The Strategic Entrepreneur

259: The CEO Energy Reset: Stop Managing Your Business, Start Leading It

• Cindy Gordon - Execution Coach | Reality Check Method • Season 5 • Episode 259

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The CEO Energy Reset: Stop Managing Your Business, Start Leading It

You're the highest-paid employee in your own business, not the CEO. In this strategic episode, Cindy Gordon reveals the CEO energy reset that saved her business when she was running 5 websites with 11 contractors. Learn the weekly CEO Dashboard practice, daily CEO habits, and the data-driven approach that stops you from second-guessing every decision.

In this episode, you'll discover:

  • The difference between CEO energy and employee energy (it's not what you think)
  • The CEO time block that transformed Cindy's business
  • The exact Weekly CEO Dashboard review framework
  • Why your feelings lie but data tells the truth
  • Daily 12-minute CEO practices that change everything
  • How to distinguish between tweaks and pivots using real data
  • The zone of genius focus that multiplies revenue
  • CEO boundaries that create strategic thinking space

Perfect for: Female online entrepreneurs who feel their business slipping away, anyone drowning in daily tasks instead of strategic thinking, leaders ready to stop second-guessing and start using data, and business owners tired of being employee #1.

Key insight: "You're making thirty-dollar decisions with million-dollar potential."

Join 1,500+ entrepreneurs receiving weekly CEO strategies in Cindy's newsletter, or explore high-touch 1-on-1 strategy sessions for personalized CEO transformation.

Stop managing. Start leading. Your CEO desk is waiting.

💌 Join 1,500+ entrepreneurs receiving weekly strategic insights and business clarity frameworks - sign up now! https://cindygordon.myflodesk.com/countmein

