Life Ceo

In the first episode of "Redefine and Realign," host Sage Wright discusses the concept of running your life like a business. She emphasizes the importance of maintaining healthy relationships, both personally and professionally, and compares them to providing exceptional customer service. Wright highlights the significance of empathy and active listening in effective communication and relationship building. She also addresses the role of human resources in investing in oneself and setting boundaries. Lastly, she touches on the principles of corporate governance, emphasizing accountability, transparency, and fairness in managing one's life. Welcome to our very first episode of Redefine and Realign. I'm your host and your guide, Sage Wright, and I am super excited to get started on this journey with you today. So let's get started. Today's episode is titled Life CEO. We will be discussing how to master the art of running your life like a business. We will explore the parallels between running a successful business and leading a fulfilling life. So let's get started. So today we are going to focus on the interpersonal relationships of a business. This includes your customer service, your human resources, your corporate governance, your marketing, and your means of communication. Just like a business, maintaining healthy relationships is crucial in life. From family and friendships to colleagues and acquaintances, every interaction is an opportunity to provide exceptional customer service. So when we say customer service, we're talking about cultivating relationships. In both business and personal life, the foundation of success lies in the strength of the relationships that you have cultivated. And just like a business thrives on satisfied customers, our personal lives flourish when we nurture connections with empathy, active listening, and a willingness to go above and beyond to meet the needs of others. So the first thing I mentioned when it comes to customer service is empathy. And empathy serves as a cornerstone for effective communication and relationship building. So similar to if someone came up to you who had an issue, or even if you were working at a business and someone had an issue, the first thing you're going to do when they explain their problem is not come back at them or to try and invalidate their feelings, right? We're going to have empathy if someone comes to us and say, well, you know, I bought this really expensive bed, but it crashed when I was laying in it. So in our lives, if someone approaches us about a situation or about a certain circumstance, we need to show empathy so that we can have understanding and make a genuine connection to help us respond appropriately. Secondly, I mentioned active listening. You have to have active listening because it goes hand in hand with empathy, with allowing us to fully engage with those around us. And it gives us an undivided attention to demonstrate genuine interest, right? When someone comes to you and they have a situation, you don't want to act as if it's bothersome or that you don't care for what's happening, right? In every situation, whether it's with your child, with your parents, with grandparents, friends, whomever, your spouse, you want to have active listening so you're truly understanding the situation and we can respond appropriately. From our closest family members and friends to our casual acquaintances or our colleagues, every interaction presents as an opportunity to provide exceptional customer service. So with that being said, I'm going to give you some antidotes or some remedies to improve some of your customer service skills. To improve your empathy, you can engage in activities that promote empathy, such as volunteering or participating in group discussions or, you know, walking in someone else's shoes. At any moment that you have the opportunity to practice your empathy, you should. You absolutely should engage in empathy and empathy-building exercises because this is going to help you in your customer service and create positive and well-rounded relationships. When it comes to active listening, I'm going to give you a secret. Shut it and open it. Okay, what we're going to do is we're going to shut our mouths and open our ears. And I know it can be hard sometimes because you want to respond to the exact moment in which someone is saying. But sometimes if you read a story and you stop, you can't get the full picture of the book or of the novel or of the magazine that you're reading. In order to fully understand the concept that the author is trying to give to you, you have to finish it through. So sometimes it is okay to hear something that you want to respond to, saving the back of your head and say, okay, this was a moment, pause, resume. And automatically we continue to active listen until our author, until our close friend, until our colleague is finished talking. And then we can make our response or we can respond appropriately. So with more topics to cover, let's move on to human resources or as our life CEO, investing in yourself and others. Okay, I want to make this clear. As your life CEO, you are the head of human resources. Okay, this includes personal and professional development, setting boundaries and fostering a supportive environment for growth. Okay, remember, you have to invest in yourself. It is just as important as investing in your team. If customer service was investing in your team, human resources is investing in yourself. So when I say professional development, people automatically go to money, money, money, money, money. I have to spend more money on myself. And while that could be true, if you're gaining knowledge or gaining classes, the Internet has become such a wide variety of knowledge that we no longer have to always put so much effort or even money into knowing something that we're interested in. So similar to like if you had a question about how to remove a nozzle off of a toilet, right? Your first instinct is no longer to call a plumber and look it up. We have YouTube, we have Google. Now we even have chat GBT. And with all these wide knowledges