42 - Clarity Equals Freedom | Three Seats Every Founder Must Choose

Welcome to the Impact Podcast. I'm Eddie Wilson, here to help you visualize what others cannot see. Create opportunities where others have failed, and push you to build empires where once there was empty space. Let's embark on this journey together and make a difference in this world. Most of the issues you face in business are because you, the owner, the operator, the CEOs, are sitting in the wrong seat. And today's episode, I'm going to talk about the three different seats that you have to choose intentionally in your business. Are you the owner? Are you the operator? Or are you the CEO? In today's episode, I'm going to help you define which one of those you naturally should be inclined and should sit in so that your business can succeed. Thanks so much for joining us on the Impact Podcast today with Eddie Wilson. It's my honor and privilege and pleasure to come to you each and every week and teach business principles. As we travel the nation with the aspire tour and with other speaking engagements, I get often asked so much, will you spend some time with me? Will you my Instagram and my Facebook and my LinkedIn DMs are all filled with people asking me for them to get some business advice or for mentorship. And every single week I come onto this podcast for the purpose of mentoring. And a lot of the things that I bring to you from a topical standpoint really are tying to these issues that I constantly get asked about just the other day. We held what's called our war room. It's an event that we put on here at our private equity firms office in Pontavitor Beach, Florida. And something that maybe you would consider. It's a really great event where I really open up all the things that I have in our companies. We've got about 20 companies plus that operate here. And our war room is really us just showing you how we operate our businesses. I always felt like if I could go back to my younger years, that was the one big piece I was missing was I was building businesses, but I never really had access to others who were building businesses. And I couldn't really see the path of how they were building something 10 times greater than me and how to really get there. And so that's what our war rooms all about. But as I was engaging with one of the people at the war room, one of the big issues that I was speaking to them about was the fact that they were sitting in so many seats as the owner of their company. And I helped define for them these three seats so that they could intentionally sit in one. And that's what I want to do for you today. And so I want you to first identify which one you're sitting in and most likely you're sitting in multiple. And then I want you to identify which one you feel most compelled or you feel most suited to sit in. And then we'll happily and naturally give you a path to do that. But let me just kind of start by saying most founders are busy. They're tired. They're frustrated. They're people that are overworked and oftentimes underappreciated. And it's not because their businesses broken. Oftentimes because their business is successful, it's because they're sitting in the wrong seat. And it's not that they are, let's say, doing things wrong. It's just that they are doing so much and they don't have clearly defined lanes or guardrails by which to operate in. And so in this episode, when breakdown, the three seats every business has the owner, the operator and the CEO. And if you don't know the difference, you're most likely doing all three. If you don't know the difference between an owner and operator and a CEO, you most likely have very blurred lines. And in that blurred line, you're killing your growth and ultimately you're stressing yourself out. And so as I help you get clear, you will get free. Clarity always brings freedom. So I'm going to help you get clear on this. And then ultimately you'll gain some freedom. So let's define the three seats. Let's talk about the owner seat first. The owner is more of a position that technically should be a position that's removed. You should be looking as an owner, as an investor in your business. You own the equity of the business. You're not the operator of the business. An owner is about legal structure. It's about a profit participation. It's about decision rights. That's what an owner does, right? And oftentimes as the owner, we get confused about our roles and our responsibilities. Now you may be an owner, but you may not be sitting in the owner's seat. And I hope that this makes sense to you. Sitting in the owner's seat, or maybe even like looking at as like the chairman of the board, right? Is somebody that's removed from the true operations, but it doesn't mean that you're removed from the true benefit, right? So in an owner's seat, right, you're an investor that doesn't necessarily mean you're the leader. I oftentimes say that the leadership is reserved for the CEO, which we'll talk about in just a second. Ownership is more about operate. It's about control, right? It's about decision rights. It's about the profit. And some ownership is 100% passive. Now that's where I like to get to is I want to get to a place where my ownership takes only the contribution that's necessary for a lot of the leadership that demands it from me. I'm in this kind of always ever changing flow because some of my businesses are brand new, they're startup, we just purchase them. And I might be down in the weeds in some. But the businesses that I my