August 27, 2023 • 27 mins
Ever found yourself stretched too thin, hustling between multiple jobs, and trying to manage a growing business? Let's be honest, it's all too common in entrepreneurship. This episode, we'll hear from one our co-hosts, LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes, an expert CEO strategist who can relate to these challenges. She shares her personal story of being overextended, revealing the unseen costs and the toll it took on her productivity.
Together, we dig into the art of saying 'no,' setting boundaries, and the essential skill of delegation. We delve into crafting a business plan that doesn't just feed your ambitious dreams but is grounded in reality. Lakeysha spills the beans on how to set both external and internal boundaries to keep your entrepreneurial journey sustainable. In our candid chat, you'll find inspiration and practical advice to help you avoid overextending yourself and instead focus on creating a balanced path to success.
Thanks for listening! Please follow, rate and review.
Produced and Recorded by Randall Hayes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sonya Songer (00:14):
Thank you so much for watching and for liking and
subscribing.
Hello and welcome to the TrueCEO podcast, the ultimate guide
to navigating the challengingterrain of entrepreneurship and
(00:37):
business leadership.
I'm your host, sonia Songer,your HR strategist, and today's
episode is a profoundexploration into a mistake that
many ambitious entrepreneursfall into spreading themselves
too thin and always saying yes,get ready to uncover the hidden
costs, the art of delegation andthe strategies for setting
boundaries that will keep you onthe path to sustainable success
(01:00):
.
As always, we have our allaround CEO strategist and person
with all of the CEO knowledgefor you.
Laquisha Cobb says who's goingto start us out on this topic
with discussing the hidden costsof spreading yourself thin.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (01:17):
You absolutely be hyping me up.
Sonya Songer (01:21):
Like seriously, I'd be, like I mean, and all
around you know, I can't do whatI can.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (01:30):
By no means am I an expert, expert,
expert you know, I try.
Sonya Songer (01:36):
She's an all around CEO.
That's what we're keeping it to.
That's what we're keeping it to.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (01:43):
Well, my goodness, hidden costs, Hidden
costs.
Spread yourself, are theyreally?
Sonya Songer (01:50):
hidden though.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (01:52):
They're not hidden because they come.
They come to light real quick.
Sonya Songer (01:55):
Real quick.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (01:56):
They come to light real quick, especially
when you're spreading yourselftoo thin, like just.
I remember starting out I wassitting.
I would just be sitting on mybed and my husband will walk in
and be like, are you okay?
I was like I think I'm okay,like I'm all right.
(02:16):
I'm not quite sure I think I'llbe all right.
Sonya Songer (02:19):
I think I'll be all right, your voice goes
higher at the end I think I amRight.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (02:25):
And I remember not sleeping.
I remember not sleeping.
I remember not really eatingtoo well.
I just remember a lot of youknow, I remember one night I was
literally waiting for thispayment to come in, so I would
stay up to midnight and wait forthe payments and checking my
(02:47):
account, refresh, refresh, andlike I couldn't go to sleep
until I saw that the money wasin the account, and it was so
daunting, like now when I lookback on it, I was like so sad
Because then I got to sleep.
(03:09):
I was so, I'm so serious, I wasso sad because I was just like,
oh my God, like this moneydoesn't come in, what about
payroll?
And what are we going to do?
And you know, am I going tohave to take out a loan and I
don't have this and I don't havethat.
And then, you know, I still haveto get up in the morning, I
have to go see clients, I haveto go to the office.
(03:31):
There's things that need to bedone.
As far as I think, around thetime we had to renew our
insurance, so we had ourinsurance audit and I was just
like, oh my gosh, and then I wasworking another job because I
needed to sustain this job.
So not only would I work keyessentials Monday through Friday
and even on the weekendsbecause I was writing reports,
(03:51):
but then I'd go and work a wholenother job and I would have to
be at the group homes from likeI would leave my house at six
o'clock so I can get there byeight, because it was about an
hour and a half away, and then Iwas there until like 10 o'clock
at night because I needed toget all of their hours in, and
so I did that on the weekend.
(04:12):
So Saturday and Sunday Iliterally worked at the group
homes for 10, 12, 14 hours tomake sure that they had all of
their hours.
I would go to three differenthomes and then I would come back
to work on Monday because therewas things we had to do at the
office in the mornings and thenI had to go see my clients in
(04:35):
the afternoons and I did thatfor a few to two, to two, two,
almost three years.
Sonya Songer (04:44):
I would call those days, always saying yes.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (04:49):
Mm, hmm.
Sonya Songer (04:50):
Yeah, basically, and what did I say during those
time frames?
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (04:54):
That I should probably slow down,
Keisha, you don't really have towork.
Sonya Songer (04:57):
I was like no, but we don't have to always say yes
.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (05:01):
Yeah, yeah .
I remember one of our fundingsources even calling and saying
like, hey, we need people out inthis rural area.
It's an hour and a half away.
I'm the only BCBA at thecompany, and so they was just
like, yeah, we need somebody outthere.
And I was like I don't know ifwe can make this work.
(05:22):
I immediately said you did sayno.
