arm wrestling match to the point that I'm not proud of it. But I think at every point in time a family business has that. We call it the screaming in the driveway conversation of you're going to sell me the business or I'm going to quit. Some people have it over a kitchen table, some people have it in a conference room. We have it in a driveway and the employees are in that space of we like you and we trust you because you've been taking the organization in a positive direction. We know we're growing and we're moving and we like it. But she signs our paycheck still. So, as much as you're the person driving, she owns the title to the car. So what are you going to do?

Chrissy: 10:06

We went to therapy to learn how to talk to each other the right way. That was one of the stipulations that my mom had said she talked to other family businesses that had transitioned successfully and they recommended learn how to talk to each other. Because at the end of the day, in my mind we were going to negotiate, everything was going to be fine and I loved my mom, but if I never saw her again, I was going to be okay with that. She was not. She wanted to make sure that we had a good relationship even after we transitioned the business, and I'm super glad that we do and we did that work. But, nico, I hated it the whole entire time I was doing it. We finally came to terms and did our signature.

Chrissy: 10:39

But what I would say is a couple of things that you need in family business transition being able to build your interpersonal effectiveness skills. So, whether that means you go to therapy or you get a coach that can help you with your tone and how you can construct an argument and communicate with your family members, that's a primary. The second would be to find a good lawyer and a good accountant. What I did not realize when I started walking through this process was the lawyer and the accountant that we had for the business were there to represent the business. They weren't there to represent me as the buyer, which got really awkward because I hired that lawyer and I hired that accountant and then all of a sudden they're telling me we don't really work for you, we work for the business. We're here to support Julie and the work that she's doing as she transitions. So you're going to have to find other people. So I did and I would say to that make sure that when you go out and you interview those people, you find someone even better, because chances are, when they take you through that process of transitioning the business, they're probably going to be the attorney and the accountant that you keep moving forward. So that's a great tip.

Chrissy: 11:43

The other two things I would say is number one is take no hostages. So you talked about your wife being a solopreneur in her business. So it was a conversation that Steve and I had to have about the family business. Do I want it, do I care about it? And where is the line in our business? Because what I didn't want is to take him with me as a hostage to my dream in owning this organization, and then it wasn't something that he was completely bought into. So we have some different core values in Team. Awesome Thoughts where we talk about how we make decisions as a family. So it was really important that we do that. And then the last thing I would say is you have to have a limit and a line.

Chrissy: 12:20

So for me, I knew what the price was, that I wanted to pay for the organization. I also knew how much time I was willing to put in and work in essence for free until we had a contract in place. We had come to terms, my mom and I, in January of 2019. In April of 2019, she walked out the door and in July, her attorney still hadn't come up with July 1st. They still hadn't come up with the final signature pages of everything to get everything transitioned. So like we had all the terms and everything written out, but they were going back and forth. And so I called her and I said look, I realize you've been gone for two months, but I don't want this business anymore unless we can come to an agreement and our attorneys can get done, 24 hours later, that attorney had that document finished.

Chrissy: 13:05

So, it was like what are you waiting for? Are you waiting for billable hours? Are you waiting for approval? Because we'd already come to all of these terms. But I established that limit of where I was willing to go and what I was willing to do, and then there was a space where I wasn't willing to go and do and I would have walked away if I needed to. So those are some of my tips for transitioning family business. Those are some freakishly solid tips.

Nico: 13:25

I think that, yeah, I know, talking about the communication is one thing, but indeed, taking the ownership and saying this is where I go and no further. I think it brings me to the idea of Gandalf with his staff on the bridge. With that big monster there, you go no further. But I think you need to be able to do that when you're running a business, and especially when there's employees involved. You need to be, you do the groundwork, you do the foundation needs to be there within your shoes to be sure about what you're going to do. Because, in the end, if we speculate what would have, I'm going to ask you the question what would have happened if your mom would have gone the whole other way and say, no, I am not selling the business, you are. That's the state. What would have happened then?

