Todd Uterstaedt interacts with high-powered leaders all day, guiding them as they build their teams, create their company culture, and practice the productivity hacks that help them transform from founders to CEOs.

But ask the founder/CEO coach and "From Founder to CEO"podcast host just how he stays focused on his priorities as he juggles a family and demanding clients, and his answer may surprise you: pool walking.

Yup, you read that right. Uterstaedt's secret to being a high achiever hinges upon whether he can get to his local pool and unplug for an hour while walking laps.

"Productivity and mental clarity are intimately connected,"Uterstaedt explained to me. "You have to exercise, right? You have to do things that give your mind peace and clarity so that you know the single biggest thing to do as it relates to productivity, which is appropriately prioritize.

"You can't prioritize things if your mind is racing and you haven't given your mind the opportunity to be clear about exactly who you are, exactly what your company's doing and exactly what your responsibilities are within that company."

Uterstaedt experienced a major moment of professional clarity during his time in the Army. He was stationed in Berlin just after November 9, 1989 — a.k.a. the date the Berlin Wall fell.

"I was enlisted at the time and watching military officers do their work as intelligence officers. I was doing well and heard about a "Green to Gold" scholarship, in which an enlisted individual can apply to go back to school, finish their degree, and become army officer."

Not one to back down from a challenge, Uterstaedt decided to go for it, and got it. Now, he credits that year in Berlin and the amazing things that were happening there with him going after his first big professional moment.

And the achievements have only piled up since then. Today, Uterstaedt brings people together through his peer group for founding CEOs, Trail Team 10. Recognizing that founders need a group of peers to bounce ideas off of, Uterstaedt launched Trail Team 10 about a year ago to help a group of founders from different cities come together on a regular basis and solve practical problems. And despite being from different cities, Uterstaedt helped this group foster a distant intimacy that felt real and authentic.

But whether you're a founder/CEO or a regular 9-5er trying to grow professionally, Uterstaedt has one piece of advice for setting and achieving your goals.

First, he suggests setting six month goals instead of annual goals, reasoning that a year is too long for most goals and a June check-in can be much more valuable.

Second, Uterstaedt recommends sharing that goal with two key people: one who knows you personally and "just gets you," and one professional acquaintance who "knows the industry" and can offer their perspective there.

To hear more of Uterstaedt's tips for founders and CEOs and apply them to your own goals, listen to our episode of #WeGotGoals. Don't forget to rate and review on iTunes.

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JAC: Welcome to #WeGotGoals, a podcast by aSweatLIfe.com on which we talk to high achievers about their goals. I'm Jeana Anderson Cohen; with me, I have Cindy Kuzma and Kristin Geil.

 

KG: Good morning, Jeana.

 

CK: Good morning, Jeana.

 

JAC: Good, morning, Kristen and Cindy.

 

KG: So this week I spoke with Todd Uterstaedt, who is the founder and CEO of a company called from Founder to CEO. He's got a podcast of the same name and his goal is to help level up your leadership. So he's a founder and CEO coach and he has a lot of really interesting insights into productivity and the sort of ways that you organize your day and the small changes you can make to make you not only a better more productive manager but a better leader and a better CEO.

 

CK: There were so many things that I thought were interesting about this interview, Kristen, and one of them was the way that Todd uses both old school techniques and technology to achieve his goals and to help others achieve their goals. I thought his workout of choice was particularly fascinating, pool walking, because this is something that as a runner who has been injured I have forced myself to do when I've been hurt but the idea that if somebody does that as their workout of choice it's fascinating and I think some of the reasons were really interesting. Can you talk to me a little bit about that.

 

KG: Yes absolutely. So Todd, as you will hear in this podcast, he loves technology. He is all about using technology strategically to help us replace time-sucking administration tasks. One he mentions specifically was the act of scheduling a meeting. You know there's always a lot of back and forth about. No I've got this time at this time.

