Resilient or Burned Out? How to Build Bounce-Forward Leadership in Business

In this episode of The Business Fix, Chrissy and Josh dive headfirst into a crucial topic for every small business owner and manager: resiliency. Following last week's breakdown on burnout, this conversation flips the script and focuses on building the kind of resilience that doesn't just help you bounce back but helps you bounce forward.

Chrissy shares personal insights from her book Reluctantly Resilient and breaks down what she calls the Resilient Operating System, a practical toolbox of habits, mindsets, and systems to help leaders lead through pressure and change. Josh adds his operational and marketing perspective, revealing how a business can be structured for resilience even when the leader steps away.

You’ll discover why resilience is a learnable skill (not a fixed trait) and how it shows up differently in your personal life versus your business. Chrissy and Josh explore how to lead without burning out by embracing rest as a leadership tool, why grit without grounding leads to burnout, and how to future-proof your business with documented processes, cross-training, and diversified marketing and revenue streams. They also dive into how to navigate tough conversations with calm clarity and build the financial and operational buffers every business needs to stay strong in uncertain times. 

Whether you're in crisis mode or just preparing for the next big challenge, this episode gives you the mindset and the toolkit to lead more effectively and sustainably. It’s real talk with practical takeaways and a few laughs along the way.

🔧 Want to build your own Resilient Operating System? Learn more at ResilientOperatingSystem.com

 💬 Got questions or feedback? Leave a comment or review! Josh and Chrissy want to hear from you!

If you're looking to get help with your culture, or to help out an entire group, reach out to Josh and Chrissy today!  We would love to see how we can help you, your business, or your event. Contact us!

ClarityHR is your fractional HR team, giving you real people, real support, and real solutions. Whether it’s compliance headaches, hiring struggles, or just needing someone to take the people stuff off your plate — we’ve got your back. So if you’re ready to stop using duct-tape and hope as your HR strategy and finally get some peace of mind, head over to ClarityHR.com

If you're looking to start your own podcast or maybe you just want to add the next level of professionalism to your podcast and brand, you should be working with the producers behind The Business Fix at Pedal Stomper Productions. Click the link to learn more about how you can get your podcast to the next level. https://www.pedalstomperproductions.com

🎙 Ready to Fix What’s Holding Your Business Back?
The Business Fix podcast delivers real-world strategies to grow your business, lead your team, and reclaim your time. New episodes drop weekly—packed with insights for business owners and managers who want to do better.

🔗 Connect with Chrissy and Josh at https://www.businessfixpodcast.com/ for more tools, support, and clarity.

Enjoy the episode? Leave us a review, share it with your leadership team, and let us know your biggest takeaway in the comments!

Transcript

Josh Troche: Last week we talked about burnout. As I crashed and burned like a, like, I believe the analogy I made was like a 200,000 mile Hyundai...

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: ...with every check engine light on. How do we avoid that and how do we recover from that? That takes a skill called resilience. Yes. And that's... that seems... it's just a smile on your face. I love seeing that smile on your face because you're like, "Get me..." You are like a nine year old the day before Christmas. I'm just talking right now to build the anticipation. Stay tuned. She's the CEO.

Chrissy Myers: He's the marketing and operations guy.

Josh Troche: If it's broken, you need...

Chrissy Myers: The business fix.

Josh Troche: Do we need to banter or do you just want to get right into the top? Where you can banter?

Chrissy Myers: I mean, go ahead.

Josh Troche: I just I just feel like you're so amped up for this. I am. I mean, I know you've got your coffee over. You do. And it's I, I'm excited. It's it's funny because you're amped up enough about this...

Chrissy Myers: I didn't need the caffeine.

Josh Troche: No, she did not.

Chrissy Myers: Need no sugar, no cap, no.

Josh Troche: Sugar, no caffeine. Chrissy is not on meth, now. She just is really amped up to talk about resiliency. Just the look on your face.

Chrissy Myers: It's like, "Heidi," it's you.

Josh Troche: You have this look of wonder of like a nine year...

Chrissy Myers: ...old, because it's fun. This is a this is an important topic.

Josh Troche: I wholeheartedly agree.

Chrissy Myers: And I love it.

Josh Troche: The the importance of this is amazing. I wholeheartedly agree with all that. That being said, let's okay, we're just going to get into this. I wanted to start, I wanted to really tone this back just to like, just to just to really hunker this down and just torture you. Really?

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: Webster's dictionary defines resilience as the ability to bounce back from adversity.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah. That's Webster's version.

Josh Troche: Oh, I like this. You you have it as it's not bouncing back, it is bouncing forward.

