Are you waiting for motivation before taking action in your business? Stop waiting. As Q1 wraps up, it’s time for a critical check-in. Momentum—not motivation—is what drives real progress, and it’s something you create intentionally.

Today, Gwen Bortner and Tonya Kubo break down how to review what worked, fix what didn’t, and move into Q2 with a clear strategy. Learn why a realistic, judgment-free quarterly review is the step most goal-setting misses. Discover the Good, Better, Best framework for setting achievable goals and the key metrics that keep you on track. Plus, explore how aligning your team, resources, and rhythms with the season can strengthen focus and performance.

Ready to stop feeling defeated by unmet BHAGs and start building consistent progress? Master quarterly planning and carry strong leadership momentum into Q2 and beyond.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Leadership Momentum: Ending Q1 Strong and Setting Q2 Up to Win

Momentum Matters More Than Motivation

Momentum isn’t an accident. I think you need to hear that now more than any other time. It is something you create on purpose. As we close out the first quarter, today’s episode is all about capturing what worked, addressing what didn’t, and setting yourself up for a strong, intentional Q2. I will add a little caveat and say this is a great episode when you’re wrapping up any quarter. It’ll be a little bit different, right? Because seasons are different.

There does need to be some routine when it comes to moving from one quarter to the next. Gwen, I have a hot take here. It’s probably not a hot take to you, but I think it’s a hot take to some people. That is that momentum matters more than motivation. I think we’re all waiting to get inspired, to feel motivated. Reality is that you’re going to get much farther if you just build momentum, get started, and keep going than it is waiting for motivation to strike.

As you said, not a hot take for me, but I do think it’s a hot take. I really do. It’s one of the things that is so fundamental in all the work that we do with our clients. I’m not worried about you getting 8,000 things done. I’m worried about you getting one thing done that’s going to continue to move the needle the way that you need to move it beyond the other 8,000 things you also need to get done. Because when you move, it’s the thing people. We’re so bad at numbers in our heads, right?

There’s things that we think are big that in our mind actually are small. There’s things that are small that in our head we think are big. All of that, right? This is an example of a tiny bit of progress made consistently will add up surprisingly quickly. It is because of exactly what you said. It is the momentum that we’re continuing to get a little bit further.

The downside of it is we often forget how many of those little steps we took at any point in time. It’s like, “We haven’t done anything.” It’s like, “No, look behind you here. Let’s talk about where we were.” Because we function in a quarter, which is thirteen weeks. Maybe you only took thirteen steps, but you took thirteen steps. If we’re talking about human steps, thirteen steps gets you a distance from another place, right? It doesn’t get you across the world, doesn’t get you across the country. It adds up bit by bit by bit. I think that’s the piece that people miss. That momentum of doing something toward the bigger thing.

 

 

Not something for the sake of doing something.

Not something for activity but something for effectiveness. Something toward that really moving the needle really does make a huge impact. Often, once you start seeing it, the first step is hard. The second step is usually kind of hard. The third step gets hard. Somewhere around, the fourth to the eighth step, it’s like, “Oh, I’m actually getting somewhere.” Which also then motivates us to go that much further. I’m guessing, maybe this isn’t true. This may be my daughter as an auto mechanic instructor thing coming out. We’ve all been in a situation where we may have had to try to push a car.

I pushed a car.

It’s really hard to get it started. If it has the tiniest bit of momentum, if it’s moving even the tiniest bit, you can really get it going. Even if you’re not particularly strong and all of the other things. But when it’s at a dead stop.

It takes more people. 

It takes way more. I’ve experienced this in my life. Not recently, thank heaven. If there’s two of you in the car, both of you have to push. You leave the driver’s side door open because as soon as it starts going, then you zip and jump into the driver’s seat. Then the other person can keep it going to create whatever momentum, pop the clutch, do all the things, right?

Pop the clutch.

I’m telling you, the animal.

A tiny bit of progress, made consistently, will add up surprisingly quickly. Share on X

Taking me back, Gwen. Fun fact, you can’t even rent a manual transmission car these days?

