If you’ve been feeling scattered in your business, even though you’re doing “all the right things,” this episode might help you see what’s actually happening.

As solopreneurs, it’s easy to assume we have a productivity problem when things feel messy. We tell ourselves we need better discipline. Better focus. A better system.

But often, the issue isn’t effort.

It’s attention.

Attention is one of the most valuable resources in your business. And unlike time or money, it leaks quietly. It slips into over-optimizing. Into tweaking. Into refreshing metrics. Into second-guessing decisions that were already made.

And because those activities feel productive, we rarely question them.

In this episode of The Solopreneur CEO Podcast, Carin and Marcia unpack the hidden attention leaks that keep smart, capable solopreneurs stuck in operator mode.

This conversation isn’t about doing more.

It’s about deciding what actually deserves your focus.

Listen to the Episode

In this episode, Carin and Marcia explore how attention gets misallocated in subtle but costly ways. They talk about the trap of constant tweaking, the emotional spiral that can follow a lower-than-expected open rate or launch result, and why perfectionism often disguises itself as responsibility.

You’ll hear an honest reflection on the tension between emotion and data, why “cave time” can become avoidance, and how real conversations with other business owners often provide better clarity than another round of internal overthinking.

This episode builds on previous conversations about leadership and discernment by focusing on one of the most practical CEO skills: allocating your attention with precision.

Because at a certain level, growth isn’t about doing more work.

It’s about leading your focus.

What We Talk About In This Episode

• What an attention leak actually is and why it doesn’t feel like distraction.

• How over-optimizing and over-tweaking quietly stall progress.

• The emotional impact of metrics and unmet expectations.

• Why data should guide decisions once your business has traction.

• The difference between productive refinement and avoidance.

• How community and conversation provide better perspective than isolation.

• Why leadership requires precision in where you deploy time, energy, and focus.

Key Takeaways

• Attention is a finite leadership resource.

• Productive-looking work can still be misdirected.

• Emotion gets you started, but data should guide refinement.

• Perfectionism often masks fear.

• Conversations accelerate clarity more than isolation.

• Leadership at this stage is about discernment, not hustle.

Continue the Conversation

If this episode made you think about where your attention has been leaking, you’re invited to continue the conversation inside the Solopreneur CEO community.

It’s a thoughtful, low-noise space for solopreneurs who want support, perspective, and meaningful conversations about leading their businesses with clarity and intention.

🌿 Join us at thesolopreneurceo.com

Episode Transcript

Solopreneur CEO Show Episode 10: Below is the full transcript of this episode for those who prefer to read or want to revisit specific parts of the conversation.

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Carin:
Hello and welcome back to Solopreneur CEO. We hope you enjoyed last week's episode, I loved it so much. Marcia interviewed Elle of Elle Yeon Photography.

We are planning to do more of those types of interviews. It's a little play on like "How I Built This", by Guy Raz but we call it "How I Run This".

Because in this podcast we talk about how solopreneurs run their business and have a business that supports their life.

We're going to talk today about attention leaks.

There's so many things that are competing for your attention when you're a solo operator and the only real employee. You're the one person that is most definitely in your business doing the things, and there's a lot that you have to pay attention to. That's just the reality of it.

There are places where we've noticed that solopreneurs tend to have what we're calling attention leaks. If they tighten their focus a little they could put their time and energy into the places that really need them and reclaim some of that time and energy from places that they don't need to be paying attention to as much. Let's kick it off, Marcia.

Marcia:
This is always going to be a good and timely conversation because of exactly what you said, we're solopreneurs and we're working on our own. We can get in our own way by overthinking things and trying to make decisions that have already been made.

It’s funny because I don't want to contradict things that we say and do because one of our things is optimizing your offer. But that can be an energy leak too, where you're just constantly tinkering and trying to fine tune things that you're already doing.

Instead of looking at the high level things that need to be done, that's where the confusion and the mental hamster wheel comes in.