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: That this is this is going to... this is. And anytime someone says cool, like bouncing, I think of the Kool-Aid man bouncing through the wall. So that that to me, oh yeah. That's that is what we're going to be rolling with on this. The personal development mind side, of the mindset side of this, is all you. Yeah. I'll cover some operational like how to recover from those, "oh" moments. But, yeah. So, you. This is your thing. This is your jam.

Chrissy Myers: It is.

Josh Troche: It is a skill, not a trait. I love how you put that, because this is something that says it's something that can be learned.

Chrissy Myers: It absolutely is.

Josh Troche: Looking back ten, 12 years ago, you did not have quite the same resilience that you do today. No, there was more times crying on the office floor, I'm assuming.

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: There's. And that's not just big picture leadership. This is a skill that happens in your business and out of your business. Make a bad golf shot. You got to be resilient to come back and make the good golf shot. Do you golf?

Chrissy Myers: No.

Josh Troche: Not anymore. Me neither. But I figured it seemed like it fit. It's a...

Chrissy Myers: Good analogy.

Josh Troche: So, yeah. What are some of the core habits, mindset, mindset shifts that a business owner needs to really, like, cultivate in order to avoid burnout? Recent topic, go back and listen to the last episode. Shameless plug there.

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: And how do you consistently faced this, the inevitable challenges that come with business? Yeah, and the look on your face right now, I just get... I have to say one more thing. You are like a dog in the starting gate. Just shoot the gun off already. Yes. Let me out! Let me out! Go!

Chrissy's Perspective on Resilience

Chrissy Myers: There you go. So, here's what I'll say first about resilience.

• Yes, it is a skill that you can build over time.
• Yes, it is a skill that we are constantly working on. I don't know that anybody ever truly masters it.
• It's one of those that you're continuing to get better at.

Josh Troche: It's a skill.

Chrissy Myers: It's a skill. It's a skill. But it is something that you can learn. And it's also something that you can teach your kids. You can teach your team members. You can teach other family members. You can teach people in the community. Resilience is something that is transferable to everything that you do. And every person that you touch in the world. So that's something that I think when people just think, "oh, well, resilience is is just about bouncing back when you're a business setback". No. Resilience is about being able to bounce back period from anything.

Josh Troche: So it is that it is that, when the, as I always like to say, when the fan needs air pressure washing.

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: Your ability to get the fan clean quickly. Efficiently and without causing a whole lot of issues.

Chrissy Myers: Yes. It's about moving forward.

Josh Troche: We want a clean fan.

Chrissy Myers: We want a clean fan. So in talking about that, I will say that, you know, resilience starts with purpose. It doesn't start with hustle. All right. So if you're only fuel this hustle you're going to run out fast. Talking about burnout last week. Purpose. Purpose is really what keeps you steady. And you know a lot of small business owners we build momentum on grit alone. But grit without grounding is going to burnout. So when things fall apart and they will because it just it's part of the human experience. Nature. Things fall apart. You have to know why you're still showing up. Why am I doing this? And so for me, resilience didn't come from working harder. It really came from getting painfully clear on what actually mattered.

Chrissy Myers: Oh, I like that. Yeah. And then I let that what actually mattered. Really lead the way for me. And resilient leaders aren't just high energy, they're anchored.

Key Components of Resilience

Josh Troche: So here's here's a question for you with that. Yeah. Does that resiliency help you then decide like what's worth worrying about?

Chrissy Myers: Yes, it can. It's also, I mean, because resilience is a set up, for me, we have like Resilient Operating System. It's a set of skills that help you determine how you're going to continue to move forward. Do I need to stay in fear? Can I move forward? This this setback happened. What do we need to do? How do I need to take care of myself so that I can continue to do the things that move me forward, move the business forward, move forward?

Josh Troche: Makes sense? Yeah, 100%.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah. So the first one, you know, resilience starts with purpose, not hustle. Second is, you know, again dealing with burnout. You can't be the only engine. So if your team needs you to push every inch forward, that's not leadership. That's liability. And so having a Resilient Operating System, having resilience isn't really about doing more. It's about designing things better. And it starts with stepping out of the hero seat. Stop trying to be the hero all the time. Resilient business isn't one where the leaders invincible. It's one where the systems and the people can function without the leader in the room. I think that's one of the most important ones. I'll say that again. It's one where the systems and the people can function without the leader in the room.

Josh Troche: It's funny you say that. I was just talking with someone the other day. In fact, it was earlier. Earlier today. Tammy Olley, who is the alumni coordinator for Cleveland Area 10,000 small...

Chrissy Myers: Businesses and our number one fan.

Josh Troche: Correct. Tammy's amazing. But she talked about how someone talked. They had an emergency plan that they came up with that their business was able to run while they were in the hospital for almost a year.

Chrissy Myers: That's wonderful.

