Alexis Haselberger is a time management and productivity coach. She honed these skills during the first 15+ years of her career managing operations and HR at several early-stage start-ups, where there was always way more to do than people to do it. Alexis believes that work-life balance is essential for everyone, even though the definition is different for everyone.

Through one on one coaching, group coaching, and corporate workshops, Alexis helps people, and teams, do more, stress less and build the balance that's right for them.

• CEO Hack: Calendly for scheduling and streamlining everything
• CEO Nugget: Don't rely on your memory
• CEO Defined: You're ultimately responsible for everything the trash that happens in your business

Website: https://www.alexishaselberger.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexis-haselberger/

• Udemy Course: https://www.udemy.com/do-more-stress-less/?couponCode=PODCAST
• Website: https://www.alexishaselberger.com/
• Subscribe to Newsletter: https://www.alexishaselberger.com/subscribe

FULL INTERVIEW

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Transcription

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today, Alexis Haselberger of alexishaselberger.com. Alexis, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Alexis Haselberger 0:40

Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Gresham Harkless 0:43

No problem, super excited to have you on. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Alexis so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Alexis is a time management and productivity coach. She honed these skills during the first 15+ years of her career managing operations and HR at several early-stage start-ups, where there was always way more to do than people to do it. Alexis believes that work-life balance is essential for everyone, even though the definition is different for everyone. Through 1:1 coaching, group coaching, and corporate workshops, Alexis helps people and teams, do more, stress less, and build the balance that's right for them. Alexis, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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Alexis Haselberger 1:22

I am

Gresham Harkless 1:22

Awesome. Let's do it. So the first question I had was to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?

Alexis Haselberger 1:29

Sure, yeah. So as you mentioned, in my bio, I spent the first several years of my career over a decade building startups, from the HR and operations perspective. And those are just really fast-paced environments, where your priorities have to shift all the time. And you're never going to be able to get everything on your to-do list, because there's just too much. And so what became evident, we all have some sort of superpower, right, we all have something that we're better at than other people. And the thing that I am better at than other people in general, is the ability to sort of get a lot of stuff done, be very productive, and not burn out. That's the key, then not burning out the key.

And so I found myself helping a lot of people along the way with this sort of stuff. So I started to do some productivity workshops within the companies working with people one on one about how do you build a task list that works for you, and so that nothing slips through the cracks, that sort of thing. And eventually, the last startup as startups go, and the last startup I worked for, we decided to shut it down, I realized that this was the time management, and productivity stuff was not only like, by far the most interesting part of my job, because I'm a real geek about this sort of stuff. But also, it was the most impactful for other people.

And so I decided to codify all of it, build out a curriculum, and open up a coaching practice so that I could do the part that I find fun and the part that really changes people's lives. And it's more significant way more often and sort of leaves the rest of the corporate stuff behind.

Gresham Harkless 3:00

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I absolutely love that. Because I always say time is the most sacred resource. So we're always trying to figure out, we all have the same amount of time. And we're always trying to figure out how to maximize as much of that time as we can. So I love everything that you're doing, because you help people to realize, sometimes they have more, quote, unquote, time than they think they have just in how you use it, I guess

Alexis Haselberger 3:24

Right? Yeah, totally. And also, it's about learning how to use your time in a way that's consistent with your goals and your values, whatever those are, right? And so that really is going to be very different for each person, those 24 hours are going to be split up in a different way.

Gresham Harkless 3:38

Right? Absolutely, absolutely. So could you take us through, I guess what happens when someone reaches out to you and how you kind of support these clients you work with?

Alexis Haselberger 3:46

Sure. So from a one-on-one coaching perspective, I built out a curriculum that essentially covers all the finer points of time management and productivity. So each week of my program, we'll be talking about a different topic. So one week maybe diving really deep into the nitty gritty of our tools, right, how do we use our email? How do we use calendaring? What about Slack? And all those messaging systems? Like are we using those in a way that supports us or in a way that's distracting to us?

And how can we better use those, we'll have a week on habit building a week on focus one on efficiency. In between all of these sessions, we are implementing different strategies and techniques that work for each person based on who they are and what their tendencies are. And then we have a chance to sort of iterate the experiment because not everything's going to work for every person, not everything, almost everything takes more than one iteration to get right.

