How I conquered BUSINESS OVERWHELM and scaled my business to $100,000,000..

Summary

• There is an inverse correlation between overwhelm and accountability; the more overwhelmed an entrepreneur is, the less accountable they hold their team, which can prevent business growth from seven to eight figures.
• Feeling overwhelmed often leads to a lack of a social life, not because of a lack of time, but because of scattered attention and poor management.
• Entrepreneurs often feel overwhelmed when they fail to hold their team accountable, resulting in the entrepreneur overcompensating for their team's deficiencies.
• Accountability is simply setting and holding expectations for performance; issues often arise when expectations are set but not enforced with consequences.
• Lack of accountability is seen when team members have unclear working hours, unmet KPIs, when leaders fill in for their team's uncompleted tasks, and when important issues are avoided in one-on-ones.
• Effective accountability looks like clear work expectations, met or exceeded KPIs, employees fully owning their roles, leaders not stressed over their team's problems due to trust in their capability.
• Three beliefs that prevent effective accountability and their replacements include:
  1. Instead of blaming yourself as the sole problem, acknowledge part of the issue may be yours, but also enable the team to share in the responsibility for solutions.
  2. Replace the fear of team members quitting if held accountable, with the understanding that their departure can be beneficial, preventing long-term dysfunction and cultivating a productive culture.
  3. Accept that accountability may feel like an inconvenience, but recognize it as a critical part of leadership responsibility essential to company success.
• Holding team members accountable leads to reduced workforce volume, increased profitability, attraction of high-performance talent, and personal integrity as a leader.
• Embrace accountability to ensure business growth and to attract and retain high performers who thrive under well-set expectations and challenges.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest starting by recognizing that feeling overwhelmed is a sign you might not be holding your team accountable. To fix this, begin by clearly defining job roles and responsibilities. Then, set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each role and make sure everyone knows what they are.

A good way of doing this is by scheduling regular one-on-one meetings to talk about how well team members meet these KPIs. If they don't meet their goals, don't be scared to have those tough conversations. It's important to let team members know when they're dropping the ball.

Another key step is to stop taking over tasks that your team should be handling. This might be hard, but it means you trust your team to do their jobs. Doing someone else's work doesn't help them get better or help your business grow.

Try swapping out negative thoughts for helpful ones. Like, if you tell yourself you’re the problem, remember you might be part of it, but so is the team. Everyone should work to solve problems together. Or, if you're scared of people quitting if you're tough on them, remember that it could be a good thing. It could make room for someone better who can help the business more.

Don't think of holding people accountable as a bad thing. It’s a super important part of being a leader. It helps your business do better, keeps your team strong, and makes you a leader people respect. When you've got a handle on this, you'll probably have a smaller, but way stronger, team that can take your business from seven to eight figures. And the best part, you might even get your social life back because you're not drowning in work stress!

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"There's an inverse correlation between overwhelm and accountability"

– Leila Hormozi

"Accountability is just setting and holding someone to an expectation"

– Leila Hormozi

"Humans respond really well to consequences, negative and positive reinforcement"

– Leila Hormozi

"I shouldn't have to do this, they suck, I just have to do it for them, I guess they're not good enough, nobody can ever do it as good as me"

– Leila Hormozi

"You must hold people accountable so that you show the rest of the company what the culture really is"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