online, you need to focus on some form of personal development. Now on the other hand, if you got it, spend it. So for professional development initiatives, if you can use the resources, if you have the resources to take a class, to get an extra degree, to attend a workshop or a conference or segments in your field, do it. Do it. If it does not take you out of your comfort zone financially and it is something that you are interested in, by all means, take that extra step. I know sometimes it could be scary to attend things like workshops or conferences. Bring a friend. Bring a friend that is interested in the same things that you are. Bring, you know, any kind of support that will help you get through a situation like this. So that even if they are not sucking in the knowledge, you can and they can hold your hand throughout the entire time. Now these next two things that I am going to talk about when it comes to human resources are the hardest. Okay. Even for myself, for everybody in the world, if you love somebody, if you care for people, if you have any ounce of empathy in your body, these next two segments of human resources are going to be hard, but they are necessary. So the first one, setting boundaries. Okay. If you start a job or even if you attend a school, the first thing that is going to be handed to you is a handbook full of policies and regulations that needed to be abided by. Right? And in life, we need these boundaries. We need these policies to navigate what we can focus on and what we don't have to focus on. What we can tolerate and what we don't have to tolerate. And it is not enough to identify these policies or these boundaries. You have to implement them and communicate them effectively. Yes, that is right. It is not just enough to know what your limits are. You have to communicate them to others so that you set these boundaries. It is not enough just to have them. You have to set them. Well, Sage, what does that mean? Are you ready? This means learning how to say no when necessary. This means, here's the shocker, prioritizing self-care to maintaining a healthy balance in your life. I know. I am one to talk. But when it comes to setting boundaries, it has to happen. I often find myself going out places that I don't want to go, being a part of things that I don't want to be a part of. And ultimately, it's not conducive to my personal goals or my personal well-being. So it is okay to say no. It is. And I think some of our fear around saying no is that someone might not see us the same or love us the same. But here's the reality. If someone was to say no to you and you care for them and you love them, your response to them will be the expected response that they give back. So if you manage your customer service properly, meaning if someone, you know, if you ask someone of something or if something happens within your customer service segment and you respond appropriately, this might in return allow others to respond appropriately when you set your boundaries. Now the last segment of human resources, fostering a supportive environment. People, we have to love ourselves. We have to show empathy to ourselves. We have to show ourselves that we are valued. Too often, we look externally for our self-worth when in actuality, nobody knows the time that you've put in. Nobody understands the sacrifices that you have made better than yourself. Nobody understands how much commitment that you are putting into working on yourself. So when it comes to human resources, one of the biggest things that you need to have is empathy for yourself, right? Similar to customer service, you need to understand that you too are a customer. And when it comes to certain situations that you might not have handled properly, know that one situation does not determine who you are or where you're going. You need to have empathy and you need to be supportive of yourself. So wherever you go, that environment shows itself. Now let's talk about corporate governance. Now corporate governance is all about accountability, transparency, and fairness. And it is a system in which companies are directed and controlled. So to put this in simple terms, your board of directors play a role in your business. Your shareholders play a role in your business. You as a CEO play a role in your business. And you need to define how much control each of these aspects of your life has. For instance, when we are young and we're growing up, our parents were kind of our board of directors, right? They had the last say on which direction our life is going. If you wanted to go to a party, you had to discuss it with your board of directors. If you wanted to apply for a job at 16, if you wanted to enroll in the army, if you wanted to, I don't know, but you get the gist. You need to understand who plays what kind of level in your life. However, now that you are older, it is especially important that you understand each of your relationships and how they impact you. For instance, your parents might not be your board of directors anymore. It might be your spouse. It could even be your kids if that is the center of your world. But you need to establish clear guidelines and how much can someone put their input into your life. And once you establish that, it does two things, right? If it's something that you've struggled with, having people put boundaries and restrictions on your life, once you set your corporate governance, you have an understanding of whose perspective means something to you and whose we just listen to and it goes out the other ear. And then on the other hand, you know who actually has my best interest at heart and is in alignment with my long-term vision and my long-term goals. Who understands where this business is going? Who has grounded knowledge of what is happening within our lives? And maybe they are at a mentor level. Maybe they are at a freelance level. Maybe they are at a contract level. But understanding where people lie in your life helps you to have a clear vision and understanding of when you need something from someone and when what they say is completely useless. Now, I know you thought you got out