Don't Stay Trapped in the Day to Day

As entrepreneurs, when we start our business, we do everything. We literally do everything to be successful. We create the product. We sell every customer. We deliver the product. We must do everything in order to get our business up and running and off the ground.

Now, here's the challenge, that Pavlovian conditioning of doing everything and creating success psychologically traps us in doing everything. In fact, one of the most natural instincts for an entrepreneur is to say, "I got it. I'll do it. I've got this." When your team is there, but here's the challenge, when you let yourself be trapped in the day-to-day, it is one of the least empowering ways to run a business as an entrepreneur, and it will, in fact, in reality, 100% of the time, stunt your business's growth unless you get out of the day-to-day. Don't stay trapped in the day-to-day, I'll explain in just a sec.

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 rewrite them 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.

We hear this all the time from clients. They're trapped in the day-to-day of their business, they're doing a ton. And here's what happens to us as entrepreneurs, instinctively, we have this reflex, it says, if there's something that needs to get done, we should do it. If there's something that needs attention, we should give the attention. We want to jump in and make things happen, move things forward, stay in momentum and make the business grow. And here's why we are so committed to doing this. Here's why we do it so often, it's because the challenge we have is when we started our business by doing everything we created success. By doing everything we made things happen. By hustling every day, by working hard, by putting ourselves out there we grew the business to the point where it is now.

But here's the challenge, we have to make a tectonic behavioral shift, a massive behavioral shift. It's almost 180 degree turn, not almost, it is, from doing everything in the business to stepping back and doing what we should do in the business. Now, if you write stuff down while I'm sharing, this is something you should write down. See, here's the issue, it feels natural, it even feels like we're being helpful when we jump back into the business and say, "Let me help, let me contribute. Let me do this." But here's the problem, it traps us in the day-to-day.

And here's the anecdote, ready for this? Write this down if you write down when I'm sharing. Stepping back creates the space for your team to step up. I want to just say that again, stepping back creates the space for your team to step up, because here's what happens to us so often as entrepreneurs, we want to jump in, we want to make things happen, we want to support, we feel like we're being helpful, but the challenge is, if we don't take a step back, our team doesn't have the space to step up. If you are always doing something for your team, they're not going to naturally jump in and do it. They're not going to build a process around it. They're not going to build a system around it. It's not going to be something that happens the same way over and over again. So you must step back for your team to step up.

Now, this is why this is so important. Once you have gotten your business to the point where you have a team, your job, your major focus, what you should be doing every single day is to get out of the day-to-day, to hand off the day-to-day, to reinforce, to fortify, to make the day-to-day stronger. And here's how you do that, you stop doing it all yourself. When you have a team and systems and people and process around the day-to-day deliverables, the day-to-day activities in your company, everything will shift. Another reason why this is so important, when you're caught in the day-to-day, your team is not building process around the day-to-day. If you're handling, if you're doing it, if you're taking care of it as an entrepreneur, then your team defacto is not because you're doing it. So the more you stay caught in the day-to-day, the less your team builds process and systems and structure around what needs to happen every day in your business.

And another reason why this is so important, when you have the urge to jump in and do it, you feel like you're being helpful. But here's reality, you are disrupting your team. You are disrupting the team you're developing, you're disrupting the flow you're developing, you're disrupting the systems, the processes, the structure you're developing that makes your business grow. And for so many of us, this is so hard. I talk about this, but I still do it. I have to remind myself all the time. In fact, it's almost like an ongoing mantra, stay out of the day-to-day. Get out of the way. Let your team do it. You have a team, let them ...

I literally have a post here right on my computer that I'm reading as I talk to you here that says no more random ideas to keep me out of the day-to-day of just telling my team random ideas of what was going on, and what they should start trying.

So here's what you need to know, number one, stop saying, "I got it." Stop jumping back in. Stop hard-wiring yourself to the day-to-day of the business. Every time, are you ready for this? Every time you say, "I got it." Every time you jump in and do it, every time you make something happen in the business when somebody else should be, you are hurting your team. You are damaging your team. You are breaking your team's confidence. You are breaking trust with your team. You are holding them back. You are pushing them backwards. It may feel helpful, but it causes chaos. Stop saying, "I got it." Get out of the way or you will stay trapped in the day-to-day. I did not mean to rhyme that, but it was cool that it did.