Chrissy: 14:13

Hello. So to get to that point, I had actually gone through a period of career mapping. So we had got to the point in probably about 2017, my dad had been gone for a year where it got very contentious between the two of us, and so that was where we had our driveway conversation of you're going to sell me the business or I'm going to quit. And so I went to a career counselor and went through this process called career mapping, which is what do you need in a position to be happy. And so I met with Kathy. She did a really great job of helping me work through because, again, my husband's like Chrissy, you can do anything in the world. Like you got your master's. You've grown this business.

Chrissy: 14:53

You transitioned to business during a major upheaval within your personal life, at the same time dealing with a professional issue because we had a major shift in the insurance industry on the Affordable Care Act in 2013. I had dealt with dealing with a rescue type of situation where our revenue was cut in half overnight. We had to continue to pivot and grow, grown the organization back, did a seven-figure acquisition. So he had said you can do anything Like why don't you? You want to go sell shoes. You want to start another business. You want to buy a franchise. You want to do? You want to be in government, what do you want to do? So I went to the career mentor, kathy, and so determined that the different things that I could potentially do did I want to buy another business, what did I want that business to look like? And what we determined was that she said Chrissy, you've got everything in the position that you want right now the ability to steer direction, the ability to build community impact programs and affect change. You're leading a team. You love what you're doing. The question is do you have enough stomach to stay and wade through the difficulties of wanting to transition the business?

Chrissy: 15:55

Because my mom there was a period of time where she's I'm going to work here forever, but at the same time I also knew she's a grandma. She wants to spend time with those grandkids. She doesn't always want to do all the things in the business that are in the day-to-day because she'd worked in it for a long time. So at some point in time she was going to come to the decision of I'm going to sell it, who am I going to sell it to? But if you think about it. If she would have absolutely said I'm not selling it ever, what are you going to do?

Chrissy: 16:21

I probably would have started something on my own, probably in the insurance space, because again, I had those employees that said if you go somewhere, we will follow you. And I was the only person at that point in time. We keep non-competes, non-solicitations. All of the things are documented for everyone in our organization. At that point, except for me, I was the only person that didn't have a non-compete, that didn't have a non-solicitation, that didn't have a non-disclosure. I think because at that point in time my dad had thought she's family, she's never going to go anywhere and I'm going, she's going to have the business at some point in time. So I knew to some degree it was going to happen. It was just a matter of when and the terms with which it occurred.

Chrissy: 17:11

In all respect it went the way that you wanted it.

Nico: 17:14

It didn't go the way, but it went. It ended up in the way that you wanted it.

Chrissy: 17:15

That's the most important it did. It took longer than I wanted, but this is part of it.

Nico: 17:18

It took longer than I wanted and I realize that's what it's meant for. It's a part of the story. When you have a business, it's not always one adds one and then you have two or three. No, it's one adds something that you don't know about and then something else comes around and that is a minus, and these things happen. But it's the tenacity and the grit and the continuous improvement of the self and going through those steps, because I can imagine that actually, basically, you fought with the woman who cared for you as a little child. So that's a completely different dynamic than saying, oh, let's find a company with somebody who is a boss and let's discuss a pricing. It's a completely different level. So I understand, and indeed I've seen a lot of family businesses go under because the struggles of the internal stories that are never put on the table. At least you had the conversation, or the heightened volume conversation in the driveway, yeah people avoid that and that's not good.

Chrissy: 18:23

They do, they do, they have this conversation. We're never going to talk about transition. At some point in time someone's going to pass away and it's just going to all transfer and it's going to be okay. But you don't necessarily know that for a fact. You don't know what's going to happen and oftentimes we're afraid to talk about death, we're afraid to talk about retirement and transition because we're afraid of that change. It's uncomfortable and, as a result, we put it over on a shelf and we ignore it. And then, when the time comes and it's really important that we have that conversation we still ignore it.

Chrissy: 18:55

So I think that a lot of family businesses you talk about the elimination or when they don't make that transition to the next generation. Oftentimes it's just because we're afraid to have a difficult conversation. Because what happens if someone says I don't want to retire, I want to die here? And then you're like okay, what does that look like? Does that mean that you want to see, you want to be in the same position, doing the same thing? Okay, then what do we need to do to transition that?

