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Emily Hirsh:

Hello, everybody. I hope you guys have enjoyed this series this week. I feel like every episode I record I’m like, man, I could do so many episodes just on this content. And today is no different. I’m talking about all my personal hacks as a CEO, as a mom of three, as somebody who’s grown a multimillion dollar company while being a mom the entire time and prioritizing health, self care, my marriage, my friendships, all the things. So I get a lot of questions about this, especially when I’m interviewed in other places or people want to know how are you doing it? How are you setting up your days? How are you taking of yourself? How do you have time for everything? So that is what I’m diving into today. If you have loved this series so far, or maybe you haven’t listened to all of them, but if you’ve gotten something out of this series at all, it would mean the world to me.

If you shared it on Instagram and make sure to tag me at Emily Hirsch so I can thank you and reshare it. But I put a lot, obviously into this content. I love doing it. Honestly, I spend so much time creating content and it is my favorite thing. And I’m so grateful that I have a platform to show up on and make an impact for people. And when you share it, I’m able to impact more people and reach more people. So if you’ve loved the PA podcast or this series or a piece of this content, I love if you shared it on social media, with that said, let’s dive into today. So today’s episode, like I said, is gonna be about my personal hacks on being a CEO and also a mom, because that is a huge part of my life and my day to day.

So the first thing I’ll say the, this is like the biggest that I always talk about when people ask me, like, how do you balance it? How do you be balance? Being a CEO of a really fast moving, growing company I’ve got over 20 employees and a mom and a wife and all the things. And the best piece of advice that I have for you is you’re not gonna balance it. You’re not gonna balance it all balance to me, E is going to look different than it does to you. And so, first of all, stop making that the goal to create some equal balance between all the things, but the one way that you will feel like you’re showing up in every area of your life, the best way that you possibly can is by being fully present. And so I am not perfect at this.

Let me like state that clearly this is something I’m continually working on and I can share a little bit about that in a second, about what I struggle with with this. But my rule for myself is that I am 100% all in and present at what I’m trying to do. So what that means is when I’m working, I am fully focused working. I’m not trying to work with my kids in the background at my feet, running around, needing me saying mom in every two seconds, I’m interrupted. And then also when it’s time for me to be with my kids and the day is over, which usually for me is at 4, 4 30. I’m fully with my kids. And I put my phone in my office. I leave it there. I don’t have anything really on my phone. I haven’t had email on my phone in like three years.

I don’t have slack. I have zero notifi. Like I get not just messages, text messages, that’s it. I get no notifications. I have all the work stuff off my phone. I, I do have Voxer. So that’s like the only way, if it’s an emergency, you can get ahold of me. But anyways, I leave my phone away. I leave my office and then I’m fully present with my kids. If I am with my husband, same thing. I, at night, I put my phone away. We hang out, we talk. If we go out on a date night, I don’t have my phone. I’m not also working. When I’m working out, I am fully working out whatever I’m doing. I fully show up, present in that. And that allows me to feel like I’m creating that quality time. And somebody once said something to me that was your kids are not gonna remember the amount of time you spent with them.

They’re not gonna be like, well, mom spent, you know, five hours a week with us or whatever. They’re gonna remember the quality time. They’re gonna remember that you play Legos with them on the floor that you read them books, that you ran around the house with them, that you went outside and rode bikes and that you weren’t staring at your phone while they needed your, and that has stuck with me. And that’s kind of how I operate. Now. I will tell you guys, I am a born entrepreneur and I have a very difficult time turning my brain off. So if anybody has great tips, I’m always all ears. Because to this day, every day, the hardest thing for me is to shut work off at, at 4, 4 30 when my nanny leaves. Because even if I’m trying to be present, because I’ve been in work mode all day, I go back in it, you know, and you can be present and not present.

Like I can put my phone away, but my thoughts are about this conversation I had with a team member or this marketing campaign I’m trying to create, or this podcast episode idea or, oh, shoot. I forgot to tell this person, this one thing. It’s very hard for me to turn off my brain. So I found that having some sort of like ritual routine to transition helps a lot. So I try to like shut everything down, respond to messages. If I’m leaving things like midway and it like four 30 comes, my nanny has to leave and I have to like run a out of the office, but I have unread messages and I haven’t fully like completed everything. That’s when I struggle the most. So I try to shut everything down and walk out of the room and give myself this. Like maybe I’ll change my clothes.