Connect with Cindy Gordon -

What if I told you the reason your business feels like it's slipping away? Has nothing to do with your actual strategy, your offer, or your marketing. What if the real problem is that you are the highest paid employee in your own company instead of the CEO? Let me tell you about the moment I had no choice but to become a CEO. I was running five websites with 11 contractors, and I was drowning, not in work. I could handle the work. I was drowning in decisions and emails and slack messages, and the constant ping of notifications. My business was growing and thriving, but I was shrinking. then A mentor said something that changed everything for me. Cindy, you are trying to be employee number one in your own company. You need CEO time. She suggested that I block off one day or at least a half day each week as CEO time. So that meant no emails, no social, no slack. My team could text if there was a five alarm fire, but it needed to be an actual explosion. This was my deep thinking time, my strategic planning time, my look at the data and make million dollar decisions time that shift. I believe it literally saved my business and my sanity. Hi, I'm Cindy Gordon and you are listening to The Overwhelmed Entrepreneur, and today we are talking about CEO energy and the CEO energy reset that you need for 2026 because if you are still managing your business instead of leading it, you are about to burn out and not break through the brutal truth. Most female entrepreneurs are the highest paid employee in their own businesses and not the CEO. You are answering every email. Within minutes, your phone buzzes with 17 different social media notifications, and you respond to all of them immediately. You are doing all the work yourself because quote, no one can do it like you. You are in the business, not on it, and here's what it's costing you. You're making$30 decisions with million dollar potential. You are so busy fighting fires that you cannot see the patterns causing them. You are working in reactive mode instead of strategic mode. Your business feels like it's slipping away despite trying everything because you are trying everything except the one thing that matters. Thinking like a CEO, let's get crystal clear on what CEO energy really is because it's not having a fancy title or a corner office. CEO Energy is looking at data and not just feelings. So think I feel like nothing's working, versus my data shows I have a 20% conversion rate. So you can see the difference there. It's also watching for trends, not just problems. So instead of another refund request. Look at it as three refunds in the month, all citing the same issue. You can see the difference there and the clarity. It's also about acknowledging wins and not gaps. It's not thinking I only made 5K. It's thinking I maintained 5K during my lowest energy month. It's about making million dollar decisions and not$30 tasks. It's not, should I redesign my logo today? It's should I pivot my entire offer? When you operate with CEO Energy, you are asking different questions. You're not asking, how can I do this? But who should do this? You're not asking what's urgent, you're asking what's important. You're not asking, how can I work harder? You're asking what's actually working. So let me tell you exactly how to implement what saved my business. It's called CEO Time. You can start with a half a day per week. Friday afternoons work well because you can review the week and plan for the next one ahead. So this is what happens during CEO time. I put my phone on airplane mode. Yes. Really I do. I close my email. I close slack. I log outta my socials. I close my office door. If you're working remotely, put on headphones. If you have a team, tell your team or your family, tell everyone, this is my CEO time, unless something is literally on fire, it can wait three hours. So here's what you do during your CEO time. You are going to review actual data, so not feelings about the data, actual data. You're gonna identify patterns and trends, make strategic decisions, plan next moves based on evidence. Think about the business, so not just in it, you're gonna think about it. This isn't a luxury. This isn't nice to have. This is the difference between having a business and having an exhausting job that you created for yourself. So I gave you a little bit of an overview of A CEO practice. So let me tell you my personal CEO dashboard review. So what I do is I evaluate the week I look at my biggest wins for the week. At least three, no more than five. I write them down. So not what I wanted to accomplish, but what actually happened. Then I review what my big three were. I report back to myself on how I did with my weekly big three priorities. These were the most important initiatives determined by my previous week's review. Did I hit him? If I didn't, then why not? The next thing I do is I analyzed what worked and what didn't. So real analysis, not emotional reactions. My Tuesday content got 50% more engagement, not I feel like my content wasn't working. So I look at the data. Step four, I make one CEO decision. So based upon the data I make one strategic decision. Maybe I'm changing my content schedule, maybe I'm raising prices, but I write it down so that I can track the impact of the change. Then I pull actual data. I look at revenue leads, conversions, engagement, whatever metrics matter to your specific business. Everyone has similar ones, but they will vary. The numbers you track will tell your story. Then, based upon all this data and insight, I choose my most important three priorities for the next week. This probably takes me about 90 minutes and it changes everything for me. Okay. While the CEO time is non-negotiable daily, CEO practices can keep you in leadership mode. Here are some CEO things that I do in the morning. I check in with myself and I ask, what is one thing that can move my business forward today? What can I delete or delegate, and what decision needs my CEO brain and not my worker brain? Then after lunch, I also check in. I ask myself, am I working on important things or just urgent things? Have I looked at the data today, or just feelings, and I ask myself, what would A CEO do with this afternoon? Then as I close out my workday, I ask myself, what worked today? So data, not feelings. What patterns did I notice and what is one big thing that I need to work on tomorrow? And making sure that it's aligned with my big three priorities for this week. That's about 12 minutes total. But these 12 minutes keep you thinking like a leader and not a worker in your business.. So here's what I help my one-on-one clients understand. You are probably making decisions based upon assumptions and not data. You might feel like something isn't working, but you haven't looked at your numbers. And when you do look at your numbers, does your gut agree with what they're telling you? Here's a real example from a client session. Last month, my client said, my launches are failing. I asked what her conversion rate was. She said, I don't know, but not many people bought it. When we looked, she actually had a 8% conversion rate. The industry standard for her is two to 3%. So the reality is her launch was crushing it. She just had unrealistic expectations. But here's the full picture. Her gut wasn't actually right, that something was off. These conversions were great, but she was attracting in the wrong people. The data showed her success and her intuition sensed, misalignment. We needed both of those perspectives there. This is why CEO energy requires data and intuition. Your feelings alone can mislead you a little bit. Your data alone can miss the story, but together they tell the truth. so here's an example of what to track and how to bring in your intuition. So if you're tracking things like conversion rates, not just sales engagement patterns. So not just likes revenue per client, not just your total revenue earned and time to result, not just the effort. Then after you have that data. Ask your gut, what do these numbers really mean? What are they trying to tell me? When you have data plus intuition, you can distinguish between strategies that need tweaking versus complete pivots. You stop second guessing every move, and you start making revenue with confidence. Here's a CEO truth for you. You can't work in your zone of genius if you're doing everything in your CEO reset. I want you to think about CEOs delegate everything except only what they can do. So ask yourself, what am I doing that someone else could do, at least 80% as well as me? What takes me hours? That would take an expert minutes. What do I dread that someone else would love and what's my highest value activity? Then make the CEO decision. Hire it out. Even if you don't feel ready, even if it's just five hours a week, even if you could just do it yourself, if your revenue supports it, make your first hire. My first hire was a VA for five hours weekly. I was terrified that I couldn't afford it. That five hours freed me to land three new clients that VA paid for herself four times over. This is CEO math, time bought back equals money saved by DIY, cEOs have boundaries, not because they're mean, but because they're strategic. Every interruption costs you momentum, and every immediate response trains people to expect immediacy. Here are some CEO boundaries to consider implementing check your email twice daily and not constantly put your phone on silent. During focused work, you have office hours for team questions and standard response times is fine at 24 to 48 hours and no weekend work. Emails. When I stopped responding to everything, immediately something magical happened. Nothing exploded. Clients didn't leave. Team members seemed to figure things out, and I hit a space to actually think strategically. So let's make this real for 2026. Pull out your calendar right now. I want you to look at the first month in January. Block off your CEO half day as non-negotiable. Schedule your CEO dashboard review and protect your focused work time. So that's what I want you to look at on a weekly basis. On a daily basis, write in the morning, CEO, check-in your midday reset and your evening close. On a monthly basis, add in a deeper data dive, a strategic planning session, and review and adjust priorities so then I want you to write in for the month of January so you have a solid start. Then I want you to think about quarterly CEO duties. This is when you should be doing a full business review, more strategic decisions and planning for the next 90 days from data. This isn't adding more to your plate, it's ensuring that your plate has all the right things. You didn't start a business to become employee number one. You started it to be the CEO, but the CEO isn't a title you claim. It's the energy that you embody, the decisions you make. The boundaries you hold and the data you track. Yes, data matters, but so does your intuition. The magic happens when both align. When your gut says something's off and your data confirms it, or when your data shows a trend that your intuition already suspected, you need both. Data validates intuition, and intuition tells you where to look in the data. If your business feels like it's slipping away despite trying everything, it's not because you need more tactics. You need to stop managing and start leading. You need to look at data and trust your gut about what it means. Look, if you do nothing else this week, just block off two hours of CEO time, phone off, email closed. Look at one number that matters in your business, and ask yourself what your gut says about it. Make a decision. That's it. If you want weekly strategic insights to support your CEO transformation, join over 1500 other entrepreneurs who are getting my weekly strategies Link in the show notes. And if you need deeper support distinguishing between what needs tweaking versus complete pivots, I offer high touch one-on-one strategy sessions where we look at your real data and honor your intuition about what it means. And remember, friend, you've got this now go claim your CEO time.

Speaker:

Thanks for spending these few minutes with me today. Remember, overwhelm isn't permanent. It's simply your brain's way of saying pause and take a little reality check. If you got value in today's episode, please share it with another entrepreneur who needs that reminder. If you're loving the show, I'd be so grateful if you could leave me a quick review. It helps other overwhelmed entrepreneurs find us. Make sure you hit subscribe so you never miss your weekly dose of clarity. For more resources and to connect with me, visit exclusively. Send. d.com. Until next time, remember, you've got this.