Structure Equals Freedom: My Biggest CEO Lessons from Q1

You're listening to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast with Debbie Sassen, episode 173.

Welcome to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Debbie Sassen. I went from being a financial adviser, author and chronic under earner to building my business to six figures as a financial planner and money mindset coach, and then on to multiple six figures as a full-time money and business coach. 

I help entrepreneurs create money making businesses and build wealth using sales and money mindset strategies in alignment with authentic Jewish values. Now, let's dive into today's show.

Hello my friends and welcome back to the podcast. This is a special episode. It is the last one for the first quarter of 2025. And it's actually the last episode that I'll be recording for a while. 

And I have to say that I'm getting a little bit emotional, a little bit choked up about saying that because I have been recording this podcast weekly with the exception of the week of October 7th, 2023. I have been recording weekly for three and a half years but I am intentionally pressing the pause button for April and I'm going to share why freedom from my podcast as we enter the season of freedom.

We're talking about the Pesach, upcoming Pesach Passover holidays when we celebrate our freedom from the Egyptians, and certainly with our arch enemies, Hamas, still active. And in fact, right before I recorded this podcast episode, well, a few hours ago, we actually had a siren here in my neighborhood because the Houthis in Yemen are still sending rockets our way. So we still are praying for freedom from our enemies, but we're not going to talk about geopolitical issues at the moment.

We are going to speak about how I have worked really hard, put my nose to the grindstone during the first quarter of 2025, and I have created for myself and my business a tremendous amount of freedom. And I'm going to pull back the curtain for you and share exactly what that's looked like. And in fact, even as I go through all of the accomplishments and we're gonna be talking about systems, processes, automations, which are such fun activities for so many entrepreneurs.

I mean, if you're anything like me, you're probably creative, you're an idea generator, things are constantly flying out of your head. How can I serve my clients? What else can I do? I have a new offer. So many entrepreneurs, we're quick starts. We have ideas, we run with them, we're always on the go, but tying up loose ends and creating structure is not always the fun part of running a business. I mean, I'm a mom of eight, as you know, I love to delegate. I don't think I could have raised eight children if I hadn't been an amazing delegator.

Everything from laundry to cooking to dishes to you name it, I'm great at delegating to my children. And I do have two virtual assistants in my business as you know, but delegation and automation are two different animals. And my focus in the past quarter has been to do the latter, the automations, setting up real systems so that I can actually extricate myself from my business. I can actually be less in my business and really make it run so much more efficiently. And that's my goal as I continue to grow and scale my business.

So before we jump in and I share with you exactly what I've done this quarter, I want to just let you in that if you are resisting systemization, if you're resisting structure, and this is especially true if you're in the creative fields. I mean, I'm a coach and that is creative, but if you are a designer, photographer, some of my creative entrepreneur, like super-duper creative clients, this is harder for them than it is for me. 

And so I feel you, baby. I don't know if I can feel you as much, you know, as what you're going through, but definitely when I look at my children and my grandchildren, I see which ones are naturally more systems and processes-oriented, and that's definitely like my husband, and which ones are more kind of like all over the place.

But that sort of gave me an inkling, you know, just from the Torah, from the book of Bereshit, from Genesis, in the beginning, right, there was chaos in the world. And in order for G-d to create the world, he had to bring systems and Structure into the world. We had to separate the day from the night the upper waters from the lower waters, etc. G-d created order in the world. And so on my own little micro-level that's exactly what I've done in my business

So the way it started actually it started back in I think November. I had hired someone and we ended up working together for the entire first quarter of 2025. My goal was to have a content database because I coach all day long, all week long, not every single hour, but I constantly am helping my clients through their issues. And of course, I have my own, I have my coach, I have my mastermind. So even I am involved in exactly what I coach on for my clients.

And I wanted to have a database so I wouldn't constantly be reinventing the wheel. If I wanted to put some content out in an email, somewhere on social media, if I wanted to record a podcast, I would have a database of everything that I've been coaching on, and that way that would help me create structure around what I am producing content on. So that was my goal. And in fact, when I opened the year in 2025, we started working on that goal.