most enjoy because I really enjoy being an owner is when I can remove myself and only play in necessary places when the CEO says they need my contribution. What I say is is that I want to in my life, I want to get to a place where I'm not that I'm always relevant, but not necessary. For instance, for many years, I have owned and operated the American Association of Private Lenders. Linda Hyde is truly the she her title is president, but she's truly the one that is actually leading it. She's leading it. She's operating it. And for me, I am overseeing it. I'm overseeing it from a distance. And then I contribute as needed, right? So like, I look over the finances. I don't necessarily govern the finances. I look over the plans. I don't necessarily operate the plants. I give vision. I step in for speeches. I step in for state of the unions. I step in for podcasts. And then when she tells me as an owner, hey, you're necessarily like I need you to go to Capitol Hill to meet on a legislative thing. Then, then I'll step in, right? But as an owner, I'm sitting there in position waiting for the need of the CEO to call me in, right? And so there's a very, very different structure there as I as I build this out. Being an owner gets you wealth. So like being an owner is like being able to take the benefits of the company. Being the CEO is what gives you more legacy, right? Because then you're actually leading and creating that path forward. So that's the owner seat. Next, we have what's called the operator seat. Okay? And this is where most entrepreneurs get stuck. This is somebody that's making things run and on a day-to-day basis, sometimes a minute by minute basis. The problem with being an operator is that you are stuck inside the machine, right? So an operator is in the weeds. They're solving problems. They're overseeing daily and oftentimes hourly tasks. That's the operator. Most small businesses, however, stay stuck here because the owner or the founder gets into the operator seat, but they become the bottleneck because they have to be the decision maker of everything that's happening. Now, just because you're a poor operator or you're more of a visionary, does it mean that you're not necessarily in that seat, right? And so oftentimes you have visionaries that get stuck in this operator seat because they're the bottleneck. They're making all decisions. They're solving the problems. They're overseeing tasks. Everything has to go through their layer of approval. And in this, most small businesses stay stuck here. And it feels very noble. It feels like because there's a sense of, let's just say, security and accomplishment when you're the operator. As a operator, you oftentimes for people that need control or people that want to feel close to the customer or close to the action, they'll sit in this operator seat because it's gratifying. The problem is that you never can scale when the owner, the CEO is also sitting in the operator seat. So it feels noble, but it's a trap. It's a trap that will keep you stuck. You become the bottleneck. You're the firefighter. You are ultimately the fall guy as well, right? Like everything rises and falls on you. Everything sits on your shoulder. When you lay down at night, the pressure on you is the fact that everything goes through you and it can't operate without you. Here's a couple of things, a couple of signs that you're stuck. If you're saying, you know, well, that's not necessarily me. Well, if you take a vacation, do things fall apart. If you take a vacation, are you every morning taking phone calls, writing emails every evening, trying to catch up from the day because you've taken off, you know, I've been there, right? Like, I've been on vacation and every morning, I have to set aside from 6am to 9am to make sure the business runs good for the day. And then I get to take off from 9 to 4 and then I got to hop back in and, you know, check out from the family and from 4 to 6. I got to make sure everything's still going, right? Like, I've been there and that means you are stuck. Like, and you are the operator. You review everything before it goes out, right? Like everything before it moves, every, every, every expense, every charge, every, everything goes through you. Now, again, it goes back to just because it does, doesn't mean that it's right or that it's good. As a matter of fact, oftentimes, it's an indicator that your business is stuck and your business is is sealing down. If you hold 10 plus rolls in your business, if you identify, you say like, well, I am running the finance and I'm also selling and I'm also building or delivering or I'm also installing or I'm also, you know, it's like if you hold 10 plus rolls and you defend it as if no one can do it like you, you're an operator. You're in the operator seat, whether you like it or not. Operator builds, the operator's energy ultimately will, if you're in a, if you're true visionary, your energy will ultimately build exhaustion. Operators are ones who manage, who organize, who, who oftentimes allocate, but they're not necessarily driving and pushing, okay? A CEO energy, right? Like one of visionaries in the CEO energy, it builds empires and this is important. Okay, so let's talk about the CEO seat. The CEO seat is you don't have to do everything. By the way, let me just put that caveat out there. If you say, I am the CEO of your business, well, let me define it for you. You don't do everything. You just make sure everything gets done. You have operational oversight, but not