 

But what about location and he mentioned a technology that specifically takes that back and forth out of scheduling so all you have to do is sign up for a time slot and you are good to go with your partner that you're trying to meet with. However, when everything's getting to be a little too much and he needs to clear his head his favorite way to do that is to go completely off line for some pool walking. And he said that he loves the Zen aspect of it. He loves the fact that he physically can't have a phone or an iPad or a computer with him obviously because of the water. And he said it's when he gets some of his best thinking done. So I think there's other ways to do it if pool walking has bad memories for you Cindy, I'm sure you know running without technology could be something similar. Any way to unplug throughout the day and really sort of get into a flow state where you can let the ideas come to your mind more naturally instead of having a brain that works on overdrive trying to solve every one of the world's problems in the next 24 hours.

 

JAC: He talks to a lot of people who have gone from starting their own company to really moving into the role of CEO. And one thing he sort of preaches is the act of accountability. Can you talk a little bit about that?

 

KG: Yes. So one thing that I thought was really interesting. We've all heard about accountability buddies. You know someone that you text in the morning to make sure that they're going to the gym at the same time as you or someone who is maybe trying to reach a similar goal to you at the same time so you can work on it together. And he encourages his clients to do that as well of course but with a slight twist he wants his clients to share their goals with two people. One person that you know personally and who gets you, who sort of understands the way that you're wired and maybe why you're choosing to accomplish certain goals and maybe how you'll stand in your own way or what particular strengths you have that will help you in that process. But aside from that personal friend he wants you to share your goals with one professional acquaintance who can hold you accountable while knowing maybe more about your industry and you know wha tips and tricks you can use, other people in your network who might be able to help you and sort of having this dual accountability really keeps your goal well-rounded and makes it more of a focus because you're not just segmenting it off until like this is a professional goal or this is a personal goal. It really helps to incorporate it into your whole life.

 

CK: Yeah I loved that and I think that that is just one of the pieces of practical advice that people are really going to be able to take away from this interview. So here is Kristen with Todd.

 

KG: Welcome to the #WeGotGoals podcast. My name is Kristin Geil and today I'm here with Todd Uterstaedt, the founder and CEO of From Founder to CEO. Todd, how are you doing today?

 

TU: I'm doing great Kristen, how are you?

 

KG: I'm good. Thank you. We're so excited to have you on this podcast because leadership and goal setting is something that we're very passionate about over here on aSweatLife and we've loved hearing from you about how you take people to the next level especially when they're cofounding and founding their small businesses and really going through that process to become leaders. So to kick us off can you tell us a little bit about yourself and where you got the idea for From Founder to CEO?

 

TU: Yeah. So I'm a former Army intelligence officer who kind of transformed myself into a management consultant at one point in time. And we started our own executive coaching firm and along the way we started getting lots of phone calls from startup CEOs who said, hey, Todd can you coach us? And Kristen, our business model was not set up for them. It was usually it was set up for mid-sized companies and for corporations. So I got the crazy idea saying well why don't I do a podcast interview successful founders about kind of their personal leadership transformation into CEO because it's really hard to scale a business and scale yourself at the same time. And so yes we started this podcast called from founder CEO and it just took off.

 

KG: Who was a recent guest that you had on? Anyone interesting?

 

TU: Yeah. Do you know Adam Braun of Pencils of Promise?

 

KG: No. Tell me more.

 

TU: So Adam wrote this book a New York Times bestselling book called Promise of a Pencil. And it describes his journey from starting Pencils of Promise, which builds schools around the world in underdeveloped areas and they've built over 400 schools now. And Adam is just a rock star. He's really great guy and he's starting a new company called MissionU. And his book is really about the transformation of him of founding Pencils of Promise into a real organization. And so it was really a joy to have him on the show because I'd read his book and he's really a good guy.

 

KG: That's awesome. I can't wait to check it out. One of the things we asked everyone who comes on the #WeGotGoals podcast is, what is a big goal you've achieved in the past and why was it so important to you. And how did you get there?

