Becoming The CEO of Your Business & Your Life with Jen Gaudet

Andy Splichal 0:02

Welcome to the Make Each Click Count podcast, this is your host Andy Splichal. We are happy to welcome this week's guest to discuss today's topic which is Becoming the CEO of your Business and Your Life. Today's guest is an international best selling author, speaker, investor in businesses and properties, entrepreneur, television show host, Human Performance Specialist, master transformational life coach from Jen Gaudet Coaching Services a big hello to Jen Gaudet. Hi, Jen.

Jen Gaudet 1:17

Hi, how are you today?

Andy Splichal 1:19

I'm great. Well, thank you for joining us.

Jen Gaudet 1:22

It's absolutely my pleasure.

Andy Splichal 1:24

So let's get started and talk about these transformational services and taking control of your business and your life. What are some of the top problems you see clients having in today's environment?

Jen Gaudet 1:37

Andy, that's a really good question. The perennial problems are still there boundaries, knowing when and where to say no in business in life, and how to do that in a way that strengthens relationships, rather than breaking them down. That's always a problem with most individuals, we have a hard time saying no, then, of course, time and energy management, stress management. Of course, now that we've had the pandemic, we have additional concerns, a lot of things that are coming in our door look like social anxiety, even for people who never experienced it before. And there are additional layers of of moving through fears for success or that organization success, you know, the hybrid integration, well, being in the new normal, which is now defined by continual change is requiring skill set upgrades on we need to be more adaptable, more flexible and more resilience than ever as a society. So I think those are kind of the top problems that we're seeing right now.

Andy Splichal 2:31

You know, it's interesting to say that one of the top problems is the inability to say no, I remember I read in Steve Jobs book that he mentioned, that problem was saying no, but he talked about it more in terms of lost opportunity costs with what you don't say no to, you're not giving enough attention to what you should be saying, yes. Is that how you're seeing the problem? Or is there beyond that is what you're dealing with?

Jen Gaudet 2:57

So yes, it's a yes answer. For me. Interestingly enough, I quote, Steve Jobs. In my book, I wrote a book on boundaries from the life coaching perspective. And Steve said that focus is about saying no, in that area, what I'm also seeing is there's a tremendous amount of fear of missing out in a life aspect. So we say yes to a lot of things now, especially post pandemic, that normally we would not have said yes to before, because we're craving human interaction. But ultimately, it does have the same impact, right? It takes us away from the things where we really want to be focusing those things that are our top priorities in life and business.

Andy Splichal 3:38

When you're coaching, how important do you think that keeping your body healthy is to perform in your function at optimal level?

Jen Gaudet 3:49

That's the million dollar question. And I don't know if you know this, but I come from the medical field. So I believe that if we don't have our health, we don't have anything. I would say keeping our body healthy is essential. And especially in business, if we're not the highest performing human being physically and mentally, how can we then lead our organizations in the most powerful manner, right, if we're not sleeping, we're not moving our body and fueling our bodies and managing our stress, then we can't make the right decision the first time we have trouble with our strategic thinking or creative problem solving. And we have an impact to our speed of implementation. Well, if those things were impacted, then we're not being as successful as possible in our business, or for our organization. You know, if we're not healthy, we can't pour from an empty cup. If we can't take care of ourselves first, and someone else has to be tending to us. We can't bring the best of ourselves to anyone else in our organizations or in our lives. So I'd say that it's kind of the cornerstone for success.

Andy Splichal 4:49

Now, how healthy I mean, do you need to be going to the gym six times a week? Or do you not just not be a person who's drinking 15 Diet Cokes and smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. You know, is there a level? What? What's that mean?

Jen Gaudet 5:05

Right? So I would I would say that answer, it's a little bit dependent on the on the person. But I think if we need to fuel our body, and I don't mean in a weight management standpoint, I mean, are we getting the nutrients we need to fuel our brains and our bodies? So I think that having adequate nutrition, whether we, you know, eat in a way that is all organic or not is irrelevant? Are we getting the nutrients our body needs to function? Are we moving our body in a way that, you know, we're not winded at the end of our day, and we still have focus, right? So it's not a go to the gym and pounded out every day for six days? In fact, I don't even do that anymore. Once upon a time I did. It's literally are we the healthiest that we can be? Are we able to get through our day? Are we able to do the things that we want to do? Are we able to bring our best focus and our best self forward? And honestly, if you read the research, you can accomplish with 15 minutes more in some aspects than spending two hours at the gym, for example.

