Hello. This is episode six of The Hell Yes Entrepreneur. I am your host, Becca Pike. On this episode, we are discussing what I call hat flexibility, or how quickly we can change hats, aka roles, in our lives. And how this flexibility can lead to elevated happiness, decreased anxiety, and way more productive and successful businesses. Let’s begin.

Hey, guys. I’m Becca Pike and welcome to The Hell Yes Entrepreneur podcast, the number one show for entrepreneurs looking to create their first six-figure year. If you’ve got the drive and you know how to hustle but you’re not sure where to channel your energy, we’ve got the answers. Let’s dive into today’s show.

What’s up guys? Welcome. So at the time of this recording, this podcast just launched today. So there’s significant lag time between the time I record it and the time it is delivered to you. Thanks to my amazing production team and all the editing that they do. So by the time that you guys listen to this, I’m sure that you will be several episodes in already. So you might have to do a little time traveling in your mind to get yourself back to this day that I am currently in.

Today my podcast launched. It was the first day that you guys could access it. First of all, it’s absolutely freaking bonkers to me to be able to see something that I have worked so hard on finally come to fruition and be given to the public. I am absolutely 100% blown away by the outpouring of love. It has been out for, I don’t know, like 12 hours. We are number 23 in podcasts in the nation in business and entrepreneurship. We have over 700 downloads. We got 105 reviews in the first 24 hours. That’s crazy.

Trizzle, whoever you are, I loved your review when you said, “I would have given it six stars, but Apple wouldn’t let me.” I wanted to cry when I saw that. The amount of texts and the messages that I got today was humbling. From the deepest of my heart, I appreciate each and every person that subscribed and listened, rated, and reviewed. Anybody that’s given any energy to this company and the community of ours, I deeply, deeply thank you.

It was also an interesting day for other reasons. You know my closest friends and my colleagues, they definitely know what kind of person I am. They’ve stuck around long enough that they just know me. They know my messed-up humor and my quirkiness. But today was a lot like an unveiling or a coming out of the closet, if you will, to the people who don’t really know me on a deeper level.

Today I received messages from my friend’s 80-year-old grandfather. I also received messages from my grandfather-in-law, and my husband’s whole side of the family. My father, my children’s kindergarten teachers, my gynecologist. This is a true statement. They all got to hear me drop F-bombs and talk about LSD and selling children.

I know it sounds silly to say this, but I don’t think I prepared myself or realized like all the people that would be listening. I had my blinders on. I was so hyper focused on talking to just my audience, talking to just entrepreneurs that I kind of just zoned out. I didn’t necessarily think about my gynecologist listening to it or my children’s teachers. I don’t know how I feel about it. At the next parent-teacher meeting, my poor child will be known as the girl whose mom did basement tattoos. She didn’t sign up for that. Poor girl. Anyways, enough about me. Let’s get to the show, shall we?

All right. Hat flexibility. That’s what we’re talking about today. What is hat flexibility? So this is being able to quickly and easily move from role to role in your life. How able and flexible you are to switch from work mode to parent mode to spouse mode and back again is a huge indicator of how well you can ward off stress levels as well as an indicator for your ability to perform within each role.

So what is this like for you? Does it require a long transition time for you to go from work to parent, parent to work? Do you slide in and out of your daily roles, or do you walk into them with attention? Do you find yourself sometimes find yourself being at work when you’re being a parent? Do you find yourself being a parent when you’re being at work? Maybe this is the first time you’ve ever even considered this at all, and that’s okay too.

Hat flexibility or role flexibility takes practice and a hell of a lot of intention. First thing’s first, the awareness of it is absolute key. Our roles change and they evolve over time, right? So maybe you didn’t used to hold the role of being a parent in your life, and now you do. Or maybe now that role is all consuming, like with your little ones. You have a bunch of little ones, and it just takes up your whole life. One day it won’t be, right? Roles change. They evolve.

Your CEO role shows up differently depending on what you’re trying to accomplish that month or that quarter. It changes depending on if you are pushing growth in your company or if you’re intentionally coasting. You also may have roles as a husband, wife, sister, brother, daughter, aunt, uncle, son. Our roles are essentially, they’re just relationships to people and to companies and to groups and to yourself.

Learning how to swiftly and effectively transition between hats removes frictions in our relationship with others as well as the relationship with ourselves. It removes strain and discomfort. It frees up occupied thinking space. It actually allows us to perform at a much higher level.

