Momentum Podcast: 195

How To Become
A CEO

by Alex Charfen

Episode Description

How do you fully become a CEO? This is the ultimate journey. When you reach a point where it doesn’t matter how much you’re doing but how much your team is doing, you’re doing it right. To become a CEO, you need awareness in consistency. Your team feeds completely off of you and how you show up everyday can be the difference between mediocrity and greatness. The responsibility of running a successful business comes with behavioral change. What you do will be seen through a microscope and what you say will be heard through a megaphone.

Full Audio Transcript

I'm Alex Charfen and this is the Momentum Podcast made for empire builders, game changers, trailblazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers and creators of all kinds. Those among us who can't turn it off and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy and we are obsessed with creating momentum so we can roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution. Sure we pay attention to their rules, but only so that we can bend them, break them, then re-write the around our own will. We don't accept our destiny. We define it. We don't understand defeat because you only lose if you stop and we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority. The few who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future and instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters. Clearly the most important people in the world because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive human evolution and we always will be.

How to become a CEO. Something that happens to entrepreneurs as we climb the Billionaire Code is we go from being entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, opportunity seekers who work on our own to becoming this thing called a CEO. The chief executive officer. The person who runs the business. The person who is at the top of that organizational chart. Anyone can call themselves a CEO. It's been a dream of my life. My life when I was a kid, that was my dream was to be a CEO.

The first car I ever got I had a license plate in California that was future CEO. F-U-T-R-C-E-O. No one ever understood it but me. And all I wanted was to run a company and be in that position and understand how to make that work. It's taken me a lifetime. I'm 45 and I'm still studying how do you fully become, how do you take the mantle of CEO. But I can share some shortcuts with you that I found that will help you on this journey and will help you ascend the Billionaire Code because here's what happens and I've said this several times now as we've gone through this stuff.

Is that there comes a time where it doesn't matter how productive you can be anymore, it only matters how productive you can make the people around you. It doesn't matter how much you can do anymore. It matters how much you can help the people around you do. And the last level of the Billionaire Code that we covered was owner. The 10 to 30 million. And even to approach owner, you have to get into the mindset of CEO.

Done correctly now, the fact is you can do a lot and you can skip a lot of the things that I'm going to share with you but here's what I know for a fact. If you do it this way it'll be more fun. It'll be easier. There will be less human collateral damage and you will feel better about yourself when you build your business. I know because I've made a lot of mistakes. Tons.

The first lesson how to become a CEO is what you do will be seen through a microscope and what you say will be heard through a megaphone. And I've said this over and over but I want you to remember that because what happens is people will exaggerate what you say. They will see what you do and they will scrutinize it. They're looking at it because everyone wants to know what's going on with the CEO. They want to know what's happening with you. And so to become a CEO you have to have this awareness so you can become consistent.

And here's what consistency does as a CEO. If you will allow yourself to become consistent and you show up in the same way, you dress the same way, you have the same meetings, you run them the same way, you keep your attitude, your general impression positive and in the same way your team will start to consistently win because your team feeds completely off of you. You have to know that wherever you show up, your team will show up somewhere behind that but never ahead of you.

So you have to be able to become consistent and show up in the same way. And that means ... and when you are consistent when you have systematic communication, I talk about this all the time. You've heard me say it. When your team hears from you and it's sporadic or unplanned or they don't know when it's coming, it's like word from on high. It's hard to know what's important. It's hard to know what's not. When you have systematic communication where you're communicating where you're going, how you're doing, what you're counting on the way to see if you're getting there, that will let your team know exactly where you're going. And then that creates consistency. It creates consistent results.

When you are consistent in how you show up, you're present. You're aware. Your team must see you as present and aware. If you are present, you're aware. You are sharing with them openly. You're more transparent. You're more vulnerable. Your team will do more for you. See in becoming a CEO you actually become the type of person ... not type of person sorry. You become a person worthy of leading a company. Worthy of having the responsibility for the people around you. Worthy of guiding people's lives because by running a company you guide lives. You guide lives of the people who are working with you. You guide the lives of your clients.

So being more present, more aware, more rational, more connected, less triggered are all things that your team should see you as. This is why to become a CEO you should become more consistent across the board. Because again if you do this, if you're rational, you're consistent guys ... when I share this with CEOs, I'm talking about everything. How consistent can you make yourself in everything you do.

We all want spontaneity. We all want to be able to show up and do whatever we want, but when you start running a team and start running a bigger business and have the responsibility for that greater outcome, you have to understand that that responsibility comes with behavioral change. And being more rational, more connected, you should start looking at everywhere you can lower pressure and noise. Because lower noise will help you be more consistent. Lower noise will help you appear more present, more aware, more rational, more connected.

And this is everything. What you eat. How you dress. Your hydration levels. The way you work out. Who you spend time around. How much noise you're letting into your lives. Are you in momentum? All of those will lead to either you being more consistent or less. And again when you're consistent here's what happens. You can build trust with your team. What does that do? When you build trust with your team, you get their discretionary efforts because if they trust you, they will give you more. You will get more from the people who you are paying already.