And as I was creating more structure around my business, and if you've been with me in 2025, you know that in February and in March I have been running masterclasses. And in fact, that is a structure that I am putting in place for the rest of 2025, monthly masterclasses every four, five, six weeks. So make sure you're on my newsletter list. We've talked about this before, so that you will have updates around when the next masterclass is being offered.

But all of a sudden, when I was like halfway through the process of creating this content database, it became clear that the structure around my masterclasses was really where I needed to put my focus because this is a process that is repeating itself every single month.

So one of the processes and automations we have put in place is just the emails, the announcements that this is the masterclass and these are the reminders. And it's hard to believe myself that I have an automation so that the reminder emails that, you know, there's one hour to go and here's your replay and here's the followup at the end, that has now all been automated. So I don't have to reinvent the wheel every time I run a masterclass. And it's kind of mind boggling to me that that is occurring behind the scenes.

Another automation that has been put into place has been some of my bookkeeping so that when people purchase the masterclasses, the receipts are sent out automatically. Now, if you work with Stripe, which I do, that's the payment processor for my US dollar, you know, masterclasses, they're all priced in dollars because I work with people around the world, but because I live in Israel, I also need to produce receipts in our local currency, in shekels. And that was something that my assistant was manually creating. 

So I hired a specialist who understands how to get from Stripe to Green Invoice that I work with, and we were able to put that into place. So now that is also automated and it's kind of mind boggling to me that in the past week, when I went to launch my masterclass, over 10 people have already signed up and those invoices have been created automatically without any human involvement.

So those are the kinds of automations that are running in the background of my business now. It means that there is a less possibility of human error and it means that things just flow smoothly. There's so much more efficiency in your business when you have something that goes from A to B to C to Q to R and a human being doesn't need to be involved in that process. It's just kind of mind boggling for me. 

Someone who was born in the 1960s, I know I'm dating myself, but it is definitely not a concept that I grew up with, but I'm definitely seeing how powerful it is now. And I also brought my son onto the scene to help me because he works with databases and I wanted to have a better way to look at my income and expenses. 

And he built me a dashboard using Power BI. If anybody is familiar with that, it is a sophisticated system. And he was able to build me, it's much simpler than what he works on every day in his work, but I can see now what my income is, my expenses, I can measure it against targets and having my finger on the pulse of my business, that has created freedom.

I mean, I had it before, but it was an Excel spreadsheet because I have to pull dollars and shekels and different bank accounts. And now the clarity that I have in my business is just so much fun. So wherever you are in your business in terms of creating systems and processes, if you have not yet started the process going, I encourage you to take something small.

Even you can see that I've had this sort of like roundabout process. I started with one thing, thinking that the content database was where I wanted to go, and that's not finished yet. And in fact, the person that I'm working with said that there's actually a new AI feature out there that maybe we can do it in a way that's simpler than what we're originally planning. 

So that's actually kind of exciting if that's going to be what we look forward to in the future. We do have one session that we're meeting still in April, but we probably won't continue on with that automation until later in the second quarter of 2025.

So if you have something that you're doing in your business every single day or every single week. And it can be something as simple as issuing receipts. Every business issues receipts, but whatever it is, just write down your process, something that you're doing all the time.

First of all, if you write it down, you now have your SOPs, your standard operating procedures. And we will get to that because that was something that for me was grueling. And I did it on such a deep level during this quarter. So I get you, if you don't like to do this, if you don't have an easy time taking information out of your brain and putting it on a piece of paper or putting it into a Google document, I'm gonna share with you exactly how I did it.

And really, as a mom of many running a hefty household, I am so used to holding so many details in my brain and telling this child to do this and this child to do that. And we know who needs to get to their sports practice and who needs to do homework, who needs antibiotics. We remember it all and we carry all the details in our head.

And you know what, for me and my business, I was doing the same thing. And I encourage you that if you're carrying all the details in your head, it's time for you to get them down on paper, virtual or otherwise, so that it can be systematized.