of this, but this also means self-accountability. To have effective governance, you have to be willing to take ownerships over your actions and their consequences. Now, when I say accountability, I don't mean this happened, I did it, okay, I accept my consequences. It goes further than that. You have to acknowledge your mistakes, but we also have to learn from our mistakes. Yes, it is important that we learn from our failures so that we can continue to strive and improve. It is not enough to acknowledge what you have done and do your sentence, right, similar to if you commit a crime. It is not enough to get a sentencing of five to ten years and then you come out and commit the same crime. How are we growing? How are we prospering? How are we getting better? You have to have self-accountability and take authority over your life or your life is going to steer in a direction in which you don't want it to go. So now that we have learned how to cultivate positive relationships with others, with ourselves, and understand the hierarchy of our life, let's discuss marketing and crafting our personal brand. If you see the Louis Vuitton logo, if you see Gucci logo, if you see the Balenciaga logo, you know what that means, right? And automatically, your mind goes to a certain place. Some might think, oh, expensive, rich, you know, wealth. Some might think, ew, Balenciaga really messed up. Hope we're all on the same page, just kidding. But with that being said, when it comes to marketing, it is your personal brand that serves as the lens through which the world perceives you. So when it comes to crafting your personal brand, your first step is your intentional self-presentation. And what does that mean? Well, what is your logo? And when people see this logo, how do they feel? So what do you present as? What do you look like? What are your values? What are your passions? What makes you unique? How do you carry yourself? You know, there's this really nice woman on TikTok who only wears green, right? And if we were to see her outside of her green, we would be concerned for her because it is her favorite color. Her house is that color. The inside of her house is that color. She wears it on herself. Green is her logo, right? And she understands that, and we see it, and we understand that. You know, Trump is nothing without his hair. Obama is nothing without his smile. You know, understanding that your logo tells a story in and of itself. When you walk into a room, something is already being said without you even saying a word. And one of my favorite lines is that you don't have to be the same person that you were five minutes ago, two minutes ago, or even one second ago. Okay? Even as I'm cultivating this segment, I'm changing. I'm becoming someone different. I'm trying to think of who is Sage Wright the moment I walk out of my house. Because my brand is not solely dependent on who I have been, but it also takes into account who I want to become. Now, part of this is being authentic to yourself and understanding who you are as a person and understanding who you want to be as a person. And if those two things align, because sometimes they may not, right? And forming an authentic self, and we talk about this a lot, and you'll hear it a lot in our podcast. To become your authentic self, you have to face the reality of who your brand actually is from within. And one of my favorite things, and the last thing that I'm going to leave you with when it comes to marketing, is your storytelling. Okay? Guys, start a new Instagram. Start a new TikTok. Delete everything and everybody. Okay? Start a new Facebook. Tell your story how you want to tell it, not how you think society should see it. Oof! I'm going to say that again for the people in the back, for the people with nosebleeds, for the people who've gotten this far and are driving in your car and pulling up to your job, and you need one last sentence to stick with. Tell your story how you want to tell it, not how you think society should see it. What does that mean? Okay, we see all these trends on social media, you know, what luxury looks like, what happiness looks like, what a good relationship looks like. And in the background, we have no idea what is going on. We have no understanding. People who have perfect lives or presume to have perfect lives on social media, months later, you hear about something dark that happened within their life, and you would have had no idea it was happening based off the story that they were telling online. Now, I am not saying cultivate a fake story. I'm not saying put on Balenciaga bags on your post to show people a side of wealth that you want to portray. No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay? People want to see authenticity. People want to see who you are, your personality. We watch videos of things that are happening around the world because it interests us, and we love to see how other people are living. Personally, I love watching videos of people living off-grid and, you know, making their own food and doing all kinds of things by hand. Something I really wish that I could do and that is going to become a part of my authentic self because I do believe I align with that. I know I align with that. We'll talk about positive referencing and positive speaking later, but when it comes to your storytelling, be intentional. Be very intentional because it is your life. It is your brand, and if people are going to see it, make sure it's something that you really want to portray. As we wrap up this episode of Life's CEO, remember that mastering the art of running your life as a business is an ongoing journey, one in which you have to have some leeway. And by embracing the principles of customer service, human resources, corporate governance, and marketing, you can elevate your leadership skills and create a life that is both fulfilling and successful. Join us next time as we delve into the importance of goal setting and strategic planning and achieving your vision for the future. Until then, leading your life with purpose and passion. I'm your host and your guide, Sage Wright. I'll see you next time.