FEATURED POST OF THE WEEK

Our long-form article of the week. You can always view the current and past featured posts on Empower’s blog.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Have you ever been in the midst of a challenge, only to have a friend, colleague or family member say to you, “It’s a marathon, not a sprint?” How did you react? How did that perspective change your approach?

Whether about life, career, parenting, endurance training or building a business, this adage is commonly used to describe the importance of pacing ourselves and maintaining an eye toward long-term vision.  

While I’ve historically nodded my head in skeptical agreement when people use the expression, it’s taken on a lot of new meaning for me over the past two years. It’s shaped my personal endeavors and those of my business with Empower as I strive to help our partners drive longer-term, more sustainable success. 

Since the expression is in the spirit of endurance training for running, there’s no better way to describe what I mean than by paralleling my recent running experiences with the personal learnings from my training and how they apply to Empower’s business philosophy and general food-for-thought when it comes to business building.

I’ll start by saying that I’ve never been a marathon runner. I’ve run two half marathons, but otherwise, I purely run for enjoyment, building strength, staying fit and challenging myself to improve continuously. However, my relationship with running changed after I gave birth to my daughter.

The setback

Before I was pregnant, I felt strong. I consistently ran sub-8-minute miles and felt like I was in the peak shape of my adult life. Even when I was pregnant, I kept up my running and enjoyed it (if you can believe that). I set goals to stay fit during pregnancy and ran at least three miles consistently until about seven weeks before my daughter was born. You know that feeling in business when you have the adrenaline of early successes and feel like you can roll that boulder up the mountain? That’s how I felt at the time. 

Then, things got frustrating. Six weeks after my daughter was born, when women typically get the sign-off from their doctor to begin exercise again, I tried to ease back into jogging. I got three sessions in when I started experiencing pain in my left hip. It was the dull, achy type of pain that lingered for hours, sometimes days, too. Instead of regaining my running strength quickly, I spent months in physical therapy, which required a new plan, patience and commitment to building new strength.  

About six months later, I could run three miles without pain. I was so excited. This was it, I would be back to those sub-8-minute miles in no time. Right? Not so fast. I quickly realized that although I exercised six times per week and was close to being back to pre-baby weight, my running endurance was a whole other story. By my daughter’s first birthday, I grew increasingly frustrated that running a 5K felt worse than running the LA half marathon, and my speed wasn’t improving. I started telling myself this was the new normal, and, on top of it, I wasn’t even enjoying running anymore.

The shift

I needed to get out of this negative loop. The first step was shifting my mindset. I resolved to find a positive way to get beyond this setback. My solution: committing to a race. I found a local 5-mile race that seemed like the perfect opportunity. I hadn’t run five miles since pre-pregnancy, so it would be challenging. If you don’t know Nashville terrain, it’s also quite hilly, so this wasn’t a race that would be a straight flat cakewalk either. 

The next step was developing a plan to ensure I felt strong by race day. The event was just over two months away, so I had time to build out a training plan. A cliché in 2024, but after registering for the race, I quickly typed a prompt into ChatGPT to produce a 2-month training plan for a 10K distance (a little longer than the five miles I would have to run) with a target pace of 8:20-minute miles. Because I’m a process and systems nerd, I transferred the training plan to a calendar in Notion and started holding myself to account. 

The results

I won’t bore you with the play-by-play details, but I will tell you that creating a clear plan, taking it a day at a time and developing consistency worked. To prove it, here are the race results.

Not only did finishing the race with those results feel great, but I’m also proud of the incremental milestones I hit during training:

• I ran multiple 6-mile and 7-mile distance training runs.

• Towards the end of training, I consistently ran 3-4 miles at a low 8-minute mile pace.

• I ran a handful of sub-8-minute miles and ran the race at that pace! 