No, because most people don’t know what to do with them.

Exactly. We agree. Momentum matters more than motivation. It matters more than motivation for all the reasons you’ve said.

Because motivation runs out. It’s like a decision meter. We have a certain amount of motivation and decisions that we can make every day. There are things we need to be motivated for. Let’s save it for that.

Exactly, like getting out of bed. I mean, who wants to get out of bed?

It was like you were in my head.

It was cold outside. I did not like to get out of bed. I was like, “This is nice and cozy.” Unfortunately, momentum. I got out of bed yesterday. I’ll get out of bed today. Guess what? I’m going to get out of bed tomorrow. That’s just how it’s going to roll. I also think that momentum brings confidence, your every step forward.

Momentum matters more than motivation. Share on X

Back to the progress. You’re seeing that progress.

Reviewing The Last Quarter Realistically

What I really want to address though is at the end of a quarter. Let’s just say this is all true. Like I said at the beginning, this is all going to be true at the end of every quarter. However, since we are releasing this at the end of Q1 in a wonky year, after a wonky year, I would like you to be a little specific on the Q1 examples. How do you recommend reviewing the last quarter realistically?

That’s something I think that you’re really good at. Until I met you, all of the quarterly planning processes I had been doing were like goal-setting in a vacuum. It’s like, “Thoughts are things. If I believe and put a seven-figure business on my vision board and look at it every single day, I will achieve it.” Talk to me how I can realistically review my last quarter. 

The Role Of Wins & Strengths In Review

It has been a part of our quarterly tune up. Our planning process that we’ve done with our clients now for years. The review piece has always been the first piece and it’s for multiple reasons. Initially, part of it is entrepreneurs are horrible about acknowledging their wins. We can list off the 18,000 things that went wrong, down to the tiniest minutiae of “I broke a nail.” But will ignore the fact that we cut $30,000 of expenses that didn’t need to be spent. These giant wins. It’s like, “No, I didn’t do anything this quarter.” It’s like, “I don’t think that’s true.” 

“My lowest revenue year ever.”

It’s all of those things. For me, that was where we started. We need to look at the wins. If you’ve ever done anything around strength finders or any of those kinds of tools. One of the other things they talk about is it’s easier to build on our strengths than it is to fix our weaknesses. The business correlation of that is it’s easier to replicate things that are working and/or modify them slightly to put to work in a similar but slightly different environment than it is to keep starting from scratch with something new. That we don’t really know what the outcome will be.

 

 

The idea of review really is to say, “Where are our wins? Where do we have challenges?” I’m not saying we don’t ever look at where those challenges are because we don’t know what to fix if we haven’t actually looked at the challenges. Part of the wins is what can we take and replicate potentially to address the challenges that we’re having instead of trying yet the next new hot thing,  whatever it happens to be.

Often, it’s just yet another tool. It’s not always, but usually the tool is not the problem. It’s more about behaviors and processes and lots of things that the tool can then supplement. That’s usually not the problem. That review process really is about saying, “Where are we?” The other piece of it, which I think was the part you were getting to about “I’m going to put seven figures on my vision board and it’s magically going to happen” is to say, “Where are we? Where are we in the scheme of things? Where are we on the path, on the journey?” However you want to define those words.

Is it possible to have $5,000 a year and next year have a seven-figure business? Yes, it is because we’ve seen some people do that from time to time. Is it likely? No, it is not likely. Understanding “What have you got? Where are you? What do you have in the way of finances? What do you have in the way of resources? What do you have in the way of contacts and network?” All of those things. That’s a review process to understand where we are so that we’re actually looking to move from this place, not from a place that we wish we were.

You talked about all the other goal-setting systems that you’ve been in. They missed that. What did you miss by not having the review? I know, like you said, when you started doing it me. It was like, “Oh, that’s different.” It’s always been the way I’ve worked. I don’t know how to think about it by not doing it. 

