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Build with Leila Hormozi
The 3 Shifts I'm Making To Uplevel My Personal Operating System | Ep 261
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What's up, guys? Welcome back to Build. And today I want to talk about upgrading your operating system. So I'm sure hearing me say upgrading your operating system, you think I'm going to talk about meeting cadences or the way that you communicate with the team or something to that degree, But I am actually talking about your personal operating system, like the way that you operate your company, the way that you operate your company, the way that you interact with your company, the way that you do your job. And I think the reality is, is that there's a point where you realize that you are hitting your head against a wall. You are continuing to try and screw in the screwdriver with a hammer, and you realize that the business is not broken, but the version of you that built it cannot be the same version of you that scales it. And this has been something that's happened, I would say, in business. It's happened to me probably every two to three years. Like, I'm large scale shift has to occur, and I'm in one right now. And the theme kind of remains the same, which is, like, you rely on these tools, right? It's like some kind of control tools, precision tools, intensity tools, and they get us to a certain level, but then they don't get us to the next. And so I'm in a place, and I've been in a place many times. I have to trade what's familiar and what I'm good at for what's required to get to the next level. I think a lot of times I think about it as like, trading control for growth. I think about trading perfection for trust. And I think a lot of it is trading an old identity for a new one. You know, this is really personal for me because when I was running my last business, it was very successful, and it's gone on to be really successful and continued to be. But I got to a point where I realized that I couldn't keep operating as I was. Like, I was trying so hard to control everything, and it didn't work. And what happens is that when you try to glue everything together in the business, the business doesn't break, but you feel like you're going to break. At least a lot of people do at some point in time. And I definitely got to that point. And when we started acquisition.com I had taken, I want to say, like, I had really dove in deep into, like, what I wanted out of life, my best version of myself, who I wanted to be. And I really outlined what I wanted to look like for acquisition. Dot com. And in getting into the business, you know, I would say for the first year, I did a fairly good job of, like, remaining keeping those frames top of mind. But the reality is, is that then when everything clicks and everything starts to grow really quickly, you just default back to your old way of operating. You default back to the tools that you knew. And I recognize that I did that, and I don't regret it. But I do realize that. That it's not what's gonna take me to the next level. And I've come to this point where the business is doing extremely well, better than any business I've had to before. It's at a level that I've never operated before, to some degrees, not in terms of headcount, but in terms of, you know, revenue. And I have to figure out, how do I do this differently to get to the next level and to continue to ride this opportunity? And with that comes a lot of pressure, right? Because, you know, I look at it, I'm like, well, if the business fails, that's on me. If I make the wrong decision, if I make the wrong call, if I'm not leveling up, the whole business doesn't level up. I mean, I see hundreds of entrepreneurs every week, and that's very. It's clear as day, you know, in the last two months, I know I made a podcast on this, but, you know, I had a number of health issues occur. It kind of took me out of the game, and it really put me in a place of reflecting. And to be clear, I'm not out of the woods yet. And so I'm still reflecting. And what I realized is, like, wow, I can completely change my identity to grow the business. Like, I will go in and become one Layla and then another Layla. Cause I'm like, I just do what's required. I do what's required. I become who's required. I take on this new identity to tackle the task at hand. And that's when I realized, stepping back, that that identity that served me for the last two years doesn't serve me anymore. Right? And you know what? The truth is, I think that it. There's. There's two things I've recognized in this last two months, which is like, success requires autonomy, happiness requires connection. I've definitely sacrificed a decent amount of connection in the last, I would say, 12 months in service of success, which required a lot of autonomy, a lot of being alone, a lot of alone time, et cetera. Luckily, I like being alone, and I like those things. But it's Also not been a reflective time. It's been a time of execution and action. And so I've been changing how I operate because I recognize that I can't do anything I've done in the past. None of my tools will work because this is a new problem in front of me. This is a new level in front of me. And so I actually don't know what it looks like, right? And so I'm figuring it out, and I feel actually really clear on what it does need to look like. I've just never done it before, Right. And so what I do know is that it looks a lot like similar shifts I've made in the past, which relate back to, you know, trading that control for growth and trading that perfection for trust. And so I want to walk you guys through, because I think this applies to any level when you kind of have to make this wholesale shift in yourself and realize that there's a tension between the old way you did things and the new way you did things, and you're trying to figure out what to do. So I outlined the three areas that I have been intentionally making the biggest shifts. So the first shift that I've made and I'm in the progress of making is going from managing and leading to just leading. So for a while, and something I do quite often is I can get in the weeds, right? I can know where every nook and cranny are. I can know how every piece of the business works. I can edit everybody's work. I can review SOPs. I can, you know, understand our tech system. I can understand every piece of a sale, every piece of upsell. I can understand every piece of a deal. I can get into the details, right? And to be honest, I like being the details, because then I feel in control. I feel like at the end of the day, if