Promote Yourself to CEO | Small Business Strategy for Women Entrepreneurs

Imagine being so exhausted at the end of the week that you immediately put on your pajamas, pour yourself a glass (or two) of wine, and crash. By the time the last few hours of the day arrive, you’re just completely drained and have no energy for anything. Then you start all over again on Monday morning!

This cycle impacts our lives and our business in a big way. In today’s episode, my guest Dr. Crystal Frazee talks about how we can learn to tune into our body’s battery and figure out which activities and interactions deplete and increase our charge. Then we can make smarter decisions that have us show up more pleasantly and powerfully on a daily basis. Get ready for a game-changing conversation!

On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO:

6:38 - Crystal found out the true cause of women’s complex illnesses and pains. It turned her practice around.

11:22 - Crystal focuses on calling out this underlying issue causing us to busy ourselves to the point of burnout.

15:49 - How do you know when you’re being taken off track? Crystal covers three areas to pay attention to so you can recognize signs of your body’s battery depletion.

21:12 - Even though you’re on a 24-hour cycle, you shouldn’t let your charge hit 0%. These technological tools help you keep track.

31:16 - Find out what you can do to recharge your battery. Crystal breaks her program down into three parts.

36:00 - When you have signs of burnout, how long can it take you to recover?

37:35 - As a parent of young kids, I initially fought against bettering my sleep, but here’s what I did to improve.

40:17 - Don’t do this if you want better sleep to come easily to you. It’s the antithesis of your body’s nature.

42:44 - Crystal discusses implementing boundaries so we can care for ourselves better and keep charged up. She even walks us through a short exercise.

48:30 - What signals a strong yes or no for you? Here’s how most people can tell.

50:19 - Pay attention to these two concepts related to boundaries and caring for your body battery.

53:30 - Crystal reveals what you must remember whenever you decide to say no.

Show Links

• Garmin vívosmart® 4
• Ōura Ring
• WHOOP
• Swanwick Blue Light Blocking Glasses
• Crystal Frazee
• Crystal on Instagram

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

“You can do it!” If you’re a Gen Xer, elder millennial, or born between those two generations, you’ve heard numerous people say this about women in pop culture and real life. In fact, you were probably raised on the belief that women could do anything: have an incredible career, raise a family, build wealth, etc. Women could have it all!

But now you realize that trying to have it all doesn’t feel possible, it just feels exhausting. In today’s episode, I have a wonderful conversation with Melissa Marasia, the MidLife Mentor for Gen X Women. We talk all about the burnout we women face with internal and external pressures to achieve success in work, family, and so much more.

On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO:

3:04 - What were girls growing up in the 80s and 90s not being told about “having it all”?

7:11 - Melissa reveals how her own issues with burnout culminated into her current line of work.

11:05 - What causes women headed towards their 40s and 50s to stress out so much?

14:01 - Melissa describes how even women who decide not to have kids still feel the need to compensate.

16:41 - On top of all the other inequality issues we face, women have to deal with this double standard as well.

19:14 - Discover the biggest obstacle that prevents you from making the changes to eliminate burnout.

22:13 - With young kids, I made this simple change in my life to enjoy stress-free mornings.

26:38 - How can you handle the days when you have so many things to do or must interact with many people, especially if you’re introverted or highly sensitive?

30:25 - Take the time to acknowledge this about yourself when you experience burnout.

33:42 - Follow these suggestions if you don’t know what you need or where to start finding your joy again.

36:05 - Has this productivity-driven era driven off our love of hobbies?

40:54 - Avoid this approach if you want to still love what you do as a hobby.

Show Links

• Melissa Marasia, MidLife Mentor
• Join The CEO Collective waitlist
• Racheal on Instagram

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

It’s never been safe to be a woman in this world, especially if you’re an outspoken or successful one. For generations, we’ve carried the trauma of the war against our bodies, minds, spirits, and then some. Yet, the more we as women succeed and break glass ceilings, our nervous system perceives it as a threat and goes into hyper-vigilant mode.