Chrissy: 19:20

If something happens to you, there's different legal ramifications depending on where you're domiciled I mean in the United States, what state you're in or what country you're in. You have to make sure that is the business part of the estate. What do we need to do to make sure, especially if we have employees, we can continue to pay them their wages, we can continue to do business, we can take care of our customers and again, it's just being willing to have some of those awkward conversations that oftentimes we're just afraid to or we go. You know what? I'll worry about it tomorrow, and tomorrow comes a lot faster?

Nico: 19:50

Oh yeah, yeah, I believe so. Do you have this point, so you've had this experience from your own point of view?

Chrissy: 19:55

Do you?

Nico: 19:55

have this point. Okay, your kids are pretty young at this point, but are you already in this space of this could happen between me and my kids and what are your thoughts on that?

Chrissy: 20:05

Part of it is what I say is, if you want your kids to have a good relationship with your business and potentially want it as theirs, you have to have a good relationship and balance with your business as it relates to your kids.

Chrissy: 20:19

To have a good relationship and balance with your business as it relates to your kids, so you have to make sure that business is not the other child that gets all of the attention.

Chrissy: 20:25

If you don't do that, if you are always in your business, always on your phone, never paying attention to your kids it doesn't matter if you're at sporting events or school events or spending time with them If you're never fully present with them, they are going to grow up to resent the organization that took all of your time. So the first thing I would say, especially as your kids are young, regardless of what they want to do with their lives or how they want to grow up because I was going to be a corporate litigator, I was never going to be an insurance and HR, I was never going to own the family business. But I also knew that my parents had a healthy relationship with the organization and with their time as it related to me. So if you're thinking about how do I build this to transition it to the future. Make sure that you have a healthy relationship with your organization and your own balance and harmony with your family. It doesn't take the place or take the time away that you would normally spend with your family.

Nico: 21:14

You're always in your business. I find that very important as well. I struggle with it all the time. Like I said, I don't have any employees. I have five people working for me, so they're all independent virtual assistants and so on. So they work for me. They're not employees, but you have the same amount of management to do and understanding and meetings and all that beautiful shizzle that we endured during the day of our business. We'd love that. Yes, we do no, but anyway.

Nico: 21:48

And like you, said with your partner, your husband. If I understand correctly, you were married. So, being a part of the whole system, I'd say the business, your partner being in the business. We clearly decided to split that up because she has completely other dimensional ideas and wills and missions. So she loves languages. I speak English, I speak French, I speak Dutch and so on, but I use it as in. English is my second language, because I learned it from a really young age. My parents are not English or anything. I don't have any English people in my family but I learned it from a young age because it just attracted me and I use it to communicate and that's it Actually. The funny thing is I write better spelling error wise, I write better in English than I do in dutch. So it's crazy.

Nico: 22:41

my dad at some point said you died when you were english so you came back here and you just came here to pester us. Love my dad, by the way, but anyway, but taking in that part of your partner coming to the business, what we do, she's, she also does my administrative work, so she is a part of your partner. Coming into the business what we do she also does my administrative work, so she is a part of my business and she does have an influence on who I am as a person. So that also has a very specific dynamic. And lunchtime or dinnertime at the table, our kids are there and they're asking us financial advice. They're 14 and 12 years old, but we're talking about turnover and taxes and this and that and they start asking questions like what is this and what?

Chrissy: 23:25

is that.

Nico: 23:26

And of course we need to. Actually, I should write an NDA with them on disclosure. They know too much. Like you said as well, it's the nuances come in when your home is a part of the business or a part of the home. My office here it's actually in our backyard. It used to be our garage so we completely reconstructed it and it's within our home. So if at some point, our house or whatever, or if one of us dies or that needs to split up, that's the whole thing. That makes it complicated when it comes down to inheritance and all that stuff.

Nico: 23:59

Yeah, and the layer of complexity with employees is 10x, I can imagine, because there's always these nuances, likes and dislikes. Have you had the experience where, during this period, there were maybe two parts of the pond looking at each other and liking if she jumps, I'm jumping with her you said it earlier where they were going to follow you wherever you were? But in that period, was there a system that was going on within the employees as well?