responsibility. This is super important because this is where people get stuck. These words that I'm choosing are very nuanced and very intentional and I need you to hear them. Okay, so you don't do everything. You make sure everything gets done. I hear that. Well, that means that you have to be hands off and you have governance. You don't have responsibility. The CEO is the strategist, the visionary, the culture center, and the leader developer, right? So like, this is what a CEO does. They're a strategist, a visionary, a culture center, and a leader developer. Okay, you are, you should be leaving behind you a wake of leaders who are developing and growing on a monthly quarterly basis. You lead from above, not from the trenches. A true CEO, yes, I love the concept of leaders eat last. The problem is is that when you always are in the trenches and I'm not, I'm never abdicating a responsibility of doing the small things, picking up the trash, putting the shopping cart back when you go to the store, right? Like, I'm not abdicated. I'm not saying you don't have that responsibility. What I'm saying is as a CEO, you have to have vision from above, right? If you're down in the trenches every day, you can't see vision from a, from a vantage point that allows you to find success. So you lead from above, not from the trenches. You think in quarters and years, not hours and days. You think in quarters and years, not hours and days. If, if your mindset is hours and days, hours and days, you're an operator. A CEO has to think in quarters, bigger chunks of time and years because when you do that, then you're setting pace, you're setting vision, you're setting goals, right? You scale through systems, not through sweat. You scale through systems, not through sweat. You are looking at the overall thing saying, this is broken and then you're not a CEO doesn't dive into fix. A CEO organizes, operates, systemizes for scale, right? This is huge because this is what you're doing as an operator thinking that you're a CEO is you're like, okay, let me look at my organization. Now, where's the problem? Okay, let me dive in and fix it. No. The moment that you get into the trenches, you're back into the operator seat. Resist that, right? Make sure that you're scaling through systems. Make sure that if you are doing work, it is a system that's being built so that you can remove yourself from it. This is super, super important. Systems, not sweat. You're building system equity, not sweat equity. Sweat equities for the operator. System equity is for the CEO, the key function of CEO. And so many times I get asked, as I've elevated myself in a CEO seat, where should I place my responsibility? Where should I spend my time? You should be casting the vision. You should be reviewing data. If you follow my empire system, it's the brick, the stoplight, it's the cash flow performance, all these pieces that we put into place to govern our business. You should be reviewing that data. You lead the leaders, right? You're not down in the weeds. You're leading the leaders. You should have, you should create rhythm. There's you should be engineering rhythm. You should be setting this rhythm to consistently grow by. So think of it as if you've ever seen the the guys that are doing the rowing, right? And you have a whole group of guys that are rowing. And then you have a guy sitting on the front of the boat who is essentially instructing when to row. So there's a rhythm because as the rhythm happens, right? All the guys, if you look at those boats, what you'll see is that if you pause at their hands or all the exact same degree with the ores because that rhythm is what creates speed. And so as they row and they row in tandem, it creates speed. That's your job as a CEO is to create the rhythm of your business to row in tandem. Okay? Then next, you should be building for an exit. A true CEO is thinking in quarters and years. And when he's thinking in quarters and years, he's ultimately creating the exit path. Now that doesn't mean necessarily selling the business. It might just be finding a replacement. It might be setting the tone for now in every person whether you like it or not are going to exit, right? It might be in 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. But the CEO should have enough vision for what that looks like. Okay? The CEO doesn't run the business. The CEO leads the people who run the business. The CEO doesn't run the business. The CEO leads the people who run the business. This is really important because this is where you'll get stuck. And ultimately, this is where you'll bottleneck your organization. Okay? So that's the definitions of the three. All right. So number one, I want you to identify. Are you sitting in all three seats? Are you doing all three functions? And you go, well, hold on. I have to because my business is a startup or it's new or it's not big enough. I understand that. But the first step is identifying which seats you sit in. The second step is identifying which seat you should be in or you have an aspiration to be in. Now part two of this, let's let's go from identifying these seats to now what I call the grind to greatness from grind to greatness. How do you get out of this rat race of just doing this on a consistent basis and being stuck in the operator seat? Right? So number one, you have to engineer the process. This just doesn't happen by natural progression. Okay? You engineer this process. So in this phase one, let me just call it the operator season. Right? So