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From Founder to CEO: Breaking the “Do-It-All” Trap with Carol Schultz · Better Together

• Meesam curingbusy: Hi everyone and welcome back to Better Together podcast. I'm Kelly Sunsvold co-hosting with my partner in business and life, Sean Sunsvold. Today's guest is Carol Schultz, founder and CEO of Vertical Elevation, columnist and bestselling author of Powered by People. She's known for helping overwhelmed CEOs get out of the weeds and lead with clarity with her no fluff approach and signature chief of staff scaffold system. Carol helps leaders restructure their time, build stronger teams, and take back control of their businesses. Carol, welcome. I'm glad you're here. Welcome to Better Together. Thanks, Kelly. Glad to be here. Yeah, absolutely. So you've built a really successful business. You've written bestselling books, and you've developed a proprietary system for leaders. That's a lot. And that's pretty awesome. originally pulled bad at 29 years old, huh? Right? Exactly. Exactly. What originally pulled you into entrepreneurship and how did that evolve into what you're doing today? Oh gosh, how much time do we have? The high level short version is I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. Entrepreneurship was nothing new for me. I, of course, have worked for some companies. when I started out in the search industry in 1992, I worked for a firm for nine years. And then went back out on my own back into entrepreneurship because it just, lot of bad leaders out there. you know, certainly, entrepreneurship is not for everyone. You have to be prepared to work really hard and you... You know, one of the biggest problems with entrepreneurs and I had this problem myself was doing everything myself and it's just super late, super not effective. That's for sure. That's for sure. Yeah. Have you? And I believe being my own boss as an entrepreneur, not that I don't have, I mean, I have clients to answer to, but for me, someone who's driven by the opportunity to make a difference, it really helps me fulfill that as an entrepreneur. Yeah, that's awesome. And I think that's really important to have as a, know, when you're leading the business and creating things is that, that, that knowledge that you really want to change the lives of other people, right? Yeah. You know, especially now that you're working with like high performing CEOs every day, you know, they're all kind of in that same boat, right? They're trying to build something, you know, for lack of a better word, incredible, right? They want to, they want to make that impact, but like everyone else, they're kind of stretched thin, right? So, What are some of the biggest traps that entrepreneurs fall in when they're trying to scale their companies? Well, like I said, they try to do too much themselves. That is the single number one reason. it's what had me pivot from doing what I was doing, which was as a professional headhunter for 30 years, working with startups my whole career. So, you know, I like to think, I don't know everything about startups, but I know more than the general population. And I've seen pretty much every founder make pretty much every mistake there is to make. And that's what launched me into becoming a fractional chief of staff because CEOs need the expertise and the help that I provide for them, right? So they are, they're in the weeds. You know, as I say, they're a hostage to their company and they're drowning in six inches of water, right? Because they're all trying, and successfully I might add, to do everything themselves. So, so many founders and founder CEOs are spending gosh, 50 % of their time even more on working in their business. So whether it's answering emails, you could hire an executive assistant to do that, right? A fractional executive assistant. That's not work I do, of course, but you can hire somebody to do that for you. I just recommended that to a client of mine not long ago. They are busy in meetings that they really don't need to be in where somebody like me can go in their place, right? That's ultimately the biggest trap that CEOs fall into is doing trying to do things they really have no business doing. They need to keep their head up and their brain and their hands busy leading the business, right? Yeah. Yeah. And that kind of leads into that common myth of entrepreneurship is that you have to do it all. We joke about having all the hats, like a marketing hat, an accountant hat. We've shared on this podcast before that our first hire was an accountant because numbers are not shown a nice thing. Right. He's he's more operational. Yeah, pass off, delegate the things that you can so that you can grow your business. you know, and I will say the challenge with that, Kelly, is that what ends up happening, and I just had this conversation with somebody on my podcast who's an amazing, I've known him many, many, years. He's a professor at CSU and an ⁓ amazing equine surgeon, and he started a company some years ago. You know, even himself, you he didn't know what he didn't know, right? So what ends up happening is founders often still, I, again, as somebody who had been a professional headhunter, I still had this, I still made this mistake, right? Because these were things that were not in my wheelhouse, which was hiring the wrong people, hiring people to do things for me, they turned out to be the wrong people because it was not my area of expertise to even