In this episode of The Millionaire Mindset & Strategy Secrets Podcast, Maggie and Steph tackle one of the hardest CEO lessons: separating data from desire. They explore how overworking, micromanaging, and emotional decision-making quietly destroy profitability and peace of mind. Maggie shares stories from her own multi-business experience, including the trap of thinking “no one can do it like me,” while Steph dives into how control and scarcity mindsets keep entrepreneurs stuck in busywork instead of leadership. Together, they expose the illusion that more hours mean more income—and how letting go of control, setting standards, and trusting your systems can actually double your results. They talk through how scarcity-based decisions (especially around hiring or investing) create bottlenecks, and how to replace them with strategic planning, delegation, and faith in your vision. The duo also highlight the importance of time as your most valuable asset and how forecasting, automation, and self-trust turn chaos into clarity. It’s a straight-talking, grounded look at what real growth requires: leadership over labor and data over drama.

Key Takeaways

1. More hours ≠ more income. Working harder isn’t the same as working smarter.
2. Leadership requires trust. Trusting your team starts with trusting yourself.
3. Micromanagement kills creativity. You can’t think big picture when you’re putting out tiny fires.
4. Scarcity mindset blocks expansion. You can’t scale if you’re afraid to invest in systems or support.
5. Data guides, emotion clouds. Decisions rooted in metrics and patterns outperform emotional reaction.
6. Plan ahead—don’t just “wing” it. A simple 90-day or 12-month roadmap prevents panic pivots.
7. Delegate strategically. Keep your creative and visionary energy; outsource repetitive execution.
8. CEO energy = calm confidence. Let data be your compass and intuition be your confirmation.

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Maggie Olson (maggielynncreative@gmail.com)

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Millionaire Mindset and Strategy Secrets podcast. My name is Maggie, and Steph and I are here to talk all about the CEO mindset. I'm set some beliefs that you have to unlearn in order to grow. And I... think this is something that we both have just so much knowledge in, but also something that both of us have really overcome a lot of the things that we're going to talk about, you know, like just in both of our journeys in general as entrepreneurs and just in that like work life balance situation. And I think, you know, when you're thinking about an entrepreneur, thinking about your income ceiling is what often comes to mind, right? So that income ceiling is really, you know, kind of just as much about what you believe as what you do. And I think a lot of people get stuck there in the they'll say they're believing the things, but they're not actually doing the things. So true.

3:35 - Steph - the Boundaries Babe

And I think we fall into that trap as entrepreneurs of doing more, especially when we need more money, right? And so... And you'll hear entrepreneurs say, more time and more hours in your business does not mean more money, but it's really hard to conceptualize that when you're not making the money you want to make. And you feel like, well, if I just do this one next thing, it's going to take off, right? So that's something that is really about mindset and really about having the balance. And, you know, we talk about this all the time, not leaving a job to then create more jobs for yourself and work twice as much and then always be thinking about it and always be stressed about it. That's not a good place to be. Right.

4:19 - Maggie Olson (maggielynncreative@gmail.com)

And I know from firsthand experience, especially owning multiple businesses, right? More hours absolutely does not equal more money. And that coincides with needing to be involved in everything, right? I have to do it because I'm the only one that's going to do it right. And I know a lot of moms get into that trap because it's just... You know, when you're taking care of the house and, like, literally managing your house, that's often what happens is, and I know for me, like, I'd have a conversation with my husband about like, hey, I don't like it when you fold the towels like this. Either I am going to always fold the towels like this, or you're going to have to learn how I fold the towels. I appreciate your helping. This is great. I receive it. But also, you're folding them wrong. Right? And it was one of those little tiny things that's like, I don't want to open that cabinet and see the towels looking like it drives me nuts to the point where it'd be like, I have to take them all out and refold them in order to like move on with my day.