something goes to shit, I can always jump in there and fix it, right? But when you're scaling and when things go really fast, that just becomes a really big liability and honestly, a really big stressor. And so what I realized is, like, my job is no longer to manage people and projects. It's to lead leaders. And I, to be really honest, I prefer that. I am great at managing. I'm great at holding people accountable. I'm great at communicating and running meetings and doing all these things. And I know I talk about a lot of those things, but that's because what I really love is not applicable to a lot of people that listen to my podcast or watch my videos, which is leading, right? Because you have to be a certain size business to get there. And that means giving direction, not giving instructions means creating clarity, not micromanaging details. And it's a completely different skill, right? I didn't have the skill early on, but I developed it because I recognized that it was one I wanted to have. Now in my business, this is a non negotiable. I will not retain people unless I do this right? And so what does that look like for me is I have to teach people how to use me differently, right? I have to teach people not to bring me problems, to fix for them. They have to bring me solutions. I have to teach people not to come to me with every impulsive thought that comes in their mind or every idea, but to bring me baked solutions that they've talked to other people about. I have to teach people that the amount of time I give them each week is probably the amount of time I can give because I have a whole team of tens of people under me that I'm trying to give equal time to and leadership. I have to teach people that they need to be able to openly talk to me in a group format because I'm not always going to be able to have that one on one time. And all these shifts are super uncomfortable for me because I always want my team to feel incredibly supported. But what I've recognized and what's become incredibly clear to me at this point is that the one resource that everyone always wants more of is me, right? I do a full team survey, I audit people, I ask people. It's like, well, I'd like more time with you, I'd like more. And I have to figure out where I can make the biggest dent in my business. And it's probably not managing people, managing projects and having a lot of one on one communication, but instead leading people, leading projects, creating clarity, painting the vision and leading groups of leaders, facilitating group discussion. And the byproduct of that is that it creates a better team. I remember in 2020 having this discussion with my team at gym launch and telling them that we no longer could just rely on me holding the team accountable. I needed them to hold each other accountable. And I will say that that shift in our leadership is what allowed me to get above the business finally after, you know, six years of being knee deep in it. And so if you feel like you're at that point right now, consider some of these shifts. They're hard and uncomfortable, but man, do they feel good once you make them because you feel like you're actually being effective in the business. And it's hard because I get it. Everyone wants your time. Everyone wants time with you. They want more time with you, more time to talk to you, more. But nobody knows what you're doing. Nobody knows how much work you have. Nobody has any idea how many things are on your plate, how many products, how many things they don't know about. And so you have to make sure that you protect your time. Nobody else is going to advocate that for you. Nobody else. Because at the end of the day, this is what you have to realize. That's the only downside for them. They only lose something. Now, they might gain a great framework for the way for them to lead, but that doesn't substitute the feeling of loss that they may have for losing some of that connection, losing some of that time, and losing some of that intimacy that they have with you. At the same time, they also might lose some of the crutch, right? Because if you're constantly in the details and managing things, you know the solution immediately. And so then what they have to realize is like, oh, shit, it's time for me to figure this out. I have to go talk to these people. I have to figure out these problems. I have to manage and make sure the thing is ready to ship without Leila looking at it. And so if you're at a point where this is where you're at, where you're like, I can't do more than I'm doing, then you have to do something differently. And often it's making a shift from managing the details, managing the people, to leading the vision and leading people. Now, the second shift that I have made, and this is a more recent one, and I would like you to think about making, is going from resolving conflict to preventing it. Okay. I used to, and probably still do, pride myself on my ability to handle tough conversations, to mediate tension amongst people, to navigate disagreements, and honestly, just to coach people on their disagreements. And when they're misaligned, like, I feel like it's something I'm very, very good at, and it's taken me a long time to be good at that. It was not something I was naturally good at. And so I like doing it because it feels like practice. And while that's important, if I'm always resolving conflict and helping guide people through these situations, I'm probably not preventing things on the front end. Now, there's two ways that we can focus on preventing this upstream. One, hiring. Two, communication. Okay? One, in terms of hiring, being ruthless about people, being a culture fit, being ruthless about setting the right expectations from day one of how we operate as a company, how we communicate, how we resolve disagreements, and then watching how people show up, not just in interviews, but early on in their execution, that's the first place that I'm indexing my attention on. The second place is on communicating standards. I could constantly be resolving conflict, or I could be communicating before it happens about how we prevent conflict, about how we talk to each other, how we treat each other, what are our values, how do we show up every day? What do I expect from people on this team? And so it's really going from this mindset of repairing things in your company to preparing your company for these things. And then on the back end, you can say, hey, I've given you the tools, or I've laid the expectations, or I've given you the clarity. Now it's on you to figure this out. If there's still conflict, if there's still an issue, I