Episode 99: Embracing the CEO Mindset for Business Success

In this episode of The Pursuit of Badasserie: The Podcast, we dive deep into the CEO mindset and its significance for us as entrepreneurs and small business owners. Whether you’re running a one-person show or leading a small team, embracing this mindset can have a profound impact on your business’s growth and success. We explore essential traits like strategic thinking, ownership, accountability, and effective delegation, and discuss why these qualities are vital for long-term success and building a sustainable, scalable business. We’ll also reflect on how the CEO mindset helps us navigate challenges, make tough decisions, and inspire our teams to reach new heights. Tune in to learn how adopting the CEO mindset can take your business to the next level.

Let’s get after it!

In this episode, we discuss:

• Strategic Thinking: Focus on big-picture goals, long-term visions, and strategic allocation of resources.
• Ownership & Accountability: Own your role, stay in your lane, and be responsible for the outcomes of your business decisions.
• Delegation: Learn to delegate effectively and trust your team to handle tasks, allowing you to focus on high-level strategies.
• Adaptability & Agility: Be prepared to make quick decisions, adapt to changes, and navigate challenges with resilience.
• Inspiring Leadership: Lead by example, motivate your team, and create a culture of high performance and engagement.
• Growth Mindset: Embrace continuous learning, see failure as an opportunity, and always strive for improvement.

Why It Matters: Adopting a CEO mindset equips you with the tools and perspectives needed to drive your business toward long-term success. It enables you to work smarter, not harder, and helps you navigate challenges while seizing growth opportunities. By embracing this mindset, you can build a more resilient, scalable, and successful business.

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review and share it with fellow entrepreneurs. Don’t forget to subscribe to “The Pursuit of Badasserie” for more insights and tips on growing your business.

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Read the full transcript of this episode below:

Lynn Howard

Hey there, I’m Lynn

Amanda Furgiuele  

and I’m Amanda welcome to the pursuit of Badasserie: the podcast. Today we are talking about the CEO mindset and what that means to us. and what we hope it means to you.

Lynn Howard

Yes. So we know a lot of you that listen to our podcasts, entrepreneurs and small business owners and don’t really see themselves as the CEO of their life or their business.

And we want to just give you some traits of CEOs and of the CEO minds that we should say, not all CEOs have these traits, but some of the top most influential in a positive way, absolutely embody the majority, if not all of these that we’re going to mention today.

And then why it’s important as a small business or entrepreneur to have these type of the type of mindset, right?

So let’s dive into why it’s important to, well, no, but actually Amanda, let’s start with some traits.

Amanda Furgiuele  

Let’s start with some traits and then we’ll get into the why. Okay. Well, I love this topic because I think as I look back on the last 25 years of me as

As an entrepreneur, I can definitely see the shift of when I went from, you know, hobby to business owner to like, oh, I made a job for myself.

Oh, now I’m more an entrepreneur or now I’m more of CEO. I can see the shift. a lot of it has to do with what a lot of these traits that we’re going to talk about again.

I don’t always have we don’t always have all of these things. Not all entrepreneurs have all of these things, but these are the things that we tend to think that we think of when we see a lot of high-powered CEOs and executives.

And one of the biggest things is strategic thinking. So these are the big picture focus. These aren’t the tiny little things.

These are visionaries. The leadership is all about like a clear vision for the future. are like allocated, how to allocate your resources, how to be strategic, how to think about your time and your money and your energy and the talents and where to allocate them because it can’t you know, I don’t think people say like, how do you do it all?

We hear this all the time. how do you do it how do you do it all? And it’s not because we’re doing it.

Well, it’s because we’re allocating our energies. And I know that sounds like a cop out, but I’m not doing I’m not actually doing it all.

We’re not actually doing it all. We have allocated out based on a big picture focus. So a lot of the strategic thinking that I think of when I think of is that visionary leadership.

It’s not beyond that it’s not the day to day operations. It’s long term goals. It’s big growth opportunities. It’s potential risks and whether or not it’s worth it to go for it.