You did say no.
Sonya Songer (05:26):
But you said.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (05:27):
I said yes , mm, hmm, so then on top of all
of that then I then went and westarted up, and so I would have
to go not only an hour and ahalf the other direction during
the week and spend at least oneor two days out there on the
weekends.
I was another hour and a halfaway Talking about burnout.
Sonya Songer (05:52):
Spreading yourself to thin and and and tell.
Tell us some of the those coststo the company, to your peace
of mind, to your ability to runthe company, to, to all of these
different areas.
What, what were some of thosecosts?
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (06:12):
I don't know if they were hitting.
They were pretty, they're veryblatant.
They were very blatant Slap youin your face.
Uh, I wasn't running mybusiness.
I was actually being anemployee.
Um, I was missing some of thosecore tasks.
Um, I don't believe we had toomany SOPs at the time because I
(06:34):
actually, I absolutely dideverything.
Um, I was, I was a nonproductive, productive person.
Sonya Songer (06:43):
That sounds about right.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (06:45):
A non-productive productive person
.
Sonya Songer (06:47):
No self-care was going on.
Absolutely not Running yourselfinto the ground to where then,
like you said, a non-productive,productive person.
You were there, but you weren'tthere.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (07:00):
I wasn't there, which means that
everybody else ran my business.
Which means that nobody wasrunning the business.
Which means that whatever youthought you should do, you
probably did.
Sonya Songer (07:16):
Which resulted in less productivity.
Meaning less money, meaning youhaving to then still work that
much harder to bring in thisextra money on the side.
Losing money, Continuous cycle.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (07:29):
Not paying attention to what was coming in
and what was going out, notonly tearing me down, but
tearing my car down, my familydown.
So, yeah, there was a lot ofsetbacks Poor quality of service
.
Sonya Songer (07:44):
Yeah, poor quality of service, Not necessarily
from you, but definitely becausethere was no oversight to the
other individuals coming in.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (07:53):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
I mean we had you, which youdid double duty at the time, so
double duty meaning that she wasthe office manager and HR.
So that was helpful.
Sonya Songer (08:08):
I tried to monitor them people as best I could.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (08:13):
I did what I could.
Sonya Songer (08:15):
Hey, Keisha's not going to like that.
You wait till she gets home.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (08:19):
Basically, that's exactly what that looked
like.
That's the sad part about thiswhole conversation, because you
have your strengths and you haveyour weaknesses.
And managing people justbecause your HR doesn't
necessarily mean that you have askill set to dive into what an
actual management session lookslike.
Nor do you want to.
(08:39):
I just want to.
Sonya Songer (08:41):
Certainly not for clinical style, certainly not
for clinical Absolutely.
I can manage them in the senseof hey, you have too many
absences, you want to work here,you need to actually come to
work.
And that's the extent of mymanagement over the most people.
If they were not doing theclinical stuff they needed to do
(09:02):
with them kids, I had no clue.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (09:05):
Oh my gosh , I can't even like that whole
couple of years when I firststarted, business was such a
blur, Like it was.
It was good because I mean, wewe scaled really quickly and we
got systems in the place, butthose systems were created at
midnight.
Those systems were created whenI had time to sit down and
(09:28):
actually do something or I'msitting there at a track meet
that I can finally make for oneof my kids.
So I think that overall wefigured it out, but that's
that's not the right way tofigure it out.
I absolutely should have saidno, and some of those instances
those were some really hardmistakes, Some mistakes that you
(09:50):
know you can't bring back, likegetting a loan and you know
they have daily limits where youhave to pay.
Instead of that was that wascostly, right?
Sonya Songer (10:03):
Don't say yes to predatory loans.
Do not say yes to them.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (10:08):
No, don't do that Don't do that at all,
but I think what ended uphelping was learning how to make
decisions, making sure that I'm.
I started looking at what wasoverwhelming me at the time,
even though I hate that word.
Sonya Songer (10:27):
I hate the word overwhelming, but you know for
me to say you always want aspecific definition of what
exactly do you find?
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hay (10:36):
overwhelming .
I'm gonna be a hero animal.
Yes, I need an operationaldefinition.
What so?
I can't stand-.
Sonya Songer (10:43):
Don't just come to her and say you're overwhelmed,
yeah what about this isoverwhelming?
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (10:47):
What you're not getting your job done
Like.
What does that look like?
Are you missing deadlines?
Like?
I need to know exactly whatthat looks like.
However, I learned to makedecisions.
I learned to prioritize my time.
I learned to create what wecall in the behavior analyst
world, a task analysis, to whereI can get things done more
(11:09):
efficiently.
I started to play myself in, asyou know, also as an employee,
but also make sure that I wasseparating my time out.
I started to look at strategicplanning.
I actually got into a couple ofnetworking groups where they
(11:33):
were just like, which reallymade my life a whole lot easier,
Cause they were just like oh no, we're doing this over here.
So then it made sense for me tokind of, you know, follow their
lead.
One because they've been inbusiness way longer than me, and
so looking at what they weredoing and listening, so getting
a mentor.
(11:54):
I think by a year three, I hada business mentor.
