IAM1965 – 16 Business Pillars Essential to Business Builders

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Intro 00:00

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:28

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast and super excited to get to come to you to talk a little bit more about what we've been doing throughout this year, which is covering all the different aspects and the common things that we heard during our podcast.

We did over 1600 episodes and there are certain common pillar types of principles that you can learn from business that I started to see throughout these interviews. And what we did was start to compile these and really break down our interviews this year based off of that.

So as you went through each of the interviews, you start to see that, okay, there were common things that were said over and over again. And what I actually did at the beginning of this year was actually still this down into those 16 different pillars.

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You have team, culture, finances, self-care, leadership, visibility, innovation, creativity, R and D, entrepreneurship entrepreneur solve problems, technology, resources, connections and networking, operations, strategy, the human part of business, the future of work and entrepreneurship, and then the importance of pausing.

So number 16 is exactly where I wanted to start out because I actually pause recordings this year. So if you listen to any of the recordings this past year, they have been repurposed. from previous recordings that we had over the last four or five years that we've been doing the podcast.

And I think by taking time away, gave a little bit more clarity into where we wanted to go forward as an organization, how we wanted to go forward as far as these podcasts, the guests we're looking for, just all of these things, but I think it's so important to, to hammer in on number 16, which is pausing because often we don't do that and we don't know how powerful that is.

Now I feel like I took that to the extreme cause we pause for about a year or so. We actually have already started recording for the next year, but over the next three episodes, what I wanted to do was really drilled down on some of those things.

First and foremost, this episode is focused a little bit more on some of the things that we learned as I touched on some of those topics that we've taken away the next episode. I really want to drill more into where we're at. Pretty much drilling a little bit more into some of the things that you can expect or have seen and what that looks like.

And then I want to talk a little bit more, about what we want to do to take that step forward. And one of the big things that we've. Done and I've done is really understand like how powerful it is to get to hear someone's story.

Do you, you get to hear about their, yourself, the, about the guests background, their story, what makes them unique. All those things have been extremely impactful, but it's through these interviews that I've had the opportunity to really learn so much stand on the shoulders of giants as a saying says, but I've also been able to distill down some of these principles that I think have laid the foundation of things that we want to know.

So, if you haven't been as familiar and we're going to go a little bit more into this in the next episodes, we have something that we call builders versus architects. And we also have another level to that. But the idea is that the people that we're trying to target the most for these podcasts are people that are actually looking to try to build into what I like to call architects.

Architects are those people that are working a lot more on the business rather than in the business. The builders are probably a lot more in the business. And you might find yourself not in one specific spot. You might be a builder architect, and it sometimes can feel like that, especially if you have team members and things, fall through the cracks and things like that happen.

You have to jump in and do those things as a CEO, entrepreneur, business owner. But the idea is that you start to see a little bit more of that journey and what that looks like what those steps are. So these builders, these are some of the really big. Things that we consider to be important, that architects have a little bit more of a streamline approach to, but as builders, you want to start to look at each of these 16 things and start to develop them and the goal for our podcast, especially going forward.

But even in the past has been to try to see how each of these different podcast episodes has fit into one of these specific pillars. And 16 of course can sound very overwhelming. It can sound like a lot, but. I think the one big thing is that we start to understand that having that framework in place allows you to understand like what might be those quote, unquote, small things, what it might be, those hacks are things that you can lean on that can really make a huge difference.

So for example, if you aren't taking the time to pause, if you aren't taking the time to stop and smell the roses, even celebrate the winds or do all those things and create that spaciousness, how. Are you going to be able to continually approve and take the next steps and understand and learn from the mistakes or things that didn't go the way that you wanted to go.

And that's why it's so important to look at each of these things and be aware of them and how they are within, I would say here in your life, but definitely within your business as well too. One of the things that wasn't as big, when we pause recordings was this thing called a chat GPT and the power of AI.

So that's specifically under number nine, when we're talking about technology I am a technology company that does dot, dot, dot what we've started to see just in this short period. It, since that has emerged so much is that people are now really starting to incorporate AI into the overall workflow that they have.

And it's something that even if you decide not to do that, you still want to have any awareness around what that looks like and how that can impact your business. I'm basically a big proponent of course, figuring out how you can implement that and what that looks like. But even if you decide not to do that, it's important for you to be informed as a leader, as a builder, or even as an architect to be able to make sure that you are leveraging that for your potential clients and customers.

And, just as I often say, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody's around, does it make a sound? That's like one of those philosophical questions. If you have a really great product and service, and you're really, really, really, really, really good at what it is that you do. But no one knows about it.

If you don't have marketing PR and all those things, are you really making the impact that you could? So same question. And that's what number six visibility is all about. So really start to internalize and look at each of these systems and how powerful they could be, for you and your organization.

But what I wanted to do is just do a little pit stop just because we've gone through an entire year of having all these interviews we've touched on and broken them down month by month by month so that you get an idea of exactly what is going to be covered each of these months. And that's going to be extremely powerful for you to be able to distill this information down.

So that you can truly understand if I need to improve my operations number 12 and I understand the systems can set you free, but I don't know much about systems or even know who to reach out to about systems. You're going to be able to go through each of those episodes and find that information. If you're saying, okay, I understand self care is more important.

But I don't even know how to care for this myself or what that looks like, or even create that culture within our organization. Maybe you're going to look at number two and number four culture and self care. So it's going to be the combination of those things. And what we wanted to make it do make it easier for you is to be able to find the relevant content or at the very least find the people that will be able to help you to do that.

