How to Lead

Welcome. How are you? I'm Kris Plachy. We're turning some corners people. Are you ready? Let's go.

Well, as you know, we've been doing Leadership is Feminine as seasons, and that has ended, so we are just going to be releasing episodes weekly, no longer putting them in seasons. And we're gonna start to talk more and more about a lot of things that relate to the women that we support, and that's on the heels of some significant movement.

If you follow us and me, you know that we just started our very last How To CEO cohort. We will not be doing it again. No. Don't ask. That doesn't mean there's not gonna be solutions for you in the future, but we've really, really been listening to our clients and listening to ourselves, to be honest, and making some decisions about where our work is best suited and where we can serve at the highest level. And I really also mean myself.

You know, the best news about having your own business is you get to really do whatever you want. And that's equally freeing and terrifying, right? Because what if what I want doesn't actually end up being what you want? And I have to be willing to let people go in my life to pursue the calling that I have.

And I know that those of you listening, you know, once you have a successful business, that gets harder and harder and harder to do, because there's a lot of players involved, there's a lot of moving parts. So to me, I'm at the perfect place to do this before my business gets way too snarly.

So as you all know, I have a coach that I work with and she has been a tremendous support to me as I've really kind of grounded into what is it that I, what I love. What is it that I love helping women learn? And how do I wanna do that more and better in the future?

What you may not know about me is years ago- so I've always been that friend. Let's just start there. I've always been the friend that the boyfriends didn't like. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? I was always the one who was just a little too available and protective of my girls. Yeah, and they knew it. They knew that they couldn't get away with their tactics and their manipulations if I was around. And so I struggled with that really, honestly. Even to this day, sometimes I have friends whose husbands don't like me. I don't do anything. I'm not mean. I'm not rude. I'm not patronizing. I'm nothing like that. I think I'm just strong and I think for a particular kind of person that's intimidating.

I'm telling you this because I started to notice what women tolerated in their lives at the expense of themselves at a young age. Now that certainly does not mean I have had amazing and perfect relationships, especially as a young woman. I did not. I do now. I have an incredible marriage and I've been married for 26 years. And he's an amazing man and I don't know how, or why he picked me, but he did. And this is good news.

But my point being that this, helping women not be helpless in their own lives, not be the victim of their own experience, not abdicate themselves to a circumstance, that has been very heavy to me in my life. And I think a lot of that has to do with way more information than you probably ever care to hear about about my young years, and watching my mother suffer after my dad left her, after her husband decided he didn't wanna be married anymore. And what that did to her and what I saw. I just think I really innately picked up a lot of wisdom that propels me. I can't avoid it.

So we have to get to this place where we realize, "Okay, this is just the common thread". Even as a young woman, I would always be willing to ask questions, to make suggestions, to insert myself into conversations that in many cases, I had no business being a part of. And so as I grew in my leadership and I had more and more responsibility, I had all these young women who worked for me and there were so many scenarios of these women, because I've always sort of been a coach, right?

So these people tell me stuff about their lives and I would listen to the choices that these young women would be making and think, "Who taught you that? Why is that okay with you?" One particular situation stands out to me is this young woman who was madly in love with a man and she was so excited because he wanted to buy a house with her and he couldn't wait, and she just thought it was the best news ever and we all knew this guy was shady. But she was just blinded by this man who's gonna buy a house. "He's gonna buy me a house." That's all she kept saying, "He's buying me a house."

So she comes to work and she's like, "Oh, he bought me a house. It's so cool."

And I said, "Really? He bought you a house? Is your name on the deed?"

"Oh, uh, well, no. I mean, he owns it and you know, I have to pay him rent."

No, mama. He didn't buy you a house. He got himself a tenant, right? So there was this period of time where I would come home and talk to my husband and I would say I need to hold a How Not to Be a Stupid Girl class. And I know that sounds terribly judgmental, but just go with me. Cause I was so tired of watching these young women literally turn off their prefrontal cortex and make very silly decisions in the name of love and whatever else.

So I've always had this part of me that wants to hold the belief in the capacity and the potential of a woman that she may not be able to see for herself. And that has found its way through my work in lots of expressions, most recently and currently in helping women find the voice, the powerful voice of who they are as a leader, and that you are just as much of one as anyone else.