I usually like open a kombucha cause I don’t really drink. And so that’s kind of my like transition. And so it’s difficult for me. And so I’m not saying this is easy, but it is the best way that you’re going to feel, not guilty trying to do multiple things, because I know a lot of parents, especially moms struggle with the guilt where you feel like when you’re working, you should be with your kids. And when you’re with your kids, you should be working. And that’s just terrible because you feel like you’re never doing enough and I’ve been there. I’ve totally been there. And then you sometimes feel bad. At least I do because you actually wanna be working, but you feel like you should be with your kids. And you’re like, why don’t I wanna be with my kids more? I don’t know. So being fully present and creating that time is key.

And, and for me also on the weekends, I typically don’t work. There’s sometimes I squeeze in like two, three hours if I have a lot going on, but I am fully present with my kids. I’m off social, I’m off my phone. We go out and do things. I, I get very quality time with them. I plan adventures. I, I plan trips. I plan coffee, shop adventures. And so having that allows me to not feel guilty in all of the other times that I am working and I am, you know, not fully with them all the time. And that’s the reality and that’s my choice. And I enjoy that. I love my work. Okay. So that, that’s one thing. Cause that’s the most common question I get. How do you feel guilty? How do you do all these things? How do you ma manage it all?

How do you balance it all? So balance is crap. Like balance to me is not gonna be balanced to you. So don’t try and achieve a balance, try and achieve presence in everything that you’re doing. And being able to put attention in the areas that you wanna put attention in your life. Like if you wanna be in great shape, then you have to put, prioritize time actively to work out. If you want to improve your relationship with your partner, you’re gonna have to make that a priority every day to get that done. And so people will ask me like, how do you have time to read so much? How do you have time for this? It’s like, because I make it a priority because I actively choose to do this thing with discipline every day and you can do anything. You can choose anything in your life to become priority and your priorities may be different than mine, but do not kid yourself that you don’t have time for something that you really want to because something else can give.

I guarantee if you look closer, you’d be able to find that. So the other piece that I’m gonna talk about is how I treat my personal life similar to business in the sense of systems and planning and goal setting. So I plan just like I talked about this earlier this week in my business, how I plan annual goal and, and monthly goals. And down to the week, I do the same thing personally. So I have goals for the whole year things. I wanna do challenges. I wanna accomplish something. I might wanna buy a savings goal. Like I have personal goals related to my health, to my relationships, to my own personal development, to, to my fitness levels. To like one of my goals is to buy this year a cold plunge tank. They’re like $5,000 and I haven’t taken the plunge. I know that you can buy like the tin and put ice in it, but that’s just too much work for me.

Like if I have to go buy ice, I live in Texas. You guys like I would have to buy ice every day to do a cold plunge. So if I have to do that, I’m not gonna use it. But there’s this really cold tank. It’s like $5,000. I’ve taken a cold shower every day for the last year. And so I want a cold PL and so that was on my list this year is like, I’m gonna buy it. I could buy it now, but just don’t feel like, I don’t know. I haven’t hit the goals yet where I want and, and I’ve prioritized buying other things. And so, but this year I’m gonna buy it like that is on my list and I’m gonna put it in our backyard and I’m gonna take a cold pledge every day. So things like that, things where I, I think through like at the end of the year, where do I wanna be?

You know, how, how do I wanna show up? What does something I wanna accomplish? I, this year, especially planned trips and adventures I wanted to do. Like one of the things on my goals for this year was I’m gonna take each of my bigger kids on a surprise trip. Like not tell them where we’re going, pack your bags, get on the airplane. We’re gonna go on a surprise. So I’m actually doing that, uh, this month with them to count as one of those trips. And so I preplan that, and then what I do is I can take my annual goals and every single month I do this, the best thing I’ve actually found for my personal planning. And this is just me, but I use my notes app on my phone and my computer because I find that having it, uh, very easily accessible and separated from, uh, the business.