And I have become such an advocate of this because I see how powerful it is for me and for my business and even for my assistants. So let me just tell you what I did. And I'm gonna go back to the masterclass example because this is where my mind started opening up about what could be possible.

I opened up a Google document and I was just writing down all of the things that I did. I have to think about the topic for the webinar, masterclass, the date, the time. Am I going to use Zoom or am I gonna use Google Meets? I need to, of course, if I'm going to use Zoom, I need to have a Zoom link.

And where am I going to hold the replays? And of course, which emails am I going to send and which reminders? We've talked about that a little bit with the email automations, but I got it all down into a Google document, even where I'm going to share it so people can buy. Like there has to be a system for creating a signup page or a sales page. And then I copied it and I pasted it into ChatGPT and I asked ChatGPT, what am I missing?

And you know what? ChatGPT and I are business besties because Chat, that's what I call him, her, don't know, it, Chat gave me back pieces of the process that I might have been missing. And I was able to go back and add into my process, yes, I'm missing this, no, that doesn't, that's not relevant to me. And I was able to create a much better process for my masterclasses.

And as we have moved from the February masterclass to the March masterclass, and I noticed where things are different, now I can keep tweaking it. And I don't know about you, but it's always harder to start with a blank slate. But now that I have something in black and white, I can go through and I can make tweaks and changes as I go along.

But that's why I encourage you, whatever you're doing, just put it into a document. First of all, if it's easier for you to write it down on paper, please put it down on paper. Do something because you're not holding it in your brain anymore. Your brain is meant to file information. It's really not meant to be a container for all of those details, all those little pieces of paper, all those little notes, you know, the ones that kids come home from school with. Your brain is not really meant to hold all of those.

So get it down somewhere so if you need to hand it off to somebody else or if you're overwhelmed, like you could just forget pieces of your process. And I know I do pride myself on remembering everything, but you know what? There is so much freedom when you don't need to remember everything. It is actually there and it's being held by my Google Docs. And in fact, what I've been able to do now is take that process from Google Docs and put it into Trello.

So now I have a checklist of every single detail that I'm going through as I'm preparing the masterclasses. So this is all very kind of, let's say for a coach or a creative, I might say that it's boring work, it's tedious work, it is definitely grueling. I sometimes felt like I was eating dirt, or as some people I've read say, that's like chewing glass because you're just working on this problems, problems all the time.

But really once you are no longer stuffing your brain with all of these details, there is so much freedom on the other side. So in the spirit of this season, I really encourage you to create freedom in your business, freedom in your brain, by figuring out what your systems are, figuring out what your processes are, and put them down somewhere. And then whatever you can automate, I highly encourage you to automate.

And this is maybe kind of the theme of cleanup. You know, we're cleaning up our houses during the pre-Passover season and we're getting rid of the garbage, getting rid of the junk, definitely getting rid of the hummets. And when you can get the garbage out of your brain and put it down somewhere where it's being held safely, again, you're gonna feel, I think, your emotionally and physically, your body, your nervous system will feel so much more relaxed.

So that has been a huge, huge part of what I've been doing in the first quarter of 2025. And there are a few more things that I'm just gonna give you some updates on, but that's the one that if you do anything, if you're making any plans for your business for after the Passover season, put systems, processes and automations, put a pin on your calendar, whether it is April 25th, May 1st, whatever it is, and I highly encourage you to take that big, bold step forward.

So the next thing that I've been working on was my brand identity and my brand assets because it's been a while since I updated them. Actually, back in the summer, I updated my logo. I worked with a graphic designer and we added some colors. I've had sort of the same turquoise, teal, and sort of goldy mustard color as my brand colors for a while, but we added a green, a sage green, emerald green to my brand colors.

And that happened back in the summer of 2024. And I have to tell you, it has been kind of touch and go how I have implemented it. I don't have my logo everywhere. Even if you go to my website right now in March 2025, as I'm recording this, that has not been updated. So this is another one of these processes that needs to be completed. And part of that was really doing a deep dive into my brand, my identity, my strategy. And it's part of my growth as a business owner.