 

TU: Yeah that's a big question. I love how you guys ask that question because it's so fundamental to our lives don't you think.

 

KG: Yeah yeah. Really getting into the deep stuff right away here.

 

TU: Yeah well when we started the podcast maybe I'm a little bit ashamed to admit that we didn't really come up with a monetization version of it. We just said you know see if we can build an audience and help people around the world and now we're listened to in over 100 countries around the world. And so at some point in time I said, Well you know this is a lot of work but at the same time people started asking us well what else could you do for us? You know they would e-mail me and say we like to podcast but we need a little bit more help. So I had this goal of creating a group of founders from different cities to come together on a regular basis to really help them solve their practical problems while simultaneously helping them navigate that road from founder to CEO. And so a year ago we started it and it was a lot of work, Kristen. I mean from the branding of it into a setting you up in marketing the marketing of it was a big deal. And a year ago we launched our first group. And in the first 48 hours we got like half of our members right away. And it was just so gratifying to know that we listened to our audience and we created something that they said yes we need this. And then a couple of days ago we had a reunion. They missed each other and we had a reunion and hearing them all described their 2017 and how powerful it was and how well they were doing really made setting that goal of creating what we call Trail team 10. That's the name of the group. really kind of come full circle. Wow I'm so glad that big crazy goal to create this group called Trail Team 10 actually not only came true but also has so impactful in people's lives

 

KG: Ah, that's so fulfilling. I'm sure that must've been a really big moment for you.

 

TU: It was you know it didn't really hit me until we had this reunion call and everyone was saying it had their best year yet 2017 was their best year yet and they just were so excited to see each other again and they missed each other and it was gratifying to see them all doing so well. Because all I did was bring them together and facilitate a dialogue and help keep them focused and really bring them together in a way. It's funny that a friend of mine said to me, well Todd, how are you going to get all these people to connect with each other in a group when they don't know each other. And one of the requirements is they have to be from different cities. And I found that I didn't have to worry about it because they had what we call now distant intimacy. Because they were in different cities they felt real and authentic about sharing. And it worked out really well. So it was very gratifying to answer your question yes.

 

KG: You mentioned right at the start of the interview that you were an army intelligence officer. And I know that you were in Berlin soon after a major moment in human history. Can you tell me a little bit about what that moment was like and how it impacted you as a young man and still today? Not to imply that you're not a young man but it's been a few years since you were in the army.

 

KG: Yes yes that's true. No that's OK. You call me an old man. That's all right. No, you know, it was you know at the time I took it for granted. I was stationed in Berlin Germany just after November 9th 1989 when the wall quote-unquote came down. But it took a while to take the wall down. And I was there after November 9th 1989 and it was really a pivotal moment in my life and it actually turned out to be one of my big first goal setting kind of experiences because I was watching all the military officers and I was enlisted at the time, enlisted in the U.S. Army. And I was watching the officers do their work as intelligence officers. And I was doing well as an enlisted soldier kind of in Berlin Germany when a lot of historical things were happening so it was really interesting time period and they had this thing called a green to gold scholarship. Where basically an enlisted individual can apply to go back to school, finish their degree and become an Army officer and at some point in time I said wow you know I think I really want to strive for this really big goal of competing for this scholarship to go back to school and then go back in the Army as an Army officer. And Kristen, I had no idea whether or not I would get it or not but it was a lot of work to put out the application again and get all the recommendations and just a lot of work.

 

And lo and behold I got it. So I credit that year in Berlin and all the really amazing things that were happening there with me kind of getting my first big professional career goal and accomplishing it.

 

KG: Wow that's amazing. It was such a transformative moment in human history and it's interesting to hear about how it impacted the world at a macro level but then also how in you on a micro level and then came right back out as you work to transform other people as well.