So I, if I have it in Google drive, it just doesn’t get looked at as much because I’m separating it from business goals. And so I have it in my notes app every month I create a new note that has all of the things I wanna accomplish that month. And I, I put it in categories of habits. That’s, I’m always, re-looking at like, what is a habit I wanna up, or I wanna stop doing habits are everything you guys like, if you wanna change something, it’s not about like doing something one time, it’s about creating a habit around it. So I’m constantly looking at next month, like, what are, what are habits I wanna start or stop doing? And then I kind of categorize it. So what’s something that I’m going to accomplish in personal development in my relationships. So it could be due to date nights with my husband, it could be call my mom three times, like something like that around relationships. I have how many books I wanna read. 

So I categorize the different categories and, and what I’m gonna do, a lot of the planning comes down to habits. And then there’s also like general. To-dos like, you gotta plan my two year old’s birthday party. Like things like that, because that’s how I keep that top of mind. Because what I find happens is when I’m working during the week, I have no time to actually accomplish like personal to-dos besides outside of my daily habits. So planning my kids’ birthday, a party like actually takes putting it on a goal list and focusing on it, especially on like the weekends, buying the presents, planning the cake, all those things. So I will plan my monthly goals and then weekly, I do the same thing every Sunday.

I re-look at my annual goals. I re-look at my monthly goals. And I make sure to write down exactly what I’m doing that week to move forward. Those monthly goals. Usually that’s like booking appointments, ordering a cake scheduling date nights, texting my nanny to see if she can come for the date night, things like that to reach those personal goals. Okay. So I treat my planning the exact same in business, but in my personal life. And this allows me to optimize all the different areas of my life. And the other piece to this is that if you want to prioritize, self-care working out date night, vacations, anything like that. And you’re a busy entrepreneur. You’ve gotta, pre-plan it. It’s gotta be on your calendar. So if I wanna go to a yoga class next week on Sunday, I gotta schedule that yoga class. I gotta put it in my calendar.

If I wanna get a massage, same thing. If I want to go on a trip, I need to look ahead the next several months and make sure it’s on the calendar. Because before I know it like a month’s gone by and then another month’s gone by. And then it’s like, oh no, I, I wanted to do all these things and I have no time to do them. So if you’re, if you’re in that boat, which I know a lot of you are, everything has to be pre-planned and put into your calendar and you should be treating self care and fun and joy and things that are out outside of work, like their appointments that are just as important as your business and your meetings. And that’s exactly what I do. I have things in my calendar like yoga, like a massage, like date night, like a, you know, a trip to the, to the local coffee shop with my kids in my calendar every week.

And those are on negotiable appointments with myself or with people who I love. And the other piece to this that I do a lot is I have two days a week that I have zero meetings. And those are days that if I don’t have something in the calendar, but something comes up that I need to do. I can use those days. I also use them for content creation for catching up, you know, on things. But I find it so effective to have at least two days a week. I wish I could get it more. Honestly, I don’t enjoy meetings, but I have a lot of meetings and they’re necessary. They’re not wasted time meetings. I like the meetings. I just get so much done when I don’t have meetings. I have two days a week that I almost never put meetings on the calendar.

And those are for if a friend’s like, Hey, you wanna go to lunch? I can put it on one of those days. I have space created, built in white space in my calendar for those events. And then I also use those days to catch up on content, to catch up on, you know, brainstorming, organizing things. A lot of times what comes up is if you have a couple of days with like jam packed meetings, you’ve gotta build in buffer space to like decompress and process everything. That’s come up in those meetings of like, Hey, we gotta do this. Or this is broken over here, or this needs attention or this needs approval, or this means your opinion. It’s a lot. And so you need to build that into your calendar. So I love for me, I do Tuesdays and Fridays, no meetings, and that kind of breaks my week up and also creates that white space so that if something last minute comes up, I’m able to put that in speaking of the, the white space thing.

The other piece that I do is at least four weeks out of the year, I have, pre-planned like, I already have them planned for this entire year. CEO weeks and CEO weeks are where I cancel all my meetings for the week, 100% of my meetings and I do CEO stuff. So that could be thinking literally, like going for a walk processing, a problem, brainstorming, trying to get clarity around something that could be extra self-care appointments. That also could be content creation that could be planning, brainstorming, visionary stuff, strategy, content intern of like sometimes I have one coming up and I’m gonna have to work on like our team culture training because we updated our values. And so I need to change those videos. So the stuff that only I can do, and by having a full week that I have zero calls, it makes it so that I’m extremely productive and I can get a lot of these done.