I may have went back tocounseling a couple of times,
just personally to figure out.
You know, what is this thingcalled busy and why do I always
want to be busy?
I think I've been busy for overa lot of years.
(12:15):
I think I've been at least twoto three times had separate
counseling and mental.
Sonya Songer (12:20):
You know just a little bit of a breakdown, which
we all need.
Yeah yeah, self care is a bigpart of all of these different
topics that we're talking abouton this podcast, and certainly
when you're talking about alwayssaying yes.
Why do you always feel the needto please others and always say
(12:42):
yes?
We know it's going to be apotential hindrance for you, or
your organization or your goals.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (12:49):
Yeah, Not only that, you're spreading
yourself in, which is going tolead to some kind of compromise
strategies and rush decisions.
Like it gets a little crazy outhere.
But I almost took myself back.
I will not.
Sonya Songer (13:07):
I will not Back to the presence.
Overwhelming decision paralysis.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (13:14):
So how do you balance ambitious goals with
realistic ones?
What do?
Sonya Songer (13:19):
you say.
I mean, I think it's reallyabout having a strategic plan in
place.
It's about taking the time toput real thought into what that
looks like in those twodifferent categories.
Yeah, but I'm sure that you'regoing to kind of give me the
(13:45):
more specific, because I'm justI'm not looking at our notes for
how we want to address this toall of you.
I'm going based off of myknowledge of how we currently
operate our you know, ourbusinesses and what that looks
like for us.
But I know that we have somenotes that give better details.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (14:05):
Well, actually I wasn't going to
actually go off the notes.
Oh, okay, so there.
Sonya Songer (14:09):
Because she is our overall CEO expert, as I said
at the beginning.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (14:14):
Well one I think your ambitious goals are
ones that kind of stretch youRight.
Your realistic goals are whereyou actually are, and so from my
background, it's kind of like,okay, where are we and where can
we realistically go?
And then, where is our dream?
Where's our?
(14:35):
You know what, if we could doand we can kind of get all of
these ducks in a row, then wecan get here.
And so those ambitious goalsversus your realistic goals not
that you don't need to dream,but you also need to stick close
to and or have three differentfigures of where you want to be.
So, agreed, you know.
(14:56):
I think that that makes bettersense than saying you know, this
year, just pie in the sky we'regoing to do.
You know 50 million and you'vebarely made a million.
Right that?
That makes zero sense.
How are you going to get?
Sonya Songer (15:12):
there.
I mean, that is an amazingdream.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (15:15):
I mean, I'm going to put it out in the
universe and manifest all ofthose things.
However, what does that looklike and what does the numbers
look like?
So, you know, giving yourselfan opportunity to stretch
yourself and go as far as yourdreams can take you, but then
kind of backing your way into anactual plan to say, okay, this
(15:38):
is what we're capable of, thisis what we're going to need to
get to even the next step andthis is what we're going to need
to get to that 50 million,right?
So, accessing your resources,your time, your personnel, your
finances before you even set thegoal, and I think that's the
(15:58):
part that especially younger andyou know and I say younger in
the sense of you know you've hadyour business between one and
three years that's the part thatyou don't get, because you're
not really looking at numbers atthat time, right, unless you've
already had experience inbusiness, and that was your
thing and you have.
Sonya Songer (16:19):
You know you're in corporate and you know you're
used to giving numbers, youstart to hit the ground running
in that aspect, absolutely.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (16:26):
Absolutely .
But for those of us thatstarted this business and didn't
know anything about numbers ortracking KPIs you know key
performance indicators orcreating SOPs or you know all of
these different areas thenyou're going to have a slower
start because you only know yourskill set, you only know your
(16:48):
craft.
And my craft says I understandhow to break down behavior.
I understand how to break down,you know, I know how to read a
graph, but I only know it fromworking with the clients that I
work with.
Now, how do we apply that tobusiness and what does that look
like?
Now there's a part of our, youknow, I guess, the behavior
(17:10):
analyst community that has theorganizational behavior
management.
You know it's not very hard tomake the switch, but also
nobody's telling you that.
You know that sounds lovely,kisha, but that sounds lovely
Kisha, but people are quittingand you know, you don't know,
(17:30):
that the pandemic is coming andyou know you can't predict the
things that you don't know.
You don't, I mean, unless youhave to give the foresight.
Sonya Songer (17:39):
That is so similar to a conversation that I just
had the other day when we werediscussing those individuals
that have an overall businessmanagement degree.
That sounds lovely, but you dohave to study all of the
different aspects of business toget that degree Absolutely.
(18:00):
However, because you are not anexpert in each individual area,
because you just know each areain general overall, that's
where kind of those difficultieswill come in and you really
have to consider delegating.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (18:21):
Absolutely , Because you're not going to
get anywhere without delegationOne.
You have to have delegation,you have to be, you have to
delegate, and the other personhas to actually buy into what
you're saying.
They have to agree to say youknow what?
I see your vision and I'mwilling to follow you.
And if that's not happening,then you don't have anyone.
Sonya Songer (18:44):
Okay.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (18:45):
You know fun times right.