If you can master the ability to change your roles effectively day to day, hour to hour, whatever it is that you need to do, then you will be happier, more at ease, and more successful. Especially if you decide how you want to show up in each role first. Top CEOs and high performers know how to switch in and out of roles on a more elite level than the average person.

There is a study done on high achievers that was questioning why some people can perform at ultra-advanced levels in their industries while others just don’t, okay. So the study was looking at what drives people. What takes some people to extreme success and others not? They wanted to look at it not from a behavioral standpoint but from like a cellular neuroscience/brain scan level, right? So the effects of the stimuli in the brainwaves and all of that stuff.

What they found was brilliant. What they saw was that there was a difference between average people and the elites. The most elite human performers had the ability to fully and wholeheartedly turn on and turn off their work or their sport or their passion or whatever it was that they were excelling in and whatever it was that they were elite in. There were professional athletes. There were ultra-successful business owners, and world-renowned creators that they did the study on.

So like they would intentionally be capable of turning their entire work brain off for extended periods of time, and be able to turn them back on when needed. On and off like a faucet. At whatever time they chose to. They scanned their brain throughout weeks, and watched as these elite folks would go periods of time without thinking much at all about their craft.

Now, I know this sounds crazy, right? Think of it like sprinting versus marathon running, and it makes a lot more sense. So most average performers are like marathon runners. We think about work at a low level for like 18 hours a day. Work’s on our brain even if it’s fuzzy and in the background for long periods of time. We may be cooking dinner, but mentally we’re like writing that email that needs to be sent. We may be pushing our kids on the swing, but we’re mentally problem solving something at work, right? It’s not what we want.

But the highest performers of the world, they just think about their work more so in sprints. So for example, they might do like two hours of high performance dedicated and driven thought, right, or practice. Then not at all. They engulf their brains in something completely different. For some of them it’s like golf or hiking or a different sport. Maybe it’s reading, writing, art. Then they turn their performance brain back on at an elite level after that. Because they do it in sprints, they are able to hyperfocus. When you have a marathon of thoughts, they become less quality.

This is the epitome of hat flexibility. They can take their work hats off and engulf themselves in other things wholeheartedly. This brings a lot of happiness anyways because they get to have different passions outside of work. They can change hats often to fill their own happiness. It’s almost like multiple personality syndrome, only more productive. Less confusing for others, right?

Now, how can we understand the study and apply it to our own life. Think about it like this. When we are wearing our parent hat yet our work hat is still on also, our minds are wandering and we’re not present with our kids. So our kid may think we were listening to their story about how Liam at school likes Layla, but Layla wrote a note to Tyler in the cafeteria. But instead, we’re crunching numbers in the back of our minds, right?

Both engines are still firing though. Our brains are processing information at double the capacity at what is optimal. Parent brain and work brain are both on, leading to half the presence, half the productivity and thought, and double the parent guilt. We may be thinking our profit looks good this month, and Liam needs to move on. Am I right? Okay.

So when we are at work, if our home hat is still on, we aren’t focused on the task at hand. We’re thinking about the swim lessons we need to cancel, and the groceries we need to pick up. Not only does it help us to do a half-assed job and occupies our mind, it also causes us much more anxiety and guilt than what we may realize that we carry over into our overall happiness as well as productivity levels.

I can always feel it when I accidentally left a hat on that I don’t want on. I’m like why the fuck do I want to rip my eyeballs out right now? I am so filled with anxiety for no reason. Then I’m like oh, it’s because I have four hats on. I am playing the part of four different people. I have expectations for myself of four different people, right? I have the expectations of CEO and mom and daughter and wife all going on in my head right now.

But like most things, getting a grasp on this starts with intention. So intention is the foundation. So let’s talk about what this could look like. First, I want you to map out your day in your head. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, I want you to ground yourself into what day it is. What day is it today? What does the rest of it look like? What hats are you expecting to wear today?

Maybe you’re at home, and you have to go to work. Then you know that you’ll be coming back home to your kids and to your wife or to your husband, right? That means you’re going to have work hat, spouse hat, and parent hat on for today. Try to think about which hours of the day that you’re going to have these hats on also.

So for me, today, I am in my work hat right now. I know that around 4:00 p.m. I put on my mom hat. Around 8:00 p.m. once my kids are in bed, I will be full on wife hat. Looking ahead to decide what hats you will be wearing today sounds really simple, but even just stopping to ask yourself what your day looked like and what roles you expect to stand in will help you transition when that time does come. So pause this podcast if you need to, and ask yourself exactly what roles you’re expecting out of yourself today.

