162. Lead Your Life Like a CEO: How to Stop Reacting and Start Building Your Legacy

If your life was a business, would you hire—or fire—the person running it? Most of us are operating as overworked assistants in our own lives, reacting to chaos instead of leading with clarity. In this episode, Laura challenges you to step into your CEO role—because no one else is coming to budget for you, manage your time, or protect your legacy.

You’ll learn how to lead yourself and your household with purpose, plan ahead like a pro, and take ownership of your future with calm authority.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• Why overwhelm happens when you operate in “employee mode” instead of “CEO mode”
• The four key responsibilities of a life CEO: plan ahead, delegate, assess, and invest in growth
• How to turn circumstances into opportunities instead of excuses
• Why 94% of millionaires believe they control their own future—and how you can too
• Practical ways to run your life (and finances) with vision, rhythm, and ROI

Ready to lead your life with purpose and generosity? 🌟
 Join the 7-Day Generosity Challenge: “Give Thanks, Give Back” inside the Legacy Builders Facebook Group, starting the first full week of November.
Let’s learn to give from overflow—your time, money, and energy.

Learn more about working with Laura Sexton

. Join the Facebook group Legacy Builders Network.

· Become a master with your money. Learn more here!

· Checkout the resource library here!

Want to ask a question Laura can answer on the podcast? Connect with her here!

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Send an email to Laura@AccelerateYourLegacy.com or send a DM on Instagram @accelerateyourlegacy