Sonya Songer (18:47):
Fun, fun times.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (18:50):
So in order when you are delegating
one, it allows you to leveragethe strength and the expertise
of other people and be acollective.
It also identifies the tasksthat align with other skills and
expertise other skills andpeople that have those expertise
(19:10):
to then bring to your companythat you possibly didn't have
before.
So hiring people not for wherethey are, where you want them to
be, but hiring them for whereyou want to be and not just you
know.
Do you have this one particularskills?
What other skills do you have?
I know one of the things thatwe say at Key Essentials pretty
(19:33):
often is our goal is to put youwhere your strengths are.
Our goal is to make sure thatyou're successful within the
company, to be able to grow notonly yourself but also grow the
company.
Sonya Songer (19:47):
And grow other people around you.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (19:50):
So how do you set those boundaries?
What does it look like?
Sonya Songer (19:56):
I think there's that's a bit twofold right,
because you have to be able toset those boundaries in so many
different areas.
You need to set those boundarieswhen you are dealing with
outside entities that you maywant to collaborate with.
You need to be able to setthose boundaries internally with
(20:20):
individuals within yourorganization that you work with,
and then you also need to setthose boundaries internally
within yourself.
So I think you're looking atand those might not be the only
three categories, but those arethe three main ones that come to
my mind.
So, when setting theseboundaries, I think it's very
(20:42):
important to potentially maybedo a guess audit, which we have
actually supplied for all of youin our bonus material that will
be available.
You want to look at trying toset that up in order to really
analyze how you can startcreating those boundaries.
(21:05):
But those are the three mainareas that I see where those
boundaries would need to takeplace, and once you can
determine which category thatindividual fits into, now you
need to look at okay, how can Iset up this boundary?
How is this going to affect myorganization if I say yes as
(21:27):
opposed to saying no?
What will saying yes look like?
What will saying no look likeand then it will help you
further kind of create how youneed to communicate that
boundary to that outside entity,to that coworker or colleague,
to within yourself, like, stopalways saying yet no is a
(21:48):
complete sentence.
Yes, it is.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (21:53):
No is a complete sentence and the good
thing about saying no is there'svarious ways.
Thank you, but I'm notavailable.
I would love to, but mycalendar is full.
I mean, you can use anything tosay no, or you can just say no,
literally, just say no.
Remember when we were kids?
(22:13):
Well, maybe some of you guysdon't but you know they had to
just say no when I was inelementary school.
Sonya Songer (22:22):
Nope to do but to drugs.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (22:24):
Yes, absolutely.
That is so crazy.
Oh, did I just say myself.
But also why do you say no?
You're saying no when itdoesn't align with your mission,
it doesn't align with yourvalues, it doesn't align with
your personal you know missionstatement.
You're saying no when it istime for you to rest.
(22:47):
You cannot go to everything.
You cannot be a part ofeverything.
So making sure that you arevery specific about how you're
moving is going to be key andwhy you're going to say no to
certain things, and knowing yourwhy.
What am I working for right now?
How am I going to set up mylife In the first couple of
(23:07):
years?
Absolutely, this is your baby.
This baby requires for you tobe there morning, noon, day and
night.
Then this baby turns into atoddler.
You can sleep a little bit and,if you can, but you still have
things that you need to do.
So, making sure and equating itto okay, what does that look
(23:28):
like for me?
I'm going to need in thebeginning for the first, and
give yourself a time frame forthe first two years I'm going to
.
This is what I need to do.
I know one of the things thatwas very crucial to me was when
I started a business andactually just kind of went on
this journey my family and I.
We sat down, we had a wholeconversation.
I'm not going to be home andthis is why these are the things
(23:52):
that you can do.
Here's the people that you talkto.
If you're going to need somesupport, because this is going
to take up a lot of my time,then these are the things I'm
going to need from the familyfor us to get to where we want
to get to, and everyone therewas very supportive.
I mean, we've had questions,we've kind of gone through our
(24:14):
own personal issues, or maybethere's things that get kind of
left by the wayside that yourpartner or your family and
friends have picked up along theway.
But that's the important partof finding a tribe getting
people in your corner, havingset boundaries and then also
(24:35):
being able to move forward.
Sonya Songer (24:38):
That's another area.
I didn't think of boundarieswith your family.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (24:42):
Oh, absolutely.
Sonya Songer (24:44):
Absolutely Family and friends.
Well, that wraps up anotherinsightful episode of the True
CEO podcast.
We hope you've gained valuableinsights that will help you
steer clear of the perilous pathof spreading yourself too thin
and always saying yes.
No is a complete sentence.
Remember, being a true CEOmeans not just overseeing, but
(25:06):
strategically piloting yourbusiness towards its ultimate
goals.
If you found this episode asenlightening as we did, hit that
subscribe button.
I don't know where it is tostay ahead of the
entrepreneurial curve.
Share your thoughts, leavereviews and join us next time as
we uncover more gems of wisdomto guide you on your journey as
(25:29):
a true CEO.
Until then, keep your focussharp and your ambitions
balanced.
I'm here to support you as wellwith my consultation business,
vossi HR, and you can find me onall social media platforms.
