A Conversation on Work, Life & Balance With Emma Green, Co-Founder of Your CEO Mentor

This conversation with part of a weekly interview series by Balance the Grind, where we talk to people from all walks of life about work, life and balance.

From CEOs to musicians, startup founders to freelance journalists, marketing managers to creative directors, we talk to everyone about how they balance the grind.

Emma Green is the Co-Founder of Your CEO Mentor, a content-driven business focused on improving the quality of leaders around the world.

She co-founded the company in 2016 as a side hustle, with her dad, CEO Martin Moore, whose wealth of leadership knowledge and experience guided her into building a career in marketing.

Balance the Grind spoke to Emma about her extensive marketing career, building the Your CEO Mentor business, a day in her life, blocking out time in her calendar to get work done and more.

1) To kick things off, could you tell us a little about your background and career?

I’ve had a pretty unconventional career path! At 19 I dropped out of university and moved to Sydney to pursue my dream of becoming an actress.

That was short lived once I realised that I would get rejected 99% of the time, and to be honest my ego couldn’t handle that!

I then hopscotched from events, to sales, to production and then finally I landed in marketing, where my last role was Client Director of an integrated marketing agency.

Working with clients such as Westpac, Toyota, Qantas, Contiki, and Bumble gave me incredible exposure to leaders of all levels across a variety of industries.

My experiences over the years led me to where I am now, which is running my own business!

2) What is your current role and what does it entail on a day to day basis?

I’m the co-founder of Your CEO Mentor; we create cut through content for leaders who want to be exceptional. I built this business with my dad, Martin Moore, a CEO with a passion for positively impacting the lives of leaders.

Our purpose is to improve the quality of leaders globally, and we do that through our chart-topping No Bullsh!t Leadership podcast, our 7-week online leadership program ‘Leadership Beyond the Theory’, and a range of bespoke consulting and keynote speaking engagements.

In a nutshell, I get all the practical, real-world experience out of Marty’s brain and turn it into content that is deceptively simple, but incredibly powerful, so that it can be consumed by leaders all over the world!

3) What does a typical day in the life look like for you? Can you take us through a recent workday?

I wake up at 5:30am and get an hour to myself before everyone wakes up! I use this time to exercise, plan the day and walk my dog.

Then when my stepdaughters get up it’s making breakfast, lunches and doing school drop off before I get back to my office at around 9am. From there, I do a quick catch up with Marty (we live in different states) and we talk through the daily and weekly deliverables.

The rest of the day could be anything:

• editing a podcast
• organising Marty’s keynote speaking logistics
• working with our Leadership Beyond the Theory students
• writing marketing comms
• designing proposals
• editing videos
• pitching and interviews with media
• posting and talking with our community on social media
• going to client meetings and development sessions

No two days are the same, but I like it that way!

4) Do you have any tips, tricks or shortcuts to help you prioritise your workload?

Batching. It’s a game changer!

Coming from a marketing agency background I got used to multi-tasking and working on five different projects in a day, but I found myself losing focus and not feeling as though I had ticked anything off my list by end of the day.

I heard about batching about 2 years ago and it has changed my life! At the start of each week, I look at the big tasks and the normal weekly tasks and then block out times to do them.

So this means if I’m batching on the podcast I block out 2 hours to do everything that needs to be done for that week, and that’s all I focus on.

My emails and phone are off, and I’m 100% focused on completing the task I’m batching.

Very rarely do I ever need to go back and touch that same piece of work again, which is an incredible time saver, and everything ends up getting done because it was in the calendar!

5) In between your job, life and all your other responsibilities, how do you ensure you find some sort of balance in your life?

It sounds a bit clinical, but I block out time for everything 1–2 weeks in advance.

My calendar looks scary but it makes everything relatively stress free. I diarise catching up with friends, calling my mum, spending time with each of my stepdaughters, date night with my husband, cleaning the house, doing the grocery shopping, etc.

Essentially this means that I don’t miss the important things, and then once they’re in the calendar I work everything else around that. If it means writing back to client emails at 9pm and scheduling them to send in the morning, then that works too!

Jocko Willink says ‘Discipline equals freedom’ and I couldn’t agree more.

6) What are some of the things you do to take time out and recharge?

Walking my dog every morning really energises me, so I never go a day without that.

Otherwise, I’m pretty simple — hanging out with my family tops the list, but I love cooking and listening to podcasts so it’s how I wind down at the end of the day. I also make sure I get a few snowboarding trips in each year.

Being in the mountains gives me a new energy and perspective.

7) What do you think are some of the best habits you’ve developed over the years to help you strive for success and balance?

It’s not really a habit, more a mindset. I don’t see things as being ‘failures’ or ‘successes’, I see them as ‘working’ or ‘not working’.

So if they work, I don’t go over the top with self-congratulations I think “Ok great that worked — why did it work, and how can I double down on that or improve it?”, and then if it doesn’t work I don’t go into self-loathing I just think “Well that didn’t work which sucks — why didn’t it work, and how can I make sure I don’t make that mistake again? What’s next?”

It means I can just keep moving forward, tweaking things, making agile decisions, and I’m not attached to the outcome.

8) Are there any books you’ve read that have helped you with work-life balance?

Not really! I grew up with a CEO as a dad, and he always communicated really well about the fact that there’s no such thing as ‘work-life balance’, it’s just ‘life’ and you have to figure out how to manage and prioritise the things you want to get done with the time you have.

I learned many years ago that I can’t possibly keep all the balls in the air at the same time, so I just don’t try to be everything to everyone. Excellence over perfection is one of my biggest life mantras!

So for example, sometimes I drop the ‘health’ ball, and once I realise that I say ‘Shit, my health sucks at the moment, I need to put more energy into that’, and then I do.

Or I’ll drop the ‘friends’ ball and I’ll go “Ok I haven’t spent time with my girlfriends in a while, I’ll organise a catch up”, and then I do. Just being conscious of which balls are in the air and which have dropped helps keep your energy balanced.

9) What is the number one thing you do to make sure you get the most out of your day?

Waking up early does wonders, so getting that head start on the world makes a big difference to my mindset.

I mentioned walking my dog which is kind of like my version of meditation, that’s a must do, but also spending time each morning with my family and being present, not on the phone half listening or half reading emails.

If I can get those three things done before 8am, the rest of the day will be fine!