Now for me and for all of us, our roles look very different from each other. So I’m going to take you on a quick tour of all the Beccas you might see, and I want you to just ask yourself how this looks for you as well. So I have a mom role. My mom role she doesn’t boss, she leads. She speaks firmly and lovingly, and presence is key for her. She is also the queen of snacks.

My CEO role, she often removes emotion, and she thinks analytically and strategically. She is not like mom at all. She’s often masculine behind the scenes, but she does drop into feminine with her clients. She loves to find answers, and she loves to problem solve. She is not necessarily who you want to have at your cookout.

My wife role. So she’s very different. She is the most feminine of all. She is also the most playful. She uses emotions and vocalizes her needs, and she often refers to her husband to make a lot of the decisions. Not because she’s indecisive but because she chooses to turn her decision brain off at home, and she let’s someone else lead.

I often have friends that comment on how wild this is when they see me with my husband, and they only know me from the work place. It’s like they’re seeing me in that hat for the first time. But he just provides me a soft place to land, and I choose to be this way around him. This is with intention. My friend role. She does not lead. She walks beside. She listens to not just give advice. She is not a coach. She too is often very feminine and soft.

Then, of course, there’s also other roles that we won’t go deep into like competitive game playing role. My husband and I play a lot of board games. Gaming Becca is a real shit show. She drinks too much, and she gets super competitive. One time she got into a screaming match with her husband’s 80-year-old grandfather on the first time they ever met. But listen, Grandpa was yelling first, and he’s an aggressive game player too.

So these roles that we hold are important to us. We don’t want to mute or manipulate these roles to please other people. These roles are for us to continue to evolve and to love within ourselves, but we can intentionally decide how we want to show up. As we grow more comfortable with ourselves, we can express these roles in more authentic ways. If we mix them up and we use them at times that they’re not called for, it’s problematic.

Could you imagine if CEO Becca showed up to be a wife? Think about it. CEO Becca removes emotions. She is more masculine. My husband didn’t sign up for a delegating work horse wife. I would hate to be that all the time anyways. Also, can you imagine if I showed up to work in my wife role? Letting someone else lead, choosing not to make decisions, working from emotion always.

None of our roles are right or wrong. They all have a place. We choose roles on the daily without even realizing it by dressing certain ways and speaking certain ways. This is just learning the ability to choose them even more intentionally and wisely.

So now you know what roles you have coming up for the rest of the week, it’s time to set the intentions. How do you want to show up for these roles? If you’re heading to a cookout after work, then you know that you need to transition from CEO to friend. You may take off your hat that analyzes and problem solves and is beelining to the answer, and you put on your hat that is helpful and lighthearted and non-judgmental and playful in nature, right?

Now something to remember. Switching roles without intention is just sliding. Sometimes sliding works and is fine if our environment is just right in aiding us into a good slide. Let’s say that you’re in work mode. You’ve had a hard time shutting it off. On Friday you pack up and you head to the lake with your family for a long weekend.

You may notice that it takes several hours, if not a full day, by the time you arrive until you really start to chill out, right. Maybe your phone’s out of service, and you’re feeling good. You start switching hats eventually. You just didn’t do it intentionally. You slid into it. The transition time could be like 12/15/24 hours. It just took you a whole day to relax into the weekend, and now you only have one day left.

So we slide into roles all the time as humans. But to be intentional about it will cut down on transition times significantly. Instead of taking a whole day to transition, what if you could take ten minutes to transition fully? As a CEO and a business owner, you know that time is money. There’s a lot of ways to learn how to transition. It has to feel right for you. So here’s a couple things I do when I’m transitioning roles.

Let’s say, for example, that I’m getting off work. It’s been a rough day filled with stress. I know I’m heading home soon where I will have kiddos waiting to see me, and a husband who does not deserve to be at the receiving end of my work stress, right? Sometimes it’s taking a quick walk, and it helps me transition. Like I’m just talking like 10 minutes. Sometimes it’s as simple as dropping into a new role.

When I say dropping in, what I mean is a simple mindset shift. A change of thoughts. For me, when I drop into something I can literally feel it click in. Like I am choosing it. It is a decision. I am choosing to dock work for the night. It will be there when I come back. I’m officially choosing my mom hat now. I can feel the change in my body.