Vossi HR.
And you can find me onInstagram at only Vossi HR.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (25:51):
You can find me at LaKeishaCopsHays and
or strategic underscore behavior, and you can find us as a whole
on strategic behaviorconsultants, part of the True
CEO Network.
Sonya Songer (26:06):
And TrueCEOlifecom .
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (26:08):
Yes, absolutely.
Sonya Songer (26:10):
Thank you, everybody.
Thank you so much for watching and for liking and
subscribing.
Hello and welcome to the TrueCEO podcast, the ultimate guide
to navigating the challengingterrain of entrepreneurship and
(00:37):
business leadership.
I'm your host, sonia Songer,your HR strategist, and today's
episode is a profoundexploration into a mistake that
many ambitious entrepreneursfall into spreading themselves
too thin and always saying yes,get ready to uncover the hidden
costs, the art of delegation andthe strategies for setting
boundaries that will keep you onthe path to sustainable success
(01:00):
.
As always, we have our allaround CEO strategist and person
with all of the CEO knowledgefor you.
Laquisha Cobb says who's goingto start us out on this topic
with discussing the hidden costsof spreading yourself thin.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (01:17):
You absolutely be hyping me up.
Sonya Songer (01:21):
Like seriously, I'd be, like I mean, and all
around you know, I can't do whatI can.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (01:30):
By no means am I an expert, expert,
expert you know, I try.
Sonya Songer (01:36):
She's an all around CEO.
That's what we're keeping it to.
That's what we're keeping it to.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (01:43):
Well, my goodness, hidden costs, Hidden
costs.
Spread yourself, are theyreally?
Sonya Songer (01:50):
hidden though.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (01:52):
They're not hidden because they come.
They come to light real quick.
Sonya Songer (01:55):
Real quick.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (01:56):
They come to light real quick, especially
when you're spreading yourselftoo thin, like just.
I remember starting out I wassitting.
I would just be sitting on mybed and my husband will walk in
and be like, are you okay?
I was like I think I'm okay,like I'm all right.
(02:16):
I'm not quite sure I think I'llbe all right.
Sonya Songer (02:19):
I think I'll be all right, your voice goes
higher at the end I think I amRight.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (02:25):
And I remember not sleeping.
I remember not sleeping.
I remember not really eatingtoo well.
I just remember a lot of youknow, I remember one night I was
literally waiting for thispayment to come in, so I would
stay up to midnight and wait forthe payments and checking my
(02:47):
account, refresh, refresh, andlike I couldn't go to sleep
until I saw that the money wasin the account, and it was so
daunting, like now when I lookback on it, I was like so sad
Because then I got to sleep.
(03:09):
I was so, I'm so serious, I wasso sad because I was just like,
oh my God, like this moneydoesn't come in, what about
payroll?
And what are we going to do?
And you know, am I going tohave to take out a loan and I
don't have this and I don't havethat.
And then, you know, I still haveto get up in the morning, I
have to go see clients, I haveto go to the office.
(03:31):
There's things that need to bedone.
As far as I think, around thetime we had to renew our
insurance, so we had ourinsurance audit and I was just
like, oh my gosh, and then I wasworking another job because I
needed to sustain this job.
So not only would I work keyessentials Monday through Friday
and even on the weekendsbecause I was writing reports,
(03:51):
but then I'd go and work a wholenother job and I would have to
be at the group homes from likeI would leave my house at six
o'clock so I can get there byeight, because it was about an
hour and a half away, and then Iwas there until like 10 o'clock
at night because I needed toget all of their hours in, and
so I did that on the weekend.
(04:12):
So Saturday and Sunday Iliterally worked at the group
homes for 10, 12, 14 hours tomake sure that they had all of
their hours.
I would go to three differenthomes and then I would come back
to work on Monday because therewas things we had to do at the
office in the mornings and thenI had to go see my clients in
(04:35):
the afternoons and I did thatfor a few to two, to two, two,
almost three years.
Sonya Songer (04:44):
I would call those days, always saying yes.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (04:49):
Mm, hmm.
Sonya Songer (04:50):
Yeah, basically, and what did I say during those
time frames?
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (04:54):
That I should probably slow down,
Keisha, you don't really have towork.
Sonya Songer (04:57):
I was like no, but we don't have to always say yes
.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (05:01):
Yeah, yeah .
I remember one of our fundingsources even calling and saying
like, hey, we need people out inthis rural area.
It's an hour and a half away.
I'm the only BCBA at thecompany, and so they was just
like, yeah, we need somebody outthere.
And I was like I don't know ifwe can make this work.
(05:22):
I immediately said you did sayno.
You did say no.
Sonya Songer (05:26):
But you said.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (05:27):
I said yes , mm, hmm, so then on top of all
of that then I then went and westarted up, and so I would have
to go not only an hour and ahalf the other direction during
the week and spend at least oneor two days out there on the
weekends.
I was another hour and a halfaway Talking about burnout.
Sonya Songer (05:52):
Spreading yourself to thin and and and tell.
Tell us some of the those coststo the company, to your peace
of mind, to your ability to runthe company, to, to all of these
different areas.
