200. 200th Special Edition: How to Become the CEO Who Makes More by Never Breaking a Sweat
Episode Summary
How do some entrepreneurs take on more, make more, and keep growing, while still making it look like a cakewalk?
There’s a version of entrepreneurship that treats stress, complexity, and constant mental effort as proof that you’re thinking ‘big enough’.
But what if the ability to handle more without being consumed by it has less to do with how much you can handle, and more to do with something else entirely?
In this episode, you’ll discover:
The subtle habit that quietly eats up enormous amounts of your brainpower, and what to do instead.
What some of the highest-earning entrepreneurs do differently when it comes to the way they use their energy
How to make more money without adding more hours, more complexity, or more pressure to your business.
Listen now to discover what separates the entrepreneurs who seem unfazed by the demands of growth from the ones who feel like their business is consuming them, and what that difference could mean for you.
Who This Episode Is For
High-achieving women entrepreneurs who want to grow their businesses without everything feeling so hard.
Women business owners who feel they’re spending too much mental energy replaying conversations, analyzing setbacks, or worrying about what business events mean about their success.
Women leaders who want to handle setbacks, difficult conversations, and uncertainty without carrying them around all day.
Founders who want to protect their mental bandwidth so they can spend more energy creating revenue, leading their teams, and seeing opportunities.
High-performing women who want sustainable business growth without making stress, overwork, and constant mental strain the price of success.
Entrepreneurs ready to develop the capacity to see what needs to happen next, make the move, and move on.
Key Takeaways
The subtle habit that quietly eats up enormous amounts of your brainpower, and what to do instead.
What some of the highest-earning entrepreneurs do differently when it comes to the way they use their energy
How to make more money without adding more hours, more complexity, or more pressure to your business.
Full Episode Transcript:
In this episode, you'll discover how to become the CEO who makes more by never breaking a sweat.
Welcome to The Uncommon Way, where high-achieving women entrepreneurs and leaders pitch the rulebook and design success on their own terms. I'm your host, Jenna Harrison, a top-ranked business coach sharing business growth strategies, mindset mastery, and power boost to help you attract ideal clients, leverage your unique genius, and scale with freedom. Let's dive in.
Welcome. Welcome back to The Uncommon Way. This is episode 200 of the podcast, which is kind of crazy to say out loud. And I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about for this episode, and I realized there is something that I've come to believe more and more strongly the longer I've been in business. Running a business shouldn't be hard. The other day, I heard a well-known influencer saying, if your business isn't hard, you're probably not thinking big enough. And I'm going to push back on that here and tell you exactly what to do to become the kind of CEO who makes more without breaking a sweat. In this episode, you'll learn the little habit that eats up enormous amounts of your brain power and what to do instead. You'll see what some of the highest-earning entrepreneurs do differently when it comes to the way they use their energy. And you'll discover how to make more money without adding more hours, more complexity, or more pressure to your business.
So yes, the other day, I heard this influencer saying, if your business isn't hard, you're probably not thinking big enough. And I get what they were trying to say, that stretching yourself isn't exactly a comfortable process. I totally agree. But running a business shouldn't be hard. Yes, there are upsetting things that can happen in business. Of course there are. Things don't work out and people disappoint you. You make the wrong decision. You lose money. You have to have difficult conversations. Yuck. But business itself is not that complicated and shouldn't inspire the kind of agony that many entrepreneurs experience. It's not rocket science and it is not life or death. This is business. You find something people want. They pay you for it. If they don't, you do some detective work. You change something to make it better. You learn. That's it. And the same goes for operations or leadership, any other aspect of business.
There's a very simple model to describe it. So what's going on is not that business is inherently hard. It's that we make it hard. Our brains take whatever's going on and turn it into an existential Rubik's Cube. I had a client once who had a very successful company. She had a team. She'd been doing this for years. She was the best at what she does. And one day, one of her team members did something that really upset her. She happened to read about it right as she was getting on a plane. And she was livid. I mean, she was so angry that she was having a hard time sitting still in her seat. And for the entire flight, she wrote and rewrote her email response in her head over and over. She would think of one version and then kick it up a notch and make it a little more curt. And she'd think, you know, I need to get my point across. But then she'd decide to make it a little more polished. I mean, what if the team member ever forwarded the email to a client or something? And then she'd think of another angle that really reinforced her argument even better than she'd redraft it. And I remember hearing this and thinking, ah, you must have so many good movies on your flight. But I also thought, this is what makes running a business feel so hard. Because the actual problem was one thing. Someone on her team had done something she didn't agree with and she needed to address it. That's the business problem. But then there was this enormous amount of processing layered on top of it. What should I say? Why would she do that? Does that mean I'm a bad leader? Am I too nice? What if this happens again? Why don't people respect me? And suddenly this one event is taking up an entire airplane ride. So here's a really interesting ending to this story. You ready? Several months later, a very similar situation happened. And she barely gave it any thought. She saw what had happened. She knew it wasn't okay. She dashed off a short email that was kind but authoritative. She held the boundary. And then she went on with her day. This is the exact same woman. The same kind of business problem, but a completely different experience. She learned how to stop making it so hard.