First of all, I think a lot of these quarterly planning programs skip the review because they don’t work in enough time to guide people through the discomfort that comes with talking about what didn’t work. Because I think that’s the thing. Everybody defaults to what didn’t work. It’s like, “Okay. What worked and why? What didn’t and why?” Sometimes, in a group situation especially, you can just totally go off the rails as everybody piles on each other’s what didn’t work and why.

What I have missed in the years by having these planning processes that were all forward thinking. One thing that I missed is understanding what average growth is, what is good growth. Because when you’re constantly looking at seven figures, you’re a failure until you hit seven figures. In my case, I was mainly shooting for six figures for years.

It took until I was observing a quarterly tune up in my initial phase of working with you where I was trying to do it with the clients just really quick. I recognized that my business had been growing year over year. Any growth year over year is great. Some growth is better than other growth, right? Obviously, wouldn’t we all love to double? I didn’t know businesses didn’t double year over year.

Back to the first year or two, it’s pretty easy to double because the numbers are small. 

Exactly. I think that’s the first thing. I was missing so many opportunities for celebration and the journey along the way. I didn’t recognize that though I wasn’t hitting the big target, I was going from $18,000 to $24,000 to $36,000, then a jump to $50,000. It was $52,000, $54,000 and then it was a jump to $68,000 and then I had $75,000.

I missed all of that because it was like, “Well, it’s not six figures.” That’s the first thing. I missed that opportunity to celebrate the milestones along the way. I also, by not reflecting, missed out on bad decisions. Things that were already not quite turning out how I thought and probably could have pulled the plug on if I had been invited to explore those in a non-judgmental way. But I didn’t, right?

It was just like, “Well, I need person A in place in order to get to that six figure. I’ll never get to a six-figure business by myself. I have to have a team. I need to have a three-person team or whatever. I’m going to keep hiring these people without evaluating. Do I have the right people in the right seats? Am I taking full advantage of having people in these seats? Am I a good boss to these good team members?” I missed all of that by not having that reflection process.

What you just said was also a bit of the last is like, “Do I actually need three people in these seats now or am I acting in a role that isn’t anywhere close to the place that my reality is right this minute?” Because that can be very defeating in the scheme of things.

Going back to when we did the 531 together in 2024. My big goal for 2025 had been to hire a project manager to manage the one-on-one clients. I didn’t hire a project manager because I wasn’t ready to hire a project manager. In the conversation, I walked away understanding these are all the things that need to happen in my business in order for a project manager to make sense. There was no point in time, all of that was true in 2025.

First of all, I thought the only thing standing in the way between me and a project manager before we did that exercise was money. What I recognized is my business was not in a place where anybody could come in and support me in project management. My business likely won’t be in a place for that  for about three more months, maybe six.

Which is fine.

Also, I don’t feel bad about that. Why? Because I have this process of looking back that I am aware of. I can see all the improvements I made in my business to get closer to being ready. That it’s not about like, “Boo hoo, I didn’t do this thing. It was my goal and I didn’t achieve my goal.” It was like, “It was my goal, but I wasn’t ready for that.”

There were other steps in advance that I had not yet taken. I would say for me, there’s a lot more. I think most critically, when I think of how I could have been so much further ahead than I am if I had a process for really honest, non-judgmental, effective review. Those I think are the biggest barriers to my growth.

The other thing that you said, and this actually probably is a good transition into the goal side of it. One of the things that we believe, which is completely wrong, is that you’re either good at setting goals or you’re bad at setting goals. When you don’t hit a goal, that means you’re bad at setting goals. If you do, then you’re good at setting goals. It’s so far off. I can’t even give a framework for it. 

Goal setting is actually a skill. This means the first few times that we do it, we’re probably going to suck. It’s not going to go well. If you treat it like a skill and it’s practiced over time, we’ve seen this with our clients. I’m betting you’re seeing it for yourself as well. If you really start doing it in a consistent way over time, it usually takes, in my experience, generally three to six quarters. We do it quarterly.