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Transcript

Laura: 0:01

If your life was a business, would you hire or fire the person running it? hello and welcome to money and career mastery from overwhelmed to ownership. I'm Laura Sexton, your abundance and legacy coach here to help you navigate the world of money, debt payoff, and career growth with confidence and clarity. In this podcast, we'll tackle the financial and career challenges, holding you back, optimize your income and build the freedom that comes with true ownership. If you're ready to break free from overwhelm, create a budget that aligns with your values and design a legacy that empowers future generations. You're in the right place. Hey, accelerators, I have a quick question. Have you ever felt like your life was running you. Instead of the other way around. Your to-do list is piling up and it is transferring from one day to another. Your schedule is running rampant and the finances well, I'll take care of them later because I just don't have the time. I realized that I was showing up like an overworked assistant in my own life. I was running task to task with no vision, no authority, and definitely no margin, and I didn't like it. When I took a step back, what I realized was. If my life was a business, I would definitely fire me. I would not be the one in charge of making the decisions because I was not doing a good job. So many of us are overwhelmed because we're stuck in employee mode, reacting instead of leading. But what if you stepped into the role of CEO in your own life? What decisions would change if you acted like the leader and not just the doer? Now, some of you may be listening to this and you are, you are like, Laura, I haven't worked in corporate in forever and I don't understand how this necessarily lines up. And I get it. But it wasn't until I was listening to a podcast, I have a friend named Kelly Plummer who runs that big CEO energy, and she just, on her podcast one day was talking about what it's like to be the CEO to go from employee in your business to the CEO in your business. And it hit me square between the eyes and I said, well, what if that was my life? What if I looked at my life that way and I said, okay, this is a business that I am running, and not only is there a legacy impact to this where my kids are watching me and I'm trying to do the best I can for everybody that's around me, but I realized that I wanted to do the best for me and I wanted to do the best for my spouse, and I wanted do the best for my kids. And I couldn't do that if I was only in reactionary mode. What's crazy is that 94% of America's millionaires believe that they control their own future, whereas the number of people, non millionaires, that believe they control their future is slim margins less than 25%. What does that tell you? Because what it tells me is that if I want to be a millionaire, I need to realize that I'm in control of my own future. I'm in control of my current. I'm in control of my future. I'm not in control of my past. I can't do anything to change that. I can change my future. What I need for you to realize is that you are the only one responsible for your legacy. No one is coming to rescue you. They're not going to budget for you, and they're not going to make sure that your values show up on your calendar. That is 100% you. When I say that. What comes to mind for you? Because you may be starting to think, well, I have this one situation over here and no. What I've learned this week, this is a really big lesson for me. You can have a circumstance, but don't let your circumstance become your excuse. When I realized, I was listening to myself this week and I started giving excuses, and I was like, oh, that's not, that's not actually an excuse. It's just a circumstance that I'm in When I look at it that way, and I say that's a circumstance. From that circumstance, I can control my thoughts. I can control my reactions. I control, I control my positive. Actions, my negative actions. If I look at it as a circumstance and not an excuse, I can change it. But if it's an excuse, it's gonna stay over there and it's gonna hold me back. You are the only one responsible for your legacy. Your vision will leak without your leadership. You are the only one who sees what that vision is. It will drain out of the side of the ship. If you are not holding it inside of a container, you have to hold your vision and you have to walk it out because no one is coming to do it for you. Stop outsourcing your piece to other people's expectations. What they want in their life is great for them. It should not affect you. You get to decide who gets a vote in your life. Now, maybe you're listening to me and you're like, yeah, I think what Laura's saying is correct here, and maybe you're listening to me and you're like, absolutely not. I'm not gonna listen to this lady anymore. That's fine. I believe that you are 100% capable of creating the outcome that you wanna create. We just have to do it one step at a time. It's not gonna happen overnight. There is no get rich quick. Get rich quick is almost always a scam. In fact, I'd say 99.9% of the time, get rich quick is a scam. People fall out if they don't know what they are doing. And if you think the only way for you to win is to get rich, quick gambling, you know, Bitcoin, same thing. You know, house flipping, any kind of scheme, it's not gonna help you. In fact, you were more likely to put yourself in a very precarious or horrible situation, then you are to actually win. By trying to do things quickly. You guys know slow and steady wins the race every time. Every time I read the book, the tortoise wins. So what does it look like to lead your house yourself, like a CEO? There're gonna be some simple shifts that are gonna create some really big clarity here. Okay? The CEO plans ahead. You are the CEO of your own life plan ahead. Set your weekly rhythms, budget on purpose. Decide your calendar instead of letting your habits decide for you, instead of letting someone else tell you what you are and are not going to do. The holidays are coming, my friends. You're the CEO of your family. Plan ahead, decide what you are going to do ahead of time instead of being in the heat of the moment. And somebody goes, Hey, can you come over? And you're like, yeah, yeah, I can't come over. No problem. And then you realize you've triple booked yourself. That happens around holiday times. You have to be the CEO and you have to plan ahead. On the same token, A CEO will delegate. You have to let go of things that other people can help you with. And I realize that this isn't easy, especially for a lot of moms where we wanna be able to say that we can handle it all. No, I got this. I don't need any help. Can I tell you friends? The most liberating thing in the entire world when somebody goes, Hey, can I help you with that? It's just saying, yes. That would be amazing. You have no idea. I promise you, it makes life so much better to accept the help because not only are you getting help for something that is hard, you are getting to bless another person by letting them help you and you get to do something with ease that would've otherwise been difficult. I remember the first time that I said yes to help. It was my daughter's birthday. We were in the middle of COVID and I was very pregnant with our third child. It was my eldest daughter's birthday. I was tired and I was trying to run an outdoor social distance birthday party. It was only two of our friends and we were in a bubble together and it was totally fine and safe, but one of my friends said, would you like me to help you set that up? And I breathed