Finding Your Business Sounding Board

Ever found yourself agonizing over a business decision, unable to separate your emotional attachment from what's objectively best? You're not alone. 

The moment you become an entrepreneur, you step into the CEO role—but unlike traditional executives, you're making decisions about something deeply personal. Your business isn't just a venture; it's your brainchild that you've nurtured through countless late nights, financial struggles, and moments of doubt. This emotional connection, while powerful, can severely impact your ability to make clear-headed choices.

The solution isn't detaching from your passion, but rather finding what I call your "Switzerland"—a neutral party who understands your business landscape without sharing your emotional investment. Throughout this episode, I share real examples from my clients who've faced agonizing decisions: letting team members go despite personal connections, shuttering courses they've poured their hearts into, or stepping away from social platforms that consume time without delivering returns. In each case, having an emotionally-detached sounding board made all the difference.

Your Switzerland might be an accountability partner, a dedicated business coach, or members of a mastermind group who can offer fresh perspectives. They'll ask the questions you might avoid, challenge assumptions you hold dear, and ultimately help you distinguish between decisions based on attachment versus strategy. As we wrap up, I invite you to consider who plays this crucial role in your business life—and if you don't have someone, I'd love to discuss how we might work together through one-on-one coaching or my six-month mastermind program. Remember: even the most confident CEOs need objective advisors when emotions are running high.

Chapters

• 0:00 Thinking Like a CEO
• 0:45 Finding an Emotionally Detached Sounding Board
• 1:37 Tough Business Decisions Examples
• 2:39 Mastermind and Coaching Opportunities

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Whether you are a one-woman show or you have a team of people working for you, you need to start thinking of yourself as the CEO and when you do this, it can be difficult sometimes to make the decisions.

Speaker 1: 0:17

When you are emotionally attached and, let's be honest, when it comes to your business, you're probably emotionally attached. For a lot of us, it's like your business. You're probably emotionally attached. For a lot of us, it's like our baby. Our business is our baby. We have put together this idea. We have put in the sweat, the tears, we have done the things to build this from the ground up and because of that, we are very emotionally attached to any of the decisions that we're going to make. So, as the CEO, when it comes to making decisions that you are going to feel a tinge of regret or a tinge of questioning, you need to have someone as a sounding board who is not going to be emotionally attached like you are. So if your significant other is also emotionally attached to the business because it provides revenue, because they have been there with you, putting in the sweat equity, putting in the tears that go along with it, then that cannot be your sounding board. You have to find someone that can be a sounding board that is going to listen to what you are trying to do within your business, have an understanding of your business, but not be emotionally attached to the decisions that you are about to make. I have recently watched a lot of clients that have needed to either cut team members, add team members, put a course to bed for a while because it's just not taking off and bringing in the revenue for the amount of time and effort that they're putting into it. I have had clients that have had to take a break from Instagram because they have put so much time and effort into it but it's not giving them the ROI. So when you are looking at this and needing to make these decisions, you have to find that sounding board. That is going to be what's the country Switzerland, I think it is where they're not going to choose a side. They're just going to take in the information and determine an opinion of potentially giving you ideas, asking questions so they can better understand it, and then giving you an opinion on what they think maybe a strategy should be for you.

Speaker 1: 2:36

So oftentimes this can be an accountability partner that you have found within your industry. This can be a business coach that you are working one-on-one with. This can be within a mastermind group or a membership group where you are able to ask others for their thoughts and opinions based on the decisions that you are trying to make. But you need to find someone that is not emotionally involved and have that sounding board from them so that you can really make sure that the decisions you are trying to make are going to impact your business in the way that you want them to, to give the ROI and not have that emotional attachment to it that you most likely are going to have emotional attachment to it that you most likely are going to have. So I want you to find that person.

Speaker 1: 3:29

If you are interested in a mastermind, fill out an application. I would love to have you. Our masterminds run for six months, but I am constantly creating new groups, so I would love to have you in there. If you're curious about one-on-one, definitely reach out to me. I'd love to have the conversation to see what would be a good fit for you. All right, I'll see you soon.