Andy Splichal 6:07

So if you are a CEO with a large team, what lengths do you believe that you should go to help your employees be healthy?

Jen Gaudet 6:17

So I think that's a fundamental question for each organization. And I think it depends. I know, that's a wishy washy answer. But I think the first question to ask as an organization is "What does absenteeism and turnover cost your organization?" Because you know, what the bottom line cost is to your organization for people who are not healthy or who are burned out or the turnover that happens as a result of that, knowing that number can guide the importance of well being to our employees. Right. And then there's also the culture of the organization. So if you look at it from that standpoint, our employees being healthy, it's not just about physical health, and, you know, having challenges to reduce due to health insurance premium, for example, there's a lot of areas there's physical, mental, emotional, financial, and community that that play into our house as well as our career path. So having our employees and team members be a part of that solution, and be engaged in how we address employee health, I think is going to result in a more relevant and meaningful program. So I guess that's depends, it really is, what is it costing us? And how much are we willing to invest in our people and then asking our people what level of engagement and implementation do they want that they can be the most successful in, in their endeavors for our company?

Andy Splichal 7:37

How do you find those numbers? I mean, I'm guess I'm just thinking is a pure marketer. You know, it's easy to define your ROI, or your your ROAS, or other key performance metrics. But how do you pinpoint those numbers when it comes to productivity of your team?

Jen Gaudet 7:55

Right? So there's a lot of different factors that weigh into those numbers. You can take it from a purely research based and you can go to any of the data crunchers like Harvard Business does this regularly. There's many organizations in the HR space, that performance data across multi industries, and break it down. But in the larger organizations, we usually can pull those numbers from an HR standpoint, we can see who is missing work because of illness, we can see what does our insurance utilization rate look like? Because that can tell us a story of how much health is playing into overall productivity for our people. So it's actually crunching a bunch of numbers together. But most large organizations, you can find that data in or HR files.

Andy Splichal 8:37

So how do you help your clients prioritize the important stuff, whether it's comes to their business or in their personal lives?

Jen Gaudet 8:47

That's a really good question, too. And the answer is, I have a secret formula. If you want to know it

Andy Splichal 8:53

Are you gonna share that secret.

Unknown Speaker 8:55

I totally will, I believe the best secrets should be shared.

Andy Splichal 8:58

All right, I look forward to hearing this.

Unknown Speaker 9:01

So the first step to prioritizing important stuff in their business in their lives is to number one know their top priorities. So you have to know what is the number one top priority, it can't be six different things, you only have one number one top priority. I don't know if you've ever reached, read the one thing or any of those productivity books, but it's so true, we can only have one most important in our business or one most important priority in life. And so then what I have my clients do as what are your top five in your business, your top five in your life? And then we rank them. So what are our priorities? What is the order of importance of priorities, tasks? And then we have to understand what we're putting in our calendar and where those activities fall. So myself, I'm a huge fan of the Eisenhower Matrix. I don't know if you're familiar, it's, you know, do, decide, delegate or delete, like, what are the activities I need to do personally as the CEO of my business, what am I going to decide to plan to do later on because it's not a top priority right now, what am I going to delegate or automate to my team and what is going to go away altogether, because it's no longer important, you know, so we look at everything we're doing in our calendar, and do a time autopsy. And literally, you can do this right now you can grab your phone and grab your calendar, and look at every single thing and put which of your top five priorities that aligns with. And anything that doesn't align with one of your top five priorities. You circle it, or you highlight it I highlighted on my phone, and then you decide that you're going to delete it because it doesn't move you forward towards your top priorities. And so by doing that, and just choosing like one at a time, you call and you cancel that thing that's not in alignment, it frees up space. And then the next question is, what do I do with that space? Well, if I look at my calendar, and priorities one and two are being addressed, but priority three has completely slipped the mark, then I find the time for priority three by eliminating the things that aren't in alignment. And it's it's a, it's a process, it's a step by step process. So first you find what your top priorities are, then you look at your calendar, and you align them and anything that's not aligned, you cancel. And you do that with my formula for saying no, which is, you know, calling people up and instead of rejecting them, you say, Hey, listen, this isn't a top priority for me, I really want to give you my 100%. But I'm gonna, I'm not gonna lie, I can't do that. Because this isn't a top priority. And I have these other things that are much more important. So in order for you to get 100% of me, I have to cancel this appointment today. And give them a value, give them something else, another option for them. So that you're not breaking down a relationship, but you're actually building it by adding value to it. So secret formula, not so secret. It's in my book, it's all over the place, but it works. So that's that's kind of like my secret sauce.