Chrissy: 24:30

Yeah, so more of the transition with the employees happened after I purchased the business. So there was the if you go somewhere, we'll follow you. But the intention was that we really hope we never have to follow you somewhere because we really it's secure here. So if you go, we'll go with you, but we're still going to probably have some trepidation. But the interesting part, mika, was the transition afterward with the individuals who had been in the organization for a long time and either had to decide do I like that the organization's continuing to grow and change, or do I feel like I don't like where that change is going so I'm just going to take my ball and go somewhere else Took a little bit of time, even though I had been in the organization and I had grown and maintained the culture, when some of the transition occurred and some things happened, specifically with our sales team.

Chrissy: 25:23

I'm like, okay, you haven't had a lot of accountability around sales quotas, around making sure that you're continuing to renew your business, but we're going to start implementing those things. It was like, oh, wait a second. I've been here for 20 years and now all of a sudden, you're telling me you're really telling me what to do. Like, yes, I am, and so that expectation or felt, yeah, I need you to actually do your job, you're not just this is that we don't run a nonprofit. We run a business that actually has to make money, has to have customers. We have to do this.

Chrissy: 25:51

I think that was the harder transition for me was because I had worked with those individuals for a really long time and personality changed, dynamics changed and it was a little bit for me. It was hurtful and trying not to take it personally. When they're like, okay, I'm going to go somewhere else, it was like set it, I protected your job during the Affordable Care Act changes. I protected your job during COVID, like I did some of the, and now all of a sudden, you're going in a different direction. I think that's the bigger anticipation, like as a family business owner who's transitioned from one generation to the next.

Chrissy: 26:25

If someone said what's the one thing that really took you by surprise, it was how quickly staffing would change for a period of time, because individuals that thought they liked it one way and realized, okay, even though there weren't a ton of changes, it was enough to make them go. I think I'm going to look for something else or I don't think I like doing this. Now. I'm not going to tell you that all those people are super happy about the decision that they made, but we're better as an organization. So I took it very personally initially and then realized you know what, if they don't want to be here, why am I going to make them a hostage?

Nico: 27:03

So enable people to transition out when they tell you they want to leave. Yeah, that's a beautiful one, because indeed, and actually sometimes it's a gift because they might stay longer and actually make the cream sour because they're not happy and they drag along. Make the cream sour because they're not happy and they drag along. And that's where what I've learned in my beautiful career of management and leading lots of people. I've always had a couple of mainstream people, four or five that I managed directly, and then a whole bunch of people right behind that, and what I saw was the main people that I work with were decision makers like myself. They always looked at me and they said, yeah, I know you're not going to decide, but we just need your decision. And I'm like, okay, what were you going to decide? I was going that way. Why that and that? Okay, I agree.

Nico: 27:47

And if it was contradictory to anything that I knew from the background how the chain comes down, I would direct them and say maybe the idea would be better to go that direction. I'm not going to tell you why yet, but and then you work with that story. But what I did see in, let's say, the layers lower is that you find the indecision drags and causes a lot of issues, because it's a festering thing that grows and you see a lot more people actually becoming even more difficult to handle and they're not happy, et cetera, et cetera. And it's the same way where, when something happens in your organization and you see somebody's going straight for the wall but there's something's going to go wrong, that they need to do this to experience that wall, yeah.

Chrissy: 28:37

Sometimes you have to this, to experience that wall. Yeah, sometimes you have to let people hit the wall.

Nico: 28:41

It's funny sometimes because I have a guy that I've been managing for a while now and I help him getting to the groove of being a manager, slowly bringing it up and so on, and one of the things I told him in the past there was a situation he was like oh no, but we need to stop them. I was like nope, we're not going to Well, what this is going wrong and let it go wrong. And afterwards he saw why I did that, because it gave me the opportunity to improve three or four different systems, because something went completely wrong. And I said, in every downside there is an upside. You just have to see what upside you're targeting for and it's in with a person. So, yeah, sometimes it's better to let them go and or let them do whatever they want to do and hit the wall or leave the company. And I've seen people come back as well. Absolutely.