cyber relief, and I was like, yes, that would be absolutely amazing. It was amazing. I got so much help. It wasn't like I was asking them to build a fort or anything. I needed help laying out paper'cause it was a paint party and we were gonna let them walk on the paper and paint with their toes and paint with their hands and it was like a whole fun thing. The kids absolutely loved it, but I was having a hard time getting down on the ground and rolling the paper out. They just asked if they could help me, and it was so amazing. So now when people ask me, they know that I'm going to say yes. They don't send out vague offers because I'm going to say, yes, I'm going to delegate. I delegate to my children. I ask one of them to do the laundry and one of them to do the dishes, one of them to do the silverware. They all have a task. One of them is their job to get the plates set on the table, delegating, letting go of things that other people can help you with. It gives you peace, it gives them purpose, and everyone feels better because of it. Another thing A CEO will do is A CEO assesses regularly. They look at the results, not just the feelings. They're hard facts. They need to know actual numbers. They're looking at the results. What is the desired outcome? That's the thing, the desired outcome, not what is right in front of us. Yes, we need to know what's right in front of us, but if you don't know the desired outcome, you can't measure what's right in front of us as to whether or not it's good or bad or making progress. You need to know as a CEO, what your desired outcome is, and then you need to assess things around you regularly. What is the state of your home? Is that getting you to your desired outcome? What is the state of your finances? Is that getting you to your desired outcome? What is the state of your calendar? What is the state of your relationships? Are we getting to our desired outcomes? Having desired outcomes is wonderful, but if we're not assessing regularly, we can't decide whether or not we're making progress. You are the CEO of your life. Assess things, determine whether or not they're going well. Change based on what's needed. And lastly, A-C-C-E-O is going to invest in growth. Now it's growth financially. Maybe you sit down with a financial coach. Maybe you sit down with an investment advisor. You invest in growth emotionally. Maybe you're seeing a therapist. You invest in growth spiritually. Maybe you're a church more often than you were before. You're going to invest in growth. Maybe you need a personal trainer. What I do know is that you do need to invest in growth. CEO of a business is not okay. Remaining stagnant, and you should not be either. No more languishing friends, no more of that. No, only moving forward. It can be slow growth, it can be little baby steps. That's okay. You need to constantly be growing because if you're not growing, you're dying. And that is not what I want for you. You need to sit down and audit your systems, audit your inputs, ask yourself what's going great. Let's double down on that. Let's do it again and again, but we also need to ask what's broken? What needs fixing? Is your budget falling apart? Do you not have time for rest? Is there not enough margin in your day, your money or any? If you get to the end of the day and you are just broken, this needs to get fixed. Then ask yourself, what's cluttered and causing decision fatigue? Friends, I cannot decide what's for dinner anymore. I cannot do it. I'm too tired. So I have invested in a nutrition coach. I sit down with a nutritionist every two weeks and we plan out what's for dinner. We make sure that it's helping all of us grow. The whole family is being fed. Well continue to look at everything in your life. Audit your systems, audit your inputs. If you, if I am one of 9,000 podcasts that you listen to weekly and you don't have time for anything other than listening to podcasts, you need to delete some of those other podcasts'cause they're not helping you. You see what I did there That was rather self-serving. Your time, your money, your energy and your attention are all assets that need to be assessed, that need to be growing. You need to be ruthless about your ROI, your return on investment. Are you spending your time on things that count? What about your attention? Are you giving it to something important if you find that this podcast could serve you well and it just needs one or two more things, send me an email. I wanna make this count for you. But I also wanna help you set up some recurring systems that are going to make sure that you're tying your money, your energy and your attention are all growing in the way that you need them to. So that means money check-ins every week where you check in. Is the money doing what I want it to? Am I behaving with my money? Did I mess up somewhere? Did something come up that I wasn't planning? How can I move things around and make sure that I stick within my budget? Have family meetings. I love a family business meeting once a week where we sit down and we go over, this is what our calendar says, this is what our finances say. This is where I have margin this week. This is where I'm gonna need some extra help. Do a calendar reset, especially right now, especially right before the holidays. What is it that you want out of your holiday season? Assess your calendar. Decide how you want to allocate your time. Listen, CEO leading well does not mean that you are doing it all, but it does mean that you are doing the right things and that you are doing the right things well. So you need to ask yourself, if I were CEO of my life, if I were CEO of Elara, incorporated. What would I change first, pick one area to lead yourself better this week. Is it your money? Is it your time, your margin, your boundaries? What is it for you? You as the CEO, determine the path that you are going to take you as the CEO determine what needs to be delegated. Whether or not we're following the vision, we're growing in the right direction. You get to make those decisions. So pick one area to lead better this week, and don't forget to block off 30 minutes for a personal CEO check-in. This can be journaling, planning, reflecting, whatever it is you need to be doing. But you need to be focused in one of the most powerful traits of a great leader, generosity. Generosity of your money, your time, your talents. So I'd like to invite you to join us inside the free Facebook group coming in November. We're going to have a seven day generosity challenge. We're calling it Give thanks and give back. It's all about living from overflow with your time, with your money, your energy, and it's gonna start the first full week of November. The link is down in the show notes and I'd love to see you there. Do not forget. CEO, Mrs. Manager, ma'am, your life and your future is 100% up to you and how you react to the things that happen around you. I'm here for you and I cannot wait to watch you accelerate your legacy. So accelerators go out and make a difference. thank you for spending time with us today on Money and Career Mastery from Overwhelm to Ownership. Remember, your legacy isn't just about financial freedom. It's about living with purpose, taking action, and building a foundation that lasts for generations. Don't just listen, implement what you've learned and share it with someone who could use a financial or career breakthrough. If you found value in today's episode, help us grow by rating, reviewing, and sharing the podcast. I'll be back next week with more strategies to help you master your money and career. Until then take ownership of your future and build your legacy with intention.