 

TU: Yeah it's funny you haven't thought about that way that way until you just mentioned it but there were so many people's lives that were transformed in that year. I mean East and West Germany came together, East Berlin and West Berlin came together. Families that were separated for decades and it just was really impactful on me to see the power of the human spirit overcome oppression, overcome difficult circumstances. And it just reminded me that gosh my goal was to compete for this scholarship and go back in the Army as an officer. That's a pretty micro goal compared to the big goal of reuniting two countries and it just put things in perspective for me you know.

 

KG: Yeah I totally get that. As you said just now you saw a lot of people overcome huge challenges and obstacles during this time in history. But you also help founders, new founders of emerging startups face their own challenges. What challenges have you found that the founders that you work with face typically that slow them down on their way to becoming an effective CEO and leader?

 

TU: You know it's funny because it's my intention to go back and kind of mine our podcast episodes and pull together kind of an empirical research project and just go back to all of them and kind of catalog all of that.

 

But off the top of my head I would say probably the biggest issue of a founder moving to CEO is being self aware enough to know at the different inflection points the new type of leader is that they need to be for their company. It's hard because it's a constant self-awareness and you have to start off with being someone who is very in tune with who you are and that's not easy to do when your company is growing fast. You know what I mean?

 

KG: Yeah, absolutely. I was thinking when I was brainstorming questions for this interview I thought that maybe a ton of founders that you work with might tend to get caught up in just the small day to day administration of running a new and fledgling company which sort of leaves them hanging when it comes time to big picture and more strategic thinking.

 

TU: I think you're right that exactly it is exactly one of the things that happens because when you are a founder maybe there's you know three or four people on your team maybe they're all cofounders. You tend to wear many hats and it's very difficult to know which hats to begin to take off per se and give those responsibilities to someone else. And so many of them I mean the phrase, the so common phrase Kristen that all of them say is it's hard letting go right? But it means different things at different points in time in that journey. But it's a common phrase because to your point they get used to doing things and now the organization requires them, is asking them sometimes is demanding them to be a different leader and kind of rise up above some of the tasks and focus on larger issues like for example hiring key people and establishing the culture of the organization and managing the culture of the organization which is often kind of the differentiator between a successful startup and scaleup and unsuccessful one.

 

KG: You know that reminds me of one of our favorite things that we say at aSweatLife and that's that everything is better with friends. I also tend to think of that as a way to remind me to keep key people around me. I think of it as like my personal cabinet right. The people that I go to for advice or for help with major decisions or just when I need like a good slap on the face be like wake up a little bit. This is what you need to be doing. So what sort of advice you give the people that you work with for finding those people and maybe not just defaulting to the people who make you feel good but the people who challenge you.

 

TU: Yeah it's a great question the way that those people around you they serve different purposes for you personally right?

 

KG: Right.

 

TU: So I think the same it's the same thing for a founder It's realizing that you need different types of people around you to support you for various different reasons and that takes the shape of many different resources for a founder. So for example if you if you're a funded company your board obviously plays a big role in that. If you're an unfunded company you can create your own personal board of advisers to be a board for you. A lot of founders will join an organization. There's Young Presidents Organization, there's EO. There's an array of organizations to your point to bring people around you and that's why we created Trail Team 10 too because we saw a need for startup CEOs to different cities to kind of be able to come together and challenge each other kind of sharpen each other to be better. But I think it's important to remember that it's okay to have different people sort of different roles so someone could be a really good expert on you have someone who's a mentor about financial issues and you know you get together with him maybe twice a year and it could be a friend it could be a relative or it could be somebody you pay it could be just somebody who takes an interest in you in your business. But bringing those types of people around you is so important. Everyone talks about that and every interview that I've ever done and I know that there's a lot of there's like CEO roundtables that are part of a lot of chambers in different cities that are a lot of people joined as well so I think it's important. You're right not only just from the professional perspective but from a friend perspective to know other people are kind of experiencing some of the things same things that you are.

 

KG: Yeah it gets lonely at the top I hear for CEOs.