And your growth as a business owner also will be impacted because who you are changes and evolves as you spend more and more time in your business. And if you've been, you know, on my podcast listening for a while, you know that there was a time when I was doing financial planning, then we've added coaching, business coaching, and now I am growing my brand and my business to work primarily with six-figure business owners, helping them to scale to multiple six-figures and seven-figures. 

So that's where I'm taking my brand, my business, and that's part of why I needed an entirely upgraded identity. And that also included a photoshoot and that was so much fun. So that's something else that happened in the last few months.

And then I think the other big piece of what I created in 2025 was I completed the first business coaching program for new coaches, The 5-Figure Coach Accelerator that I launched in the last quarter of 2024. And that was something new that was a growth area for me. 

And you can go back onto my podcast, I did an interview with Rivka Malka Perlman back in the fall of ’24, and it was primarily her students who joined this program, and the goal was to help them to get going to build their businesses.

And that was something that stretched me as a coach because working with brand new business owners was not something that I had a lot of experience with. There were a couple of people here and there who had joined my Wired for Wealth program, but most of the women who have joined Wired for Wealth over the years have had businesses for a couple of years. There was some familiarity with what business is, what their coaching is, what they're selling, what their offer is. That was already in existence.

So this was, for me, it was a brand new experience and there was just so much joy seeing other people grow their businesses and really, it taught me a lot about mentorship, about how vulnerable people can be in the beginning stages of their business, how to encourage people and give them the support that they need as they take those first baby steps. 

I mean, as you are in your own business for a while, it's hard to remember back in the day when you were new, when you were just starting out, and I do remember the first time I launched a website, pressed that button on publish, I felt so exposed to the world. It was like eight billion pairs of eyes were looking at me. 

Of course, nobody was looking at me because they had no idea that I had a website, but I do remember how sort of raw and exposed it felt. And these were people, I mean, amazing, amazing women doing fantastic work in the world in the healing and transformational coaching arena. And yeah, some of them were brand new to business and it was just such a joy to see them kind of spread their wings and start flying in their businesses.

So that was for me growth in terms of my mentorship. And I guess the other project was my 24/6 Telegram channel where I am showing up a couple of times a week, two three four times a week, sharing valuable content for the people who have opted into that program. So that's kind of what I've done. 

And my biggest takeaway, I've said it a few times, is really that freedom, that when you have order and when you have structure in your business, that will give you freedom in your brain and that will also, you know, your nervous system won't be always holding onto things, you know, emotionally, physically. 

And you know what, when you can let go and you can feel confident that your systems and processes are running in the background, taking care of things, that gives you so much space. It gives you capacity to have more creativity in your business. It also just gives you more space and capacity to have fun, to be spontaneous. And I know from some of the people that I am in touch with in my business world, my mastermind, that when you have either bigger teams or better processes, things just pop up in your mind. As I said right in the beginning, I do have creative ideas.

My mind is popping here, there, and everywhere, but because I've been so focused on the back end, that part of me hasn't been unleashed yet, and I am looking forward to seeing in the second half of 2025 what creative ideas I can come up with when I'm no longer focusing on this really foundational work that needs to be done. So I guess if I would have to sum it up, I would say streamlining is freedom. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I mean, you can sort of visualize how freeing it is to have things smooth, running smooth as silk. It really, really is freeing. I don't think the process of going through it is sexy at all. It's totally not. But it does give you so much space and capacity at the end.

In fact, I have compared that entire process to like ripping up the road when the, you know, the bulldozers and hoes and or what a backhoe loaders, whatever they are, they come and they rip up the road. And they have to expand the road, lay down new pipes and then smooth over the road. I have felt so much of the first quarter of this year that I was living in the middle of roadworks and all of the tractors and things were like there on the roads with me. But I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and it is really, really beautiful light.

So let's talk a little bit. As I said, I'm going to be pressing the pause button on the podcast for a while. So what am I going to be doing? Well, first of all, as we, we take a break, I will be spending the month of April and the Pesach Passover holidays with my family. And I'm really looking forward to that. I have three kids who are in dorms and they're going to be coming home and spending time with us. And of course, my married children are going to come and spend time with us. So I'm really looking forward to spending that family time with my people.