know how to interview them, right? You know, like hiring somebody to do SEO for me. I've had a number of different people do it. I finally hit the right person and wow, has it made a difference. Yeah. mean, huge, huge difference because I don't know squat about SEO. So for somebody like me, it makes it really, really hard. And even my chief of staff who does most of those initial interviews for me, she doesn't know enough about SEO. She knows about other stuff. So it made that a real challenge for us to find the right person. Yeah, for sure. When you're an entrepreneur trying to do everything that... is the fastest way to head to burnout. what do you find, why do you think so many founders fall into the superhero syndrome and it's what's costing them, you know, the cost of staying there just too long? think there are a number of reasons, Kelly. One of them is some of these people are operating on a shoestring budget. So they become penny wise and pound foolish. And here's my advice to every entrepreneur, if you cannot afford to spend money to hire the right people, Don't become an entrepreneur. You will never grow your company. It's not going to happen. And if it does, it'll take you exponentially longer than it would otherwise. That's the first thing. The other thing, and I co-authored an article about this, is founder syndrome. Only I can do it. I am the hero. So often, I mean, this sometimes happens later on in a founder journey, but It's not uncommon where, I mean, I had a conversation with the founders. was like, yeah, I'm doing two full-time jobs. I'm thinking, why are you doing that? And you've got two babies at home. How's that working for you? Well, we're bootstrapping. Okay. Well, you know, if you think you can build a business like that, go for it. But I don't know what, you know, listen, a good buddy of mine is one of the partners with Foundry Group, venture, very well known ⁓ venture capital firm here in Boulder. I've known them a long, long time, over 20 years. And Seth always says, If you don't have to take venture capital, it's really not a good deal for you. So people are now under the impression that they should just be bootstrapping. And that's not necessarily the best way to do it. Maybe it is, maybe it's not. mean, if you can bootstrap and get yourself up and running to a certain point, then maybe you need to consider taking institutional capital or going to your bank saying, hey, you know what, we've made this much money. Can we get a half million dollar line of credit? I mean, that's another really effective way for founders to do things. I had a client that said to me that I was thinking about getting private equity. And I thought, in what world do you think private equity can invest in your company? It's not going to happen. think I love the idea of like, you know, helping them create options, right? Because I think that's that happens with founders a lot. They get this vision in their head of where they're supposed to go. Right. And I use the word supposed to because that's what's their vision of what is happening. And because of that, they forget all the different options that could be available to them. If they would slow down long enough and maybe ask some questions to the right people, which I think also kind of leads into that idea of them being hostages to their business. Right? Like I cannot get over that visual. That was so amazing. So like in practice, you know, as we're going through that, what are some signs that a founder has become a hostage to their own company and what's the conversation you have with them of how to get out of that? So, you know, they're working 60, 70, 80 hours a week. And the business is not growing. ⁓ And they're doing lots of other jobs in the business. You know, they're spending half of their time managing their people. had a founder that was doing exactly that. Carol, I'm working 80 to a hundred hours a week, her words, and 50 % of it is spent managing people. I just, you know, just shook my head thinking, what are you thinking? The amount of waste, she's not been completely restructured. She now has, she had had a fractional. Chief of Staff, that person is now full-time, been full-time for some time. She spends maybe 10 % in her business now, of her time. So, you know, the conversation is, listen, it's a conversation that somebody like me who's been in sales my whole career asks. It's a conversation of somebody that, like me, who started my coaching training in 1998, right? I just ask a lot of questions and find out where their pain is and how it's affecting them, not only professionally, But personally, now when I have founders tell me my family is at the bottom of the food chain of everything I have to do, and this is, I mean, I've had them tell me this. They come last. I'm yeah, how's that working for your relationship with your wife and your kids? Like, what's the impact? And that's I really focus on is the impact on them, the personal impact, right? Because one of my great coaches said to me years ago, You know, you don't have business problems, you have personal problems that show up in your business. know, and there's great- it's not wrong. There's great truth to that, isn't Yes, there is. Yeah. So because we can't ultimately keep separate those two things, it's not possible. Yeah. You may be able to work hard and minimize some of it, but you cannot keep them separate. So better to get your house in order and learn how to help that flow into