Goal setting is actually a skill. Share on X

About three to six rounds of doing it, getting feedback, making adjustments, doing it, getting feedback, making it. The feedback being, “Did I get it or did I not get it?” Making observations like you just gave, those are great observations. Before you get pretty consistent about being able to actually set goals that you have a reasonably high probability of hitting, that are also still pushing you enough to be the place that you need to go. That’s where the balance is.

There’s so many folks that will advocate. I’m going to keep going back to your “I said seven figures on my vision board. That’s seven figures. That’s what I need to do.” Is that actually realistic? I love having a big goal somewhere in there. When we set that, what we’re doing is we’re setting ourselves up to say, “Yep, failed again.” Nobody likes that. I don’t know one person that finds that actually motivating. The other piece of it is to understand that the review process helps you actually develop a skill in setting goals. If you’re not doing the review, you’re not able to actually learn from the process to do better the next time.

That’s well said. I want to move into how you turn that review into a plan for next quarter. Before we go there, I do think we need to have just a little bit more instruction on how to set a goal. Something that I hadn’t actually heard you articulate, but at our last quarterly planning session, you articulated. I would love for you to do that for our readers.

Defining Good, Better, & Best Goals With Metrics

You always talk about good, better, best goals. You actually spent some time defining the metrics for what a good goal is, a better goal, and a best goal. If you don’t remember what those were, I will happily remind you. I think you might in terms of how often you hit them. Lay that out for us so we all can have the same working definition of what a good goal is.

The first time I ever heard the term good, better, best, I heard from Todd Herman when I was doing a 90 Day Year process. I don’t think they put metrics around them. I think I ultimately decided to put some metrics around them because people still will set. They won’t really use them in that way if we don’t actually say how often we should hit them.

The idea of the good, better, best goal is the good goal is the goal. It’s not really the best goal, like hidden. It’s really the good goal. The good goal is the goal, which means we should be able to hit it about 80 to 90 % of the time. Somewhere in there, we want to be able to hit that goal. Notice I didn’t say 100% of the time. It’s not a slam dunk. It’s not a no-brainer. It’s not like, “Of course, I hit that.” It has to be something that we’re still having to work toward, not something that we’re going to be able to solve in the first three weeks of the quarter. Because then it’s not truly a good goal. That’s a slam dunk.

The better goal is if things have aligned and we actually hit our good goal, we still have space and time to keep up the momentum and get further. What’s our better goal? Our better goal, I expect, is what I call a 50-50 goal. That if out of twelve quarters, it’s possible we could hit it six times. We’re not going to beat ourselves up if we don’t. It’s still a little iffy.

Our best goal is the goal that everything has to work. Everything has to be aligned. We are surprised that we hit our good goal, I’m making up numbers, six weeks in. We actually get our better goal nine weeks in. Because we’ve got this momentum that’s on this exponential curve, we’re able to hit our best goal. That really is a 5% to 10% time hit.

It’s what we typically think of as the BHAG, the big hairy audacious goal thing. The BHAG is not the good goal. It is the best goal. By setting those, it allows you to be thinking in that bigger space. Sometimes over time, not this quarter, but four quarters from now, the BHAG actually does become the good goal. Over time, we have set the foundation up and up so that that no longer really is a hairy audacious goal. It’s just the goal.

The BHAG is not the good goal. It is the best goal. Share on X

Thank you for walking us through that. I know the first time I had been told of good, better, best goals. I was just told them as revenue numbers, first of all. There was no other way to set a goal than revenue. It was good as a 10% growth, better as a 15% growth, and best as a 25% growth.

Which could be great for a particular business. I don’t have my mug here but context matters. That  may or may not be appropriate context for somebody else. For somebody else, good may be 2% growth, better could be 5% growth, and best could be 10% growth. It could be the other extreme. 

Exactly. What I really appreciated about that example was not so much the metrics say around it. It was the percentage of time you should hit it. It helped me. I know it helped everybody else in the room understand that even your good goal is not a slam dunk. Hello, COVID, right? That’s a year.  Some people doubled their best goal because of the line of work they were in. Other people went back ten years behind their good goal. Not because they were failures, but just because it was that little 10% to 15% of time they don’t get the good goal.