What, what were some of thosecosts?
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (06:12):
I don't know if they were hitting.
They were pretty, they're veryblatant.
They were very blatant Slap youin your face.
Uh, I wasn't running mybusiness.
I was actually being anemployee.
Um, I was missing some of thosecore tasks.
Um, I don't believe we had toomany SOPs at the time because I
(06:34):
actually, I absolutely dideverything.
Um, I was, I was a nonproductive, productive person.
Sonya Songer (06:43):
That sounds about right.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (06:45):
A non-productive productive person
.
Sonya Songer (06:47):
No self-care was going on.
Absolutely not Running yourselfinto the ground to where then,
like you said, a non-productive,productive person.
You were there, but you weren'tthere.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (07:00):
I wasn't there, which means that
everybody else ran my business.
Which means that nobody wasrunning the business.
Which means that whatever youthought you should do, you
probably did.
Sonya Songer (07:16):
Which resulted in less productivity.
Meaning less money, meaning youhaving to then still work that
much harder to bring in thisextra money on the side.
Losing money, Continuous cycle.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (07:29):
Not paying attention to what was coming in
and what was going out, notonly tearing me down, but
tearing my car down, my familydown.
So, yeah, there was a lot ofsetbacks Poor quality of service
.
Sonya Songer (07:44):
Yeah, poor quality of service, Not necessarily
from you, but definitely becausethere was no oversight to the
other individuals coming in.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (07:53):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
I mean we had you, which youdid double duty at the time, so
double duty meaning that she wasthe office manager and HR.
So that was helpful.
Sonya Songer (08:08):
I tried to monitor them people as best I could.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (08:13):
I did what I could.
Sonya Songer (08:15):
Hey, Keisha's not going to like that.
You wait till she gets home.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (08:19):
Basically, that's exactly what that looked
like.
That's the sad part about thiswhole conversation, because you
have your strengths and you haveyour weaknesses.
And managing people justbecause your HR doesn't
necessarily mean that you have askill set to dive into what an
actual management session lookslike.
Nor do you want to.
(08:39):
I just want to.
Sonya Songer (08:41):
Certainly not for clinical style, certainly not
for clinical Absolutely.
I can manage them in the senseof hey, you have too many
absences, you want to work here,you need to actually come to
work.
And that's the extent of mymanagement over the most people.
If they were not doing theclinical stuff they needed to do
(09:02):
with them kids, I had no clue.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (09:05):
Oh my gosh , I can't even like that whole
couple of years when I firststarted, business was such a
blur, Like it was.
It was good because I mean, wewe scaled really quickly and we
got systems in the place, butthose systems were created at
midnight.
Those systems were created whenI had time to sit down and
(09:28):
actually do something or I'msitting there at a track meet
that I can finally make for oneof my kids.
So I think that overall wefigured it out, but that's
that's not the right way tofigure it out.
I absolutely should have saidno, and some of those instances
those were some really hardmistakes, Some mistakes that you
(09:50):
know you can't bring back, likegetting a loan and you know
they have daily limits where youhave to pay.
Instead of that was that wascostly, right?
Sonya Songer (10:03):
Don't say yes to predatory loans.
Do not say yes to them.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (10:08):
No, don't do that Don't do that at all,
but I think what ended uphelping was learning how to make
decisions, making sure that I'm.
I started looking at what wasoverwhelming me at the time,
even though I hate that word.
Sonya Songer (10:27):
I hate the word overwhelming, but you know for
me to say you always want aspecific definition of what
exactly do you find?
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hay (10:36):
overwhelming .
I'm gonna be a hero animal.
Yes, I need an operationaldefinition.
What so?
I can't stand-.
Sonya Songer (10:43):
Don't just come to her and say you're overwhelmed,
yeah what about this isoverwhelming?
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (10:47):
What you're not getting your job done
Like.
What does that look like?
Are you missing deadlines?
Like?
I need to know exactly whatthat looks like.
However, I learned to makedecisions.
I learned to prioritize my time.
I learned to create what wecall in the behavior analyst
world, a task analysis, to whereI can get things done more
(11:09):
efficiently.
I started to play myself in, asyou know, also as an employee,
but also make sure that I wasseparating my time out.
I started to look at strategicplanning.
I actually got into a couple ofnetworking groups where they
(11:33):
were just like, which reallymade my life a whole lot easier,
Cause they were just like oh no, we're doing this over here.
So then it made sense for me tokind of, you know, follow their
lead.
One because they've been inbusiness way longer than me, and
so looking at what they weredoing and listening, so getting
a mentor.
(11:54):
I think by a year three, I hada business mentor.
I may have went back tocounseling a couple of times,
just personally to figure out.
You know, what is this thingcalled busy and why do I always
want to be busy?
I think I've been busy for overa lot of years.
(12:15):
I think I've been at least twoto three times had separate
counseling and mental.
Sonya Songer (12:20):
You know just a little bit of a breakdown, which
we all need.
Yeah yeah, self care is a bigpart of all of these different
topics that we're talking abouton this podcast, and certainly
when you're talking about alwayssaying yes.