your business in a really positive way so that those problems stop limiting you, right? For sure, for sure. Yeah. ⁓ gosh, yeah. Yes, yeah. So on that, like the entrepreneurship, often demands a lot of reinvention. were just talking with someone a couple of days ago about how she blew up her business because it wasn't working and she needed to completely restructure. You don't just build it once and just like coast. It's like, I could get more efficient here or like, this is not working at all. I need to throw this out. What's something that you've had to unlearn or completely shift in your own business over the years? That's a really good question. There's probably so much. I mean, my biggest shift was realizing I had to stop doing stuff myself to save money. Yeah. I mean, I hate to going back to that, these are the things that I learned that I now give to other people because they're having the same problem. But that's ultimately what the issue is. Stop, you know, stop. spending your really expensive time doing, you know, 50, 100 hour, know, $100 hour work, whatever that is, it's things you have no business doing. I had a coach a while back that said, list out everything you do in a day and then list out everything you do in a week and put a dollar sign by it. Is this a $10 an hour job or is this a $100 an hour job? the same premise. Yeah, it really, it really makes you like opens your eyes to, okay, you know what? Personally, I love cleaning my house. I love it. I love reorganizing. know that's not everyone's thing. That's not mine. But should I be doing this? know, like those are questions that it ties back to what you're talking about delegation and really making sure that you're using your time the wisest. And then as soon as you get employees that are relying on that income, you got to really be careful with your time so that they continue to have a livelihood. That's one of the many reasons I don't do my own cleaning. Yes. Yes. I hate it, but I'm good at it. But you know, I pay somebody about $40 an hour, 38 to 40, depending on how long it takes her to do the house, right? And my time is far more valuable than that. Yeah. Far more valuable. mean, hundreds of dollars more an hour. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit more about kind of that transformation that happens, right? Because as a founder or a CEO, You go from like, okay, I'm the only person doing this. I have to, I have to be this, I have to be this, I have to be this person. And then there's this process that you go through to eventually become the CEO of leading an organization. What's one of the hardest transitions that most founders face beyond just the delegation, right? Cause we've talked a lot about that one and how do you help them navigate it? know, I think ultimately founders don't realize when go, especially when it's their first trip into foundership. They don't really realize what this actually looks like. ⁓ Right. And they're, they're not getting advice. They're not getting the right advice. They've got things living in their blind spots. You know, you don't know what you don't know. And the only way to help, first of all, it's not, you know, the people that hire me, it's not a one, one meeting close ever. ⁓ Even if they're referred to me, I don't close deals that fast because nor do I, when I'm hiring someone, right? I, It's really important that people get to know you because I'm not necessarily everybody's cup of tea. You know, I had somebody recently criticize somebody for saying, people he used to, used to, was former pro bull rider that they'd talked to some people, you know, that he used to compete with that didn't like him. And I thought nobody can go through life without making some enemies. Come on now. I can assure you there's people out there that do not like me. And, you know, I had somebody recently respond to a reach out. about my executive roundtables that I run every three weeks-ish saying that he wasn't completely offended by my, you know, I free hostages thing. And I thought, really? Huh. And I just, you know, said, huh, you know, I'm sorry about that. I mean, I thought, boy, are you judgmental? How's that, how else is that affecting you in your life being that judgmental? Right. Yeah. So my point about telling you that, Sean, in kind of a roundabout way is that people have to be self-aware enough to even begin the conversation of transformation. I mean, if they're completely clueless, then I'm not so sure I can even get them there. To even have them hire me. Nor would I, am I that necessarily interested in having them as a client? Yeah, yeah. And I think something that we've talked to a lot of people on our show and the phrase that keeps coming up over and over again is like, I wasn't planning to build a business, right? They're, it's so like they're accidental CEOs, right? So it's the kind of like. It's like they walked off the cliff and they realized they have to build the plane or build the hang lighter before they hit the ground and crash. And so it's like, well, who do I give this to? Who do I give this to? And so it's that learning as you go kind of process. so I love how you kind of talk about that. But again, I go back to the visual, just so spot on with it. Yeah. And that's why people reach out to me all the time. ⁓ I work with coaches and consultants. And I say, I'm not a coach. I'm not a consultant. Coaching is part of what I do because I'm a trained coach, but I'm not selling anybody