I’ve talked about these before on the pod cast. Cause I started doing them last year. I did like six last year, this year I have four already planned and if I need another one, I’ll throw it in there. And so this is like outside of vacation. This is like, I am here. I have nothing on my calendar, but complete white space, but I’m also working and I am creating call or things that I’ve just been like in the backlog that I needed to create. I pre plan out everything I wanna get done on that week. So I’m not going into it going like, oh, I wonder what I’m gonna do this week. Like I have it planned to the day, what I’m gonna get done with white space built into that. And I absolutely love these weeks. They just are so amazing for ideas, processing things strategizing and then catching up on all that stuff that, you know, piles up on your plate that you may not have priority for.

Also every day. I am very intentional about creating space away from my phone and the noise. And this has been maybe one of the biggest things that has made an impact on how I feel in terms of my effectiveness to show up as a leader, to show up as a visionary and you know, guidance for my team and for our company as a whole, for the ability to make decisions. And this is something where once you start doing this, you will never go back to not having this. And it does take discipline. But if you want, if you’re interested in this topic, I would recommend reading the book comfort crisis by Michael Easter. I just read it. And it just talks about how I already knew this stuff, but I just recently read this book. And the thing is we have created in our society essentially, where we’re never bored.

Like we have constant stimulation. So you’re working, you have stimulation, you go for a walk, you work out, you put your EarPods in, you’re listening to a book, music podcast, whatever you’ve got constant noise, constant input coming into our brain. And that’s not natural for humans. Like in our evolution, we would have hours upon hours at a time where we had no stimulation. My, we are just sitting there in nature, right? You’re talking, I’m talking thousands of years ago, but it’s not. Our brain can only process so much. And it is on massive overload. And this makes such a big impact in your ability to make decisions, to think clearly, to strategize, to create content. And so once I started realizing if I was very intentional and strict about creating that space away from the noise I was, I’m smarter. Like I genuinely show up with like such more clear thinking.

That’s not easy to do this because we have temptations thrown at us all day long to create noise. So a couple of things that I do to do this is one, I don’t sleep with the phone in my bedroom. So I put the phone away, usually around like eight 30 and I go to bed at like nine 30 and that hour, I don’t have the phone near me and I have to actually put it in different room to not have the temptation, to pick it up. And then I go to bed without it, if I was to break and I have, I’m so guilty of this and I’ve done this in the past, but if I bring the phone in the room, I go on it. I stay up later because I’m on the phone scrolling or whatever. And then it’s the first thing I look at in the morning.

And those two things alone. Once you stop doing it, you’ll never go back. I swear, just try it, try it for like a week. And I now wake up, I don’t touch my phone for the first, at least hour of my day. I have time to actually think, and you will be amazed that if you sit down, like go outside. If the weather’s good with no electronics and nobody are around you, like get up earlier. I want you to try this one day. I’m telling you, it’s gonna change your life. Get up early, go outside and just sit there. Like just sit there for like five or 10 minutes. And I promise you, the time will fly by and your brain during that time is thinking, it’s thinking it’s processing like random thoughts are coming into your head. Don’t even try to, don’t try and direct the thinking, just like, look at the sky, you know, look at the trees, whatever it is so powerful.

So the other thing I do, so I don’t sleep with the phone in my bedroom. I try to, I’m not perfect at this, but I try to leave the phone in my office after my nanny leaves and it’s time to be with my kids, but that’s not quiet. That is not quiet time. There’s a lot of noise coming from my kids. Especially once they all need me starting at four 30 until bedtime. And they all have had, you know, all the emotions of the day and they’re all sharing those emotions and they need it everything at once. So it’s the opposite of quiet time. The other thing I do though, is when I walk, I walk 45 minutes a day, every single day. I do not miss a day. If you guys are catching on, I’m extremely disciplined, crazy disciplined, but I, I force myself to go without my phone.