5:29 - Steph - the Boundaries Babe

Yeah, that is a trap that a lot of moms fall into. And so how do you also not fall into that in your business, right? And I think that this is where, I mean, you kind of did it with your husband, right? You set the standard. So it doesn't matter. Ultimately, Like how he folds the towels, but how the towels look in the cabinet. And so if you just set the standard, we talked about this in a prior episode, that somebody may have a better way of doing something than you do, or may be able to do it faster, because we all have our own sort of genius, right? And we all need to stay in our lane, but you still know the standard that you want to have in your business. And that's something that if you're the bottleneck in your business, and people are coming to you for every tiny little question, you're micromanaging, and that's not that CEO mindset, right? You're not able to grow the business or be creative because you're constantly putting out tiny fires that don't need to, they're not even really fires, they're fires that you've probably self-created.

6:32 - Maggie Olson (maggielynncreative@gmail.com)

Yes, and I would totally agree, because, and like, again, guilty as charged here, and I think that's one thing that, you know, as we're talking about all these... Topics on this podcast with us, but also with our guests, is that, you know, we've all walked through these things. We've all created the fires. We've all put the fires out. We've all created the fires, put someone in charge, and then also put the fire out, right? Like, so, you know, when it comes to that, like, being involved, if you're thinking about it from a CEO level, if we're thinking about our business, right, it's the leadership you take and the trust. You're putting in someone else to do the task, but also trusting that if they have a question, they will come to you, and not you sitting and spiraling, like, I wonder if they have a question. Did I give them enough, you know, did I give them enough things on the SOP? Like, were there enough doubt points? Are they going to do it right? Did it happen? Like, how can you step out of that spiral is also part of, like, this whole equation that we're talking about.

7:43 - Steph - the Boundaries Babe

For sure. And, you know, I think that, to your point, we do talk about SOPs a lot, and it's also just having, like, those checkpoints, right? So training, more training up front, like the heavy lifting up front for you and that new team member, or whoever is modeling and mentoring that team member, but the more you do that up front, the less problems you're going to have down the road. And I think that that's, when we grow, we have to hire at some point, we don't have to, but like, a lot of people do, because they want to take some of those things off of their plate, and how do you maintain that balance, and how do you not bring yourself up by managing a team, and I think those are things that are also really important in this conversation, because it's really easy to grow too fast, and to be still micromanaging, still have your hands on every single project and every single client, every touchpoint, and then also trying to manage a team, and you just end up, like, in this... It's kind of like a hamster wheel instead of actually, again, stepping into that leadership piece.

8:49 - Maggie Olson (maggielynncreative@gmail.com)

Yeah, and I think, you know, at the end of the day, when you trust yourself, you'll be able to trust your team members, right? Whether that is one other person in your business or multiple other people, right? It definitely is something that having that trust factor and that integrity in yourself, that is what is going to help you make some of those moves. And, you know, when you think about growth, maybe even losing balance or like that burnout stage, a lot of times it's you, the entrepreneur, worrying about money, right? Thinking, oh my gosh, it's so scarce. I have to save it. There's no way I can invest in things. And, you know, and I know that like teeter-totter of like, oh, should I invest? out. Should I not invest and I know there's a lot especially in the coaching industry it's very common for people when they're on a sales call to be like oh if money wasn't you know and if money wasn't an issue would you be all in right and how can we help you raise money and blah blah blah but honestly if you're in that money is scarce mindset and like thought pattern you're always like until you navigate out of It's always going to be in the back of your mind and you're always gonna be like oh my god was this a really was this a good investment I don't know maybe it was I kind of have the money now but will I have the money later and like you just get yourself into that rabbit hole of like that the those things that are keeping you stuck right it's keeps holding you down.