Josh Troche: Correct. Yeah. When I hear that, I'm like, oh yeah, not not there yet.

Chrissy Myers: No, no, I don't think I'm there either. But I've lived both sides of this being able, like being the person that has to be there all the time. And then being the person that is a way that isn't doing all the things all the time. I can tell you when your team knows the vision, has the tools and feels trusted to lead. That's when the growth of your business really happens.

Josh Troche: Sure, sure. 100%. It's it's interesting that you talked about both sides of that, because I know as you came up through your business, you got to see that as different things happened.

Chrissy Myers: Yes, absolutely. And I became resilient, kicking and screaming. I didn't become resilient because I wanted to be. I came resilient because I had to be. So I think that's a lot of. So when I wrote the book Reluctantly Resilient, I mean, people are like, oh, that kind of sounds like... I'm like, no, no, no, no, that's literally that's that's the truth. I'm resilient. No, it's not.

Josh Troche: And from when we sat in the studio here and you read the book, it wasn't reluctantly. It was, like you said, kicking and screaming. And it wasn't like, oh, I'd really rather not do this. No, it was hell.

Rest as a Leadership Skill

Chrissy Myers: No, no, don't want to. So make me. I won't. Which brings us to number three about a key to resilience. You know, and we talked about it last week too, in in talking about burn about that burnout. And that is that rest is a leadership skill.

Josh Troche: Yes. It was funny when when we when I saw the notes for this, I'm like, oh, she took some stuff from last week. Just kind of said, "Hey, dudes, remember that?"

Chrissy Myers: We're going to repeat it.

Josh Troche: Remember something that you did? Yeah.

Chrissy Myers: That was really dumb. Just happened. So we're just going to move forward. But, you know, fast doesn't mean forward. Burnout is in a batch. It's really important. So one of the hardest lessons that I had to learn, especially when I was in seasons of Crisis, and we talked about this in 2013. I had to sue enemies within 30 days of each other, a personal tsunami and a professional tsunami. I lost my my first husband to suicide, and 30 days later, our business went through a major change with the Affordable Care Act. And so I mean, hardest lesson, especially in Season of Crisis, is to kind of know how to slow down. And sometimes you will know that you need to slow down. And then there are other times where life is just going to slow you down. And so when we slow down, we don't want to collapse. We want to make sure that we're realigning. So taking that rest is really a strategic pause. So taking that strategic pause is leadership. And resting is really a form of a leadership skill. So you know.

Josh Troche: I so that that I guess I kind of want to touch on that a little bit because to me it is that resting. So you can pull back and be thoughtful about what you're doing.

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: Instead of the reacting in the emotional mess of it is what it is. Yeah.

Chrissy Myers: Because if you don't build time to think, process and reflect, you're just reacting to your reacting. You're not leading. And in the long run, you're teaching your team that chaos is the standard that you're always going to bear. Yeah. Unless you're willing to pause, reflect. Yeah. It's important.

Josh Troche: Walk softly. Carry a big stick.

Chrissy Myers: All right.

Josh Troche: Slowly.

Chrissy Myers: No, I wouldn't just. You don't need the stick.

Josh Troche: Just move slowly.

Chrissy Myers: Move slowly.

Josh Troche: Slowly, slowly and intentionally.

Chrissy Myers: Yes. Because resilient leadership makes space. It makes space for growth. It makes space for rest. And for really what actually matters.

Josh Troche: Yeah, I guess I, I guess when I say the walk softly carry a big stick, I'm more heavy on the walk softly piece because it takes intention.

Chrissy Myers: It does.

Josh Troche: So walk softly.

Chrissy Myers: Does.

Josh Troche: Yeah. To to do that that way. Yeah. We talk about, I mean, you you talk about how this is a toolbox.

Chrissy Myers: It is.

Josh Troche: And me being a mechanical guy. Yeah. You as soon as you bring up toolbox, I know.

Chrissy Myers: Oh, speaking your language.

Josh Troche: And so this is, this is the this is the question that I, this is the statement that I want to make and kind of let you build off of this. Yeah. Anyone that has a toolbox.

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: We all realize every tool in there can be a hammer.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: Pliers can be a hammer. A wrench can be a hammer. They are not good hammers. No. I'll let you run with that.

Resilience as a Toolbox

Chrissy Myers: So resilience isn't personality. It's a toolbox. So resilient leaders don't just power through. They pull from the right tools at the right time. And so we talk about, at Clarity, we're working on a project called Resilient Operating System. So for those business owners who are like, hey, I think I need to build these skills, call me, I would love to talk to you. Yes, about how we're going to build these skills, because we have a program that really teaches the different tools that go in in your toolbox. So, but in talking about resilience, I think oftentimes and I don't like this, we talk about resilience like it's a character trait. Like it's something you either have or you don't have. And that's not true. I mean, I've learned that it's way more practical than that, that resilience can be developed. So real resilience is a set of tools. It's skills, it's habits, it's boundaries. You know, it's frameworks because we know that we don't rise in crisis because we're tough. We rise and we get better and we move forward because we've built a system that helps us respond with clarity instead of with chaos.