want you to use your resources. I want you to use the tools. I want you to use the people around you. I want you to figure this out. And for me, that's been probably one of the harder shifts to make. Because, you know, when I see interpersonal conflict, when I see people who are misaligned, I see I'm like, gosh, it's so clear. It's so easy. This would be one text, one conversation. It'd take five minutes, but it might take them three days, three hours, or even three weeks to resolve it. And so I understand it can be frustrating, but at the same time, every time that you get ahead of a problem, you are also building the culture. You're also saving everybody else the headache. And you're also educating your team on what it looks like to be a leader in your company. Right? And so what you want to do is shift your energy from collecting all the water that's running downstream, and you want to prevent it from even getting there by catching it when it's upstream. Now, the third shift that I'm making is from cramming more into my schedule to protecting my energy. This one is hard. It's hard because if you're like me, I'm high energy, I'm high output. Like, I naturally have a lot of energy. I'm not a lazy, slothly person. Like, I like exercise. I like walking. I like talking. I like doing things. Like, I like being busy, I like walking around. Like, I don't like sitting and watching a movie in the middle of the day. Like, that's just who I am. I've got a lot of energy. And what I realized is that, you know, there was a time that I thought if I could just stack more meetings, remove all slack time, you know, push to the edge and just like, more, more, more, five minutes here. I even had like five minute pee break. I was like, yeah, that's going to get me to where I need to go. And it does for a minute. That's the thing. It does. It works for a minute. It works for a minute. But what I realized as of recent was that when I did that, a giant hole showed up in the way that I showed up for my team when they were depleted, when they needed a leader, when there was a big problem in the company, when there was a big decision to be made because I was depleted, I was depleted of time, I was depleted of energy and depleted of judgment. And there's a time where in your business, your judgment becomes more valuable than your time. And that is probably the number one thing that I have recognized as of late for myself, is that my judgment right now is more important. I can no longer say that being a good leader means I'm here before everybody else, that I work harder than everybody else, that I cram in more stuff than anybody else. And it kills me, it pains me, because I'm like, well, that's what I like doing. But what I like more than sticking with the familiar is I like making progress. I like evolving as a person. I like becoming a better leader, and I like knowing that I'm the right person to help my team win. And the moment that I recognize that me cramming more into my already maxed out schedule is not what's going to allow myself to lead them to the championship, I'm done. It's just clear as day it's not going to work right. Because what happens when I do that is I don't have the judgment reserved for these big decisions. And then I might make the wrong call. And if you make the wrong call and you have a small company, it's like a rowboat. You just change direction real quick. But if you make the wrong call, you have a big company, it's like the Titanic. It's like you're trying to maneuver to not hit the iceberg and look what happens. You can't miss it. And so you hit it and it's catastrophic damage. And so you have to take a look and say, at what point am I in my company who's making the big decisions that guide the direction of the company? And if it's not me. Who is it? And if I'm not making the right ones, where am I leading my company? Am I really looking out for the best interest of everybody here? That's the thing, is if you try to just do more and just cram it all in, the quality of your decisions drop. Right? So then what do I have to do now? Right? I have to look at my schedule, I have to look at my time and I have to say, how do I create space to think? How do I create space to handle the things that are unexpected, right? Not because I'm soft, but because I cannot afford any longer to make low quality decisions when each one of those decisions has a seven or eight figure or nine figure implication on my business. And so it's not that doing more is going to get me to the next level. It's about showing up at full capacity in the moments that matter. I'll give you a very micro moment of this as I had a realization very recently that this is a very important time for my company. This is when the culture needs to be embedded. This is when we're hiring a lot of people, when there's a lot going on, when stress is high. I need to be the voice for the culture. I need to create clarity, create security, you know, make them feel like, is this the right place for me to be? And I had time to talk on weekly meetings and I was so busy that I started skipping some of them. I started scheduling other meetings over them when this is my one full team meeting a week. And then I realized I got my head out of my ass and I was like, layla, that's the most important meeting. You need to be messaging to the entire team what you're seeing, what you're thinking, what's going on, giving clarity, encouraging them. If you do that one meeting, think about how many others become obsolete. But my head was so far up my ass working on other stuff that doesn't really matter, that felt important, that other people deemed to be important of my time, that I didn't notice it. And so that's the thing that I want to remind you of here, is that nobody can dictate where your time goes better than you. Nobody's going to know what your time is really worth. Nobody's going to know what you should spend your time on. At the end of the day, it's always going to be you. And if anything, everyone's going to want you to spend more time on the thing that helps them the most. People have bias. And so you have to protect yourself of that. You have to focus on the things that are going to give you the most leverage and actually grow your business. And so I hope this podcast helps you. If you're in that same space where you feel like there's a tension between who you are and who you know you need to be to make the company grow, to get the company to the next level, or just to achieve your dreams, just know that it's not a setback, it's a setup for success. It's a sign that it is time to upgrade your personal operating system.