It was the thing that’s out of their control.

The better goal, knowing that that’s a 50-50 chance, I think totally reframes the goal setting. It’s like, “Okay, so what do I have a 50/50 chance of hitting? There’s that. Then, what is the reach goal?” Because if you have a 50/50 chance of hitting six figures for the first time, I don’t know that your best goal for the year should be seven figures. Maybe, depending on what your business model is, right? If you’re hitting these by acquiring businesses, then you could potentially acquire that business. Thank you for that. I do not want to shortchange readers in walking them through turning their findings into a Q2 plan. How do you do it, Gwen?

Turning Review Findings Into A Q2 Plan (Focus and Strategy)

This is where most entrepreneurs stress out. It’s why our clients like doing it together and being guided. We help them do the number one thing, which is focus. Focus is the hardest part of it because what we see is like, “What I need to do is this. I need this other thing and this third thing, and then the other thing. Wait, shiny object over here. Squirrel.” It’s all the things, right?

The key for really working on the goals going forward is to say, “Strategically, what is the thing that’s going to make the biggest impact in my business?” When we say that, not all the things that are going to make an impact in the business. There are undoubtedly dozens, if not possibly hundreds, of things that could possibly impact the business. What is the most important thing to impact my business in the way that I’m doing it that is valid for what is important to me? That is in alignment.

There’s a whole lot of context matters in this piece as well. Where you’re talking about it’s always revenue and it’s these percentages. It could be revenue, but maybe it’s not revenue. Maybe it’s reducing expenses as a financial piece. It may be growing your client base. Maybe I’ve got three clients and I realize that’s a little too few clients, too many eggs in one basket kind of scenario.

It’s like, no, what I actually want to do is I want to double the number of my clients. Maybe that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m changing my revenue. It can be all sorts of things. What is going to be most strategically important to the business? Limiting that we say one to three. We really try to keep our people to one or two because as soon as we start adding more, there’s a lot of things.

As we look and talk about it and review, we also say, “Are these things related enough that you aren’t running in three completely different directions?” It could be a marketing goal and a revenue goal. You can see how those would tie together. It could be an efficiency goal with a cutting expenses goal. You can see how they would relate. 

The key here is to say, “I’m not going to try and do all the things. I’m going to try and do the few best things, right things for me where I am right now at this point in time.” That’s hard. I’d love to say that’s a really easy thing to do. It’s not. It’s hard. Particularly for most entrepreneurs because there are a thousand things that they can and want to do. By doing that, that allows everything else to fall in place. It’s not saying we’re not going to do any of the, what I’m going to call, normal work.

The key is to say, 'I’m not going to try to do all the things. I’m going to focus on doing the few best things—the right things for me where I am right now.' Share on X

This is what, in my mind, I think of as above and beyond. If you’re working a 40 hour week, hopefully you can get your regular work done in about 30 to 35 hours. This is that last five hours. It’s not 40 hours a week of work. It’s that piece that’s actually making this more strategic move based on where we have our challenges, what we know has worked in the past. This is where the review piece comes in. Looking at the data of where we are, what’s worked, where we have the challenges, and saying, “What do we think will move the needle most significantly?” Significantly can be defined in a thousand ways.

The review process that you actually walk people through. It’s what worked and why, then what didn’t and why. One thing I love about you is you always make them spend twice as much time thinking about what did work and why than they do with what didn’t work and why. If you’re doing this by yourself and you’re setting a timer, you get ten minutes to think about what did work and why, but you only get five minutes to do the didn’ts. Even in half the time, you’ll still come up with twice as many things. That’s just how our brains work. We don’t need pages of our failures. What we need to do is focus on what worked and why.

The third thing that you’ll ask is, what surprises emerged? Good surprises, bad surprises. You’re always really good about saying that surprises go both ways. What needs clarification? In your quarterly planning process, you actually have them sleep on it after that. They come back the next day for the planning piece because a lot happens overnight when you’ve had some time to think about it. It’s hard to have our brains switch gears.