 

TU: It does. I just had a lunch appointment today with someone who literally is three doors down from my office who listens to my show. I had no idea who he was and we were just talking about that I said and he was working on some issues as you know my company really knows about all the decisions they have to make on this as it's pretty lonely isn't it he says. You don't even know, Todd. I said, of course I know. He says, oh yeah that's right. So yeah it gets very lonely but it doesn't have to be. And that's one of my kind of mantras to people is it doesn't have to be lonely. Most teams want you to be transparent with them share. Tell them what you're how you're feeling. They can't be overly maudlin about it because then they'll get scared. Right. But you have to share your emotions and how you're feeling about things.

 

That's the pathway for the most successful founding CEOs that I've worked with and I've interviewed.

 

KG: That's awesome. Let's pivot a little bit and talk about productivity. Your website and your podcasts tend to focus on practical, actionable tips that founders can take to follow their dreams. What have you found that works personally for you in your daily life?

 

TU: Yes so there are a lot of things now that technology wise that don't necessarily make you more productive. Like, they don't make a task for you more productive they actually replace tasks which makes you more productive. So we're used to doing things. So maybe I'll be able to do this faster. Well nowadays for example there's an x.ai which completely takes the task of scheduling meetings with people out of your list because it talks to a computer with some artificial intelligence that looks at your calendar and their calendar and sets up the meeting for you without having to do a thing but CC Amy at x.ai. And so that's an example of productivity where founders nowadays are not saying Hey I just want to be able to faster X Y Z they say no I want to use some technology and some other things that replace some of the activities that I do. I think that's the first major insight that many of them have taught me as I've interviewed them. That's number one. Number two is I personally believe that productivity and mental clarity are intimately connected. That you have to have you have to exercise. Right?

 

KG: Right.

 

TU: You have to do things that give your mind peace and clarity so that you know the single biggest thing to do as it relates to productivity which is appropriately prioritize. If you can't prioritize things if your mind is racing and you haven't given your mind the opportunity to be clear about exactly who you are exactly what your company is doing exactly what your responsibilities are in that company. And that requires you know sometimes I'll go to I work at Lifetime Fitness in Cincinnati and I'll go pool walk because it's mindless and no one bothers me and that sounds silly. But just walking back and forth in the pool because it's mindless. Instead of walking outside where there's no resistance it's walking in the pool. But that for me clears my head so that I can then prioritize correctly and then that affects my my productivity.

 

KG: And with that pool walking you have the added bonus of generally not being reachable by phone. You actually have to unplug unless you've got some really fancy waterproof case that I just haven't heard of yet.

 

TU: That's my favorite part. Next time you said I was in the pool and couldn't call you back.

 

KG: Well that is a lot of technology. But you use any fine tools as well.

 

TU: Absolutely. I still use it right here next to me a little notebook. My favorite version is the Moleskin. I love the Moleskin little books, do you know what I'm talking about?

 

KG: Yes absolutely.

 

TU: And every night before I go to bed I write down what are the top three things that I need to get done and the next day. And I do that the day before and I put it in my moleskin notebook in the morning when I wake up I'm I'm able to focus on the things that I need to do in the morning, which is take care of my family get my kids off to school make them breakfast make benefits my wife breakfast. I'm not worrying about having to prioritize what my next day's going to look like. So I do that in my little Moleskin notebook handwriting. I used to use technology for that but I find that doing that and notebook is much more KG: I'm the same way. I still use pen and paper planner which are redundant because of course I've got my google calendar my icalendar all synced up. But everything has to be written down in a paper planned as well just so that I it gets it into my memory a little bit better right like I can remember my appointments easier if I find that I've written down beforehand.

 

TU: There's something about handwriting isn't there?

 

KG: Yeah yeah. Plus not to mention the satisfaction of actually crossing something off your list.

 

TU: My favorite part.

 

KG: And it's off your plate for at least another few days.