We experience it whenever we reach a new level of business success and decide to self-sabotage. My guest Dr. Valerie Rein calls this invisible threat hanging around the backdrop of our lives “patriarchy stress disorder.” In this episode, she and I define what it is and how to understand it so you can break out of patriarchal prison and begin burnout-proofing your business and your life.

On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO:

13:33 - Dr. Valerie discusses the health scare that triggered her realization of this disorder as a real thing challenging women.

17:28 - What is patriarchy stress disorder, and how did Dr. Valerie connect the dots?

22:57 - Dr. Valerie reveals why traditional talk therapy doesn’t have the tools for healing trauma.

25:58 - How does the transmission of intergenerational trauma happen? A study involving cherry blossoms and mice illustrates it well.

29:45 - Discover the reason why we women sabotage ourselves and struggle in getting to the next level.

31:58 - Dr. Valerie and I uncover a startling trend in the self-help space for women entrepreneurs in recent years.

36:05 - This core wound of patriarchy sets us up for a battle we can’t win. There’s only one way to get off the hamster wheel.

40:21 - Dr. Valerie tells a story of one of her clients that shows the magic that can happen when you rewire your nervous system.

44:09 - How can you tell when your defense mechanisms no longer serve you? Dr. Valerie unearths signs of trauma adaptations that may surprise you.

50:28 - Learn even more client stories that reveal the benefits of healing trauma and rewiring the nervous system.

52:45 - Where does Dr. Valerie recommend people start to make an internal shift away from the hustle?

Show Links

• Free resources and the first chapter of Patriarchy Stress Disorder by Dr. Valerie Rein
• The Dr. Valerie Podcast
• Follow Dr. Valerie on Instagram
• Join The CEO Collective waitlist
• Racheal on Instagram

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

You’ve probably heard by now that one of the best ways to grow your business and start making a bigger impact is hiring a team. A team can support you by doing all the administrative, customer service, marketing, and sales work, and even work directly with your clients. If you’re attempting to do all of that yourself, it sounds overwhelming.

So in this episode, I walk you through some things to think about as you level up your leadership and start bringing on a team. Listen as I give some insights into what it was like to grow a team inside my own business, including mistakes I’ve made and lessons I’ve learned along the way.

On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO:

2:30 - Hiring initial support at home and in business. What I did to start leveling up in 2008.

12:38 - When I set out to hire customer service help, I found two amazing candidates. How I turned a tough choice into gold.

17:02 - Audience changes, branching out, and rebranding. Gaining clarity for my new direction.

23:03 - Letting go of sales and marketing control produced my biggest leadership uplevels. Hiring coaches, a PR team, and a podcast team.

28:53 - Why I decided to hire people to help me with copyrighting. Sales-related and content-related copywriting support.

32:37 - Looking at other areas of my business. A huge change happened in one area that took me until 2018 to really get behind.

39:14 - What I discovered as I’ve released the death grip on everything in my business. My team has been a lifesaver!

42:20 - Starting out slowly and building up gradually. Final words of advice to wrap up the episode.

Show Links

• The CEO Collective
• The CEO Retreat
• The CEO Accelerator
• Racheal on Instagram

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

Welcome to a very special episode! I’m joined by Anna Binder McAsey who owns Rethink Nutrition. A year ago, she was running a business primarily on her own. Fast forward to now, she’s really grown leaps and bounds as a leader and stepped into her role as CEO, bringing in more people behind the scenes and working with her clients.

On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO:

1:31 - What did Anna’s business look like in early 2020? A quick overview and changes made since.

6:32 - How did Anna learn to let go of control as she built her team?

11:30 - Seeing the value in bringing on people with different specialties to your team. What nuances exist between the clients you serve?

16:35 - Anna talks about her mindset shift toward seeing the pros in adding administrative support. Her changing role as CEO.

Show Links

• Rethink Nutrition
• Rethink Nutrition on Instagram
• Rethink Nutrition on Facebook
• The CEO Collective

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

Today, I’m joined by my friend and colleague Erica Courdae who has been my DEI consultant and is a part of the CEO Collective as a mentor. She’s back on the show to dive into staying true to your core values when your business is growing, changing, or its mettle is being tested.