Sometimes it’s a sentence or a chant. “I am a playful and present wife.” This is a sentence that I choose, and I run it through my head sometimes when I need the reminder. I’ve had this sentence in my pocket for years, and it has come to my rescue more than once.

Sometimes though it’s not a mindset shift but a physical shift like an outfit change. Listen, I don’t know what happens to me. But when I get home from work, and I take my bra off and I put on an oversized shirt, and I put my hair in a bun, I am a new woman. It is an instant change in hats. Ain’t nobody gonna get me to talk about my companies when I’m in my Myrtle Beach t-shirt from 2003.

Always guys have boundaries with yourself most importantly. We often think about having boundaries as cutting out toxic people or strong-arming negativity from others, but our boundaries with ourselves are some of the most important. I have boundaries with the way I talk to myself. I choose to only talk to myself the way that I would talk to one of my daughters.

I choose to believe that there is a little kid inside of me that is still making some of my decisions. She is sweet and she is scared, and she takes criticisms poorly. So the adult in me speaks to her the way adults should speak to children with patience and grace and a kind voice, even when they mess up.

I also have boundaries with myself in the sense of the roles that I play. I do not allow myself to change roles without my permission. CEO doesn’t get to come out at my kid’s soccer games. Mom doesn’t get to come out when I am intentionally being a wife. CEO doesn’t get to come out when I’m with my husband unless he wants her too. You know what I’m saying?

All in all, choosing your role and the boundaries that you have with them is a choice. It’s a decision. It’s not something that you just slide in and out of. It takes courage and self-trust. It can feel scary to put down a role and walk away from it. One of the best things you can do is trust yourself enough to fully remove a hat. This is one of the best gifts that you can give yourself. Taking a hat off and hanging it up for the day doesn’t mean that it’s all going to fall apart.

It takes time and practice to learn how to shut a role down fully, but it is possible. I have gotten so good at it that it is scary sometimes. Sometimes I get home from work, and I go all in on mom role. Like my work doesn’t exist at all. That if you ask me right then about work, I literally couldn’t make a sentence in my head. I couldn’t even like…It takes time to transition back into CEO role. Mom role has like zero interest in work. I physically have to pull work Becca back to the surface if it’s needed.

When I’m at work, my mom brain is off. When I’m in my office working guys, I do not have kids. That side of me just doesn’t exist unless there’s an emergency. Can you imagine how much you could get done if you could turn that part of your brain off, especially you moms. Especially you. You women. Imagine if you could turn that part of your brain off just while you’re sat down to work. You didn’t scroll. You didn’t think about kids. You didn’t try to do your to-do list, and you just hyper focused on your work. What could you do? It can take years of practice, but it starts with a choice.

Lastly, I want you to prioritize your hats by importance. What is number one for you? If all else fails, like at what level do the other hats become less important and why. If you’re a family person to your core and the whole reason that you work is to provide for your family. When you dream about the future, it revolves around your family. Then would it make sense for your work role to dominate your family role? Of course not. So don’t let it.

All right guys. Let’s do a quick recap. The highest performers in the world, they understand the importance of stepping into and out of roles intentionally. Their ability to dive deeply into their passions and then fully remove themselves again is the reason they’re able to make such a big splash in their productivity.

In order to begin getting a handle on your roles, you must first map out what roles you have. When they show up for you each day, you decide which person you want to be during that time. No roles are right or wrong. They’re all useful at all different times. They are tools. But learning how to transition effectively between roles and not trying to stand in more than one role at a time is important for overall mental health and productivity.

Have boundaries with yourself and trust yourself that you can take roles off of your plates. It will aid you in performing at a higher level. We leave work at the door, and we leave home at the door. Lastly, prioritize the importance of each hat. Why do you do what you do? Don’t get it twisted.

If you’re ready to continue to sharpen your ax, grow your business, and learn how to have a kickass life while doing it, then please hit subscribe or follow on this podcast now. Please give an honest rate and review. I read every single review. I want to see what you guys have to say. I want to make sure that you guys are benefiting from this podcast. I’m just a girl behind a microphone. I don’t know what you don’t tell me. So tell me if it’s working for you so that I can continue to provide fantastic material.

All right. That is it for me today. Thank you so much for joining me. I will see you next Wednesday right here on The Hell Yes Entrepreneur podcast. Cheers.

Hey, thanks for taking the time to listen to today’s episode. If you’re looking to get more clarity and momentum for your business, visit hellyescoachingonline.com. See you next week here on The Hell Yes Entrepreneur podcast.