 

TU: Yeah well plus you know I don't know about you but like when you do something or computer it feels ephemeral, it feels ... but in my notebook I keep my notebooks and sometimes I go back and look in them. Oh yeah I actually did get a lot accomplished.

 

KG: Yeah absolutely it's a great way to actually track the things that you did get done. I mean who hasn't written something in their notebook that they've already done just so that they can cross it out and feel that sense accomplishment. Right.

 

TU: Yes. Yes Will I also use that notebook too once a week I'll journal and I'll say hey what's bothering me right now what am I grateful for and what will bring me joy in the next couple of weeks and I just do that once a week in my notebook with my other tasks because it gets me kind of thinking bigger picture and the handwriting part I think is to your point is key because it kind of engages my brain differently.

 

KG: We are also big believers at aSweatLife in starting your day off strong especially starting your Mondays off strong. We started carpe Monday. The idea is just to start your week off strong so that your set the tone for everything else that you're going to accomplish the rest of the week. And I feel like that's something that everyone asks CEOs right. So I was wondering if you had a strong morning routine and noticed that the founders and CEOs you work with have similar routines or they have quirky little differences that help set them up for success for the rest of the week or the day?

 

TU: Yeah. So I think I'll put them in two categories and I fall into one category. One is those that have kids and those that do not have kids because for me personally I'm the mom with kids. My wife is a physician and so I always want to give her the gift in the morning of peace before she sees 30 patients in a day. And so I make breakfast for her. I make sure the kids are downstairs eating breakfast and make sure they're ready to go out the door because she brings them to school. So for me my beginning of my morning is about making three other people's lives better and that actually makes me feel good. And I can focus on the rest of the day because I know they're off to a good start. So my getting off to a good start is actually about getting three other people off to a good start. That I think gives a lot of entrepreneurs and founders and founding CEOs who have kids there's usually somehow involved in that. But for those that don't often find a lot of them will meditate or pray. Many of them tell me that they will work out. First I think many of them work out in the morning because they find that the endorphins and everything else that kick in makes them sharper during the day rather than working out at the end of the day. But I think the other thing that they often do is they have a huddle meeting with their team. This is becoming more and more common where it's not one of these big overarching meetings. It's especially for a lot of the virtual ones. They will have a huddle meeting hey here's the three things that I'm focusing on today and here's something I may need help with. Some of them will do. Hey what's your one minute win from the previous day so that they all have some sort of positivity in their lives as they start their day. But usually it's just huggle meeting. That's not long it usually last 10 15 minutes. It's not over. You think that sets the course a lot for many of them.

 

KG: And with those huddle meetings do they find that accountability is a key part of that you know announcing to the group what you're working on helps you sort of stay true to your tasks and maintain that focus during the day?

 

TU: Absolutely. And it does. Another thing I think because of that it helps the founder hear from others so they can in their mind overlay the things that they're doing with the current priorities and strategy of the company since things change so quickly. They're listening to what people are putting their efforts in and then they're able to go back and help them make adjustments. If for some reason something's changing so again it's not heavy but it gives them the kind of that touch base to be able to say oh yeah you know what my team is still focused on the things that we all agreed are the priorities or someone has something personal going on that we need to help them out with. And also maybe rise to the occasion and do their work for them so that kind of alignment with the team is a big factor in addition to the accountability piece.

 

KG: It sounds like it also helps keep the CEOs grounded in terms of being up to date on what exactly their employees job descriptions are and what they're having to do everyday because I know in those companies world can shift really quickly right. And sometimes a CEO might not necessarily know the many hats that someone under him is wearing.

 

TU: Absolutely. I think you're right. And you know they don't talk about it that way mostly but I think the roles and responsibilities is something I often talk with him about. And now that I'm thinking about some of the stories I hear on the course of time some of them actually have a chart. In fact many of them are doing this now. You know they kind of. who has primary responsibilities in this area and who is their backup and they use that conversation to figure out whether or not the backup person needs to move in to their primary role. If as you say a role is changing.