On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO:

6:23 - Making a commitment to values. It’s not a one-time thing.

9:51 - Where does real empowerment come from? The word gets thrown around often, but it isn’t a gift you can give others.

12:03 - How do the working and business worlds try to blame the victims?

18:05 - Avoiding echo chambers. Who are you intentionally networking with?

25:05 - You need to life proof your business so it can still thrive when things aren’t perfect.

32:05 - Dealing with panic moments by modeling clear and kind boundaries. Panic is not a business strategy.

36:07 - Having a strategy and a process for making decisions. Running your business becomes easier for yourself and your teams.

39:25 - The noise around you is a big distraction. Do you just need to shut it out, scale back, and return to basics?

43:13 - You can only do what you do for your community in the way that you do it.

48:23 - Clarity in your values makes your business growth journey so much easier.

Show Links

• Implicit to Explicit: Discovering Your Core Values workshop
• The CEO Collective

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

What does it actually mean to be The CEO of your business?

We entrepreneurs do EVERYTHING in the beginning, but as we grow, we need to re-define our role as CEO to focus on the most essential tasks that move our business forward.

When we don't take the time to redefine our role, we often find ourselves becoming the bottleneck in our business and causing chaos for our teams.

This episode will help you get clarity on your top CEO tasks as your role changes.

Visit https://rachealcook.com/entrepreneur-ceo/ for the full show notes.

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

If you’re anything like me, there comes the point in your business where your business needs to step up to support you and support your family if you’re going to stick with it.

We all got through those startup stages of our business where we knew it was going to take awhile to figure things out and to get people in the door.

Once you get a little bit further along on your journey and you’re ready to make this your full-time focus, you need your business to pay you a real paycheck.

No one loves to run a business that can’t support the entrepreneur running it.

This is why it’s so, so important to have a game plan for how you’re going to design that predictably profitable business.

But the statistics show us that most women do not have a predictably profitable business.

Over 75% of women entrepreneurs do not earn more than $50,000 a year. And most entrepreneurs shut the doors within the first couple of years.

If you are committed to making your business truly work for you and work for your family, you have to have a real profit plan to make it work before you get so burnt out that you throw in the towel.

https://rachealcook.com/profit-plan/

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

Not long ago, I was a guest coach for a business workshop where everyone was working on a poster-size post-it to map out our business for the next 12 months.

There were directions to map out your business goals, your offers, and your marketing strategy.

I started looking around the room to see where people needed help and I realized everybody in the room had a leaky business.

Their marketing plan was not working together.

Everyone’s marketing plan was a smattering of tactics… but there was no clear strategy to ensure that all that marketing effort was leading potential clients to their paid offers.

The minute I shared with them a different way to approach their marketing strategy, all the light bulbs went off as people could see why all the work they had put into marketing their business wasn’t generating real results.

Most people when they sit down and write out a marketing plan, they make a list of marketing to-dos. They need to have a newsletter and they need to blog… they need to do a podcast and they need to be posting on social media.

But a marketing to-do list isn’t a strategy unless it all works together to turn your community into paid clients.

Ready to fix the LEAK in your predictable profit strategy?

https://rachealcook.com/predictable-profit-strategy/

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

Statistically, 80% of new businesses are going to fail within the first few years… so how do you make sure that you’re going to beat the odds and succeed?

How do you make sure your business is going to stick it out through the startup stages to get to the success stage where you’re finally making consistent revenue?

It comes down to FOCUS.

In this episode, I’m going to share how you can get more focused so you have achieve your business goals. It’s all about simplifying your business strategy.

https://rachealcook.com/predictably-profitable-business/

Connect with Me:

• Instagram: @racheal.cook
• TikTok: @rachealcookmba
• LinkedIn: @rachealcook
• YouTube: @the_ceo_collective
• Website: The CEO Collective

Subscribe & Review:

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!