my coaching services. I'm selling them a system that includes coaching. includes, you know, all these other things that this nine step process includes. And coaching is just a piece of it. A piece of it is what I is, is training them how to do the search work they need to know how to do. You know, it includes me going in and writing their position descriptions for them. So they're actually right. And creating competency models. So we know how to actually I don't want to say judge, know, do performance reviews for our current people. And it also helps us hire new people because now we know what the competencies are, how important are those competencies to success? And, know, where does somebody come in on a scale of one to five in those competencies? Right. So there's a lot of things that I've been doing for a very long time. ⁓ So it's important to realize that it's not just one thing that can help a CEO founder fix their situation. It's several different things. Yeah. Right. It's having all these different tools to make you a better leader. has all these different tools to help give you, to help you focus on strategy blocks every day where nobody's going to bother you because you're the visionary to lead the company. Yeah. And I think part of that too is like when you're a founder and you're kind of getting started, you don't really have a lot of people to talk to, right? Like you don't know who to talk to about the mistakes. You don't know who to talk to about how do I figure this out? Because at that point in time, most of the people you're talking to are your clients, you know, maybe it's a family member who doesn't have a clue about how to run a business or how you do what you do. And so I think that's really a unique aspect of what you do is that you do offer that coaching and that ability to be that sounding board for them to go, okay, this just happened. What the F do I do? Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, that's, that's always been music to my ears. I'll never forget the first time a CEO said that to me, a founder CEO, Carol, what should I do? Instead of answering him, just responded with a question, of course. Yeah. Good coaching practice. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, it's, the reality is, you know, I mean, listen, sales 101, if you want to call it that, or even coaching 101 is, you know, when somebody asks you an open-ended question, you respond with a question, right? And, you know, what should I do is I would say kind of an open-ended question because there's many different ways to answer that question. So I just responded with another question and it helped him actually verbally walk himself through the process. Yeah. With my help, and that's where, know, when each of us has that aha moment on our own, rather than just being given the answer, it's far more impactful. Which isn't to say I don't give people the answers, because sometimes I just have to. You know, how much time do you spend, like, you know, I'm not a therapist, where I'm gonna have you give me a ton of money for years and years and years, and you still never get to the problem. Right. Right? And that's, for me, the big difference between coaching and therapy. Eventually they're gonna get, if I can't get you there myself, to where I wanna see you pick up from the blind spot that you're in, I'm gonna eventually tell you. And it's, you know, it may be two or three sessions down the road. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's just, that's honestly really ⁓ empowering to them. It's also very kind to them. They're not wasting time. You're just going, look, this is what I've experienced. Here's what I think you should do. Go get this help and then come to me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go on. ⁓ You developed the Chief of Staff scaffold system. It's a really unique approach. Can you give us a little bit of behind the scenes look at how this system came to life and why it works, especially for like entrepreneurs? Yeah. So it came to life ultimately. You know, I wrote a book, this book you mentioned, Powered by People, how town-centric organizations master recruitment, retention, revenue, and how to build one. That was published in June of 22, so three and a years ago. A little over. Ultimately, the Chief of Staff scaffold system was born from that. Right? I had had people telling me for years, Carol, you really should write a book. A buddy of mine told me in the early 2000s, Carol, I'm reading this book such and such. I couldn't possibly remember it now. It's been too long. You should have written this book. You know more than this guy. I'm like, yeah, writing a book is not easy and it's extremely time consuming. So it took, you know, I probably should have done it 10 or 15 years sooner, but you know, shoulda, woulda, coulda. I can't draw on that. And what I discovered was this. Founders say, Talent is important, but it's really them just blowing sunshine up their skirt and yours. Okay. Because when you ask founders, founders or founder CEOs, what their top three things in priority are, what do you think those three things are? guess? Leads, revenue, and something else. What was the first one? Leads. And then you said revenue and something else. Revenue. Yeah. So revenue was the first one. Product was the second one, right? Whatever you're selling. So maybe it's services for some people, but you know, most people they interviewed were people who sold something. And