 

KG: Interesting. Yeah that's a great little system for people to start right from the beginning.

 

TU: Yeah I think you're right.

 

KG: Well of course not everyone who listens says podcast is a founder or a CEO. But they are probably taking this month of January to evaluate their new goals and habits that they want to set for the rest of the year. Which of your favorite productivity hacks can be adopted by non CEOs like me?

 

TU: That's a great question. You know I find that sharing your goal with two types of people. One a family person or someone who knows you personally could be a family person could be a friend could be someone that just knows you as a human being rather than a role and then a second person is someone who really knows you professionally. Sharing with them your first six months goal. I don't think it should be an annual goal because it's too far, too many things happen in a year. But I do think between now and the end of June sharing that that goal with two key people. It's hard when it's the same person for the personal professional that's why I think it's important to have to kind of break that out a bit. You are much more likely to accomplish that goal if you told those two people because at least one of them is going to ask you in the next two to three weeks Hey how's it going with x y z. Right. Because they're just curious. And you've stated to them unequivocally and with intention and purpose and so they are naturally going to be interested because we all kind of want to know how we're doing and you know what happens mid February the gym drains. Right?

 

KG: Right. There is a literal day on the calendar called quit day or quit your resolutions day.

 

TU: Is that what it is? I didn't know that.

 

KG: Yeah, it's sometime around the sixth week of the year. Sometime in mid February. I've seen it happen.

 

TU: It's so interesting I did not know that. It's the same idea with any other goal. You know? Whether it's fitness or whatnot if you tell at least two people then you increase the odds that you'll follow through with that six month goal in the new year.

 

KG: It's interesting that you break it down into six month goals instead of a full year goal. Do you envision people reevaluating that goal of the six month period to adjust their course or just hoping to be accomplished within that time frame?

 

TU: No definitely reevaluating definitely. In fact when I worked with founders I always tell them hey you should be having offset from your quote unquote performance evaluation conversations, offset from that you should have your career and goal setting conversations with individuals on your team because the two are very very different. And when you conflate your performance with your goals and your aspirations and hopes it's too difficult to get down. If for example you're not performing well in certain areas will you want to make sure you keep that positive energy.

 

And so I recommend they offset those conversations--and it's the same thing with us we have to revisit the goal setting conversation kind of separate from other things in our lives so that we can look at it and kind of give ourselves the attaboy if we accomplish it or to retweak it right because it may change because something happens between now and June. It's too long ago here.

 

KG: You know you sort of touched on this just now but I imagine that in your work with founders a lot of them are probably focused on very tangible results that they want to achieve for their company. Right. You want to hit this metric you want to hit that. But at the same time as you help them on their journey to becoming really effective leaders and CEOs there's some what I call fuzzy things that they're going to have to change about themselves right? Like how to become a better leader. Well how how can you really measure that? So how do you help reconcile the differences between a less measurable goal with something maybe a little bit more tangible?

 

TU: There is a great question and that is actually the secret sauce about what we do at from founder to CEO because we really help the individual as a human being transform themselves into someone who has more responsibility for more people. And you'd be surprised about how you can actually measure the immeasurable, or the things that you see that are appeared to be measurable. For example one way to measure. You mentioned leadership is to do a quality qualitative or quantitative 360 degree feedback with an individual at the beginning of a time period and later on in the end of a time period. And what that does is you crowdsource feedback from the key stakeholders around you. It could be friends, direct reports, peers, customers, family and you get a really good sense of self awareness around your effectiveness and some of those more intangible areas. And if you do a qualitative interviews with those individuals as well it really adds to a robust set of measurements, quantitatively and qualitatively around those issues. And then you redo that in maybe six months and you can see a shift. It is very clear whether it's just leadership or self-awareness in general.

 

KG: General that's a great idea. It sounds like it must be pretty humbling for the people seeking that 360 degree feedback too.