So this is just touching the iceberg on what we covered over the year. But I think it's extremely impactful because it allows a phenomenal opportunity for you to be able to understand what is and are the things that can help you , to move the needle forward. And once you start to identify those things, I think it makes it extremely effective and extremely impactful for you to be able to say, okay, if we have to.

Or I, as the leader of the organization, start to see that this is going to be something that's extremely important for us to get behind, to follow and to do, we're going to lean and put more time and energy into, this specific topic or that specific topic or whatever that might be. And I think if you don't do those things, if you're not aware of all the things that, you want to know that you need to know and that are important.

That's only going to put you in a place where you aren't set up for success. And when you aren't doing the things that are need to be done to set yourself up for success. It's a detriment not only to yourself, but it's also a detriment to your team, to the families, to all the people that are in place.

So, over the last, months, this is what we focused on in the very beginning in January, and you can go back through these episodes we're looking at startups starting. Starting up first year, beginning economy trend strategy. So really laying that foundation. That's what we focused on.

After that, we went a lot more into entrepreneurship, community building, networking relationships niche networks like the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area as well to number.

In March, we actually focused on self-care fitness, burnout purpose business brand. Personal brand motivation, your drive to succeed your why.

And then April, we went into those technologies, the AI, the blockchain cloud metaverse data, like all of these different technologies and how they can impact you as an organization or business.

May, we went a lot more into hiring talent, resignation, and coworking. What the future of work looks like being a nomad, looking at, how people are now interacting within that workplace travel, the importance of human capital.

And while in June we went a lot more into the numbers, so finance accounting Capital investment, funding, bootstrapping, all of those different things that might be irrelevant to you.

And right into July, we focus a lot more on visibility, your marketing, advertising, public relations, PR sales, social media, web design, SEO.

Number eight was a little bit more of a wild card where we focused a lot more on one of the most impactful questions that we asked on the show, which are CEO hacks and CEO nuggets. And these are the things that we asked during the show that can make you more effective and efficient or advice you might give your younger business self or potentially your favorite client.

So if you really think of we just need some. Specific advice. What does that look like? And what will we do? That's where these episodes focused on that in August.

And then after that, we went into management, leadership, and coaching, which we covered in September. That ninth month was so powerful to be able to understand like how you can set the lead as the CEO, entrepreneur, and business owner, what that looks like and how people.

Gave advice related to that, or even how they have written books, have given speeches or TED talks, all of these things. There's a huge amount of information that you can always do to sharpen a saw to get better. And even sometimes it's not necessarily Looking at leadership and how though I improve, it's also looking at that perspective from a entirely different way.

And I think that's one of the cool things that we saw come up during a lot of those episodes.

So after that, we went into October operations, system flow, sustainability, your morning routine. Waking up even business models in systems like e-commerce businesses and business models and things like that on how this structure is being built and what that looks like.

I think one of the big things is that we often can focus on systems and processes and forget how important and impactful that is and has been, for us on a day-to-day basis. So I really loved, touching on that in October because I think the most Common answer that we received for CEO hacks was your morning routine.

It's something that I've drilled a lot more into in my life. And I continue to tweak and change and improve because I know how important your morning routine is. And I would even, throw in it doesn't matter necessarily how you do it. It just matters probably that you do it.

So if you do that within yourself personally, it's going to affect your business and vice versa.

And the last month prior to this month, we focused on innovation, disruption, women. Entrepreneurship, DEI, gig economy, remote work, cannabis. So really looking at things in a different way. And a lot of times the way to do that is by having a difference in opinion, by having the diversity and thought.

And that's why, it's so important to be able to talk about women, entrepreneurship of the importance of DEI, how people were looking and operating differently in their world. So that month was insanely huge because in order for us to solve the problems of tomorrow, we can't look at them in the same way.

So overall, by innovating disrupting, it's not necessarily that you come in, like I usually say, and just flip the table over and you're being disruptive. It's that you have an understanding of the industry. You have an understanding or you least know people that have that understanding. So it allows you to make sure that you're building a better mousetrap you're doing and creating solutions in a better way.

And I think at the heart of true innovation at last. really changes the world. It's being aware and then making and creating a new solution that does disrupt, but does it in a way to actually improve often in the longterm.

And then at the end of the day we did December, which we're in now. And what I'm talking about to you exactly now with just finishing and closing everything out, what exactly that looks those steps finishing closing the end every time there's an end of the year. Usually, there's a lot of energy around that.

And I am not a real big January one, I'm starting to do X, Y, Z and A, B and C, but I do think that we should not deny the value and the energy that comes from starting a new year and what that looks like, maybe even not just for ourselves, but often the people that are around us or, whatever we're consuming.

When you start a new year, usually you feel like there's a new opportunity. So even if you feel like you're a very disciplined person, or you have your habits and things, I think you still understand that with a new year comes You know, just something that's new and that new feeling.

And as you're closing out that year in order for us to start that new year, we have to close out the previous year. So that's what December really focused on. So more than anything else, you're going to see lots and lots of content around these different topics, but truly appreciate you for listening this year.

Feel free to go back to other episodes if you want to drill down on any of those specific topics. But like I said, expect many, many, many more and different things that we're going to do around these topics so that we can draw down and hopefully provide the most success for you, your team, your organization, and everybody you work with.

So this is Gresh signing out. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Outro 14:39

Thank you for listening to the I Am CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and 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 Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google podcast, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. This has been the Im CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

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