in phase one, there's always an operator season, a season by which you have to be in the weeds. And that's the necessity. The only way that you can avoid that is by having enough capital to hire, let's just say an executive team or maybe before you get to an executive executive team, you hire fractional that step in to do those functions and you need some capital to do that. But the operator season is often necessary early on, right? Like you've got to get in, you got to roll up your sleeves. You actually have to do the work. You wear all the hats as you learn the business, right? Like you're doing sales, but you're also fulfilling. You are you are doing HR and hiring people and you're also paying payroll, right? Like this is what the operator season is. But this should be a season. It shouldn't be a standard. It shouldn't be like the standard way of doing things. It should it should be a season and a season that's built for growth. The operator season should be a foundation. You're building, but not a place that you get stuck in. The biggest risk that you have to your business is getting stuck where you started. Like where you're like, hey, I'm in the business and I can't get out. I'm down in the weeds. I'm doing all the things. I'm wearing all the hats. This has to be engineered, but it has to be a season of time. Phase one is the operator season. Phase two is now the transition to CEO. So many of you are visionaries today. You're listening to my podcast. You're listening and you're like, man, how do I get out of this operator seat? Okay. So the first step is is you got to realize it's a season. And you have to have a plan to get out of that season. Then there's the transition to CEO. Okay. So most of you need to move into the CEO seat. And I believe it's a progression. It should go operator. Okay. Now the foundation is built. Move into CEO seat, right? CEO seat. This is when I think, you know, like when I say I'm building empires one brick at a time, I'm not really building empires as an operator. Okay. I'm building a foundation as an operator. Now when I go into my CEO seat, now it's time to go to war. Now I'm building the empire. Okay. So mentally, I say, I've got to do this for a period of time, but I can't go to war. I can't really scale this thing. I can't go from, you know, let's just say viability into scale until I'm in the CEO seat. Okay. If I'm not in the CEO seat, I'm still stuck in, you know, that perseverance, viability space, right? So now I'm letting go of control. CEO, let's go of control. He's just governing or she's just governing it. They're delegating things to people that have the potential to be better than me, right? So I always say that people that give 70 to 80% of what you give, it's time for you to begin to remove yourself. Now you should create an expectation that they go past you, right? So they're, they're going to surpass you. You're going to delegate, they're going to, you're going to delegate to people who have the potential to be better than you. Okay. Then you lead with data, not with drama, data over drama. Okay. And the reason I say that is now you're going into metrics. It shouldn't be feeling based. You shouldn't be saying like, okay, well, I feel like you're doing a poor job. I feel like you're not doing it as good as I would. I feel like I would handle it differently. No, when you move into CEO seat, now it's data. You're looking at your score cards, your cashflow performance. You're saying you didn't, you didn't meet this criteria. Therefore, we need to make changes, right? Like that's how a CEO leads. And then you're building a structure, a long-term structure that can replace yourself. The best CEO is building a structure to replace themselves. And when they get to the place where they can replace themselves, then they get the choice to sit in that seat as long as they want to. That is the perfect case scenario. This is also the place where most never make it. Most of you are created to do what I'm talking about right now. But most of you will never get there because you're not going to build that foundation, that operator season. You're never going to truly transition to the CEO seat and give people the ability to do what they're supposed to do. And so therefore, you're going to always create the ceiling. You're the problem, right? Like, you are the problem in the business and it's because you won't sit in the CEO seat. You want to sit in the operator seat and kind of dangle and play around as if you are in the CEO seat, but you're not really there. And let me just substantiate this for a second. Why should a visionary get to the CEO seat? Let me just real quickly. If you don't get to the CEO seat, you never truly scale. If you stay in the operator seat and you're still, if you're still perseverance to viability, right, then you're never going to scale the business because if you try, you're going to create pain because the operations are still in your back. You're still holding them, right? And so it's so important that you transition to CEO as a visionary. This should be your goal. You can't scale ultimately. You'll never sell. You can't sell the business. You'll never find the true value in the business. And what most of you feel is you can't rest. Most of you feel this massive weight on your shoulders because you are still in the operator seat. If you are a visionary sitting in the operator seat, you must get to CEO seat. You must follow the functions of the CEO that I just told you because that will give you