But maybe you didn't have modeling. Maybe you didn't have support. Maybe nobody actually taught you anything about being in charge, so you're making it up. Maybe you did have a ton of training, but it never suited you. Maybe you have had a lot of modeling, but you just couldn't bring yourself to be like him or even her.

And so there are so many successful, competent, confident women who, in this space of taking responsibility and leadership, really owning their decisions, standing in their decision, presenting what's important to them, holding boundaries and space for what matters to them. There are entirely too many women who are ridiculously successful, incapable of doing that, and they know it. That's the worst part.

That's that learning matrix, right? There's unconsciously incompetent, so you don't even know what you know. Then there's consciously incompetent, you know you're abdicating your boundary. You know you're tolerating poor behavior. You know you're not having a conversation you need to have, but you don't know what to do. See, you're just aware of what you don't know. It's the worst place to sit. So we've gotta get out of conscious incompetence into conscious competence, and that's where I be begin my work with you.

I know that what we all think we want is a tactic. We want the seven steps we want. The worksheet. We want the process. "Just show me what to do and I'll do it," right? Like, don't we all say that? There's so many things we say that about. We say that about finances. We say that about wellness. We say that about relationships. We say that about raising kids. We all just want the rules. But you don't.

Because the best metaphor for that on the planet is weight loss. How many ways are there to lose weight? I think a million , and you could buy them all. You got the shakes, you got the pills, you got the fasting, you've got the shots, you got the whatever. I don't know. You got it all. Why is everybody not skinny? There's so many ways to lose weight. Why are we the most obese we've ever been as a society?

You can blame the food. Or what might be more likely is the food you put in your face as Corinne Crabtree would say, right? Like, stop eating like an asshole. We're just eating when we shouldn't. And we're eating stuff that's not good for us. What's that from? That's in your brain. Your ability to lose weight does not come from someone's six step process. It comes from a decision that you make to take care of yourself, to say no to yourself, to be uncomfortable on purpose. Trust me, I get it. This is a thing for me, man.

So leadership is the same. You want the templates. How do I write a job description? How do I have a difficult conversation? How do I hire someone? How do I onboard? You want the templates. I know you do, and I know that you'll use them, but you know what will not resolve the emotional distress that you have as a leader? It will not resolve that. The only thing that's gonna resolve that is you upleveling the way that you think about yourself as the woman who leads your company.

That's it. I'm sorry to break it to you, and the better you get at understanding yourself, the better you get at understanding human behavior in general. The better you become as a leader, the more confident and competent and safe in your own role, like you're safe in your own company right now. There's too many of you who don't feel that. You feel helpless. You feel guarded. You feel incompetent. And it's not because of a tactic. It's because of who you think you are or are not.

So I refuse to continue to contribute to the lie that says that all I need to do is give you 12 worksheets to change your life. I refuse because I know that's not true. I know what's true is the women who want to step up and work through who they are as leaders, and come out on the other side more confident, more competent, more self believing, more self agency, personal agency in who you are. That is the woman I wanna work with. Quick fix? No thanks.

So you've been listening to this podcast, I'm sure, for a while. So I'm really inviting you to make a decision here, and I understand if really what you want is the roadmap. Go get it. You'll end up here eventually, if you don't do the other part. You know what helps you have difficult conversations becoming the woman who can have them? You know what helps you decide who to hire when you have 12 candidates? Becoming the woman who knows how to hire, not a process.

So that's why we've eliminated How to CEO. I did my very best through that methodology and modality to change lives, and I know that we did hundreds of them. We have hundreds of women who have doubled and tripled their revenue, who are more confident, were more capable. Like, I know we did, and have done, and continue to do, insanely powerful work with our clients.

We also developed this process in order to address a very real global circumstance, which was the pandemic, which was, "Let's get everybody on Zoom. It's the way to help everyone." I don't wanna be on Zoom anymore, y'all. I want real connection. I wanna be in a room with you. I wanna feel your energy. I want you to feel mine.