Why do you always feel the needto please others and always say
(12:42):
yes?
We know it's going to be apotential hindrance for you, or
your organization or your goals.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (12:49):
Yeah, Not only that, you're spreading
yourself in, which is going tolead to some kind of compromise
strategies and rush decisions.
Like it gets a little crazy outhere.
But I almost took myself back.
I will not.
Sonya Songer (13:07):
I will not Back to the presence.
Overwhelming decision paralysis.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (13:14):
So how do you balance ambitious goals with
realistic ones?
What do?
Sonya Songer (13:19):
you say.
I mean, I think it's reallyabout having a strategic plan in
place.
It's about taking the time toput real thought into what that
looks like in those twodifferent categories.
Yeah, but I'm sure that you'regoing to kind of give me the
(13:45):
more specific, because I'm justI'm not looking at our notes for
how we want to address this toall of you.
I'm going based off of myknowledge of how we currently
operate our you know, ourbusinesses and what that looks
like for us.
But I know that we have somenotes that give better details.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (14:05):
Well, actually I wasn't going to
actually go off the notes.
Oh, okay, so there.
Sonya Songer (14:09):
Because she is our overall CEO expert, as I said
at the beginning.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (14:14):
Well one I think your ambitious goals are
ones that kind of stretch youRight.
Your realistic goals are whereyou actually are, and so from my
background, it's kind of like,okay, where are we and where can
we realistically go?
And then, where is our dream?
Where's our?
(14:35):
You know what, if we could doand we can kind of get all of
these ducks in a row, then wecan get here.
And so those ambitious goalsversus your realistic goals not
that you don't need to dream,but you also need to stick close
to and or have three differentfigures of where you want to be.
So, agreed, you know.
(14:56):
I think that that makes bettersense than saying you know, this
year, just pie in the sky we'regoing to do.
You know 50 million and you'vebarely made a million.
Right that?
That makes zero sense.
How are you going to get?
Sonya Songer (15:12):
there.
I mean, that is an amazingdream.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (15:15):
I mean, I'm going to put it out in the
universe and manifest all ofthose things.
However, what does that looklike and what does the numbers
look like?
So, you know, giving yourselfan opportunity to stretch
yourself and go as far as yourdreams can take you, but then
kind of backing your way into anactual plan to say, okay, this
(15:38):
is what we're capable of, thisis what we're going to need to
get to even the next step andthis is what we're going to need
to get to that 50 million,right?
So, accessing your resources,your time, your personnel, your
finances before you even set thegoal, and I think that's the
(15:58):
part that especially younger andyou know and I say younger in
the sense of you know you've hadyour business between one and
three years that's the part thatyou don't get, because you're
not really looking at numbers atthat time, right, unless you've
already had experience inbusiness, and that was your
thing and you have.
Sonya Songer (16:19):
You know you're in corporate and you know you're
used to giving numbers, youstart to hit the ground running
in that aspect, absolutely.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (16:26):
Absolutely .
But for those of us thatstarted this business and didn't
know anything about numbers ortracking KPIs you know key
performance indicators orcreating SOPs or you know all of
these different areas thenyou're going to have a slower
start because you only know yourskill set, you only know your
(16:48):
craft.
And my craft says I understandhow to break down behavior.
I understand how to break down,you know, I know how to read a
graph, but I only know it fromworking with the clients that I
work with.
Now, how do we apply that tobusiness and what does that look
like?
Now there's a part of our, youknow, I guess, the behavior
(17:10):
analyst community that has theorganizational behavior
management.
You know it's not very hard tomake the switch, but also
nobody's telling you that.
You know that sounds lovely,kisha, but that sounds lovely
Kisha, but people are quittingand you know, you don't know,
(17:30):
that the pandemic is coming andyou know you can't predict the
things that you don't know.
You don't, I mean, unless youhave to give the foresight.
Sonya Songer (17:39):
That is so similar to a conversation that I just
had the other day when we werediscussing those individuals
that have an overall businessmanagement degree.
That sounds lovely, but you dohave to study all of the
different aspects of business toget that degree Absolutely.
(18:00):
However, because you are not anexpert in each individual area,
because you just know each areain general overall, that's
where kind of those difficultieswill come in and you really
have to consider delegating.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (18:21):
Absolutely , Because you're not going to
get anywhere without delegationOne.
You have to have delegation,you have to be, you have to
delegate, and the other personhas to actually buy into what
you're saying.
They have to agree to say youknow what?
I see your vision and I'mwilling to follow you.
And if that's not happening,then you don't have anyone.
Sonya Songer (18:44):
Okay.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (18:45):
You know fun times right.
Sonya Songer (18:47):
Fun, fun times.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (18:50):
So in order when you are delegating
one, it allows you to leveragethe strength and the expertise
of other people and be acollective.
It also identifies the tasksthat align with other skills and
expertise other skills andpeople that have those expertise
(19:10):
to then bring to your companythat you possibly didn't have
before.
So hiring people not for wherethey are, where you want them to
be, but hiring them for whereyou want to be and not just you
know.
Do you have this one particularskills?