number coming in at number three was their people, you know, and what they don't understand is if they put number three at number one, number two and number one will follow. Interesting. Okay. Product and revenue will follow if you have the right people. But that was like pushing a boulder uphill. So the pivot for me, again, the system was already there. We just, I just put it together in different, a whole different package where, you know, as ⁓ I had my own chief of staff, never dawned on me that that's what I should be doing. Wow. I mean, talk about blind spots. was at the gym one morning talking to my buddy Ted, who's a fractional head of sales, been in sales his whole career. I was grousing about something and he goes, you know, Carol, you should be a fractional chief of staff. You know more about SIDARP than anybody I know. And I thought, ⁓ that's a really interesting idea. And we started vetting it out and ultimately realized, you know what, is, CEOs need this. And then one of my mentors said, I think you're on the wrong track, Carol, because. Why are small companies, I small companies need this as much as not more than the fortune companies. And we never looked back. So all we did was repackage basically what I wrote in my book in a different way and built this nine step process that is more marketable, it's more palatable and how, you know, I don't say, hey, hire me as your fractional chief of staff. Here's what I'm going to do for you. I sell outcomes. You want to build your business? Great. Here's what, here's. you'll be able to do that with me. You're in too many meetings, guess what? I'm gonna go to almost, I'm gonna go to every one of those meetings for you. And alongside you, the ones that you need to be in. So that's an outcome that's gonna free a whole lot of your time. So all these things create the outcome of freeing their time. I mean, how many CEOs do you know that actually book out two or three hours of strategy time not to be bothered every day? Nobody. Yeah. Yeah. We posted about that this week and somebody said he has just started doing that and what a difference it had made. Yeah. I've talked to a lot of people that it's like that that's not something on their calendar. That's right. The minute they do that like their business Dramatically changed six months later because they actually had the time to strategize that's right think about what were the roadblocks that they need to get around and to go through and You know, it goes back to something you mentioned, know about the the three things right your revenue your leads and your people right like product those product and people so like those three things and people being at the bottom and And it's like they think hiring will slow them down, right? Like I have to take the time to hire somebody. I have to take the time to train them. They see all the roadblocks that it creates versus seeing like what it's going to free up for them. Right. So what advice would you give to a founder who kind of has that mentality or says, I can't afford to hire somebody right now? As far as an employee? Yes. Yeah, that's hard. You know, I, I'm pretty straight with people and I would, I would likely say to that person that you shouldn't be in business. If you, again, I said this early on in our conversation, if you are not prepared to spend some money or go into debt, then you should not be an entrepreneur. I really feel strongly about that. I mean, I went through practically my whole inheritance pivoting my business. Wow. And you know, it worried me to do that. And that's the reason I didn't leave my leave. That's the reason I didn't write the book and leave recruiting sooner. I was making a shit ton of money. Yeah. I had great clients, I was doing retained search, but I didn't want to do that anymore. I couldn't make the impact I can now. So that journey led me to some years of starving and taking a lot of debt on and so on and so forth. And I'm willing to do that. Everybody's willing to do that. And if you do it the right way, you will come out of it on the other side. If you've got something that people want and people need and they realize that, then... you're fine. yeah, mean, Sean, that's the only thing I can tell you. They should not be in business as an entrepreneur if they can't afford it. Because here's the thing. Have you ever been in a position where you're thinking, gosh, we really need a new car, but we can't afford one? And you buy one anyway. You figure out how to do it. So the whole, don't have the money. I call bullshit on that. I really do. People always find the money for something they want. Yeah, they do. Yes, they do. Yes, they do. And I think there's- to call them out on it. I call bullshit on this. Yeah. And I think there's something about being an entrepreneur. You have to be willing to stomach the risk. Yeah. And like you said, that's not for everybody. Right? Like the bigger the company you want to be, the bigger you want to grow, the more risk is required for that. you have to be able to kind of live with that on your shoulders as you go forward. Yeah, you really do. And, you know, and of course then as the company grows, the founder may or may not be the person to continue leading that company as a CEO. That's founder syndrome comes into place really. You know, they're like, well, it was my vision. I was the only one. Nobody else can take my place. No, there's other people that can take your place. I hate to break the