Here's what else do you need to know, you have to move from transactional management to transformational management. Here's the challenge, transactional management is telling people what to do, checking that it got done and telling them what to do again. That process, that transactional management of checking and telling people what to do, checking it got done, telling them what to do, checking it got done, and telling them what to do is so exhausting. It grinds us down. It breaks us down as entrepreneurs. It will cause adrenal fatigue and chronic fatigue and hormone issues and cortisol issues because transactional management being in that, telling them what to do, got them done, tell them what to do, got them done, is exhausting.

So what I want you to do is switch into transformational management. And here's what transformational management is. It is giving people clear outcomes, clear outcomes, coaching success along the way, and getting leveraged results. There's your three step process. Replace to do, checking it got done, telling them what to do, with clear outcomes, coaching success, and getting leveraged results. And you know what happens in that transformational leadership? You can't get in the way because you hand off the outcomes to your team. You coach their success when they need it, and you're going to get leveraged results. That will change everything in your business and get you out of the day-to-day.

And then the last thing I want you to know is if you want people to be responsible in your business, you ready for this? Give them responsibility. One of the reasons that so many entrepreneurs have teams that are not empowered, that don't take initiative, that aren't making the business move forward, that aren't crushing it, that aren't really going out and doing things, where the entrepreneur feels like not enough is happening, it's not happening fast enough, there's not enough initiative, they don't trust their team, what is the reason for all of that? It's pretty easy, if you don't give your team responsibility, they're not going to act in a responsible way. If you don't hand things off to them entirely and let them take care of it, they're not going to get things done.

So the more you give your team responsibility, the more you can expect them to be responsible. But that cuts both ways. If you have not fully handed off a responsibility, if you're still jumping in and saying, "I got it." If you're still playing in that part of the business, then they don't have the opportunity to be responsible. You have to step out of the way.

Now this will change your life. This will change your business. This will change the way you react in your business and it will change the way the team in your business reacts to you because when you step back, and create the space for your team to step up, you can finally extricate yourself from the day-to-day of the business. And here's what happens, here's the result you will have, here's how things change, when you get out of the day-to-day, when you get out of the tactical day-to-day, your mind will instinctively, almost automatically, switch into strategic thinking, if you allow it to. At first there might be some insecurity. In fact, we get these calls all the time from our clients where they'll say, "Hey, I'm out of the day-to-day. My team's taking care of everything. I don't really know what I should be doing anymore. You know, what's next?" Well, here's what happens, when you clear that space for yourself tactically, you will shift out of the day-to-day and your entire perspective of what's possible will shift.

And here's what I want you to know about what I just said, when I say, "When you're out of the day-to-day in your business, your entire perspective of what's possible will shift." Here's what I mean, it will shift in your life. It will shift in your business. It will shift in your relationships because when we start to understand that as entrepreneurs, we can create massive outcomes without tactical involvement, the possibility of what we can accomplish in the world explodes. The possibility of what we are capable of is exponentially greater. And we start to perceive and see and feel and understand an entirely new reality around us. That may sound like an exaggerated outcome from stepping out of the day-to-day, but here's my challenge to you. Try it and tell me how it worked. Try it and tell me if you feel like it changed your life more than just about anything you've ever done. Because when you're truly out of tactical activities, for the most part, when you are shifted to strategic opportunities, when you start looking at the world through that lens, everything in your life will shift.

If you're ready to step out of the day-to-day in your business, I want you to, in fact, I want to help you. Tomorrow, on Friday at 1:00 PM Eastern, I'm doing an online presentation called The Five Reasons Why Companies That Should Scale, Don't Scale. And if you've got a business where you are creating the customer effect, where you know you have a product that works, where you know you should be selling more, doing more, contributing more, and making a bigger impact, and let's get real, making a bigger income, do not miss my presentation tomorrow. If you go to billionairecodesecrets.com. That's right, billionairecodesecrets.com, sign up, be on the presentation live, or if you can, watch the replay because here's what I'm going to share with you, the five reasons, the five pillars, the five things that you must have in your company to scale, and why when you don't have them, your company will not scale.

So if you are in a place where you feel trapped, where the numbers aren't going up, where you want to be able to grow more, where you know you should be making a bigger impact, where you know you should be making more money, join the webinar tomorrow, billionairecodesecrets.com. I look forward to seeing you there.