Just curious how much is self doubt an issue that you readily deal with? Is your role as a transformational strategist?

Do you have the short answer the long answer,

The medium answer

Self doubts happens every single day. Every human being experiences doubt imposter syndrome, something along those lines, especially when you encounter something new, and especially in business, because business throws we're constantly putting out fires. And the secret is even the most successful human beings experience fear and self doubt. I'd argue that those of us who are most, most most successful in our areas experienced it regularly. It's not whether we have doubt, but how we decide to take action and move forward in spite of our doubts and our fears that defines whether we're successful or not. So do we need to deal with this in a role as a transformational strategist every single day. And it's really important that we decide and take action, because that's really the here to doubt. If we're moving, we can't be stuck in analysis paralysis. And so it really is kind of one of our super ninja coaching techniques to help people decide what's the best action to take when they are experiencing that doubt.

So the strategy for dealing with self doubt is take action.

It absolutely is. It's an it's not just to take action, but it's the sign right? Once we make the decision, most of our analysis, paralysis comes from not making the decision of which way to go. But once we truly decide we're moving in a direction and then we take that first step forward. We're now over we've overcome inertia. And it doesn't matter what direction that that action takes us in. If we just keep moving, we might touch on our way forward. Even if we take a step back to the side.

Where do you see business going in a post COVID world?

I think that's the million dollar question, isn't it? I don't think any of us are surprised by the increasingly tech oriented aspects of business, it seems to me that COVID And the pandemic short and timelines, things that I kind of anticipated were going to be happening in 2030 are happening today. I think that business fundamentals are the same, knowing your numbers, sales, marketing, client fulfillment, customer service, I think those things are the same fundamentally. But I think how we define and analyze and understand the role of tech and business is what's changing. I believe we're going to continue that trend towards sustainability and using the tech tools available to us at especially as they grow I mean, you're in this industry, look at what's happening with AI and as computing, technology advances the the ease of data that we have these days, I think we're gonna continue to use those tools and become more effective and efficient in delivery of our products and services. The other thing that's kind of surprising to me as we were really global before pandemic, I think we're gonna see more decentralization from a logistics standpoint, and this is just me speculating. But we have so many issues with supply chain and distribution. I think you're gonna see a lot more closer to home decentralized center so that we don't have quite that scale of an issue where we would see another lockdown if you are.

Now, do you have a favorite success story of one of your clients that you would be willing to share?

I have a lot of favorites. Do you know how hard it is to pick just one?

Give us your favorite favorite.

Um, how about a give you the most recent favorite? Okay. So this is a client who literally just quit her day job. She's an engineer by trade making, you know, had the golden handcuffs. And she had a side hustle business. But after just three sessions, we were able to move her through her fears and self doubt, imagine that we just talked about that. And now she has she just put out a book, she became a best selling author. And her side business has more than tripled in revenue. So she was able to quit her full time job.

Nice

In favor of her business like that, to me is the best moment and I don't just work with startups. But when I work with someone who's got a start up and they really want to move forward, and they're able to replace a significant income. That, to me is tremendous. And not only that, like now that she moved through that doubt. And she's seen that success in business, all of a sudden, she's seeing results in her personal and professional relationships. And it's impacted every aspect of her life. She's doing things she never thought she would ever be able to do on a personal health and relationships standpoints because she got comfortable with being uncomfortable, and it just opened doors everywhere for her. I think that I think that's what transformational coaching is to me, like we may work in health, or we may work in communication, or we may work in leadership from a business standpoint. But what we do in one area of life truly spills over into everything else. And when when people are transformed like that, especially entrepreneurs, right when business owners have that level of transformation, it spills over into their clients, their staff or employees. So she now has multiple teams who work for her in just a short period of time, her family gets the best of her. And of course, it impacts our community and our world. So I think that transformation and her stepping in and giving her permission to move through herself doubt has now given other people permission to do the same. And that just that's kind of why I do what I do.