Josh Troche: Seeing things here.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: Clarity. Resilience.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah. It's like you go together, say.

Josh Troche: Those words allow.

Chrissy Myers: I do. I love this. Yeah. So I mean as we talk about, you know, this is what Resilient Operating System is about. It's really about equipping leaders to lead through the mass and to thrive through it, not just to survive it. So when things go sideways, you don't need inspiration. You really need a playbook and a toolbox to help you get through to the next thing.

• Some toolbox examples include:
  • Growth mindset
  • Interpersonal effectiveness skills (learning how to get your needs met, communicate effectively)
  • Clear purpose
  • Self-care techniques
  • Learning how to have boundaries
  • How to give feedback
  • How to embrace progress over perfection
  • Forgiveness (especially of yourself as a hypercritical business owner)
  • Practicing gratitude

I mean, some of these are really simple, or they're simple to say. They're hard to put in practice, but there's there's there's a million different skills that you can put in your resilience toolbox. I mean, we talk about probably 16 big ones in Resilient Operating System, three primary, but I mean, it's it's something that you can continue to add in over time. Like I just, I learned a new tool this week and I'm like, oh, I think that's going to go into our Resilient Operating System toolbox. Just makes sense to me.

Josh Troche: The one that I find so interesting is the feedback.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: Because too many people give feedback in the moment. Yes. And that feedback in the moment also comes at people like a semi-truck, instead of something that is constructive. Instead of something that has forgiveness, gratitude, all those other things to it. That feedback can come in the form of a baseball bat. And I like the fact that you're talking about that is a tool that can be used to move it forward. If you use it correctly.

Chrissy Myers: Yes. And it can be a tool that you use for other people. But in this case, when it comes to resilience, I am talking specifically about feedback that you are soliciting from other people. Oh sure, because we can't get better if we're not willing to have the hard conversation or be willing to solicit feedback from the people around us that care about us the most, that want us to be better. So this is why I think a lot of times with leaders when we're talking about, you know, we're going to do 360 feedback and off like the I think if you want an executive director to bristle, have your board tell you we want you to do 360 feedback. No. Excuse me. Right. Why? Right. It's like, no, no, no, this is not, I understand that it is. It is a, it can sometimes be an uncomfortable process. Sure. I don't like 360 feedback either as much as I mean, it's good for me, but there are going to be moments where I'm like, that's why they think it's like, yeah, that's what they think. And it's okay. It's just data. So what are we going to do with that data? So feedback can really be important to keep you resilient because it's also how are you going to bounce back from that feedback? You know, weaponize it. Don't do it.

Josh Troche: No, it's that that feedback. And that's how we get better. And that truly is how we get better. Yeah, 100%.

Chrissy Myers: So you want to talk about operations?

Josh Troche: I always wanted.

Operational Resilience

Chrissy Myers: All right. So I talked about personal resilience. But I have a feeling you've got some things in place to talk about like company resilience. Because I feel like that that tends to be more your bailiwick. It is. All right.

Josh Troche: And it's funny because I when I was out for the week, there were pieces of my business that I am heavily involved in still that I just haven't been pulled out of.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: Those came to a screeching halt.

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: The parts that my employees and others take care of hummed right along. Like, just they're like, great, he's out of our way. So yeah, to me, it's funny with that, the biggest one is cross training and documentation that I always tell people, no single employee should be. I mean, if you have three employees, it's tough. But as you grow, no single employee should be the sole key to the the greatest treasure in all the land.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: Just can't be that way. No, make sure people know what other people do and make sure that they know how it's done. And. And it needs to be documented.

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: I, we I just talked, I was on a podcast the other day about company culture and like, how to do some of these things. And we talked about those standard operating procedures because I'm like, look, if you don't have it written out how something's supposed to get done, when something goes wrong, you can't look back and say, where did we go wrong? You just have to say in one of these 30 steps, something went wrong. We don't know what step because we have no numbers and we have no process.

Chrissy Myers: No, don't leave people guessing.

Josh Troche: Correct. This also prevents the bus factor. Do you know what I mean by the bus?

Chrissy Myers: Oh, I love the bus factor.

Josh Troche: If I was...

Chrissy Myers: This all the time.

Josh Troche: If I'm walking down the street and a bus mows me down, guess what? I mean, I going to reference the movie Speed here. Maybe I'm on that bus.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: You never know what's going to happen, so make sure that you, your your bus is covered. Just because you never know the other piece to that is, is it makes it so much easier for everyone.