Chrissy: 29:33

Yes, especially as a manager. If you're the CEO of an organization, if you ever want to be able to let your business run itself or grow to a point where it doesn't need you every day, you have to be willing to take that risk and let individuals lead, manage, and sometimes it can be. It can be and it's not a costly mistake, but sometimes it can be a costly sacrifice, because I don't think that it's a mistake in the learning. I have someone in my organization that was doing performance management for one of our team members and I was remember Steve and I were walking it was last summer and he's like you look like you're going through what is going on, like you had this look. I'm just like I've got to figure this out and I'm like I have this situation where I'm an employee who is not performing and I have a manager that it's the first time that she has to perform in Spanish and I cannot do anything about it. I have got to let her make this decision for herself and she's either going to, in my mind, make the right decision and everything's going to be great, or she's going to make the wrong decision. It's going to cost us, but we're still going to learn from it and I was really hoping that she picked A. She did, but also knowing that so much of that learning was me not jumping into it.

Chrissy: 30:44

And you just you made such a good point, nico, about sometimes it's holding the reins back on yourself and having the self-control, especially as the CEO, especially if you were the founder or the original visionary or you've held the vision for the organization for a long time. It's your baby and you want to make sure that nobody harms it. And sometimes we get caught up in our people and we think that our people are our baby. They're not. They are the caretakers of our organization. But sometimes they have to know how to care for the organization the right way. And if we are always jumping in, always telling them what to do, there may be a time where they can't reach us and they're not going to feel empowered to make the right decision and they're going to be paralyzed. So how do we prevent paralysis? But that's oh, managing your energy around. That part is so hard, absolutely.

Nico: 31:28

That's one of the reasons I call it founderitis that's what I mean by that or founder syndrome, where indeed you become a micromanager and you get your fingers in all that, all the pieces of the pie, and managing everything and everything has to be done your way and at the end, like you said, you might catch. I think COVID, on that level, is a perfect example. When you had COVID, you were out for at least a week. I had it three times. I had it light, medium and full blown and I was out and I was running my business. I had nobody who did my job in my stead, so there was no income, but my wife at the time was still working. So that was a beautiful balance.

Nico: 32:07

But what I was doing, I was managing a team in a company and I've always had the attitude of being the one that needs to be eliminated. That's how I work. So I make my team strong and I am the one that takes decisions, because you always have somebody at some point that takes the decisions, like I said earlier. But the thing was, I was out for a week and when I came back, everything was still running, and one of my peers at the time was the complete opposite, and one of my peers at the time was the complete opposite, and we had meetings together and it was astonishing to see him write down every detail of what every person in that meeting room needed to do to get to the next step or whatever, or we would have the next minute. He was the guy who wanted everybody to sign off meeting minutes at the end of every meeting because they would be accounted and be accountable for blah, blah, blah. And I was there. I always had a really relaxed sit back. I was like, okay, who's taking the minutes? You are Okay, fine, let me know what you've written. But I have an amazing crazy mind, so I know exactly what everybody needs to do. I don't write things down, but I also have the attitude of expecting my people to do what is asked from them, and the first couple of months it never happens because they're used to having somebody tell them what to do. So the first couple of months I know things are going to go wrong and of course you always take the necessary calculated risks at that level, because if you would do it, it would go very wrong. But and then? So I came back after that one week and he was apparently my team told me he was coming in my team telling them what they needed to do, and they were not used to that. So they rebelled and they said we just did exactly only what he asked us to do. So a lot of stuff was not being done that they actually should. And I came back.

Nico: 34:05

I went into a meeting with this guy and I said so next time I, if I'm dead, you do not touch my team, you leave them, you just don't touch them. And he was like what I want? I want it to do good. I want, I wanted to do good. I wanted to do good. Yeah, you did worse than anything else, but I said, in any case, love you, brother, you did your job. You thought you were doing well. I understand, you took those decisions, but do you see now what's happening within my team? And I told him so he had to experience the same, same concept.

Nico: 34:33

And then at some point I think I left the company, four months or something, yeah, something like that he called me and he said man, you had a good life, what? He changed his mental attitude and did the same. So he started to ease down and give his people a lot more empowerment and he said I'm actually doing what I need to do these days. I'm actually taking the things in my hands that I needed to do all these years. I'm like so, good job.