I want you to be able to look into the eye of another person. And it's real. It's not through the interwebs. Does that have to apply to everybody? No. I just want you to know that to me is one of the essential joys of being a human is being with people. Even if the conversation is hard.

And so we have decided to do a live leadership event. We're just calling it lead with Kris Plachy live. It'll be May 9th, 10th, and 11th here in El Dorado Hills, California. Right outside of Sacramento. And it's gonna change your life. Three days, in-person leveling you up so you can up-level how well you lead your business.

There are core tenants that you just have to know to be effective at leading and managing. And once you know those core tenants, you can apply them to any decision, any process.

Okay. So that's, that's what I want to give you in our time together, because ultimately, if we use the age old, cliche, but very real quote, I don't wanna go and get a fish for you. I wanna teach you how to fish. I wanna teach you how to know where to put your line, whether I'm with you or not.

Running a company is hard. There's a lot of stuff you have to decide every day. If you don't have these core tenants in place, you're doing that on empty by the time, especially by the time you get to the end of the week. So we're gonna do this in person. And I wanna give you a few coming attractions.

So first of all, if you're interested, just go to KrisPlachy.com/lead and you can put all your information there. We're gonna give you all the details. We've already started to make some decisions about how we wanna encourage you, cuz we know how y'all are with your timing. So the program is $2,997. But I told my team I wanna do an early registration incentive because I know there's a lot of you who wanna do this, but you need a really good incentive to invest in yourself.

I don't even think it's ever about the money, it's about the relationship you have with your worth and the money. So we're gonna run an early registration that's gonna give you $1,000 off of that registration, but you have to register within the window. All of that's gonna go to women who go to KrisPlachy.com/lead and get the information up front.

If you're listening to this and you're a current client, we actually have even more super special offers for you. So you wanna be on the lookout in your email for those. Okay? So yes, current clients are welcome. Former clients, we'd love to have you and brand newbies. Let's get it. Let's do this work together.

You are already a unicorn. You are already a lightning rod for change. You are already someone who has raised her hand and said, "Yes, put me in the front," simply by deciding to start a business or lead a business or lead a big team. You've already made that decision. Why you would choose to continue to do that alone without support, without resources, without colleagues? I don't know.

And the best part about the live events that I do is honestly the mosaic, the variety of women who come together all in so many industries. I think there's a lot of masterminds and a lot of things out there where it's all the same kind of people, which is fine for if you're teaching something very specific, but the women that I attract are all over the place. We got lawyers and accountants and doctors and engineers, and interior designers and realtors, and government kinds of positions that support government agencies, retail, food service, we've got it all. And so you get all these women in a room, and that is magic because there's a common denominator and it's not your business.

What happens when you sit in a room with people who all are in the same business is you start getting into this lingo and this language, and you disconnect from yourself. When you're sitting across, if you are a restaurant owner and you're sitting and working with a woman who runs a laser company, there's nothing there that's gonna take you out of yourself. What the common denominator is, is you are both women, both working in industries that are likely very dominated by men, and you both have behaviors you need to learn and get comfortable with to step up higher in your leadership. And when we do that, it's magic.

So we're gonna have an incredible time. This event is gonna be amazing. I'm so excited. If you are relatively new to me and you didn't follow me before, this is all I ever actually used to do, was live workshops. So what's old is new again, right? It's so fun to finally get out of the house. And I've been doing that a lot more. I've been going to Hawaii, went to Tulum, I'm off to Miami tomorrow, and then I go to Rhode Island for my sage retreat.

Like I really, really, really just wanna sit with people, women, and, and hold space for the process of you pulling this thread through your life in identifying where you have the biggest opportunity to lean more into what you're capable of. If that's what you want, then you're in the right space, love. And I can't wait to have the opportunity to meet you.

So if you wanna come to the live, go to KrisPlachy.com/lead and let's do this. Talk to you soon.

Hey, are you ready to step up as a leader and really step in to your own voice and feel amazing and confident and competent? I'd love to invite you to join me and my team live, May 9th, 10th, and 11 here in El Dorado Hills, California.

Just go to KrisPlachy.com/lead and you'll see all the details there. I can't believe that we can finally all get together in person. I'm super excited about this opportunity and I'm so hopeful that you'll join us.