And of course, as I said earlier, I do still, you know, record audio trainings multiple times a week for my private Telegram channel. So if that's something that you would like more information on, reach out to me, debbie@debbiesassen.com, or just go to my website debbiesassen.com/246. And you can learn about my Telegram channel where I am giving really strategic and mindset trainings a few times a week. So that's another way that we can be in touch with each other. 

And then further on into the year, I'm going to, as I said, update that logo all over my website and the brand colors and everything will be updated. That's a project. It's going to be put off probably until the second quarter, maybe even the third quarter of 2025, but I do have to update my website and even the copy on my website because as you grow and evolve in your business, all of your assets for your business do need to be elevated. So I will be doing that as well. 

And my next big automation or systems process is to take my current membership program. I have the platform Thinkific where I house all of my recordings for my Wired for Wealth membership program, and that needs to move to Kartra. And that I need to do right after the Passover holidays because I don't wanna pay for my subscription again when my renewal comes up for Thinkific. So that needs to be taken care of. 

And I will be raising my prices. If any of you are interested in working with me, my dear listeners, then reach out to me because at the beginning of May, my prices will be going up and that is part of my growth, my evolution, my experience as a coach over the years and the results that my clients are getting. So that is definitely something that's going to be happening. 

And my monthly masterclasses, those are happening. I do have a schedule for all of 2025 when my masterclasses are happening right now, as I'm recording this podcast, the Masterclass Piping Hot Buyers, Messaging Shifts That Turn Crickets Into Paying Clients is happening. 

If that's something that you are interested in and you're messaging, this is also your brand identity and positioning, that's something we all have to think about and I'm covering that in the masterclass and you can join us in the masterclass or you can get the replays. 

So go to my website, debbiesassen.com/pipinghot. And that has been a fantastic program. And then the next masterclass will be happening the first week of May. So you do wanna get on my newsletter if that is something that interests you.

And then the last piece, as I think about the structure of my business and creating more freedom, is how I divide my time over the course of the week. And on Tuesdays, I coach all day in Wired for Wealth, and I have a handful of one-on-one clients, and I meet with them any day of the week other than Tuesday. 

So that's Tuesday for my membership program. And then there are four other days on which I coach my one-on-one clients. And my goal is to get that down to three days a week. So I have one full day for my CEO stuff. Anything that I need to do for my business and also for my personal life.

There's always admin that needs to be happening for my personal life, whether it's taxes that need to be paid or paperwork that needs to be filed or just going to the post office or whatever I need to do, taking care of my house. So I would like to have a full day off. And that also gives my brain a time to disconnect. And that gives me again, more capacity for being more creative in my business.

So that's kind of what's been happening in my business in the first quarter of 2025, it has been a fantastic quarter, a lot of hard work. And I think that's great. I don't have any problem with doing hard work. That is what builds muscles. It builds resilience and it builds capacity.

And I guess my words of wisdom as I sign off for the time being, and I've said this really, is if there is back-end work in your business that needs doing, I highly recommend that you start with it. Start with a small stuff. Start with anything that you can start now because your future self will definitely thank you for it.

And if you are interested in, you know, following up on the podcast and knowing when I start recording again. So I do recommend that you follow me and subscribe to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, wherever you tune in and get your podcast. And of course, if you're on YouTube, make sure that you hit the bell so that you get notified when new episodes drop.

And I want to thank you for listening in. I really hope that you have so much ease and clarity and freedom as we approach the Pesach holidays. I want to wish you a Chag Kasher V'sameach.

You should have a happy, joyful and kosher Pesach. And I look forward to seeing you on the next episode of The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast. Bye-bye for now.

Thanks for listening to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast. If you want to stop underselling and underearning and close more sales, you need to clear the limiting money beliefs that are sabotaging your business growth. 

Head on over to DebbieSassen.com/mindset and download my free Money Mindset Workbook. Uncover and dissolve money blocks, like hundreds of other entrepreneurs who are now building six-, multi-six-, and seven-figure businesses and creating true financial freedom.