Nico: 35:08

These are also things that you don't just pick up from a book or something. It's something that somebody else either shows you and usually it's being shown, you experience it yourself or, yeah, you have it inherently in you. It's one of those things. So how do you currently manage yourself as in because of ceo level, you're managing, you're the founder, you're lonely at the top, as they say, but I don't think you're very lonely because you have your partner and your kids and so on, but in certain ways. So how do you handle the loneliness and the decision-making that you have to do on your own?

Chrissy: 35:46

so some of that I've worked on, especially in the last couple of years, and it is number one. You never stop learning, so I am always in some type of mastermind education coaching program. There has got to be something that helps me continue to grow my skill set, because I need to be almost like the goal. I think as a CEO. Sometimes you're driving the energy, but then you're also the multi-tool, so you're the person that they come to when they've got a question that they can't solve or they've got a level of discomfort that they're uncertain for and they need to know that you either know how to handle it or you can manage the discomfort for them. So I would say, especially as a CEO in a scaling company, you don't have to be the smartest person in the room In fact you shouldn't be but you should probably be the person with the highest distress tolerance. You should be able to handle things that are uncomfortable or uncertain more than sometimes your team, because if you want them to be able to manage things without you, you want them to be held accountable, to continue to work through a problem solve, but there's probably a few things that you probably don't want them to do without you like completely decide that you're going to go from selling shoes to selling sunglasses. There's certain things that you're like okay, way to be brave. No, but you have that distress tolerance. So those are the two things that I would say are really important. So never stop learning, always finding people that are in similar situations, maybe even a few steps ahead.

Chrissy: 37:13

I think that entrepreneurial organizations can be really great. Eo is a worldwide organization for entrepreneurs that are in a certain level. They also have a for people that are scantily. It's called EOA. Those are great. It's a great organization to be in, because there are some people that say I run a business, I'm a solopreneur. That's fantastic. Same thing with I run a business, I have employees. When you are accountable for payroll, it doesn't matter whether you have you or you have 100,000 employees. That is a similar weight. You know how that feels. As opposed to I'm COO of an organization that is completely funded, it's publicly traded and we don't ever have to worry about where our next meal is coming from. There's a very different. There's a huge difference between employee and employer.

Chrissy: 38:00

So I would say, especially for you, it's to find, as a small business owner, as a CEO, it's finding other people that sit in the same seat as you, or sit in the same seat on a larger scale, because then you can create that virtual board of directors for yourself and say, hey, I'm dealing with this in my business, and sometimes it's even more, I'm dealing with this in my personal life.

Chrissy: 38:21

Tell me about those things, because oftentimes, as CEOs, we become identified by our business, but we're people too, so it's really important that you have those individuals who can hold you accountable on the personal side as much as of the professional side.

Chrissy: 38:36

Let's talk about, nico, how we have a lot of CEOs and individuals that are married to their business and, as a result, their home life falls apart, or they're married to their business and are spending so much time in it that their health suffers. Being able to live in congruence and have some balance around what you need to do as far as your work and your life having harmony. I don't necessarily believe that balance is something that exists. I think it's more about harmony. How can they fit together and then, at the same time, thinking about community presence. So you can be doing an amazing job in your business, but your community may be needing you too, so how can you get back? How can you impact the rest of the world around you, not just so it can be beneficial to your organization, but also to the world in which you live and work and your kids may?

Nico: 39:20

be as well. I agree. I agree, that's one of the things that I. My initial start for my business was legacy. I wanted to be a legacy coach.

Nico: 39:29

It's a pretty difficult concept to bring into the world because there's a lot of steps before that you get to a legacy point, and it's the impact of the community that's also vital, and there's a lot of stuff out there that exists because of businesses giving back and everybody has the right to earn a good buck. It's as simple as that. It doesn't have to be a gazillionaire, because these days, they throw about around these numbers all over the place and I'm always wondering how do they actually? Are these people really happy? Are they really fulfilled? I have a really big question mark above my head on that level. But on the other side, they also tend to give back.