news to you. You can go become the chairman of the board and bring in a different CEO. I mean, in this world, do you think if Mark Zuckerberg did not own 51 % of Meta, he would still be the CEO there? I would assert not a chance. Yeah, that's a good question. That's my assertion. Could I be wrong? course I could, but I just, I think he's terrible CEO. Yeah, yeah. I was immediately thinking about like the Snapple piece of like when Snapple, they came in and they fired the CEO. anyways. Okay, so let's talk about failure, which is not a fun topic, but every entrepreneur has faced it and you're really open about yours. Can you share how failure has shaped your leadership and changed the way that you run your business? ⁓ Failure, listen, failure to me is another opportunity. And maybe that's just because I was in sales for, you know, sales for so many years, you get more nos than you do yeses. So I kind of, you you think of those nos as failures and those yeses as wins. So, you know, I've made mistakes. plenty of them. you know, years ago, I'll never forget this is when I was still at the search firm. And because I was with a contingent firm, this was before moving into retained work, right? You know, I wasn't getting a salary, so it was all big risk. you know, they yanked me into their office one day, as they often did for me doing something stupid or, you know, but I wouldn't hear about it till six months later, and said to me one day, you know, we got this letter back in those days from this guy that I had candided, I had talked to and he said, you accused him of being a liar and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I thought, what the F? That's totally not true. But the guy had told me a story and you know how sometimes somebody tells you something so unbelievable, you're like, there's no way that could have happened. Even though you know they're not lying to you. Well, he interpreted that as being me having lied to him. And they said, first of all, if you even say anything to the guy that we said anything to you, or if this ever happens again, you're gone. And so you have to start to look at and think, okay, so why did that failure happen? Right, because I consider that a failure. And what then gets me up to pull up my boots back on and step forward out of that? Well, partly it's my own stick-to-it-iveness, but I've been in that position where I've pissed people off. And when that started to change for me, so I'm going to have to digress a minute because there's reasons behind that, was in my coaching work. When my coach said to me, this was, started in 1998, this was pre-9-11. So it was probably in 2000 that this happened. I was coaching my first program. We were sitting in the bar of building one of the World Trade Center and he put down his drink. It was at the end of our Saturday, was all the coach, the whole coaching team was down there eating and drinking. And he said, Carol, you have trust and intimacy issues. It was like the light bulb went ding, ding, ding, ding, ding over my head. And I thought, shit, of course I do. How have I never seen this before? So once, so for me, that didn't mean I didn't still fail in areas, but it allowed me to start putting structures in place to manage those trust and intimacy issues. So they didn't stop getting in the way of me being. You know, a great salesperson, ⁓ a great leader, which I was a shitty leader. It was horrible. People hated working for me. Those were all, I mean, I consider all those to be failures along the road to where I am now. You know, as an entrepreneur now, as the founder and CEO of Vertical Elevation, I haven't had a lot of failures. I mean, yeah, if I lost deals, of course I have. But I know how to manage all this stuff so much better now because of the work I did so long ago that I continue to do, I might add. It's not like... All of a sudden you have an epiphany that you have trust and intimacy issues and all of a sudden, poof, everything's okay. Because that is just not how it works. So I've had to maintain that support. Yeah, and that's really important, you know, to be able to do that. And I think a lot of our audience, you know, they're small business owners, they're in the grind. They haven't figured out what their exit strategy is yet, right? Like they're still kind of stuck in the middle. But what would you say to somebody who's... kind of in that spot, you know, their business is going okay, it's surviving, but it's not really thriving. They're not necessarily hugely profitable. What advice would you give them to kind of start thinking like that? Well, first I would ask a question, which is, do you know the difference between want and commitment? There's a very distinct difference. Okay, want is, you know, I want to sell my business for $30 million. You know, I want that too, but am I putting the structures in place? And do I have the commitment to bring that to fruition? Commitment is going and going and going in the face of failure, no, losing deals, things aren't working the way you think they should. That's difference between want and commitment. Commitment, you just keep going, putting one foot in front of the other. So my first question is, what do they want and what are they committed to? Because Sean, if they're not truly committed to, if they're in that place of, know, that you're describing kind of ho hum, we're not really growing, we're not really getting anywhere. Well, what are you looking to get out of your