We talked about how you define good, better, best goals and how often you should reach a good goal versus a better goal versus a best goal. We’ll rehash that. When it comes to turning those findings into the Q2 plan, what you just spent a lot of time talking about. The first thing you have to figure out is, are my priorities still my priorities? Do I need to reset any? Do I need to rethink any? Is something coming this year that may alter my priorities?

An example I use with my own clients, a lot of my clients are women who are about ten years younger than you, Gwen. A lot of them are facing it. Their kids are in the getting-married phase of life or grandchildren phase of life. It’s always like if you’ve got a grandbaby coming or you’ve got an in-law coming and you are a woman. It automatically is knocking you out of your productivity for six months. I have seen this since I started. I’ve never seen it not do this. It just is what it is. Brides and kids lean a lot on their mamas. It’s just how it works.

You may have to reset your priorities for the coming year. There’s a lot of other reasons why you may need to reset your priorities. From there, once you’re clear on your priorities, then you go into allocating your resources. I think too often we go straight from goals to resource allocation. After we’ve allocated the resource, then we go, “What rhythms need to change?”

I think you are particularly really good at helping people appreciate where even a subtle change in rhythm can lead to exponential outcomes after the course of thirteen weeks, even more so after 26. After that, that is when you start aligning your team. Again, I think too often people want to bring their team in right after they’ve set the goals. “These are our goals for the new year, guys. Ready, set, go.” The team’s like, “Wait, what?” Because the team is included into where our priorities have shifted, how the resources are being allocated, and where rhythms are shifting. All those decisions really do need to be made before you start bringing other people in on it. Where would you add additional clarity?

I was going to say it’s the why piece because we have spent so much time thinking about it. It’s so  clear to us, all of the why. It’s the piece that we need to spend so much time actually working on with our people to make sure they understand the why. They understand why the priority changed. They understand what’s going on. Things like, “I just found out that my daughter is going to have her first baby. I need to be able to be more flexible, particularly once we hit August and September, because the baby is due sometime in that framework. It’s due September 1st. We know some babies come early. Some babies come late.” All of the things.

They come when they want, whether you want them to or not.

Understanding & Leveraging Seasonal Energy

They really do. That’s their reality. Being clear about what those whys are, and being explicit. Even though you say, “My daughter’s having a baby and so I’m going to need to change things because.” What you’re assuming is that everyone would understand why that matters to you and what that means to you.

Depending on where your daughter lives, how much time you’re planning on being there. Some moms spend a lot of time with new grandbabies. Some don’t come until it’s later because they have other people. There’s all sorts of things. Don’t assume that what seems so obvious to you is obvious to your team. That to me is one of the pieces that gets left a lot.

The thing particularly coming up for Q2, and one of the things that we’ve actually added in our quarterly tune-up, is talking about what the natural energy of the world is. This is, of course, not true if you happen to be reading in the southern half of the hemisphere. But Q2 for us in the Northern Hemisphere is spring.

Spring is when all things are growing and shooting. Things are new. There’s lots of growth energy.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing at all. You need to be aware of it because often it means that it’s going to be easier to get distracted by a lot of things. Saying, “I want to manage that.” Just because we know shows are, hopefully, forever. Let’s just talk briefly about what the other quarters are in case someone’s reading for another quarter.

I would love that.

As you’re coming into Q3, where you’re really at is you’re coming into late summer, early fall. Things are growing, but they’re starting to stabilize. The growth has happened. You need to be prepared that this is when maintaining momentum is really useful for you. It’s easy for it to just start to slow down a bit.

Because of the growth from the spring, we feel like, “Oh my gosh, everything’s a failure.” No. Things have grown and done the things that they need to do. It’s the place that you still need to be in support of it. The trees still have leaves on them. They still need to be watered. They still need that ongoing peace.

As you move into the beginning of Q4, that’s when you’re really hitting true fall. That’s when things are to be cut. That’s when we trim back our trees. That’s when the leaves are dropping off the trees. It’s when all of those things are happening. As you start thinking about the planning, what are the things that I’ve done, I’ve tried that work, that didn’t work, that I need to pull out to make space for the next round?