Did she stay within the engineering field? Or did she completely go somewhere else?

No, she, she went into she's a professional organizer. So she now organizes homes and offices in a way that I guess it kind of is an engineering type thing, right? She thinks about what is the most effective and efficient way to organize a home or an office or what have you so that everything else falls into place in a more efficient manner. So I guess it's kind of like that, because engineers solve efficiency problems as well. But yeah, it's it's completely unrelated.

Now, are there any challenges that you find yourself struggling with and getting results for your clients?

All the time, because the reality is, as a coach, we can't do the work for them. I think the hardest thing is knowing that, like if I were to coach you, for example, we can lead a horse to water if you will, but we can't make you drink, you're the one who actually has to do the work. And when we look at the deeper side, like the self doubt, the moving through fear. And then the the hardest thing for most people is to let go because we feel like Hey, I got this far on my own. I don't want to trust somebody else to do some things in my business. And the Art of Letting Go is a very big challenge for a lot of people because a lot of times it's tied into their self worth. So watching our clients go through and let go of things that's really challenging. We can't take away the pain, we can't, we can't make it easier to move through fear or for doubt. It is so hard that they have to actually do the work. And we know the other side, right? As a coach, we know that it's temporary. It's really temporary, the hard part. But it's so hard when you're actually going through it as a client. And I mean, I have six coaches, I'm continually growing and every time I hit a new level of growth, I have to go through that same thing myself. So I know firsthand how hard it is. But it really is a big challenge not just for me, but every member of my team, I think would agree with this, that that's the hardest part we we hold the space for them and we see their potential even when they can't see it for themselves and that moment when they lose that and we have to be that light for them. It's both the most rewarding and the most challenging part I think of being a coach.

Now my next question is one of my favorites that I ask every guest and I'm looking forward to hearing what you say it was already discussed a couple of books but personally, are there any business books out there that you would attribute to your journey as well? entrepreneur?

Yes, I think there might be too many to name, but I think I'm gonna stick with a couple of my favorites. Number one, Simon Sinek. Start with Why and Find Your Why. I would not be a coach, if it wasn't for Simon. Actually, we had him come in. I was in sports medicine for many years, we had him come in for a team building to kind of get the organization like we were having some cultural issues to kind of get all on the same page with why we were even there and what we were doing. And it was so foundationally pivoting to me that I was like, wait a minute, baby medicine, I've been in medicine, I was in medicine for 20 years, maybe this isn't the best use of my skill set. And so I literally shifted towards thinking about coaching from that team building exercise and workshop that we did with Simon. And then I would say that two others were really really powerful for me one of them was Profit First Mike Michalowics. So he's kind of like the Dave Ramsey of business is how I would describe them, he talks about putting a profit on the top line instead of leaving it for the bottom. And that was pivotal for me to scale my business. Because I was successful. I was one of the people I work with, I was successful in spite of myself, because I am driven. And I'm good at what I do. And you know, we get in our way. But he talks about how important it was to pay yourself first. And coming from medicine, it was very hard for me, because you're a giver in medicine. And so you always kind of feel guilty about making a profit, right. And he kind of shifted that for me. And I use it every one of my every one of my coaching clients does this book, because I think it's important that that is entrepreneurs, we pay ourselves first because if we're not filling our cup, then we can't pour into others. And then I would say, John Maxwell, Intentional Living, I believe that everything that I do, and if like it goes in with Simon Sinek, as well, John talks about having a purpose, but But living on purpose. And to me living on purpose, and being in business on purpose, everything that I do start with intention, I literally set my intention every single day, and really drive that into the depths of my soul and use it as the foundation for all my decisions. Because if I'm not intentionally living, then what am I doing? So I would say those are three that are really, really, really have been powerful for me.

Those are all great books. Now, what services talking about your services, your I mean, what are the services that you offer? And how do you stand out from competitors in your space?