And until you've been on the other side of this, it might be really challenging to realize just how much of your mental energy goes into the hardness that we create. Most people massively underestimate it. Not the actual work of running a business, but all the thinking around the work. All the meaning making about what's happening. And it can make business feel incredibly hard. I have been there. I've gone into funks for days. I've laid awake at night worrying. I've made stupid, self-sabotaging decisions because I was feeling emotional. I've snapped at my family. You name it. I'm human. It still happens to me sometimes. But I don't think that's actually the nature of business. Like a lot of people imply or even glorify, right? Because there's this pain culture out there where it's like, yeah, I'm an entrepreneur. Not everyone can endure this. But really? There are a lot of professions that are much harder than entrepreneurship. Now, there is a distinction I want to make here. When you're stretching into a new level in your business, things can feel hard, right? They can get hard. You're doing things you've never done before. You're building new skills, new mental habits. Of course, there's going to be some friction. But that kind of hard should stabilize. It shouldn't become your default M.O. You stretch, you figure it out, you get better at it, and eventually what felt hard becomes normal. That's very different from making business is hard, your whole identity or your whole way of operating. Of course, if something happens in your business and it hurts, it hurts, right? If somebody disappoints you, you can be disappointed. If something doesn't work that you really wanted to work, you can feel bad about it. Feeling bad isn't the problem. The problem is when we turn that feeling or that event into a whole additional problem to solve. I had another client who was new in business, and she posted an announcement on LinkedIn saying she was launching a consulting company around her expertise that she'd previously done, and she was asking to set up some market research calls. She didn't get the response she'd hoped for at first, and she was devastated.
There was definitely a spiral for a couple of days. You do the big things, you quit corporate, you take the leap, put yourself out there, and people are like, scroll, I remember it myself. But of course, now I'm looking at it going, huh, interesting. Okay, why didn't it land? Was it the offer? Was it something else? And most importantly, aha, I'm sure that whatever I'm going to learn about my clients here is going to pay major dividends throughout the life of my business. And then my curiosity gets going, and I'm thinking, hmm, I wonder what it's going to turn out to be. Because that is the game of business. The difficulty comes when we're playing the game, and we're also playing against our own brain. When you start giving all the negative meaning and all of the ideas and opportunities and decisions equal weight, of course, you're going to use up all of your mental bandwidth. Of course, your business is going to follow you around. You're going to be thinking about it in the shower. You're going to be thinking about it at dinner. You're going to be lying in bed thinking about that conversation you had three hours ago. You're going to wake up thinking about the thing that's unresolved from yesterday. You're going to be upset because that great initiative that you know needs your bandwidth is being pushed aside for this other thing you're thinking about instead. And then you tell yourself, man, running a business is hard. But is it? What if business is not supposed to be hard? It's supposed to be entertaining. Think about a movie. Just hear me out here. Think about a movie or even a video game. And now imagine everything going just perfectly. You'd go from level one to level 10 with no obstacles, no surprises, no setbacks, no villains, no plot twists. Oh my God, it would be so boring. You'd like cut out halfway through. And of course, the heroine wouldn't grow in any way or gain any new skills. She'd be exactly the same as when she started. I like to imagine my soul up there watching my life like she's watching a movie, munching on popcorn, wearing her most cozy pajamas, hair up in a messy bun. And something happens and she's like, oh no. And then five minutes later, what's she going to do now? And then of course, there's some resolution or epiphany and she's like, yes, nailed it. Because the obstacles aren't evidence that something's gone wrong.
They're what get you to where you're going. And I think the people who become really good at business aren't necessarily the people who get lucky from day one or have fewer problems. I mean, that's not true for any of my friends. They're just people who stick with it and come to understand that they don't need to turn every problem into a referendum on whether or not they're going to succeed. She can look at something and go, huh, interesting. Okay, what happened here? What do I need to know? What's my next move? And then make the next move. Because here's what I think we underestimate. When you know your next move, you don't have to keep thinking about the last one or the next one. Think about my client on the airplane. She didn't need to spend the entire flight figuring out the perfect email. She needed to figure out what's the crux of what needs to happen. Once she knew that, she could send the email and then it was done. Or the client whose post didn't get the response she wanted. She didn't need to spend two days deciding what that post was forecasting about her business. She needed to understand what next move would create the most leverage. And this is something I come back to again and again in business. You don't have to know everything. You don't have to have the ultimate answer.