So I go on the walk with nothing. I have nobody to talk to. I have no music to listen to no audiobook, no podcast, no input, and have to convince myself to do this sometimes because it’s a little bit uncomfortable, especially when you’ve had a full day of nonstop input, you get addicted to it and you wanna keep it going because it keeps you distracted from your thoughts. But it’s, it’s a game changer I can notice right after I do it calms me down, allows me to process things. I will come up with so many ideas or like thoughts will pop into my head. That’s like, oh, you gotta remember to tell this person this. Or like, oh shoot, you forgot to do this. That it’s like, wow. How, how did I forget this? And how am I just randomly thinking of it? But it’s because you’re giving your brain that opportunity to pull out those subconscious thoughts.

Then the last thing I do is on the weekend, I spend at least a five, six hour chunk without even touching my phone, put it away. I oftentimes delete social media for chunks of time. I prefer to not have social media at all on my phone, but it’s hard to be the face of the brand and not have any social media, but I’m not very active on stories. And I, I don’t, I refuse to live my life through the lens of a camera. That’s recording to show the world what I’m doing all the time with my kids. And I’m telling you implement some of these things where you create space every day away from your phone away from noise, away from input. That means even like an audio book, like nothing make 30 minutes a day, 10 minutes a day even would make a difference, but try to make 30 minutes a day.

And I promise you, you’re gonna feel smarter. It’s insane. Try it. And tell me what you guys think. Okay. I have a few more tips for how I show up. I could, I could talk about this stuff all day. I love it. So a couple other things that I prioritize and this just, these are fast tips and these are things that are non-negotiable for me, which is my sleep, my exercise, and my self care. So I’m a little bit of like a health nut. I really do love fitness. That’s how my husband and I met. And I have a passion for being healthy. I’ve done two I’m on my second 75 hard right now. I’ve done whole thirties. I love working out. I love weight training. So it’s a passion of mine, but it is something that gets priority over work over time with my kids.

Like I will get my workouts in no matter what. I thankfully have a very supportive partner who watches the kids so I can get those workouts in, but that my self care and my sleep I’ve been trying a new thing recently where I don’t have an alarm. And I’m actually sacrificing a little bit having an extensive morning routine for getting more sleep. And that’s another thing you guys like sleep as a secret weapon. When you get like a really good night’s sleep, you will show up in your business the next day smarter. Like, I feel the difference in my brain and in my clarity of my thinking, when I get like eight, nine hours of sleep, I’m somebody who needs a lot of sleep because I think I work my brain so hard every day. And also in your weight training, you definitely need more sleep.

And so I’ve been trying this thing where I go to bed early, I go to bed nine. That’s my ideal time to go to bed. So 9, 9 30, and then I don’t set an alarm. And so I will sleep in, I do have a natural alarm called my two year old, but usually he wakes up at like 6, 6:30, but I don’t set that alarm. I mean, I let him wake me up whenever he does. And I am sacrificing a little bit having like the ideal morning routine I would want, which is like meditate and get to journal because I really have to get my workout in, in the morning first. But I’m telling you there’s something to sleep. And if you are struggling with a decision or struggling with like, what should I do with my business? Or like what, what’s the answer to this thing?

There’s so much power in that the saying of sleeping on it. I swear, go to bed with that idea where like, okay, I need, I need guidance on what this decision should be or what I should do here. And you will wake up with the clarity. It’s crazy. Our brains are incredible, but that should be priority. Okay. Couple more things is one of the people always ask me, like, how do you learn how to be a better CEO? I’m a young CEO. I don’t have a lot of experience with management. And one of the, like my biggest secret weapons is reading. I read last year, like six, five books. And I read majority nonfiction. I read some fiction too, which is great love fiction. But I choose, this is another thing. Like every time I share this, people are like, well, how do you have time?

I make the time I make the time to read. I don’t watch TV and that’s my choice. And maybe that’s not your choice and that’s totally fine, but you can learn so much about leadership and business relationships, personal development. There’s a lot of bad books out there, but there’s also a lot of really great books that have changed my life. And I just love growing constantly as a per person. That’s one of my core values is to always strive to be better than yesterday. And for me, reading is able to create that. And that’s how I’ve been able to, to learn how to do things in the best way possible that I maybe, you know, don’t know how to do. And haven’t had experience before is learning from people who have done it before and done it better than me and I have also created, you know, when I need to help my team solve a problem or train them on certain leadership components.