Right, so in the coaching business, we offer health, life and business coaching services. And I think the biggest our signature services Become the CEO of Your Business and Life. And we have coaching packages designed around that for group and individual. But what we do differently is we blend human performance and the science behind human performance, the psychology and physiological aspect. With business strategy. We went on I look went into business, I started doing more of the mindset and the physiology standpoint. And and there's a lot of coaches who do one or the other, there's a lot of competition. That's that's one than the other. But what we do is we try to bridge that gap and work on the entrepreneur and his or her business or businesses holistically. Because I know that wealth is balanced. And tactics and strategies are great. But if we can't get out of our own way and implement those because we're stuck in analysis, paralysis, or fear, or self sabotage, and we can't follow those in the first place, then it doesn't matter what strategies or tactics we put into play. Likewise, we can have the best mindset in the world. But if we don't have a strategy that works for our business and the tactics to make to implement that strategy, then we can't be successful because we can't just will it to happen. So I really think that are what sets us apart is everyone on my team comes from that human performance and business background. It's very important to me that we blend and have that holistic approach and it's worked for us and our clients,

And who is the perfect client for your services. If they're out there listening now they should really get in contact with you.

So I will tell you that the clients who find us our high performing professionals turned entrepreneurs who accidentally created a job when they meant to create a business. What do I mean by that? Most of our clients have been healthcare providers, physicians, nurses, therapists or business professionals, attorneys, CPAs, engineers, who were really rockstars in their profession and decided to to open their own business or buy a business or go into business. And they achieve a certain level of success in spite of ourselves because you know, we're successful people in spite of ourselves, but can't figure out how to get out of working in the business day to day so they can actually grow and scale it and enjoy the fruits of their labors like those. That's I would say is 75 to 80% of our clientele our that is our that is our bread and butter

and how Should an interested listener, get a hold of working with you?

So that's a great question too, you're full of these.. They can visit our website or social media jengaudetcoaching.com. And I'm on all the socials, my team and I are always willing to have a conversation. But what we've started doing is we offer free workshops on Mondays at 11am Central, which are content plus live laser coaching, so that people can get an understanding where we have a No BS coaching style, it's a little bit different than some other coaches. And they can see that laser coaching in action. They can be coached and have a defined action step and start moving kind of like a try before you buy. So that they can automatically be in motion in a momentum, it does two things. Number one, they understand who we are and what we deliver and the length to which we put our clients first, right? We really are we deliver high power content. But not only that, it shows us are they going to take action because if somebody wants to coach with us, and they're not an action taker, we don't we don't accept them as clients like you have, we don't believe in wasting anybody's time or money. If you're not going to take action coaching won't work for you. So it's kind of like, it works for both of us. We get to try try before we do business together.

Now, quick question before I forget, you told me a few months back that you had a goal of reaching 1 million entrepreneurs in 2021. Did you reach that goal?

I have not quite reach cycle. I'm at over 830,000. That's a lot. That's why I am truly hoping that between the next couple of television shows because I know I have a weekly television show, plus that bucketing podcast and I have two additional big talks that I'm giving that I will get to that number. I'm really hoping that that to hit that 1 million mark. Because imagine what that means for the world. That's a huge amount of impact.

Anything else you'd like to add before we wrap it up today?

Um, no, I think that if you're on here, and you're like, What is this woman even talking about? I think that the big takeaway is, we can't be the best entrepreneur or really CEO of our business if we're not taking into consideration ourselves as a human being. And human performance is a huge aspect of that. So if you're looking at a way to get started, think about Where am I, Where's the easiest way for me to start because it takes 1% improvement. And listening to us today is fine and Andy. But if you don't take action on something that you hear, whether it's oh, I need to get a little more sleep, or maybe I need to manage my stress or fuel my body. Or it's I need to learn how to say no, but one thing that you hear today, try it on for size, just one thing. And don't wait, like do it right now. Because implementation is where the magic happens. And we can talk and give value until the cows come home. But if you don't actually take action, then you can't actually change anything in your business or your life.

Well, thank you for joining us again today, Jen.

Absolutely, it was a complete pleasure.

For listeners. Remember if you liked this episode, please go to Apple podcasts and leave us an honest review. And if you're looking for more information regarding Jen or her coaching services, you will find the links in the show notes below. In addition, if you're looking for more information on growing your business, check out our all new podcasts Resource Center available at www.makeeachclickcount.com we have compiled all our different past guests by show topic and included each of their contact information in case you would like more information on these services I have discussed during previous episodes. That's it for today. Remember to stay safe, keep healthy and happy marketing and I will talk to you in the next episode.