Chrissy Myers: Than it does.

Josh Troche: Because what happens when someone wants to go on vacation? It's it's super simple, super easy. And that vacation's an opportunity there, too. The other thing is, is I always say some buffer and contingency funds. Always have something. I mean, cash is like cash reserve is, it's something that you need to have ready and handy for resiliency. Yeah.

Chrissy Myers: Cash reserve, line of credit. You have different levers you can pull on.

Josh Troche: 100% having 3 to 6 months. Oh. Money. And once again, it can be cash. You can be a line of credit. It can be any one of those.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: You need.

Chrissy Myers: That. Yes.

Josh Troche: I've seen talked to so many businesses where they're like, hey, don't cash this until Friday. And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is $200. This is an issue. You need to focus on this.

• The other one is too is when it comes to the marketing side of things. Yeah. So many people target anything instead of a group of things. We want you to target specific people. Marketing only works if you target specific people.
• But don't target one person for all of your marketing. No. When we look at podcasts, like in our business, we have medical podcasts we work with, we have racing podcasts we work with, we have diversified industries that we work with. So if something crashes, it's not going to take everything down. We have real estate podcasts. I don't know about you. I remember 2008, 2009 pretty vividly. There was probably not many real estate podcasts starting in that amount of time. They were not they were not throwing a whole lot of marketing money out at that point in time.
• The other thing that I always like to say with that is too is too many people market to one channel. Hey, we find that we get a lot of people in Instagram. Great. What happens if there's an what happens if there's an algorithm change? What happens if the platform, I, you know...

Chrissy Myers: Cylindrical change because of a platform and all of a sudden you don't know if you're going to have it or not?

Josh Troche: Correct? Yeah. Who's remembers all the people freaking out when TikTok was down 12 hours?

Chrissy Myers: Oh gosh. Yes.

Josh Troche: There's so many people. The other two things is what happens if you get hacked and you can't keep it on the back. Back on that platform?

Chrissy Myers: Additionally,

Josh Troche: What happens if you some reason get banned? Yeah. Meta is famous for this. They banned people for random reasons, and then suddenly you can't get back in. You can't get back on. And if that was your only channel of marketing that you have built, you are screwed. And starting from scratch, build it across the board.

• The last thing too with this is client concentration. We all know that business...

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: ...where they're like, yeah, I've got, I've got like six big clients. One of them is 50% of my business. You can't control how their business goes or how their business is run. If they shut down, you are screwed. Yeah, I know a couple of people that went through this marketing wise recently. Single client can wipe out your business. We try. I mean, 20% is a big number.

Chrissy Myers: It is.

Josh Troche: That's what I that's the maximum I would ever want to see. Someone is part of my business.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: If they keep running up, great. But I've got to build safety nets in to try and catch the other side of that. Because in all of this, what I would like to say is to have that war game plan.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: What happens when this shit goes sideways?

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: Go through some of those scenarios in your head. What happens when our top client leaves?

Chrissy Myers: Yep.

Josh Troche: I gosh, I hope they don't.

Chrissy Myers: You got a pressure test.

Josh Troche: What happens if they leave? What do we do? What are some of the moves that we need to look at making and when?

Chrissy Myers: What are the tools in our toolbox?

Josh Troche: What are the tools in our toolbox in order to make sure that we can bounce forward, bounce forward? I almost said back and I was getting ready to see you punch me. Even before I muttered it, I saw it. I saw the fist clench, and I was like, Chrissy's threatening. Send. No, is. To me, I always say you need to test those things just to make sure that, like, there are those. There's those backups. Yeah. Make sure you're ready for it. The only other thing to that is I will quote Mike Tyson in this.

Chrissy Myers: Yes, I like this quote.

Josh Troche: Everyone's got a plan until you get punched in the face. Everyone steps in the ring with a plan until you get punched in the face. The first time all goes out the window. If you have no plan, though, you're really starting on the back foot. Yeah, if you at least have some ideas of it, it's never it. You think it's going to be a right hook, and it may be a left uppercut.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: It's going to be different, but you still have some idea on how to react to it. And that's going to be the biggest piece with that. Do you feel more resilient now?

Chrissy Myers: Yeah, I always do.

Josh Troche: I know you do. You're and I mean...

Chrissy Myers: Years of the time, I mean, I still get knocked down. There's moments where I've had a couple things in the last year that have knocked me over and it's like, oh, I got to be resilient. You do is okay. There's the moment I'm like, you, you wrote a book on resilience. You just suck it up, soldier. I move in.