You just need to be able to see clearly enough to know what you're doing next. Because when you can see your next move quickly and calmly, you can stop spending all that mental energy figuring out your next move. And that matters because your brain is the most valuable resource in your business. When it's tied up in unresolved decisions and replaying conversations, weighing possibilities, and trying to figure out what everything means, that's bandwidth that you can't use anymore to create, to solve, to lead, sell, or see the next opportunity. And when you make the call and know what you're doing next, you get that bandwidth back. You can move, you can execute. And now you're not just spending time thinking about your business. You're actually able to do more with it. That is where productivity and leverage come from. Not from working faster, not from cramming more into your day, from spending less of your brain on the unnecessary things and more of it on what you're creating next. That's a much more powerful way to run a business. And this is especially relevant right now because you are heading into Q4 and you have a finite amount of brain available to run your business. You can spend it replaying the disappointing post, worrying about the team member, wondering whether the offer's right, debating 17 opportunities, or you can use that brain to figure out what will actually create revenue. Become the woman who can see her next move quickly and doesn't turn every business event into a crisis, and you have dramatically more capacity to make money. And one of my top recommendations for that is gamifying your business. Make it entertaining. And it works. I've had two separate clients I can think of off the top of my head who started working on just this one skill and ended up making more in one quarter than they had in any previous quarter. One of them made more in one quarter than she had in the entire previous year. So what if you could go into the last quarter of the year and stop treating every business event like it means something about you, your business, or whether you're going to succeed, and instead treat it like a game you are figuring out? What new results would you create? Okay, that's it for today. Go make some power moves and remember, no sweat required. I'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.
Core Concepts in This Episode
Power Consolidation in Scaling
How reducing unnecessary mental and emotional processing allows a founder to concentrate her energy, attention, and resources on what actually moves the business forward.
Leadership Capacity in Business
Expanding the capacity to handle problems, uncertainty, setbacks, and difficult situations without turning events into an additional problem to solve.
Founder Psychology
Understanding how the meanings, interpretations, and mental patterns founders place around ordinary business events can dramatically change how difficult the business feels to run.
Decision Compass
Identifying what actually needs to be resolved and what to prioritize so a founder can make the necessary call without continuing to mentally revisit the past or anticipate the future.
Center of Gravity in Business
Directing your power toward the direction you’ve chosen rather than giving it away to setbacks, other people’s behavior, uncertainty, or whatever happens to demand your attention in the moment.
Sustainable Business Growth
Building a business in which growth does not require chronic stress, overwork, or constant mental preoccupation to become the default way of operating.
Work with Jenna
Decisions on Demand — A practical mini-course designed to help you make cleaner, higher-quality choices — the kind that unlock momentum, authority, and follow-through. The framework mirrors decision-making principles used in high-stakes environments, adapted for real life and business.
The Clarity Accelerator Mastermind — If you want to be surrounded by other visionary entrepreneurs while rapidly aligning your business to the conditions and strategies that let you thrive and excel naturally, this intimate mastermind will stretch you into your next level. Schedule your call today here or visit this page to find out more.
Private Coaching — If you’re craving the highest level of support, strategy, and partnership to create all the freedom, impact, and success you’re designed for, this is the space for it. Schedule your call today here.
Find Jenna on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theuncommonway/
The Uncommon Way is a leadership and business podcast for ambitious women entrepreneurs, founders, and leaders who are scaling companies and expanding their influence.
Hosted by business and leadership coach Jenna Harrison, the show explores how power, authority, and leadership capacity shape business growth. Episodes focus on decision-making, founder leadership evolution, team stability, and the structural shifts that allow companies to scale without overwhelming the person leading them.
This podcast is especially relevant for women navigating:
• Business growth and scaling challenges
• Increasing leadership responsibility
• Team expansion and higher-stakes decisions
• Founder authority and executive presence
• Identity and leadership evolution during scaling
The Uncommon Way approaches growth differently.
Not through hustle, constant self-optimization, or endless inner work — but by upgrading leadership, strengthening decision structures, and expanding the capacity required to run the company you’re building.
Topics include:
• Founder leadership capacity expansion
• Decision-making at higher levels of responsibility
• Authority and power dynamics inside scaling businesses
• Structural business leadership
• Founder psychology and identity shifts during growth
• Sustainable scaling and operational clarity
Whether you’re an experienced founder, a rising leader, or building something that’s starting to matter at a bigger level, this podcast helps you access more power and lead accordingly.