That’s what I think of when I think of CEO. First and foremost is the strategic thinking. It’s long term visions, short term sacrifices, and sometimes long term sacrifices for the long term vision.

But ultimately, it’s making sure that your decisions align with that vision and allocating your resources to time, energy, money, wherever it needs to go in order to reach that maximum growth and value.

Lynn Howard

Absolutely. You went over three different ones and I’ll recap them, but my favorite one is absolutely. strategic thinking and I need to start with that one um so many things vision and strategy CEO mindset is envision and strategy and actually you said one thing that I want to debunk just a little bit that all CEOs have a clear vision or clear picture and that’s not necessarily true but what sets a CEO apart is even if it’s not clear they trust that their ability and that their team and that their their their like momentum and the little pieces that they do see absolutely will get them there and they will be strategic to make that move and I think a CEO mindset to add to that has a bit more agility in the ability to be of the duck and weave and know like it’s not personal like this is where I’m going and I think that that’s another aspect is like another point outside of strategic is like they tend to not take things personal because they are focused on the strategy they are focused on the the the big

vision, they they see where the collective can go together. And they have that agility that allows them to do so.

You touched on two other points is we can have a whole we should put right that note. We’re going to do a whole podcast on strategic thinking.

I mean this is like it is that is probably in my opinion the number one thing.

Amanda Furgiuele  

The number two would be like owning your role like knowing knowing your life.

Lynn Howard

Yeah and you touched on this just a little bit but and the other one that you touched on is delegation which we’ll get to in a second but owning your role and staying in your lane.

Now even if you are a CEO of one in the beginning having that mindset just knowing that you were going to fill the seats like Amanda and I are constantly looking at and I can remember that those transitions too where we had to

do it all. And actually, I’m so proud of you. Like, even in the last few years that we’ve been working together of like, it’s like, no, I got to control this, I got to control that.

And even though you had a CEO mindset on a lot of things, there were certain aspects of it. And I can delegate this.

And it was a control thing. Now, that’s the shadow side of CEO, as well as that they can feel like they need to micromanage and control everything.

But those that are really in an abundant growth strategic CEO mindset that go really far and build fundamentals and foundations that are lasting, will absolutely understand know our lane, know their lane and own their role.

And this also goes on something I touched on in the last point too, is not taking it personal. That it is a role that they’re playing, and it is the lane in which they’re in.

And it’s not personal, it’s business and being able to have that that line to differentiate between like, okay, are you crossing that line or are we talking business?

And really understanding personal needs over business needs, because a CEO mindset, there’s a lot of sacrifice. There is absolutely a lot of sacrifice.

And, you know, it’s interesting because when we were talking about creating this one, I know this is a shorter podcast, maybe.

But, that we, I was reflective on, like, all of these people were promoting, get rich and all this other stuff.

they hands down, even if they’re talking about a CEO mindset in some aspects, they absolutely do not have a CEO mindset in this way, because they are, they’re not building fundamentals and foundations to build upon.

I think a CEO will absolutely not just own their lane, but they’re building. They’re not just reacting. They’re building things that makes a bigger picture for that vision for that strategic thinking.

Yeah, and they’re learning and evolving as they grow.

Amanda Furgiuele  

Yeah, and want to talk a little bit more about what you said about agility and it’s making decisions quickly as well.

It’s adapting to changing circumstances without hesitation. You can’t always think through every little tiny thing when you’re in that CEO mindset.

So a lot of it, that speed of the agility, the speed of implementation. And as you touched on the making tough decisions, a CEO has to make a lot of hard decisions.

They have to make sacrifices and ones that are not going to be popular for their team, for sometimes the target market.

There’s all sorts of reasons that you have to make big decisions that aren’t necessarily popular, but there are ultimately about that results-oriented company success.

The overall all plan of it. So making tough decisions is another thing I decisive that you have to have as a CEO really trickles down into a lot of things because it is hard to make a lot of those decisions that is hard to be kind of the enemy.