Nico: 40:08

Like yourself, you've got these two organizations that you're working with. I love it what you're doing, and I hope to be able to do that in the near future as well. I sponsor small groups of people that musicians and stuff like that, but it's not the same scale where I have people that do these things. So, chrissy, I want to ask you one more question, and that is do you have anything that you want to share today with my community, with my listeners, that you think might have a profound impact on themselves, on their business or anything?

Chrissy: 40:39

Yeah, so I think that as our world turns, our economies go up and down, what is so important is to be resilient as a business leader, and I think there are two things that you need. The first is building those interpersonal effectiveness skills whether you go to therapy or you do some type of coaching being able to build your distress tolerance, managing the stress, the ups and downs of running a business. The other thing that I would say is that you need to find your what else running a business. The other thing that I would say is that you need to find your what else and that what else is what drives you beyond business and the money that you're making. It's that community impact portion, because that what else will keep you moving through something and through the storms of life. So we look at it as our higher purpose.

Chrissy: 41:26

So at AUI and Clarity, one of our major focuses is mental health resilience. So I lost my first husband to suicide and, as a result, we are very passionate within our organization about making sure that we have wellness in the workplace, that employees know how to cope with the different stressors of life, because if we can build their interpersonal effectiveness skills, we change their lives, but then we also change their home lives because they take that work home to their families. Their families continue to improve, become better communicators, and then we change the world. So I would say, as a business owner, it's what is that? What else that drives you?

Chrissy: 42:01

If it is arts and culture, sponsoring a different, a special artist, helping with a kid's classroom, serving on a nonprofit board of directors finding that thing that is really important. That goes beyond money and mission and just being in the business. So finding that driver beyond that's what I would say to your listeners is probably the most important thing that I'm passionate about is as a small business leader, as a CEO, I feel like we have amazing skill sets to impact the world, and it's not just in the businesses that we run. It's really in the connections in the community that we can make, to continue to make the community better, and we model that behavior for the rest of the world, but then we model it for our team members, so that our team members then also want to care about the community in the way that we do. Thank you.

Nico: 42:52

Thank you so much. That is right up the story that I wanted to hear today. It's the snowball effect. That's one of the reasons I love working with high achievers and if you, like you, you have your team. It might not be humongous amount of people. You have a very good team, you are a great manager, and the impact that you bring to not only yourself, your direct, your children, your partner, but your employees. That's where the impact really hits hard on a lot of different things because you have your employee, their partners. Then they have their family. Parents see their children as being happy because they're employed, they a good employer. It's always a good thing.

Nico: 43:33

I remember my mom and dad when they when I think, when I was 18, 19 years old, I stopped high school, so I don't, I didn't study anything, I continue studying or anything. So I stopped that high school and my dad said learn a trade, but especially learn how to be friendly, be be there for people, do what you say. Those basic traits are things that either you get that from somebody close to you or somebody who inspires you. And I think, sherry, you're inspiring. I love it, I love what you're doing and I would love to hear from you where people can contact you, how they can help you with anything that you're currently looking for. In any case, my network is open to you. Go right ahead. Can contact you how they can help you with anything that you're currently looking for. In any case, my network is open to you. Go right ahead, shout out what you're looking at.

Chrissy: 44:15

Thank you. If they want to connect with me, a great place is on LinkedIn. It's Chrissy Meyer, ceo, also Instagram, and then Reluctantly Resilient, available on Amazon, but reluctantlyresilientthebookcom has the link. So whether you're in the United States, you're international, you can order and you can listen in English on Audible too, because I found out, nico, that all of my small business friends, when I was super excited about writing a book, they all said we don't read, we only listen. So I had to record the audio version.

Nico: 44:42

It's a good thing that I need to take with me, because I'm a talker, I'm not a writer, so I think maybe I'll talk about the book and write it afterwards. That might be another set being disruptive, as they say.

Nico: 45:01

Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much, chrissy, for being here today. It was an amazingly inspiring conversation and I wish you a lot of luck with what you're doing and to my listeners. Really, I think this is the best idea to just get the book and start reading or listening to it People listening to it with Chrissy's voice and remember to jump from your head to your heart and feel beat within. Have a great one. Bye, head to your heart and feel beat within. Have a great one everybody. Bye.