When you are more consistent, you will show up as a leader. The level of consistency for a CEO, that will allow you to show up as a leader. Show up as someone who can be trusted. Show up as someone who should be followed because here's the fact about being a CEO. And the fact about you if you're listening to my podcast. I know you want to make a massive change in the world. I know you want to impact people. I know you have a in the back recess of your mind, you know you're meant for more. You're going to show up as more, do more, deliver more and change people's lives.

But the biggest impact you will have is on the people most proximal to you. So as a CEO the biggest impact you will have is not on the people who follow you out there. Not on the people who are part of your products or part of your programs who buy your stuff. It's going to be the people who work with you every day who are up close and personal with you. That's the people who you are going to show up as a leader for. And when you are more consistent and you lower noise and you appear rational, connected and you have systematic communication, your team will naturally give you more.

And here's something I want you to think about. If anything I am saying is making you uncomfortable. If you're thinking, "Well I don't want to give that up," or, "I don't want to have to be consistent," or, "I want to be able to show up when I can and do what I want and I don't want to have to be in meetings." I want you to ask yourself do you really want to be a CEO?

And it's okay if your answer is no. It's okay. Because there's people who say, "You know what, I just don't want to do it. I'm going to opt out. I don't want to go in this direction. It's just too much behavioral change. This building trust and consistency and showing up the same way and wearing the same stuff and taking care of myself and doing all those things, the price is too high." If that's how you're feeling I want you to know my podcast is going to annoy you all the time because I help entrepreneurs build empires

. And if you're willing to take care of your team they will take care of you. If you're willing to make it about them, not about you, that is when you truly transcend to CEO. See being a real leader is loving the people who you're leading. And the definition of love is making someone else's best interest, putting someone else's interests above you own even if it's for a short period of time.

Today I was talking to Justin who is our coach who helps me coach some of our groups. We've been recruiting someone this week who decided to join our team today that I'm thrilled about. His name is Matt Olaya and he is one of the most brilliant people I've ever worked with before. He's been on our team. He's coming back. I'm just beyond excited. Justin said something today that he shared with Matt. He said, "I told Matt that your time's incredibly valuable and that it's worth thousands of dollars an hour, but if any of us ever have a problem you'll always take time and talk to us and make sure that we feel like there's a resolution and we feel better even when it's personal."

I do that because I know when it's personal that's when it's most important. I do that because I want my team to have my back and I know I have to have theirs. And I do that because I sincerely care about the people I work with. If things go well, the people on your team are the ones who you're going to go through incredible experiences together. You're going to learn together, grow together. If things go really well, you can grow old together.

And I don't think as entrepreneurs we think about it that way. We hear dumb crap like, "Everyone's replaceable. Hire slow and fire fast." The fact is that your biggest asset once you start building the team is the team. Apple computer is formidable. They are an incredible organization. I bring them up all the time because they're one of the easiest examples to use. Why are they formidable? Because they have the most incredible team on the planet. They've been competing with other companies in Silicon Valley for decades now for the best talent and they've created a recruiting system and a leadership development system and a training program to create the absolute best team on the planet.

And Apple takes care of its people like I've never seen before. That's why they're the strongest company on the planet. So if you're ready for this, the way that you ascend the Billionaire Code the fastest. The way you become a CEO. The way that you have the outcomes that you and I both know you are meant for, is you remember that everything you say is seen through a microscope and heard through a megaphone. You become more consistent and build trust with your team. You show up as a leader making it about them. You take care of your team and they will take care of you. And you show up for your team in a way that's consistent, present, aware, rational and connected.

And then take care of yourself like the million dollar race horse that you are. Because if you're responsible for the welfare of other people as a CEO, then the person in the world that you should be taking care of the most is you. Because the way you show up, the decisions you make, the pressure and noise that you're under, affects everyone in your company. So when you're ready to become a CEO, there's a simple process. You make it about them and no longer about you and your whole world will change.

If you're ready to grow the team you have or start growing a team, you should reach out our company. Go to billionairecode.com. Billionairecode.com. Fill out a few questions for us. We will send you a full summary of the Billionaire Code. And in addition to that, if you're interested, one of my team members will jump on a call with you and share with you the programs we have that help you become exactly the CEO.

Today we were on a coaching call and one my clients, Sterling Griffin, said he didn't realize it but the best thing that he's ever done for morale in his company is install our cadence, our processes and our systems. He told me in the last week that he expects his company to double in the next 60 to 90 days in the number of people that they have. So reach out. We can help and if you're feeling stuck or frustrated or like you're plateaued as an entrepreneur, you don't have to. Go to billionairecode.com, answer a few questions for us and I'm looking forward to connecting with you.

Thank You For Listening!

I am truly grateful that you have chosen to spend your time listening to me and my podcast.

Please feel free to reach out if you have a question or feedback via our Contact Us page.

Please leave me a review on iTunes and share my podcast with your friends and family.

With gratitude,

Alex

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