I had lunch earlier this week with someone who I want to be on our, "How I Run This" series.

This person that I want to have on has been in business for about a year, but she also has a different business.

The one business led to this newer business. She's still kind of in that hustle mode, you know, she's figuring things out and she is tweaking and I think that that's something anyone listening can relate to.

At some point in your business, you're throwing spaghetti at the wall. You're trying different things out. You're seeing what's in alignment with your energy and your focus and what you want to do. But then at some point you do realize like, okay, I need to stop doing that.

And I think we do it well, but then maybe you're in the cave working on a summit or launching something. Those little thoughts in your head start to spin around and say, okay, well you're no good at this, or you should be focusing on this or that. You don't really have to focus on the summit. You can work on your copy or you can do this, or whatever.

Those are the little side steps and the sabotages.

It was kind of illuminating to have that conversation with her where she's had the first family owned business where she's involved in everything and doing all of the business aspects, even though her husband's providing the service.

She is used to running things on her own and then she spun off on her business to create a marketing agency.

With that marketing agency, she can take what she learned from the family business, but it's a completely different role.

That's why I always encourage people to get out and talk with other people because it doesn't matter what you see on their social media or what you're reading in their newsletter. Having those real life conversations with your peers or with people who might be a little further down the road or a little behind you it's getting that perspective that we're all doing something similar and we're all having similar fears and thoughts and aspirations and all of that. So it's a great equalizer. Carin, land the ship!

Carin:
I love land the ship. That's the new one.

I'm saying that all the time now "land the ship".

I think you're right. It is important to be in community and conversation with other solopreneurs. And also outside of your industry.

I like that you mentioned she's in a different industry, but that can be really eye-opening to see how things work or what challenges people are having in a totally different industry from you. You can bring some of those best practices into your own business.

There is a level of testing and learning that is just always happening. Research and development. It's important. You are always going to be doing R&D.

You have to stay in the trenches with your customers. And to do that requires a level of not cave living, right?

You have to come out of the cave and you have to build a bit in public, which is not comfortable for most of us.

A lot of us are probably creatives and our offers are like our babies. And you don't want anyone to tell you your baby is ugly. And they're not going to say that.

But you might interpret that from a launch that flops or an offer that's not quite doing well or an email that didn't get as high an open rate.

The mind fuckery that happens when you put things out there and you don't get the response that you're hoping for is a level 1000.

Before we started recording Marcia and I were talking about my email. I had a super ice cold email list of people who had opted in over the years. Other things were pulling my attention and this wasn't my focus.

I decided 25 days ago I wanted to send daily emails Monday through Friday. My open rates, they've been varying. They hover probably around 20%. In my mind, I'm like, oh, best industry, number is 30 or 40. And I'm at 20, so obviously I suck, right? No one wants to read my emails. Why am I even doing this?

Those are my first thoughts. I'm like, is this a good use of my attention, my energy, my time?

Then I have to think about the people who have replied. I have gotten replies because I ask questions and people are like, oh, that's so cool or I hadn't thought about it that way.

One of my emails asked, what would you do with an extra 10 hours per week? Because I was curious. And people replied. I was like, this is kind of fascinating.

I have to bring that into my brain space of no, this is a good use of my time.

I'm building relationships. It's not for everyone. People are unsubscribing every time I send an email and that's fine. I say, thank you for making space for the ones who should be here. I appreciate you.

Reflecting even on that, I am putting energy and attention into a place (email) that I haven't before. And I am going through my own mental landmine of what it is to give energy to that, what result I thought I would get.

Maybe I magically thought 80% of people would open my emails after they haven't heard from me in two years. Maybe that was unrealistic, but it didn't seem like it at the time that I thought about it, you know?

But having people to talk that through with and having those conversations with other business owners is a hundred percent a good use of your time and energy and attention.

I would always prioritize anything related to building a relationship with other people over the cave tinkering, over analyzing, overthinking that happens because that is going to keep you in that mental hamster wheel. Versus getting out, being in the trenches, having conversations, engaging with people on social media.