After the race, I felt it — I’m back! No longer stuck in a running rut. At the end of the race when I saw my daughter at the finish line, I also had the realization again, “Oh, wow. You’re not an infant anymore… you’re a toddler.” It reminded me that this process truly was a marathon, not a sprint. The marathon’s not over either. 

The learnings

My running journey will continue. Just like the long path I’m on to build Empower and the one our partners will be on as they scale their businesses. I’m committed to challenging myself, pushing for continuous improvement and maintaining the new muscle I’ve fought so hard to build.

But, as I hit the race milestone, things felt good, I took a moment to celebrate and I can now reflect on how far I can go if I set clear objectives, focus, create a plan, act nimbly and keep setting new goals to achieve. 

My retrospection has also led me to five key learnings from this experience that also apply to business owners: 

• How you’ve always done things before won’t always lead to the right results: My post-partum running journey underscored a critical lesson — success requires adaptation. The fitness routines that once worked with ease did not yield the same results when faced with my post-partum body and hip injury. This experience also reinforced how a growth mindset – openness to new ideas, methods and habits – is essential for both personal achievements and business innovation. When you’re overwhelmed in business or the successful things before are not yielding similar results, you have to be willing to embrace change. It’s not just beneficial but necessary to reach new heights. 

• A system tailored to your specific needs and goals can set you up for success: My training plan was designed for my unique circumstances and goals. While strong systems are important, they are only effective as much as they are also flexible. If a system is too rigid, you won’t be able to adapt when a curve ball is thrown at you. In my example, there were a couple of travel days that made it difficult to stick to the plan. So, I adapted and replaced a cross-train or rest day with a run to make sure I completed the most important parts of my training. Similarly, every business is different and their operational needs are not one size fits all. That’s why Empower’s solutions are crafted to the specific challenges and goals of partners. We endeavor to enable innovation and flexibility; not curtail it.   

• Achievement is a cumulative process: You won’t achieve your big goals overnight (unless you’re incredibly lucky). Commitment and incremental progress can make a big difference. Just as rebuilding my strength required patience and persistence, so do most endeavors in business. From start to finish, my recent running journey was 18 months. The first milestone was running three miles without hip pain, the next was building enough endurance to run five miles confidently, the third was hitting the sub-8-minute mile and the last was finishing well ahead of my target pace and placing third in my age group. Make the commitments, set a plan, find trusted partners and just get started. You’ll get to where you’re trying to be much more effectively.  

• Setbacks = fuel: Reframe your mind. Setbacks don’t have to discourage or demoralize. They can provide valuable learnings and motivation that enable you to come out the other side stronger. Think of ways to adjust your thinking. For me, reflecting on my experience in writing (like this post) is one approach. Another is asking questions like, “How can I use this experience to improve my next step?” This type of resilience is key to overcoming obstacles.

• Celebrate the milestones: Recognize and celebrate progress, even the small wins. This will fuel further momentum and make you realize what you’ve accomplished along the journey. Celebrate with yourself, your family and your community. While celebrating, set your next goal to keep yourself accountable to continue moving forward. These rituals will not only reinforce your commitment, but they might also lead to you inspiring others. 

What lessons have you learned about business through personal experiences? Share them at [email protected].

WEEKLY DOSE OF EMPOWERMENT

The weekly dose of Empowerment is meant to provide one weekly tip that’s both practical and approachable, to help drive incremental improvement to your day-to-day. We’re always open to your contributions as well. If you would like to submit a tip to be shared with the Empower community in a future newsletter, please reach out at [email protected] with the subject line “Weekly Dose of Empowerment Submission.”

Calendar chunking

Before you say, “I’m too busy to organize my calendar,” bear with me for one minute. Calendar chunking has made a big impact on me already as an entrepreneur, so I know it can help you focus on what matters most on any given day, and provide the flexibility to adapt as needed. 

What is calendar chunking?