10:34 - Steph - the Boundaries Babe

Yeah and I think we touched on this on a prior episode but it's also you know keeping running a business is a business and so yeah in the beginning you. have to probably put in personal money, but, and especially if there's something you don't know how to do, if you don't know how to set up a funnel, then yeah, you have to probably either pay to learn it or you have to pay to have it done, but eventually getting to the point where you have money set aside for education and training and to hire and knowing what's on that forecast, right? Like what's your vision for six months or a year from now? Because when you can get into that space, then you can, just like your home budget, right? You can start putting money away like you do for the vacation, right? Like nobody just wakes up, I'm sure people do, but most people don't wake up and go, tomorrow we're going to fly to Bali, right? It's like you have to plan for that kind of stuff. And so it's the same thing in your business. And really, again, pulling the emotion out and not being like, well, am I worth this investment? It's of course you're worth the investment, right? Is it the right investment for the business? And so not having it be about... It being so personal to you.

11:46 - Maggie Olson (maggielynncreative@gmail.com)

Yeah, and I think, you know, as you're kind of stepping out of those old beliefs, right, those beliefs of more hours equal more money, or like I have to be involved in everything, growth, you know, can mean losing balance or sometimes growth means burning out because back to the beginning, more hours equal more money, but more hours can also equal growth and more hours can also equal burnout. Right, so it's that, like, perfect storm that you get stuck in so, you know, really stepping into some of those new beliefs, thinking about time as your most valuable asset, right, so protecting your time, like profit, and a lot of times what I see in some of the clients that I work with, when we give their, like, time, their hours an hourly rate of like, like, hey, it's... You know, $200 an hour to work with me. And then that also takes into consideration the 30 minutes prior for the prep to the meeting and the 30 minutes after for any follow up. So one hour is actually a two hour time block because most people don't realize that in their business. They don't realize that for every client facing hour, there's at least one to five hours of overhead that you're going to be, you know, spending. So when you when you're charging that like $75 for a coaching call for an hour or $60 for a 60 minute call, like you're actually really only paying yourself like five or ten bucks by the time you factor in all of the other hourly time. So figuring that out and then protecting that as profit, you know, when you start to see, oh, can I do this task in an hour for on. So. So I'm going to go and find someone who can, and I'm going to hire that out. And I'm going to explain to them, here's what I need done, and here's the SOP behind it, right? So then that's into that leadership role.

14:13 - Steph - the Boundaries Babe

Yeah, exactly. I mean, your job as the CEO and as the business owner is leadership, right? And it's, again, mapping out that future vision and deciding where you want to take your business. And, you know, time is a finite resource. You can always make more money, you can always get new team members, but time is, you can never get your time back. And so really figuring out how to protect your time to grow your vision, which is the most important when you're running a business, I believe. And then figuring out, like, how can you let go of things, and this goes back to, you know, even if it's not a team member, automation and systems, right? Because growth at the end of the day is about your expansion. It's not about burning yourself out. It's not to grow so that you have more hours to fill in a day or more people to manage. It's so that your company and your business and your vision and your impact can just multiply without you having to be the center focal point in all of those spaces.

15:18 - Maggie Olson (maggielynncreative@gmail.com)

Yeah, I would agree, you know, and growth can be scary. And I definitely think that, you know, when people think about growth, some people are really afraid to, like, dream into the future and forecast into the future. Right? And I used to be one of those people where it was like, oh, I'm a manifesting generator, so I can't possibly see more than three months into the future. Well, like... And it's not necessarily like seeing into the future. It's more of like, what do I want to do in the next three months, you know, and six and 12 months? Like, it didn't, I was making it mean I had to be like, here are the nitty gritty details of all the things that I'm going to do. And that does not have to be it. Right? It can be something like, oh, I want to make $1,000 this month, and I want to double that next month. And I want to double that the month after. So it starts to compound on each other. It doesn't, you don't have to have that path, like, written in exquisite detail. And, you know, when you're thinking about investing, that, especially if you're going to hire a coach, right, that weight of like, oh, I'm going to put down a lot of money. Like, what do you want that money to do when you opt in with that coach? Like, what you in Like,