what is up today what i want to talk about is the inverse correlation between overwhelm and accountability and how that is probably what is preventing you from getting from seven to eight figures this was top of mind for me because um the other day yeah you know alex and i live in a building and we meet people all the time and every time we meet people we try and like if they seem like they're cool and like you know interesting in the first couple of minutes we're like let's exchange numbers maybe go grab dinner sometime and so we were in the elevator and um we you know asked somebody for their number and said you know do you and your wife want to go grab dinner sometime and that person um immediately when we texted them shot us down and uh the reason was you know they're like i'm just too busy you know i have my business and i just got a ton going on and i immediately was like this guy's got to be doing like two to five million per year because only someone whose business is still that small would say something like that and i know that because in the first couple of years that we started gym launch because i did not know how to truly hold people accountable and i didn't know how to run a business well i had a lot of overwhelm which resulted in no social life because it felt like had no time when it was i actually had no attention and so i see that a lot in other people who are around the i want to say like two to eight million um and it's really typical and it if you go to the root of this it typically comes down to one thing which is there's an inverse correlation between overwhelm and accountability okay so the more overwhelmed the entrepreneur is the less they are holding people accountable and the less overwhelmed the entrepreneur is the more they are typically holding people accountable now obviously there's other factors that play into this but every time i have a conversation with somebody and they're doing you know multiple seven figures trying to get to eight or maybe just about to break eight they're usually around this spot which is they're super overwhelmed they say no to everything they have no time outside of work um and they're scatter brained right like they're so engulfed in their business and i have been there 100 and this is the switch that i had to make to get out of that okay because i used to uh think that i was holding people accountable but i was actually not and the reason for that was i was so busy over compensating for their under compensation that i wasn't focused on fixing the problem through the person i was focused on fixing it myself and also having fake arguments in my head of i shouldn't have to do this they suck i just have to do it for them i guess they're not good enough nobody can ever do it as good as me like having all these self-defeating thoughts and those were what went through my head many years ago at that point in time and so if you've ever had those thoughts or you feel right now like you're overwhelmed then listen because i want to break down the mindset shifts and the tactical shifts that helped me get out of that the first uh piece i want to explain is that accountability is just setting and holding someone to an expectation the act in itself is not complicated it is just like you know when you present them with kpis you're like here's the sales metrics you need to hit here's what happens if you don't hit them that's pretty much all it is and then what it means is that you follow through with that and a lot of people whether they miss is they set the expectation on the forefront and they never follow through with it so that when someone isn't hitting their kpi there is no consequence humans respond really well to consequences negative and positive reinforcement and so you want to use that when you're holding people accountable the question is why don't we because everyone knows that you need to hold people accountable yet most people especially in the multiple seven figures are stuck there in the space you know looping through their head of why why am i so overwhelmed why does everything feel terrible why is everything i always have to come back to me why do i have to work 14 hours a day right well why is because of you it's because you're allowing yourself to overcompensate for other people and you're not letting them rise up and you're not letting yourself see the gap that is actually needed to fill the business and so what accountability looks like versus doesn't look like okay what a calendar doesn't look like right when you're not holding people accountable uh they typically show up and leave work on whenever they feel like it right and so i've actually audited a lot of people's companies through acquisition.com and i've looked at the schedules and the time studies of people that are working and it's crazy to me sometimes i mean there's someone who's a customer service rep and they're not they're taking two to three hour breaks multiple times a day because of other commitments that they have and other jobs you know it's like your customer needs you at that point in time and so that's a common behavior they just let people work when they please they have no set hours no expectations etc the second thing is that delivery and kpis are not met a lot of times there's not kpis set but actually more often than not there are vague kpis set but the leader is not holding anyone accountable to them so nobody on the team they're like yeah if you would ask them how many sales they need to make per month and how many sets they need to make per month and how many people they need to send per month they could maybe tell you but they know that there's no reinforcement behind it so what the does the number even matter it doesn't matter right if you're not backing it up the third and the most telling is that you or someone else in leadership is doing part of their job okay so you hire them for a role there's an entire job description of what they're supposed to do for their role and they are doing half to maybe at like best two-thirds of it and then you're filling in the gap by doing the rest of that and instead of coaching that person telling that person that they're not meeting expectations you are just going in and doing it without saying anything you're just like letting it happen and then uh the last two are that you don't have uncomfortable conversations with them so your one-on-ones you probably don't look forward to they probably drain you you don't talk about anything substantial and you are actually stressed about their problems and so that is a tell-tale sign which is you are you know say you have an incompetent sales uh director you are lying wake up night thinking about sales numbers right because you don't have trust in their ability to solve the problem and therefore you are trying to work on solving it yourself where your brain is so that is what it looks like when you don't hold people accountable now what does it look like on the latter half right well probably the opposite of all that which would be that uh people do their jobs in a timely manner and they have expectations of when they are supposed to be working versus not and there's transparency if they need to take time off or take breaks kpis are met or exceeded and they are discussed frequently they are something that are looked at on a weekly daily monthly basis they are something that is discussed and they are something that if you do not meet them there are consequences and there is a plan that is always going to put in place and then lastly