The concept is simple. Break down your weekly calendar into chunks of time, each allocated to tasks, projects, recurring work, etc. most aligned with what needs to be accomplished to hit your goals. We’ve all probably found ourselves in scenarios where we suddenly realize that we’re reactive to everything coming at us and our calendar reflects that. Every 30 minutes is filled with a call or meeting, there’s constant context switching and our ability to do deep work is diminished. I’ve certainly been there myself. We can either choose to remain in that loop or make an active decision to take back control. 

When I started Empower, I chose to take back control. Before launching the business, I took a (virtual) whiteboard and mapped out an ideal workweek that would fulfill what’s important to the business and my personal life. I also intentionally thought about the boundaries I wanted to establish and how I would build my capacity plan to ensure I could adequately commit to our partners.

How to get started

• Identify the timeframe for which you want to chunk your calendar. There’s no hard and fast rule here, but I recommend thinking at least one week ahead to chunk your calendar. This also depends on the timeline for specific projects, how often you want to repeat chunks of time, etc. I try to keep my chunks fairly consistent, but broad in scope. It allows me to group similar initiatives, reduce context switching and maintain consistency.

• Put it in the calendar: Physically allocate your time chunks in your calendar. Doing this makes it easier to stay accountable, and provides a visual of what your day, week and month should look like. It also allows you to adapt when things change. If you’re worried about your entire calendar looking blocked off and making it difficult to schedule time with you, reach out and I can provide more tips based on your specific circumstance! I also find it helpful to color code because it makes it easier to visualize what I’m supposed to be doing at any given time.  

• Plan for the next week: At the end of each week, it’s good practice to look forward to the next week and build your to-do list by time chunk for the following week. That way, you start your week knowing exactly how you want and need to spend your time. 

• Stay nimble: The only thing constant is change. You can lay out a perfect calendar, optimized for what you need to accomplish, but inevitably, things change. The benefit of already having your time allocations in your calendar is that you can easily figure out how to move things around and adapt. 

• BONUS TIP: Keep a day free from meetings. A no-meeting day is a great way to block time for deep work and professional development. It’s challenging to maintain the discipline, but it’s worth it if you can make it happen!

Did you find this helpful? Let me know or share the knowledge.

JESSICA’S READ, OR LISTEN, PICK OF THE WEEK

A little something that got my gears turning this week and might pique your interest as well!

From Lenny’s Podcast: Be fundamentally different, not incrementally better | Jag Duggal (Nubank, Facebook, Google, Quantcast)

TL;DR

Lenny’s Podcast is one I regularly enjoy. Its primary topics are product, growth and strategy for technology businesses. He brings on world-class product leaders and in this episode, he interviews Jag Duggal, the Chief Product Officer at Nubank, a fintech in the digital banking space. The discussion covers a lot of ground, but Duggal’s descriptions of building fanatic products, effective measurement of product success, defining and creating new categories and the importance of a customer-centric culture particularly got my attention. I also got a kick out of his answer to Lenny’s question about a favorite product he recently discovered. His answer — the Lomi. As another Lomi household, I’m glad our families share this product joy in common!

I’ll leave you with Duggal’s four tenets of building products that people become fanatics about and let you dive in from there!

1. Tap into a truly deep customer pain point.

2. A strong company culture is one that puts the customer at the center and one in which everyone lives into the values. Nubank’s first value: We want our customers to love us fanatically.

3. Focus on customer discovery before building. Innovate on your customer’s behalf. Observe and find their pain.

4. As you build, commit to measurement and iterate like crazy.

JUST FOR FUN

Really, this section is just for fun. Who knows what will be in store each week?

I’ll be landlocked in Nashville this Memorial Day Weekend but ‘tis the season to dream of beach weekends and summer vacations. In celebration of the unofficial start of summer, I’m sharing Travel & Leisure’s list of 25 Best Beaches in the USA as this week’s fun.

Have a wonderful and safe long weekend!

Looking for more empowerment?

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If you want to learn more about Empower’s offerings or methodology, please reach out to discuss how we can support your goals. 

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