We have a book club in our team and I, and I send them books. And it’s really helpful because you can’t always be the hero, right? You can’t train everybody. You know, people listen to something different from coming from somebody who’s an expert or has certain experience that you don’t have. And so it’s a great way also to grow your leadership team, improve your team and create that growth within your team. So that is one of my like personal CEO hacks is I learn and I read all the time and I am striving to learn and be better. So, okay. The final thing that I want to mention is how I have house support and running my house and my life with systems. So I always talk about this and then sometimes I feel like I want people to understand, you don’t have to have all of this from the get go.

When I started my business, my first child was, he was about 18 months old until we got our first nanny. So from zero to 18 months old, I had no help. And I just, I wasn’t, we weren’t in the place where we could afford it. And so I created a system with my husband, where I worked from like eight to 12. I put him down for his nap. And then my husband worked from like 12 to five. And then I worked while he was in napping. And I took him when he woke up. And so we had a system that worked then, and over time as I was able to make more money and get more successful, I was able to afford help. But now when people ask me, like, how do you do it all? I’m like, I don’t do it all. I have a system and people supporting me.

I have a full-time nanny. And two of my kids are now in school. One’s only three days a week, but the others are in school. I have a full-time nanny who is a part of our family who helps with cooking, who helps with cleaning, helps with laundry, who is with the kids every day. I do not do it all. I have a chef who cooks my breakfast and my lunch. I have an assistant. I have support in all areas of my life. And that is what allows me to show up and only have to work and then actually be able to be present with my kids. I’m also very fortunate to have a partner who makes dinner every night, who is very, he makes, he makes kids breakfast so I can work out. He gets ’em ready for school. And I drive ’em to school.

We have a really good system where we’re able to both prioritize our careers, our businesses, our self-care, and then our family and our kids. And so obviously everybody’s situation is gonna be different. But what I would recommend you do is spend time writing down, like, what would my ideal a be like, what would be the support that I would need? What would be the, you know, uh, support from a partner, if you have one or somebody else, maybe your parents, what would be the, the hired help that I would need? How would I structure my day? Like from when you get up to, when you go to bed, like an average day, what would that ideal day look like? And, and spend time like writing down as much detail as you can, and then figure out, you know, can I get some of this support or can I have a conversation with my partner about structuring things this way?

And I have found that aid systems and schedules and routines that really bring this ideal day to life helps so much because it’s easy to get into a place where you’re like, wow, it’d be nice if I could work out or it’d be nice if I could go for a walk every day or it’d be nice. If I had time to read the answer is saying, what time of day am I gonna do this every day? And what support do I need in order to make that happen? And then you go do it and you try it. And so that my husband and I do that a lot where we, we basically schedule our days like this and we each have our roles, what we’re good at. And that, again, it’s gonna be different for everybody. You can design and create your dream life. And it doesn’t consist of you trying to do it all.

It’s getting support and having the system backing what you want and the routine and the habits. That is the key. That’s my ultimate key that in discipline, I’m naturally extremely disciplined. So I do have that going for me. I’ve been, I mean, if you guys hear the stories of me as a kid, like I was not normal. I was very disciplined as a kid. I had like diaries that I would track my food and I would go work out when I got home, I’d get up at, at 6:00 AM and watch like Denise Austin and do a workout before I went to like fourth grade. Like I’m not normal. So there’s that too. But I think a lot of what I’m able to create is this very optimized life. And I feel like in a lot of the areas of my, you know, I’m always improving, but in all the areas of my life, I may able to show up and be the most optimized version of me today in a year from now, it will be different.

It will be a different version. It will be a better version. Somebody who’s grown. But today that is constantly, my goal is like, how do I wanna show up with my health, with myself, with my personal development, with my relationships, my business, as a CEO. And then I go implement habits, systems, support, and rituals around accomplishing those things. All right, everybody, I hope you enjoyed this a little bit more personal podcast and advice. I know it’s not the typical marketing advice, but it doesn’t matter if you’re a CEO who has a big team, or you have no team, or you have kids or don’t have kids. Like we all are trying to create the most optimized life and show up as amazing leaders and take care of ourselves while running a business and potentially supporting a family. So I hope that you got some value out of this, and I hope you guys enjoyed this series. Send me a message again, share it on social media, tag me at Emily Hersh. If you do you share it so I can. Thank you. And I’ll talk to you guys all next week. All.

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