It’s sometimes to take on a lot of the negativity. And it’s in it’s a lot of ownership of being responsible for the outcome of your business.

And whether or not it has the success or a failure, it does come down to you and how you have allocated things and delegated and own what you’re doing.

So a lot of that ownership and accountability can really, really comes down to like the mental toughness that grit that you have to kind of have as a CEO in order to persevere through all of them be resilient.

You want to throw all the words out through all the crap that you have to deal with when you are really in a CEO mindset.

So it’s not just the day to day stuff. It’s all the stuff. So taking ownership of that and being mentally tough, what it comes down to, your dyslexiveness is huge in the CEO mindset.

Lynn Howard

100. And I love that you added the ownership and accountability. I’m gonna move on just so we can keep it concise.

another thing that CEO mindset is really good about is like time management and that kind of goes to the owning your role and when is the right time.

So it’s not just time management is like I’m only going to utilize this much time or this much time, but it’s also like knowing when to leverage it and knowing when to speak up and when not to.

And I think that that also has to do with time management that will also bleed into communication and emotional intelligence.

I feel really great CEOs embody great communication skills. They’re able to be clear and concise in a manner that is palatable to whoever that

they’re speaking with so they can show up and rocket in a boardroom but they can also have conversations with you know their newest employee who might not have as much expertise and also the emotional intelligence and this kind of goes back to like owning your role as well and a few of the other points that we made but having a higher emotional intelligence as a top level CEO is going to help you navigate things understand when you’re supposed to when you’re not when other people’s stuff having an ownership not just in your actions but in your thoughts in your words and one last thing that I will touch on that we kind of touched on and you were talking about it with the ownership is I believe that CEO mindset look at failure is opportunity they embrace it and it’s part of the process and that it is again

Again, big vision and that the everyday actions are getting us there, but it’s a learning opportunity. It’s an evolving opportunity.

And I think that that’s really important with the CEO mindset as well.

Amanda Furgiuele  

Oh, absolutely. definitely about that growth mindset, about continually learning and embracing the change because it’s just going to be changes.

And I also think you touched on it and I want to say it in a different way, but having the leadership and influence and it’s being able to inspire others and to empower your teams because, you know, I talked about delegating, but to delegate effectively, you’ve got to trust your team members to get it done and to ideally to innovate within their area of expertise because you can’t be the area of expertise in everything.

Well, I mean, I guess you could be, but I don’t think that that’s creating a strong team. Ultimately, you want to surround yourself with people who are better at it than you.

So you’re you’re hiring people who are better than you at that aspect of their jobs. so that they can take your business to the next level that you can’t take it to.

We can’t all be brilliantly experts at every single thing. It’s one day, you’re going to aspire to be able to easily learn.

Well, but you have to constantly learn regardless. Even if you are a unicorn, there’s always a constant learning. I think some of the best CEOs are the leaders who really inspire and motivate their teams and create that culture of high performance and high engagement and high levels of achievement just in what they say and how they treat each other.

So I think some of the best CEOs are really about inspiring people, not just getting them to do what you want them to do or paying them certain way.

It’s really about inspiring them to get you to that next level.

Lynn Howard

Even if you’re a solo opener, it could be about your referral team, the people in your community, so you can still have this mindset without a team.

So I want to quickly recap, I think I caught all the points that we went through and then let’s talk about why this is

This is important, especially, you know, even if we’re just a solopreneur or small business. So, on your overall say in your lane, vision and strategy, strategic thinking, decision making and decisiveness, ownership and accountability, management and speed of implementation.

We’ll always be constantly learning and evolving, delegation, failure and your embracing failure and looking at this opportunity to learn, communication, high communication skills, higher emotional intelligence, always looking to inspire and empower and the ability in resilience muscle.

I think I got them all, but I know just to give a recap of some of the traits of the CEO mindset.