What other skills do you have?
I know one of the things thatwe say at Key Essentials pretty
(19:33):
often is our goal is to put youwhere your strengths are.
Our goal is to make sure thatyou're successful within the
company, to be able to grow notonly yourself but also grow the
company.
Sonya Songer (19:47):
And grow other people around you.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (19:50):
So how do you set those boundaries?
What does it look like?
Sonya Songer (19:56):
I think there's that's a bit twofold right,
because you have to be able toset those boundaries in so many
different areas.
You need to set those boundarieswhen you are dealing with
outside entities that you maywant to collaborate with.
You need to be able to setthose boundaries internally with
(20:20):
individuals within yourorganization that you work with,
and then you also need to setthose boundaries internally
within yourself.
So I think you're looking atand those might not be the only
three categories, but those arethe three main ones that come to
my mind.
So, when setting theseboundaries, I think it's very
(20:42):
important to potentially maybedo a guess audit, which we have
actually supplied for all of youin our bonus material that will
be available.
You want to look at trying toset that up in order to really
analyze how you can startcreating those boundaries.
(21:05):
But those are the three mainareas that I see where those
boundaries would need to takeplace, and once you can
determine which category thatindividual fits into, now you
need to look at okay, how can Iset up this boundary?
How is this going to affect myorganization if I say yes as
(21:27):
opposed to saying no?
What will saying yes look like?
What will saying no look likeand then it will help you
further kind of create how youneed to communicate that
boundary to that outside entity,to that coworker or colleague,
to within yourself, like, stopalways saying yet no is a
(21:48):
complete sentence.
Yes, it is.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (21:53):
No is a complete sentence and the good
thing about saying no is there'svarious ways.
Thank you, but I'm notavailable.
I would love to, but mycalendar is full.
I mean, you can use anything tosay no, or you can just say no,
literally, just say no.
Remember when we were kids?
(22:13):
Well, maybe some of you guysdon't but you know they had to
just say no when I was inelementary school.
Sonya Songer (22:22):
Nope to do but to drugs.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (22:24):
Yes, absolutely.
That is so crazy.
Oh, did I just say myself.
But also why do you say no?
You're saying no when itdoesn't align with your mission,
it doesn't align with yourvalues, it doesn't align with
your personal you know missionstatement.
You're saying no when it istime for you to rest.
(22:47):
You cannot go to everything.
You cannot be a part ofeverything.
So making sure that you arevery specific about how you're
moving is going to be key andwhy you're going to say no to
certain things, and knowing yourwhy.
What am I working for right now?
How am I going to set up mylife In the first couple of
(23:07):
years?
Absolutely, this is your baby.
This baby requires for you tobe there morning, noon, day and
night.
Then this baby turns into atoddler.
You can sleep a little bit and,if you can, but you still have
things that you need to do.
So, making sure and equating itto okay, what does that look
(23:28):
like for me?
I'm going to need in thebeginning for the first, and
give yourself a time frame forthe first two years I'm going to
.
This is what I need to do.
I know one of the things thatwas very crucial to me was when
I started a business andactually just kind of went on
this journey my family and I.
We sat down, we had a wholeconversation.
I'm not going to be home andthis is why these are the things
(23:52):
that you can do.
Here's the people that you talkto.
If you're going to need somesupport, because this is going
to take up a lot of my time,then these are the things I'm
going to need from the familyfor us to get to where we want
to get to, and everyone therewas very supportive.
I mean, we've had questions,we've kind of gone through our
(24:14):
own personal issues, or maybethere's things that get kind of
left by the wayside that yourpartner or your family and
friends have picked up along theway.
But that's the important partof finding a tribe getting
people in your corner, havingset boundaries and then also
(24:35):
being able to move forward.
Sonya Songer (24:38):
That's another area.
I didn't think of boundarieswith your family.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (24:42):
Oh, absolutely.
Sonya Songer (24:44):
Absolutely Family and friends.
Well, that wraps up anotherinsightful episode of the True
CEO podcast.
We hope you've gained valuableinsights that will help you
steer clear of the perilous pathof spreading yourself too thin
and always saying yes.
No is a complete sentence.
Remember, being a true CEOmeans not just overseeing, but
(25:06):
strategically piloting yourbusiness towards its ultimate
goals.
If you found this episode asenlightening as we did, hit that
subscribe button.
I don't know where it is tostay ahead of the
entrepreneurial curve.
Share your thoughts, leavereviews and join us next time as
we uncover more gems of wisdomto guide you on your journey as
(25:29):
a true CEO.
Until then, keep your focussharp and your ambitions
balanced.
I'm here to support you as wellwith my consultation business,
vossi HR, and you can find me onall social media platforms.
Vossi HR.
And you can find me onInstagram at only Vossi HR.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (25:51):
You can find me at LaKeishaCopsHays and
or strategic underscore behavior, and you can find us as a whole
on strategic behaviorconsultants, part of the True
CEO Network.
Sonya Songer (26:06):
And TrueCEOlifecom .
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes (26:08):
Yes, absolutely.
Sonya Songer (26:10):
Thank you, everybody.
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