Responding to Challenges

Josh Troche: There. There's a, I guess there's something else that I want to insert in here, too. The one lesson that I heard from, like I said, I think I've told this before on the podcast where I was in front of a business owner, large business, probably 1.3 to 1.4 billion a year was getting cut. Their supply was getting cut 35%.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: And without hesitating, he looked at me. He goes, it's a moving target. And that to me is resiliency.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: Because he found a way to, I mean they found a way to make it better.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah. It's the, I mean, it's the realization. I mean, we tie a lot of our lives, I mean, our livelihoods into our business. We have a lot of things as business owners that define us, and our business can define us a lot. And I think that when you work on building your resilience, your perspective also can shift. And you look, you know, some people believe that business is a spiritual game, some people believe that business is just a game. I like to kind of think it can be both at times. But it's a moving target. That was probably one of the most impactful stories you've ever told me a couple of years ago on it, I was like, okay, so there've been a few things that have happened in our organization. Some have been really great. It's like, oh, that's a that's a good moving target. And there's other moments I'm like, oh, it's a moving target.

Josh Troche: And it's funny too, because it takes me back to something else where we talked before about moving goalposts. You cannot move the goalposts for people because someone else is going to move them for you.

Chrissy Myers: It's just how it happens.

Josh Troche: It is. So when you have those tools in your toolbox to manage yourself as everything else is going on in your business, you're able to keep moving forward.

Josh Troche: It's how can you lead when you're in survival mode?

Chrissy Myers: I don't think you can.

Josh Troche: No, I, I asked it as a question. I wholeheartedly agree that no, when you're in survival mode, you're, I mean, you know what the first, you know what the first thing they do when you take a lifeguard school or you know what the first thing they teach Coast Guard swimmers is?

Chrissy Myers: No.

Josh Troche: How to subdue the person that they are rescuing.

Chrissy Myers: That makes sense.

Josh Troche: Because...

Chrissy Myers: They will cause you to drown.

Josh Troche: Yeah, they will cause you to drown. If you are drowning, you're not going to be able to save anyone else.

Chrissy Myers: No, no. And I think that that speaks to when a leader, you are constantly putting out fires in your business. There's no space left for strategic thinking. There's no way for you to stay grounded. So you've got to figure out, you know, bringing those operational buffers that you talked about.

Josh Troche: Yeah, yeah. Reserves. Give yourself some breathing room. Make sure that you. And once again, if you are struggling to survive, it is very, very tough to try and move forward. It is very, very tough to keep your head above water. Give yourself, do what you can to make that push for breathing room. What about cross-training? Oh, do you do any of that?

Chrissy Myers: Yeah, of course we do. I know you do.

Josh Troche: I figured, I mean, that was kind of that soft toss.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah. That's so no one's PTO turns into panic for everyone. That's always a way...

Josh Troche: To say, oh, I love it. Where did you pull that from?

Chrissy Myers: It's just it's how it is. PTO doesn't need to be panic.

Josh Troche: PTO doesn't need to be panic. Yeah, we are going to come up with a lot of shitty wall art for people.

Chrissy Myers: We are. Yes, yes. It's coming.

Josh Troche: We need we need to have our own inspirational quotes book.

Chrissy Myers: Yes. Are not so inspirational. Yes, yes.

Josh Troche: One of my favorites is have you ever been to that site demotivation? Yes. My favorite is teamwork. Have you seen that one?

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: None of us is as dumb as all of us. Yes, that is my absolute favorite. To me, the other one is just building capacity, and it's like people cannot run at 110%. All the time. No, people can run very well at 75% of the time. And that also allows them to move forward. And when stuff does go sideways, they've got capacity to handle it instead of flipping out, losing their mind and coming at you crying.

Chrissy Myers: Yes. And really understand that if you're an extremely high performer, your 75% is not the norm. No. So you've got to think of what the average 75% is.

Josh Troche: Think think of what their expectation is. Yeah. Yes. What's different between personal and, business resilience.

Chrissy Myers: So I feel personal resilience is getting back up. Business resilience is usually staying upright during a storm. So I kind of keep you from failing the same way twice. So personal resilience is that moving forward. It's that bounce forward. It's grief. It's dealing with therapy. It's trying again. It's having grit. And then I think that business resilience is really those are the things that you build. So that one bad day or one week or one month or one down year doesn't derail everything that you've built.

Josh Troche: I love that, yeah.

Chrissy Myers: I think strong leaders build those.

Josh Troche: Have you ever gotten bad news in your business before?

Chrissy Myers: Never.

Josh Troche: No. Me neither. Sir.

Chrissy Myers: Me neither. Perfect all the time. Right?