And so then my clients also have access to me, unlimited between sessions to sort of troubleshoot things, get clarity on things, and move forward so that by the end of the program, everyone has a personalized productivity system that works for them, but they also have the underlying skills and sort of the science behind building habits so that when their life inevitably changes, right, they get a bigger job, they get a promotion, their team doubles, they have a baby, they get married, like, who knows lots of things can happen. But one thing's for sure is that life changes, they can then sort of reform their process and their system with the skills that they already have to meet their new setups.

Gresham Harkless 5:21

Nice. I absolutely love that. And especially because as you said, change is inevitable, it always happens. But do you find that your clients also have a greater awareness of themselves, which kind of helps to make those tweaks or changes if a baby happens? Or if they double their team or something like that?

Alexis Haselberger 5:36

Yeah, I definitely do. And I actually start out every engagement with a client with a session that I call to know yourself better exactly as you are. And so we address several different sorts of components of our personality and circumstances that may affect our productivity and time management, like our chronotype which is our body clock, it's not reasonable to tell a night person that just woke up at 5 am. And you'll be fine, right? Like, that's not going to work, right? It's a recipe for failure. About expectations, like internal versus external expectations. And whether someone needs external accountability is not what your learning style is, right? If you're an auditory learner versus a visual learner versus kinetic you can use that to your advantage. And you may not really be aware that's something that you can actually use to help you do things faster, more.

Gresham Harkless 6:28

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I absolutely love that, because you always hear this is how I was able to be successful. So this person woke up at 4 am. So that means I need to wake up at 4 am. But sometimes when you do that, then all of a sudden, like you said, you want to be able to sustain that. So I can only wake up at 4 am that day, and then the rest of the week, I'm just at a whack. So that doesn't necessarily work for me or for whoever might be, right?

Alexis Haselberger 6:50

Yeah. And we want to create a system that's easy and convenient for us and for who we are. Because I think we all know that about ourselves. Right? If it's easy and convenient, we'll do it. If it's not, we won't stick with it.

Gresham Harkless 7:02

Absolutely, absolutely. So you might have already touched on this, but I want to ask you for what I call like your secret sauce, what do you feel kind of distinguishes you or set you apart?

Alexis Haselberger 7:09

Yeah, I mean, we kind of did touch on that. But I do feel like my approach my sort of personalised approach really makes a difference. Because I think a lot of people that I work with are super successful people, right? They've read all the books, and they've downloaded a lot of apps. And for whatever reason, they haven't found what works for them yet. And if they had that, they wouldn't come to me. if they could do it on their own, and they wouldn't come to me.

And so I approach everyone as a sort of a unique individual, even though we're going through the same set of curriculum, that doesn't mean that I'm going to recommend the same techniques for every single person, right? We need to work on who we are, and then build around who we are, instead of trying to shove someone into a system that may or may not work for them.

Gresham Harkless 7:57

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And definitely correct me if I'm wrong, but do you find that people that are very driven and have read all the books, downloaded all the apps, they have all the apps on their phone, all that stuff? Do you find that maybe because they're sometimes too close to it, it's hard to kind of get that perspective of this is probably who you are? And maybe you want to tweak this to use it this way? Or that way? Or maybe not use this, but use that? Do you find that's what happens?

Alexis Haselberger 8:21

Yeah. And also, I think it can be overwhelming for people, right? Because there are so many different books and apps and all of that. And I'm someone who's living in this space all the time. So, I've done that work for you, right? Like, I can tell you, Okay, these are the apps I'm gonna recommend, for this reason, I always start everything from a place of simplicity as well. So it's like, Let's do as few buckets and as few things as possible, only add complexity where complexity is necessary, right? And get rid of all the rest. So we can build it back up into a place that works for someone, instead of that kind of overwhelmed place where it's like, oh, I'm trying to strategy over here, and I'm waking up at 4 am. But also, I heard that you're supposed to write from 10 pm to midnight, and all those kinds of clashing recommendations.

