– Founders, Owners & CEOs Facing Fears To Choose Their Trusted Advisors-
Shocking survey results reveal the lion’s share of founders, owners, and CEOs share the same biggest regret at the end of their professional careers. This regret manifests as a sickening feeling in the pit of their stomachs. It is also a relentless void and curiosity that echoes in the very back of their minds at inexplicable times. It does not matter how “subjectively wealthy” they may be. They share this regret of not taking action with greater boldness and quickness when they went for something in life.
This is especially true about how they operated their businesses. I’ll break down the regret haunting leaders and share ten advantages to seek from outside advisors that help hack growth issues and kill future regret.
Here I show things devolve.
Top leaders find themselves in isolation too often. This creates a lack of brain trust they can brainstorm and critical think with. Even when they have managers to help they still find themselves feeling misunderstood. Handling too much brain work on one’s own is exactly what stifles and erodes business growth. To be clear, by leader’s brain work, I mean handling all necessary learning, challenges, stress, and whatever trials and tribulations get thrown his or her way.
Here is how to evolve.
Building the right internal team is a mission-critical task for founders, owners, and CEOs. Most business teachings cover this need extensively. Of course, the execution of acquiring and building the right teams is most challenging. Naturally, businesses that become thriving organizations have success with building teams. There is a major hack to alleviating this regret that does not have even a tenth of the documented guidance as building a strong staff (internal team) does. I am talking about getting the right outside advisors with different thinking that is not blinded by the mental quicksand of, “The way it’s always been done,” or “We can’t do it that way because it’s too radical.”
You see, at the end of the day, building people and processes with consistent-repeatable-processes (C-R-P) to scale growth is the only way to transform a sole proprietorship into a thriving organization that feeds the families of dozens to hundreds of staff members. Breaking these limits requires unique talent.
Hack regret!
If you want to hack into the secret for taking action with greater boldness and quickness then get the right outside advisor who is not limited by, “daily operational challenge blindness.” When you are too close to the problems then sometimes it is hard to see the most unique and evolved solutions. This is the skewing of brilliant thinking caused by overloaded daily monotony and risk avoidance that comes with thinking that maintaining the status quo today is better than risking a bad day that could lead to a bad quarter. Worse yet, lead to a bad year or a downfall. Fear and self-preservation collide to minimize internal talent limits. The results are reduced boldness and a slowdown in actions. Hack the problem! Get the right outside advisors early on. These faces may change and grow in numbers over time. Having no advisors or the wrong ones ensures a painful regret awaits you down the road. Know what to look for.
Many top leaders of small and midsized companies do not have a Board of Directors, much less a Board of Advisors. You can get started by aligning with an outside advisor who can provide results-driven solutions for complex challenges. Look for outside advisors who provide these ten advantages.
- Accelerates the way leaders think and act like an entrepreneur so they can focus on growth by impacting the symbiotic relationship between employee experience and customer experience.
- Increases the networking connections to open doors for faster growth that may have been locked or otherwise would have taken longer to open or may have never opened.
- Brings wisdom and experience to secure capital raises while examining funding alternatives and interfacing with lenders on the businesses’ performance
- Encourages holding people accountable to annual plans with set metrics while simultaneously building three-year tactical plans aligned with evolving multi-year strategy.
- Brings accomplished financial and operational experience and quickly assesses situations to provide alternatives and recommendations to complex challenges
- Strengthens strategic thinking but provides additional bandwidth to implement the thinking in ways that help create consistent-repeatable-processes (C-R-P)
- Helps identify and prioritize key initiatives to focus resources on so that the daily dilemmas and fears do not get leadership off track with a “firefighter mentality.”
- Defies “Yes man” mentality by exerting external challenges to top leadership’s decision-making process so that everyone stays sharper.
- Serves as a protector of all perspectives so open communication can exist without penalty and allow for a stronger decision-making process
- Helps mentally prepare for an exit strategy and succession planning well ahead of time so the business valuation is paramount within the strategy
Bonus advantage is gained when you and your teammates can name and identify the 15 categories of rejection that exist in the world to shoot down your upward trajectory toward your vision.
You do know what the 15 categories of rejection are? They are essentially the sources of Yes. For a refresher, check out, The 15 Categories of Rejection.
Conclusion
Look, it’s natural for leaders to want to be the king of the jungle. The king of the jungle should build a bigger jungle faster. So, focus on this, Simba. The king of the jungle can have a bigger jungle in half the time! Not to mention with less stress to deal with along the journey.
The right outside advisor is essential to make this happen. So is the right methodology to operate and grow a business. Renaissance Methodology is an excellent way for leaders to inspire and transform people and processes into scalable systems. It does this using coachable behavior change techniques that develop a growth spirited culture. Combine the right advisor with the right methodology and your cycle time to your vision shortens.
Reverse engineer your path on the journey to prevent the burden of regret that the lion’s share of founders, owners, and CEOs strap themselves with. Break your pride down. Open your mind up. Seek out and allow the right trusted advisor into your inner circle. Capture the benefits of having an advisor who vibes with you and pushes you. Be prepared to be uncomfortable. That is the high hurdle you must jump to make this hack happen. It is ultimately your limited thinking, fear, doubt, and miser mentality that will inhibit the type of success you do achieve or the level of failure you sink in. Be bolder with a quickness. Seize bigger dreams faster.