Josh Troche: Right. That's what's especially tough, is when you have to tell a client something. This didn't go as planned. How do you demonstrate resiliency with that? Oh, I think we're going to have similar takes on this. But we're going to come at it from a different.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah. I think first of it is you got to be able to manage your own emotions around it. So if you need to role play or think about how you're going to have the conversation, rehearse it. Great. But I think part of it is just being direct in your communication. Hey, this happened. We want to make sure that you know it. Here's what we're doing to fix it, or we're really sorry that it happened. Here's what we're doing to fix it. If we can't fix it, then we're going to say, this is how we're going to make it right. But it's really about creating a cadence of communication. And when that happens, you are in front of your team. If something happened with your team, your team did. It doesn't matter. You are handling that conversation. You are modeling it because there may be some day where you're not available. And this happens in your team. And your team knows exactly how to handle it because they've watched you do it. So do not apologize in a silo. This is this is a really great opportunity for training for your organizational leaders to understand how we deal with giving, a client disappointing information.

Josh Troche: It's funny. It's the, I am very much the simpler, the better. This is exactly what's wrong. This is exactly how we feel it's going to affect you. And this is exactly what we're doing.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: Not we're going to start working on the thing, and we feel like there's there's no feelings. There's no nothing. No, this is direct. This is painful. This is, a sweaty ten minute conversation. It is. That may involve, like, a puddle of urine underneath the chair at the same time. But if you. I mean, done correctly, that saves that relationship.

Chrissy Myers: Exactly. Because, you know, panic is contagious with your team and so is composure.

Josh Troche: I wholeheartedly...

Chrissy Myers: Agree. So if you can model composure.

Josh Troche: You're the leader. Yes. If you're freaked out, I guarantee everyone under you is losing their ever loving minds.

Chrissy Myers: Yes. And probably also going, "I'm really glad she's here and she can do that". Or "I'm really glad he's here and he can, I, I don't want that part of the job".

Josh Troche: Oh, sure.

Chrissy Myers: That's why you're in charge. Yeah. Don't spend. Don't sugarcoat.

Josh Troche: No. That's the I love that composure piece. So because there's so many people when when you see a boss, a manager, a business owner lose their mind, you just realize that you are watching it implode.

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: In one way or another, something is just absolutely imploding. And the amount of damage that's going to be done from that is huge.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah. And I will tell you, I mean, Josh, in our business in the last 30 days, because again, we live in one of our industries is a political football and the insurance industry. We have had carriers that have given us 12 hours notice and said, we're no longer going to pay you for the work that you're doing. How we how I respond is key in that situation, because it's like I've got employees now. They're like, "we're not going to get paid for what..." I'm like, we're not going to get paid for this. They've changed our commissions schedule. We're not going to get paid for the work that we've been doing. We have another one that has modified their commission structure and said, look, we're going to you're going to take a 20% pay cut next year. You're going to do exactly the same amount of work, but you're going to take a 20% pay cut, and there's nothing that you can do about it. So, you know, thanks. Can you please write our business anymore? No, don't think so. But how I respond, having the Resilient Operating System, having the skills that are like, okay, this is what I can control. This is what I can't control. This is an attempt and learning. We're going to learn through this. What can we learn from this situation? How much more do we need to diversify? This is why we have new products coming out. This is why we have fractional leaders. This is why our business is not dependent on any one client or any one carrier. It's really about modeling those systems and showing when things are hard. We can still be resilient and work through. It doesn't mean I'm going to smile through the whole thing, because I really want to punch somebody right now. But that's okay. We'll move on. We'll figure it out. Keep moving.

Josh Troche: This is why you're so excited.

Chrissy Myers: I, I'm so excited about resilience, because, I mean, you're right.

Josh Troche: This is a review for you to put this into practice.

Chrissy Myers: It is. I think and I think it's something that I mean, there are so many things going on in the world. So many things, whether you are concerned about what AI is going to do in the workforce, you're concerned about what the political landscape is, whether you like it or you don't like it. If you got derailed and weren't able to fly in the last couple of months because things got chaotic, I mean, being able to build these skills is paramount to being able to just move forward and thrive as a human, because disruption happens no matter what. Yep. So why not just thrive through it?

Josh Troche: Totally build the skill set. Totally agree. Should we wrap a lot of this? Yeah, I think it's a good spot to do that.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Key Takeaways

Josh Troche: My big thing is going to be build that buffer.

Chrissy Myers: Yep.

Josh Troche: In fact, I just want to say the build the buffer and then document three key processes, okay? Three, I mean, because that that is an operational buffer for you too. Yeah. So build a financial buffer and then build that. So that way if something goes sideways you've got a few days of your process. Still running smoothly to to iron things out. Yeah. What would be a couple of your top, suggestions and key takeaways besides like read the book and to the...

Chrissy Myers: Read the book.