rest. It will give you the ability to take a breath. It'll give you the ability to dream again, the ability to create again, which is what you need in order to scale. You can't scale under duress or you shouldn't scale under duress. You can't scale properly under duress, right? Like you need the space to think, to dream, to create vision. Okay? Your team then ultimately suffers if you are a visionary sitting in the operator seat. Your team suffers, your family suffers, and you ultimately suffer. And eventually your vision dies in a body or in a business that depends on you. It's like, it's meant to grow outside of you, and because it's put in this restrictive body, this restrictive place, it ends up dying. This business ends up dying because it all depends on you. Okay? So let me now walk you through this last piece. Okay? So the last piece is the challenge. Okay? And by the way, you didn't build this business to babysit it. You built it to scale it. Right? You built it to sell it. You built it to free yourself and free your family and create this freedom. Right? And that doesn't happen if you're still a visionary sitting in the daily operational seat. You have to get out of the grind, right? Like you have to get out of the grind. You have to get to greatness. You have to do that through creating governance and stepping into that CEO seat. Okay? So here's the challenge. Okay? Here's the pathway to get there. Here's what I want you to do this week as you've listened to this podcast, hold yourself accountable. Have you ever heard of Parkinson's principle or the Parkinson's law, which means that to whatever degree you allow yourself the time to do something, you'll always fill it up. If you allow yourself 15 minutes to do something that normally takes you an hour, typically you can do it in 15 minutes, shrink it down. So take this week, not I'm going to take this quarter or this year, right? Like don't say this is a 2026 task, right? Or this is a 2027 task. Don't push it down the road or give yourself a big giant open space to act. Say this week. Okay? This week is what I want you to do and only give yourself this week. Number one, I want you to audit your calendar and look back through and see how many things you are doing as an operator. How many things are you doing as an operator? How much of this is about decision making, bottlenecking your company, right? Out of your calendar. And then color code it. Okay? Color code, the things that are, you know, go back through my thing, like go through, make a list. This is what an owner does. This is what an operator does. This is what a CEO does. Okay? Color code it and say this task in my calendar was a true CEO task. Make that blue or whatever, right? Then take all the operator tasks. Make them red, right? And say, okay, now this was an operator task. This meeting, this thing I did was truly an operator and then make a green one, which is your, your ownership one. This is, oh, this is what an owner does, right? Color code it and see where you are really living at in your business. Okay? Then begin to identify which roles you must offload next. What roles do you have to offload? When you are still the doer versus you are the designer, you're the architect, you're the one who's governing. Okay? And decide to shift. Audit your calendar this week. Write the things down that you do and then decide to shift immediately. Begin to look at your calendar this week and say, what things can I put off? Now, what I want you to do is as you listen to this podcast and a lot of you'll download it this week, a lot of you'll listen to it over time on YouTube. I want you to comment on the things that you are going to shift off your plate. Come back and comment because this will hold you accountable. I want to see you as operators who are moving to CEOs who are moving to owners. I want to see you commenting and holding yourself accountable. What are you offloading this week? What are you going to get rid of? Audit that calendar and decide to shift. But don't just decide to shift this quarter, this year, decide to shift this week. And let me know what you're going to shift because empires are not built by those that do everything. Your dream of building this amazing, beautiful, awesome thing will never happen if you're the one that has to do it all. It can't happen. You'll never build an empire. You might build a small house. You might build something decent. You might build something that is admirable. You'll never build an empire. What do you want to build? If you're satisfied with where you are, stay in the seats you're in. If you want to build something bigger, substantial, greater, right, then audit where you are and decide to make a shift. This last phrase, I want you to understand and absorb these empires are not built by people who do everything. They're built by those who design everything to get done without them. I hope you have a great day today. Hope you take some of this with you. Make this shift this week. Move from sitting on that operator seat, moving to that CEO seat and eventually move into the owner seat. Have a great day. Thanks so much for being a part of the Impact Podcast. Thanks so much for being a part of the podcast and for listening today. Love to hear you. I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks so much for being a part of the podcast and for listening today. Love to connect with you further and you can connect with me on social media at Eddie Wilson official on any of the social media channels.