As we come into Q1, although we often think of it as the big planning for the year, it really is about the foundation. It’s about getting prepped. It’s about the readiness. As we’re in winter, that’s when most things are more dormant, including us. We were talking about earlier, staying in bed, being more dormant. That’s about setting the foundation. That’s when you want to be thinking about, what do I need to be prepared for in that spring growth?

As we enter Q1, although we often think of it as the time for big annual planning, it’s really about the foundation. It’s about getting prepared. It’s about readiness. Share on X

They each have their seasons. Being aware of them helps you know what are the things I need to watch for and/or leverage because it’ll be easier in this. Not that you can’t do any of the other things in any of the other times. That’s not true. You can cut any time of year. You can do all of those things but it will be easier. It will feel more natural in those timeframes.

That’s good. Of course, because you are the queen of saying, “Context matters,” you may have an industry that operates in a different bit of a cycle. Your data trumps everybody else’s data every day of the week. However, I think what this does though is it gives everybody reading, no matter when they read, an idea of what the average is and what they can expect.

Right.

With that, Gwen, I just want to say thank you. We didn’t mean to but we just wrapped up a whole quarterly planning retreat in under an hour. Look at us go. What I want to say is we’ve walked through the whole planning piece, what to expect seasonally. The next step really goes on you as a leader to our reader.

To tie a bow around all of this, it really involves giving yourself the thinking time. Review does not happen in five minutes here and there between errands. It’s a concentrated thinking time. It happens and then, setting those goals. Having that plan requires an accountability process in place. It requires some strategic boundaries.

When we talk about how to allocate your resources, how to reset your priorities, how to re-establish your rhythms, all of those are based on having boundaries that are strategic and maintained. And then, consistent communication with your family. If you’re struggling with a work-life balance thing, consistent communication with your team. I would argue consistent communication with yourself is always a good idea. Sometimes, I like to hide from myself. I don’t know if I’m the only one. 

Give yourself dedicated thinking time. Reviews don’t happen in five-minute snippets between errands; they require focused, concentrated thought. Share on X

If you want any help with that, a good place to start is simply by answering one good question every single week. If you want to build momentum all year long, it can start simply by elevating the way you think each week. We believe here that most CEOs do not need more information in their life. They don’t. They want it, but they don’t need it.

What they need are better questions. Better questions that have them do these review processes and these thoughts on their priorities and their boundaries that they’re not asked often. To get that from us, actually from Gwen. I just like to take ownership with Gwen over things. 

She helps. Don’t let her say that she’s not a part of this. 

I help sometimes. You can get Gwen’s really good question by going to www.tonyakubo.com/Question. It’s free. You sign up there. It’ll start next Friday. If you choose to engage and respond to Gwen, you’ll get a response from Gwen in turn. You’ll start to see what that reciprocal reflection looks like. This is, I think, almost our last episode of the quarter. We may have one more, but we’ll see you soon. Can’t wait to hear what you think.

 

Mentioned in This Episode

• Episode 17: The 531 Strategy for Goal-Setting
• One Question Email
• Everyday Effectiveness Services
• Tonya’s Email

 

About Your Hosts

Gwen Bortner has spent four decades advising executives and entrepreneurs in 45+ industries. She helps women succeed in business without sacrificing happiness by identifying their true desires and aligning their business functions. She spots overlooked bottlenecks and crafts efficient plans toward sustainable success that center your values and priorities. Known for her unique approach to problem-solving and accountability through the G.E.A.R.S. framework, Gwen empowers clients to achieve their definition of success without sacrificing what matters most.

Tonya Kubo is a marketing strategist and community builder who helps entrepreneurs build thriving online communities. As co-host of The Business You Really Want and Chief Marketing and Operations Officer (CMOO) at Everyday Effectiveness, she keeps conversations on track and ensures complex business concepts are accessible to everyone. A master facilitator with 18+ years of experience in online community building, Tonya takes a people-first approach to marketing and centers the human experience in all she does.