business? And are you actually committed to getting it there? Because if you're committed to it, so I have to lay out the distinction between these two things. So they get it. Yeah. If you're truly committed to this, then what do you need to do to make that happen? What are the changes you need to make to make that happen? I can tell them, you know, my old boss, when I was learning how to recruit said to me, you know, you're the doctor there, the patient, tell them what to do. I said, yeah, I understand that. I still tell people what to do, but I don't do that with, you have to have a relationship with that person, but they're just not going to listen to you. They have to understand that I am the expert. They have to trust me. And that takes time to build. does. And I think there's something you said there, you know, about the want versus commitment. I've heard it said before that like, You know, are you willing to become the person that it takes to get to that level or to get to where you want to be? you willing to change yourself enough to, to, to put in the habits and be the person that can get something to that level? I mean, it's just the same side of a different, know, same, different side of the same coin or same side of a different coin or forget how that goes. Yeah. That's really what that is. People have to, they have to just make that decision to commit period. And if you do, you keep going. And that's where, I mean, I've had sleepless nights and there've been times where I just didn't sleep at all. And I'm like, I've got to start sleeping. Hey, I can't get through this because of the stress. whether that's me leaving a very lucrative search practice to pivoting a business to what I do now, that did not happen overnight. Many sleepless nights, lots of stress, blood pressure, all sorts of horrible things, put on weight, all these things, right? You know, and I finally had to have, you know, the veritable come to Jesus meeting with myself and say, listen, get your shit together. Yeah. You know, what's important to you. And, you know, but I have, I have great mental strength to be able to do that. Um, and I, you know, had the help of coach to do that also, you know, somebody to help, to help hold you accountable. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You've, you've coached, you built, you scaled, you're still evolving. You know, as a person, I appreciate your transparency. You're following as a business. What's one thing you're still learning as an entrepreneur yourself and where do you feel your growth edge is right now? What do you think you're still learning as an entrepreneur yourself and where do you feel your own growth edge is right now? Yeah, so that's a really good question. And this is something I've been looking at a lot recently, which is... You know, I built this fantastic women's leadership program called Women Ascending. Took six months to build it. I haven't even begun to sell it. I built it, I don't know, three years ago, right? So looking at, you know, when my mentor says to me, Carol, there are way other things you should also be doing, create more revenue streams for you, which I understand. And sometimes I'm like, ugh, I'm so exhausted. I don't have time to do it. And then I remind myself of what I tell other people to do in the practice what you preach realm of that, which is to get the support I need to be able to bring this through to fruition. So we're just starting out with the Women's Leadership Program. My chief of staff, all of a sudden, with all the work we've been doing, people who want to be chiefs of staff, people who are chiefs of staff, all of a sudden are starting to book all these calls with me. And I'm thinking, huh, this is really interesting. So now my chief of staff said, well, know, Carol, you really should start running a group. for chiefs of staff. I thought, ⁓ that's a really good idea. Let's get on that first of the year. So that's, would say that's where I'm evolving, which is, you know, somebody saying, you know, Carol, you should do this. And I'm like, I don't have the time. I'm exhausted. I've got five horses, two of which I need to train because they're both babies. I'm like, when am going to find time for all this? And that's where I practice my own advice, which is bringing the people in who can help me get this done where I can free my time to do the things that I do. Right. I mean, it, it, it, I'm getting close to the point where I'm going to have to start hiring chiefs staff to do what I do and go in fractionally. I can't do this in perpetuity. Right. And I'm very close to having to do that. So I have to start thinking about, I need to hire my own employees who are fractional chiefs of staff that I can send out and put my system into place. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Carol, this has been such an amazing conversation. No, thank How can people get in touch with you for everything that you offer? How can they get in touch with you? The best place to find me is verticalelevation.com. All the information is there. You can book a call with me. You know, you can email me. All my information is on there. Super easy to find me. But that's the best way to, that's the best place to start. Awesome. Well, again, thank you so much for your time, your insight. I'm going to be re-listening to this again. There's so many good nuggets of information there. So thank you for being a guest with us and have a great day. My pleasure.