Josh Troche: Operating system.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah. Do the Resilient Operating System. Come to the course with me. I would say inventory your skills if your skills are lacking. I mean, really kind of think about what you need to do and maybe, maybe build an ad. I will say that consistency in modeling these skills builds clarity. Flexibility builds resilience. So, you know, resilience is adaptability under pressure. And your team shouldn't be surprised by change. They should be ready for it because you're modeling how to respond under that pressure. And when things happen and when things change. So I mean, when we got the notice about what was happening with those carriers, they're like, this is what we got. And I'm like, okay, well, we're going to continue to work on what we need to work on to take care of the customers that we're going to not get paid for. But now we're going to move forward, and we're going to do something else that can continue to generate revenue. It's like, okay, let's do that. They're not our only clients. Let's keep on.

Josh Troche: So put on your raincoat.

Chrissy Myers: Put on your raincoat. And I would say too, it's really it's building your own Resilient Operating System. And then modeling the behavior you want to see in your organization. You are you are the front of the ship. So you got to model what you want to see. If you want to see chaos, model chaos.

Josh Troche: But and this will be my opportunity for the radio voice, if you want to be cool, calm and collected.

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: How is it? Was that?

Chrissy Myers: Good. That was good. Perfect.

Josh Troche: Just, all all MPR for people. Just cool, calm and collected. What's a daily habit you use to stay to reset your mental resilience? I mean, I joke that, I mean, we're sitting here in a padded room.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah. We are.

Josh Troche: What what do you use to to kind of stay resilient mentally?

Chrissy Myers: So it is a question that I ask any time, any situation is going on. And that is what can I learn from this? When things are going well, what can I learn from this? When things are going not so well? What can I learn from this? I mean, it's we talked about it in a lot of other episodes that is it's the reframe of I am awful, I can't handle this. I'm not doing well. Fixed mindset to what can I learn from this and just grow? It's a growth mindset. Learning. So for you, I lost my question. Oh, I got it. What's the fastest way for a leader to destroy organizational resilience?

Josh Troche: I am actually working with a client right now that I am watching this happen with.

Chrissy Myers: Oh, no.

Josh Troche: They have a culture of blame. It's. "I didn't do it". "I didn't do it. It's not my fault". Whatever. If you cannot fix, you cannot fix anything. Ever. If there's people that. If people are afraid to admit there's a problem, you know, if you admit there's a problem, you can fix it. You can get on with your life. That to me, is that bouncing forward? Yeah. Because we've now fixed this. Yes. And we probably we probably probably won't do this again. No, but it's to me because I see it all the time. People. People will bring a problem up. Not their fault. They get in trouble for it. And I'm like you. This isn't you. I just watched it with a facilities manager who got yelled at about a problem that happened in a food service area, and I'm like that you managed the structure? No. Yeah, I yeah. So to me that that is that thing that just makes things worse and worse and worse. If if you can't admit there's a problem, being open. We have we talked about being open and honest in the business.

Chrissy Myers: We have psychological safety. Being able to move. You want to move at the speed of innovation. You want to be able to have a nimble team, be resilient.

Josh Troche: Got to be able to talk.

Chrissy Myers: Model resilience.

Josh Troche: Love it. It to to everyone that like you want to take care of the ups and downs. Does business ownership have ups and downs?

Chrissy Myers: Of course. If...

Josh Troche: If you if you experience those couple, this wild vacillation of...

Chrissy Myers: Called open enrollment. Yeah. Right.

Josh Troche: Not only that, but just the wild vacillation of one minute like, oh, this is amazing. And 20 minutes later you're locked in your office crying on the floor. It if you're looking to like, is there is the Resilient Operating System out yet or? Yeah.

Chrissy Myers: No it's a https://www.google.com/search?q=ResilientOperatingSystem.com. That is. Yes. We have launched.

Josh Troche: Go there. Go to https://www.google.com/search?q=BusinessFixPodcast.com. Make sure you follow us on all the social medias. All all of this.

Chrissy Myers: Is in place because...

Josh Troche: We talked about the marketing piece of that, review a subscription. Tell us what you want us to talk about. We would love for you to put that in like one of the podcast platforms. Let us know. Would love to hear about it. Chrissy and I enjoy doing the research and everything like that behind this, and we obviously we have some fun in the studio talking about it too. We know, in fact, we just talked earlier about someone that has just this stream of ideas. Yes, that we absolutely...

Chrissy Myers: Love, adore.

Josh Troche: But sometimes you got to wonder, is your business broken at, like, if you're not making money or are you just bored and trying to throw stuff at the wall to see what happens? So broken or bored? That is what we're going to talk about next week. Do me a favor. Take care of yourself. If you can, take care of someone else too. We will see you very, very soon.