 

TU: You know there are times people tell me they never got so much feedback all at once about themselves.

 

And it can be overwhelming but at the same time to so many people tell me when I do that exercise with that it is transformational not just to them as a leader or as a founder,  founding CEO but as a person because it's about quality feedback. We all get feedback on a regular basis but frequently it's reactive. And that's important that's you know. We want to give an individual an opportunity to fully think through who we are and how we lead etc. And when we do that in a more formal way the richness and robustness of that data produces patterns that are very clear.

 

KG: Interesting. And once you start to recognize those patterns you can start consciously putting in the habits to change them.

 

TU: Absolutely and that's what we do all the time. We help create development plans from that information that get to the heart of an individual's journey from founder to CEO. Because it can be disorienting because especially a fast growth company where you know a year from now there's 25 employees and you had two at the beginning of a year and 25 is the magic number where a lot of the wheels fall off the organization for a lot of different sociological reasons and you have to rethink who you are and how you're leading. Dan Shapiro, the founding CEO of GlowForge told me in his interview--and he has a book called the Hotseat, it's a really good book. And he said a lot of founders will hire someone who is not very good at some of the jobs you're giving up to hedge their bet about if when they get like 25 employees if they're not good at leading that number of people they can go back into what they were doing before. Because they're kind of concerned about their ability to lead. And I found that so interesting that and I see that now kind of how we sabotage ourselves because to your point we're not quite certain we can do these things and we don't have any measurements around them.

 

KG: It sounds like you work with a ton of interesting people and you know really put in the legwork in helping them accomplish their goals. Let's circle back to our second big question that we asked everyone who comes on our podcast. What is a big goal that you have for the future and how do you plan to reach it?

 

TU: This is hard for me because we're just talking about this right now and we're struggling with it. Our Trail Team 10 program is pretty successful and we're proud of it. And it's really producing great results not only for our customers but also for our company. But I think it's time to create a membership program for founders at a price point that is not overwhelming to them so that they can come and go into the membership when they have needs without it being a six month commitment which is what our Trail Team 10 program is. And so my goal is that by June we will have mapped out what that looks like. Got enough feedback about it we can launch a beta membership for founding CEOs. And it's a lot of work you know and I'm a little bit cautious about bringing it up but I figured if I don't talk about it, if I don't share it with you then you know and so I wouldn't be practice what I preach. But that's our big, as Collins says, are our big hairy audacious goal is to kind of create that membership platform and program that can really serve our audience of founders around the world in a different way so that they can really take advantage of democratizing what we call executive coaching for leaders who are growing fast and help them grow faster because businesses are just crazy now and they're growing faster than ever before but our ability to grow as a leader at the same speed is lagging in a membership platform where people can get what they need without having a long term commitment and a larger price point is something I'm really passionate about.

 

KG: While I look forward to hearing from you in June about how successful you were.

 

TU: Yes, holding me accountable.

 

KG: Just like you said. Todd, do you want to tell us where we can listen to your podcast or check out anything else about from Founder to CEO?

 

TU: Absolutely. We invite you all to check us out at FromFoundertoCEO.com. We are on Spotify. Super excited couple weeks ago Spotify invited us to come on their platform. We're on iTunes or on Google Play. You can pretty much find the podcast on any service that you use to listen to podcasts and I'm also probably more active on LinkedIn than any other social media platform. So feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and if I can help out in some way I'm happy to do so.

 

KG: Awesome. Well thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today, Todd. We really appreciate it.

 

TU: It's my pleasure Kristen you take care. Thanks for the opportunity.

 

KG: Thank you.

 

CK: This podcast is produced by me. Cindy Kuzma. And it's another thing that's better with friends. So please share it with yours. You can subscribe whereever you get your podcasts. Hey while you're at it please leave us a rating or review. Special thanks to J. Mano for our theme music and our guest this week, Todd Uterstaedt.