Amanda Furgiuele  

So, why is it important? Oh, it’s so important for so many reasons. obviously, since it’s the first thing I mentioned about strategic growth and the strategy behind it, it’s long-term success.

they’re identifying opportunities and focusing on a big picture. So they’re seeing these opportunities for innovation, for market expansion, for competitive advantage and thinking about things crucially, sustainably, whatever it needs to be for that long-term success.

So that strategy, that vision and growth and that growth mindset even is about identifying opportunities on how to give yourself the upper edge among competitors or collaborators.

And there’s so many ways to grow, but that long-term vision needs strategy in order for it to be sustainable and scalable.

Lynn Howard

Absolutely. Well, it gives you the ability to prep for the scalability or scalability preparation. But I think also, and this is a trait, but also like why it’s important is I think when you put on the CEO hat, you are more action-oriented.

You’re that big vision, but like, okay, now I need to put in the action. we see a lot with working with entrepreneurs and small businesses.

They’re like, okay, with the status quo. they’re very, you know, they’re more reactive and sometimes active or passive in their actions.

And with the CEO mindset, you are making things happen. You are not just looking at that big strategy and how you can scale in the long term strategic thinking, but it’s the everyday actions.

And so that ability to find the CEO hat is going to give you that scalability in a very different manner.

And I know we kind of mentioned it before earlier on too, but that’s going to give you long term success and duplicatable success in my opinion.

Amanda Furgiuele  

You actually start working smarter, not harder. Absolutely. mean, these are the things that equips leaders with the tools and perspectives that they need to drive the success of their business and organization.

mean, this is strategic thinking, effective decision-making, strong leadership, financial stewardship, adaptability, flexibility, ability, all this critical thinking is something you need for your long-term as a success in a competitive environment.

And if we were in this tiny little microcosm that wouldn’t make a difference. But without this mindset, you’re going to struggle to navigate all the challenges.

Because when you’re in a CEO mindset, when you own a business as an entrepreneur, you’re going to come up with a plethora of different types of challenges.

And this is, having that mindset is going to be able to navigate the challenges, but also seize opportunities and inspire your teams to reach other heights.

Lynn Howard

Yeah. And on top of that, going back to, it’s like when you’re learning not to take things personal as a CEO mindset.

As those things happen, they’re happening for you, to you, you’re moving along in the bigger picture. And it takes away off of you and a certain responsibility that’s just holding you back that we put on ourselves, like that weight of the world kind of.

thing with the CEO mindset, you’re able to, you are actually freeing yourself up to be more agile, to be more resilient.

So you’re giving yourself the space and energy to do so. That CEO mindset is a game changer. You end up being in the driver’s seat of your business, of your growth, of your vision, not just in business, but also in your life.

And we think running your, well, think even running your household like a CEO mindset, but running your business with the CEO mindset is absolutely going to help you grow, change, evolve, make that money, impact, all that stuff, even if you stay a solo panor.

It absolutely can help you be more, do more, see more than what you ever thought could be possible.

Amanda Furgiuele  

And I won’t even go So far as to say, be happy with where you are and things, because your bigger picture, your growth.

And I think it makes a huge difference in how you see every aspect of your life, not just the numbers of your business.

Lynn Howard

Oh, preach, absolutely. All right, so which trait do you feel that you resonate with the most? And which one do you feel like maybe we’re missing?

We could have named a bunch more, but these were kind of like our top ones to keep it concise.

But we want to know where you’re at with your CEO mindset and how you can lean more into one, because it’s always a concept evolution.

that’s one thing about CEO mindset, is they’re always amplifying and getting better and honing in that of which is working, right?

And so we want to know what your CEO mindset and where you have opportunity for growth.

Amanda Furgiuele  

And what you would add? Let us know. We want to know your opinions. And if this resonates with someone who you…

feel like needs to hear about the CEO mindset. Please send them our way or send them this podcast we would love to preach to everyone.

Lynn Howard

Right. Absolutely.

Amanda Furgiuele  

Until next time, get after it.