Gresham Harkless 9:12

Exactly, exactly. It sounds as if you do all the things that make people quote unquote, successful and you try to incorporate that all into your life, you'll never be able to sleep or anything. Work-life balance is something that's important as well. Exactly. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack, and I'm sure you have time but I want to ask you do you have like an app or book, or habit that you have that makes you more effective and efficient

Alexis Haselberger 9:37

Yeah, I mean, I would say that for me and my business, the thing that is the most impactful is the use of Calendly. And essentially schedulers, right? I think these saves back in the day when we did not have these, right, we would send out an email and we'd be like, Okay, are you available at these three times? And that's if you're good about it, right, and then they say no, I'm not sure about these times? That it's a no, Oh, maybe this time? And then you get overbooked because you're double booked because somebody did something. I feel like Calendly just streamlined all of that I probably have 10 different types of events. Anytime I have a different one for in-person, I have a different one for coaching sessions, I have a different one for consultation. And it just streamlines everything on so many levels.

Gresham Harkless 10:24

Yeah, absolutely. I swear by my scheduling app as well. And the back and forth can get very overwhelming. And I too, have double booked myself and been to different meetings, because I didn't do that. So I learned, hey, this is who you are, this is what you need to do. Just execute the plan. So now what it asks you for is what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Alexis Haselberger 10:50

All right. So I think my biggest hack or nugget is going to sound kind of counterintuitive. And it is don't rely on your memory, right? Our brains are not designed to just hold all this stuff that we have circling around if we have stuff in our brains and in our email and in some list that's on the floor somewhere and another one that's shoved underneath our desk. And we have voicemails and Slack and all of this, it's literally impossible to prioritize, right? And so it's really about getting everything out of your head and into a system so that you can focus on the task at hand, especially the pieces of your business that really need focusing, impossible to do that if you're trying to store the to-do items in your brain.

Gresham Harkless 11:37

Yeah, absolutely. And I've learned the hard way, is that sometimes you try to hold as many things as possible, because you think you're superhuman sometimes. But we're all human. So there's a limit to the number of things that you can hold on to. So why not leverage certain systems or processes so that you can take that all over your brain? So you kind of focus on the big picture type thing sometimes.

Alexis Haselberger 11:57

Right, right, and be able to just focus on the task at hand instead of remembering Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to pick up the milk or whatever it is that interrupts you in the middle of writing your blog post.

Gresham Harkless 12:07

Right, exactly, exactly. That makes sense. So now, I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote, unquote, CEOs on the show. So I want to ask you, Alexis, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Alexis Haselberger 12:21

So I'm gonna actually take this from an old boss that I had. And he used to say, being the CEO, means chief everything officer. And what I took from that, and I don't know if this is what he mentioned but what I took from that is that when your company is small, and you're the only one, it means you really are that you're doing everything, right? But it also means that as your company grows, and you have other people that worked for you and work around you, you're never better than any task, like you, as the CEO, can still take out the trash when the trash gets full. Right? You are still ultimately responsible, and you never get sort of better than anything that's happening in your business or any of those people.

Gresham Harkless 13:00

Yeah, and I think people definitely respond as well to somebody who is the quote-unquote, CEO, and has a big, huge company but is willing to take out the trash, because that, to me, defines really good leadership. And sometimes the best leadership is servant leadership. So to be part of the team and to connect and do those things definitely goes a long way. So I appreciate that.

Alexis Haselberger 13:20

Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 13:21

Nice, nice, nice. Well, Alexis, I truly appreciate your time, what I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and our listeners know, and then of course, how best they can get ahold of you.

Alexis Haselberger 13:32

Yeah, great. I am always looking to help more people in this regard. I think that's why I started this business so people can reach me on my website, it's alexishasselberger.com. Hopefully, you'll put that in the show notes because nobody will be able to sell it. And so I do one on one coaching, I'm about to launch group coaching as well, this summer. I do corporate workshops. So if your company wants to have me come in and do a few hours on the basics, that's a great way. And then I also just released a course on Udemy. So people can do a self-paced video online course about time management productivity as well.

Gresham Harkless 14:09

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And we'll make sure to have those links in the show notes as well so that you can make sure that you don't have to spell it wrong as I probably will sometimes do so you just click down and then you can find everything that Alexis is doing. But Alexis, I appreciate you I love the topic. Love everything you're doing time is precious, and I appreciate you. I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Alexis Haselberger 14:26

Thank you so much. You too.

Outro 14:28

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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