is that you don't do any part of their job like everything on their job description is what they are doing you are not doing any of that you are supporting and you are coaching them and you are holding them accountable and then lastly is that you're not stressed over their problems so if sales drop for a week you're not stressed about sales because you have trust in their ability to figure the problem out and you also trust yourself to help support and coach them well to help them come to that conclusion okay that is what accountability looks like now you might be thinking yes i understand what accountability looks like and most people do it's not that hard but the problem is that nobody actually does it and so that's what i want to break down is here are the beliefs that i had when i was uh honestly i was incompetent like i wasn't good at holding people accountable and i'll explain what i swapped those two because a belief is just a thought repeated over and over in your head and so if you can catch those thoughts and you can kind of pick them out of the pond like you see a big pond full of fish if you can grab the fish that you see is poisonous which is the self-defeating belief that you have about holding people accountable and then you can swap it put a new fish in the pond and so that is what i want to give you today are the three beliefs that i used to have and what i changed them to the first one is that i constantly thought i can't hold this person accountable because i think i am the main source of the problem okay so i would think to myself well i didn't do x well enough i didn't train them well enough i didn't set enough expectations i didn't blah blah blah blah okay what is the reality of most of those situations the reality is that we are most likely both part of the problem but blaming myself does not help them improve that i know is true that belief is self-defeating because it says oh layla can improve and learn from this problem but they don't have to i'm going to treat them like a child okay and so that is the first one and i swapped that belief instead of saying now i can acknowledge i can say yes i am obviously part of the problem i may not have set these expectations correctly that will take me an hour to reset right and then from that point forward how am i going to put that problem onto them i'm not going to take that problem from them i'm going to push it back on them and allow them the chance to improve by recognizing that they need to be part of the solution that's the first belief the second is that i used to think if i really hold this person accountable they're going to leave the company they're going to quit and that is absolutely an irrational belief because um one it just stems from like fear of rejection we don't like people leaving us but we're okay leaving them so you'd be fine if you fired this person but you wouldn't be fine if they quit um and that's how a lot of people feel but the second piece going to this and the belief that i swapped this to was if i don't hold this person accountable they will unknowingly harm the company in the culture okay so i used to think oh my god crap if i really hold this person accountable there's gonna quit which i'll get to that later but you know it's not necessarily a bad thing the second piece of that is if you don't hold them accountable you are actually going to harm the company more than you would if you did right so if you really think about it if you hold someone accountable and they leave that's probably a good thing just because it's uncomfortable and you have to deal with the short-term pain of trying to compensate for where they were and replace them which probably won't be much if they weren't really doing their job instead you're exchanging it for long-term dysfunction by setting a culture of uh incompetence right you you show everyone you have a high tolerance for and so then everyone else says well if i'm an a player why the do i want to work here because you don't care what anyone's actually doing and nobody else is producing and so that's the second belief that you have to break which is you cannot fear that person leaving you have to embrace and accept it and you have to understand that most of the time if they do it's a good thing but that you have to step up and make sure that you're holding them accountable so that you show the rest of the company what the culture really is and then the third belief is that many people say this and i think actually the smarter that the entrepreneur is the more i hear this uh which is i shouldn't have to babysit people i shouldn't have to micromanage people these people are experienced i'm paying us all this money i shouldn't have to do this right and i used to think this way too um and so i switched that to i would prefer if i would not have to do this and repeat myself so many times and hold people accountable to this extent but it is part of my job and so i will do it because i prefer to be the founder of the company and not another position and this is just part of the job and so i think a lot of times like we try and our brain tries to get us out of doing this accountability thing by saying like we shouldn't have to they should know better i'm paying all this money they're so experienced but like that's not the reality of it holding someone accountable is part of your job and it's uncomfortable so your brain wants to stop you from doing it and so you have to be able to see your own and get yourself out of that pattern of thinking and into this new one which is yes i would prefer not to do this but i will do it because it's part of my jobs and i prefer to be in this role and i like the upside that comes with it that's really it those are the three beliefs that tend to someone from holding others accountable now if you can alter these beliefs and you can constantly argue against them because you've been repeating them so many times in your head then you are most likely going to be able to go from seven to eight figures because in order to go from seven to eight figures it's all about team and if you're not able to hold people accountable then one you're probably gonna have about 35 percent more uh like more volume of workforce than needed so you're going to have that much more overhead and your business is going to be that much less profitable and then secondly you're not going to be able to attract good talent because good talent doesn't want to come to a company that doesn't hold people accountable because winners want to be held accountable because they like the pressure they like the challenge they know it is good for them and then lastly is you're not going to have confidence in yourself as a leader because when you know you should be doing something and you don't do it you lose integrity with yourself and that is why you must hold people accountable so i hope that was useful to you like i said this is the mindset shift that i had to make in order to get to a point where i could actually drive a high performance team and high performance people would actually want to work in our company okay so to the contrary many think that if i hold people accountable if i hold these higher standards um and if i am doing less and feeling less overwhelmed i'm doing something wrong but is in fact the opposite if you continue to feel overwhelmed and not hold people accountable your business will never grow so that is all i have for you today i hope you enjoyed the video if you did go ahead hit subscribe and i will see you on the next one