16:43 - Steph - the Boundaries Babe

Yeah, this is where, you know, I'm not a sports person, but this is where the sports analogy is really good, right? Like you think about Kobe Bryant, and if Kobe Bryant, when he decided he wanted to play basketball, did he have a vision of being, I don't know if he's the best basketball player, I think he's touted to be, but like he stayed in his lane, right? He didn't say, well, I'm going to go try out soccer, you know, right? He invested in coaches to help him become a better basketball player. And so that's the, that's the thing, like when you invest in a coach, it should accelerate your growth. And I think I see, I personally see so often clients that just didn't know how to vet a coach. And so there's this huge mismatch, right? Like either the process wasn't explained well, it's too far over advanced from where they're at, or it's just an unethical. unethical system. And unfortunately, like the coaching industry. There's no regulations, right? So you have to take it on as the business owner and as the entrepreneur to really know who you're hiring as a coach and what the, to your point, what that return is. What is it that you want out of that? If you are really great at marketing and you suck at sales and you go and you hire a marketing coach, that is not a good use of your money or time, right? You need the sales piece. And so it's also, I think, it's hard sometimes to not fall into like the flashy system, right? Like, I mean, everybody right now at the time of this recording is talking about Alex Hermosi, right? And the thing that he just did, training he just did. It's like everybody, I didn't personally watch that, but like so many people were watching that. And then it's this huge conversation online right now. And so it also creates that FOMO, right? Like, what did I miss out on? Is that way the right way? Like, you know, you have to decide for yourself and you have to, again, stay in your lane.

18:39 - Maggie Olson (maggielynncreative@gmail.com)

Yeah. So it's, it's funny you say that because I did watch. And I watched it because I am fascinated with the way he sells. Now I'm not saying it's right, I'm not saying it's wrong, but it is fascinating to me. And listening to him speak, in his presentation, he said that the presentation he gave today, he started planning for three years ago. So he's been planning this for three years leading up to this. The book that he launched recently was written first, but he had to give context to that. So he had to write two other books, the two other books that came prior to that. So, you know, like, listening to him talk about that was really, really fascinating from, like, a marketing and investment and, like, growth strategy. And, like, I mean, we could definitely, like, go down the rabbit hole of, you know, one thing or I another specifically about him, but the thing that he really talked about without talking about was avoiding the freedom trap in your business, where you get into business because it's a chance at freedom, but then you're stuck there because of all the things that we were talking about in the beginning of this episode, the things, all of the different things where more hours equal more money. Right? I have to be involved. have have my fingers in everything. I've got to have a pulse on everything, right? Burning out, money is scarce, all that stuff. So, you know, and we've said it before here on the podcast, you didn't get into business to work 24-7, right? You left your 9-5 so you didn't have to work 9-5 so you could have freedom, but now you feel trapped because you're working 24-7 for various different reasons. Right. So, you know, As we're closing out this episode, I just want everyone who's listening just to really know that you don't have to get stuck in that freedom trap, and that's actually what we're going to talk about in our bonus episode this week on The Secret Podcast. So if you're not tuned into that, if you're not subscribed, make sure you subscribe below, and let us know what has resonated in this episode. Let us know how this lands for you. Let us know if you watched Alex Hormozzi's thing. We want to know, because I am morbidly curious about what people think about that. Again, not because I think it's right, wrong, or indifferent, but from a marketing and sales perspective, it is really fascinating to listen to him speak. And like I've read through some of, like you can find PDFs of his books online for free. So like I've read through some of that stuff, and I've actually implemented some of it, and it is really amazing how well it can work, if you implement it correctly.

21:56 - Steph - the Boundaries Babe

Yeah, and implementing. mean, that's a whole episode of itself, right? But definitely drop, you know, what you're unlearning this month, because these are behaviors that, you know, Maggie, you speak to this a lot, right, is we are trained from a very young age to become an employee. And so these are employee mindsets that we have to unlearn to become an entrepreneur and a CEO. And so drop or email us the beliefs that you're unlearning this month, and then make sure that you subscribe to our secret podcast, where we are talking about how to avoid building a freedom trap business.