It just gives you a different perspective and you need that when you're a solo operator, a solo CEO, because you will get stuck. You will, you will get stuck.

Those thoughts will keep telling you stuff that doesn't make sense, but you're going to be like, oh, I guess, yeah, you're right. I do suck. Why am I even doing this? Oh, this was a stupid offer. That was a dumb idea.

I could go on and on about this.

Marcia:
I feel like it doesn't matter what type of problem we're dealing with, people are always the answer. You know?

I mean, sometimes AI can give you some answers, but it's nothing that I don't know.

Whenever you're in the room with other people and you're hearing what they're going through, and it might not even be something that you're battling with, but it can unlock something from previous times, like issues that you might have had or problems that you might have had.

Having relationships with other business owners, that's definitely one of the things that's going to propel you forward in business.

So we started this conversation talking about leaks that we can have, right? And like fine tuning and nitpicking at things.

This wasn't business mentorship that I received, but it was from my older sister and it was when my kids were really young. She's like, Marcia, you gotta stop doing A+ work.

She's like, aim for B- or C+ work. And I was like, what?

I got C's all throughout school, you know, lots of issues with education. And I'm like, it doesn't make any sense.

She works in the STEM field so she's used to overachieving and doing everything perfectly. She recognized that in me with the kids, how I was trying to raise the kids and not screw them up too much.

And she's like, just do B- C+ work.

Up until that point, I hadn't realized that I was trying to achieve this certain level of perfection, but it was in everything. I just felt so physically tense and I felt uptight about everything.

When she said that, I was like, what does B- or C+ work even look like?

It was basically like maybe taking a breath, maybe walking with the kids and not thinking like, how can I maximize this time by going to the grocery store and grabbing some food and whatever.

When you're used to striving and you're used to achieving and bending things to your will, at some point you have to realize, that's not necessary anymore. You don't need to have such a tight grip on everything.

With your daily emails, that's part of being an entrepreneur. You kind of have to be delusional, right? Because if you're not optimistic, if you're not batshit crazy, you're not going to make it.

Because who can really go out and just allow themselves to be judged and seen, and picked apart in public. Building in public…you have to do that. Because there's no way to know if stuff is going to be successful or not.

Sure, you can do market research calls and you can have a million conversations with people. "Would you buy this? Would you not?" But those people are faking the conversation because they don't want to make you sad or mad or whatever.

The only way to know if you're going to get results is to do the damn thing, right?

And you're doing that with your emails and you feel exposed and you're like, where's my 80% open rate? Luckily we know the data. We know that it's like a 2% conversion rate, but you have to reach a certain number of people.

And based on your results you're actually beating that conversion rate.

I think you need to give stuff enough time to then look at the data.

And maybe not spend as much time on every single email. Then if you're not getting the results that you want, you're not like, F this, I'm throwing it all away.

You're putting forth effort. You're not bojangling everything. You're actually putting in time and attention and energy, but it's at a rate where if something flops, you're not like, UGH.

Because it's part of a bigger picture, right? I think right now it's just getting that data. You revisited this lead gen part of your business so right now, the focus isn't getting people to sign up it's figuring out what's actually connecting with the people.

Carin:
Yeah, that's so true. If you feel like your attention and your energy is all over the place and like you're not focused and oh my God, what should I do next? I don't even know what I'm even doing here. Look at your data.

Your data can help you focus your attention. Your data can tell you if it is the offer that tweaks need to be made to, or is it the landing page? Maybe the email subject lines need some attention to get a higher open rate.

I love that you brought this up because it's very emotional. We talked about this being your baby but looking at the data can help you pull the emotion out and just say, okay. The facts and figures say, this is where I should put my attention and focus.

That can be very helpful so you don't feel scattered or unsure about where to do a thing and get out of your cave. You're in the trenches and you're talking to people. That's also helpful data, the feedback that you're getting, the conversations you're having, the insights that you get from having those interactions. It could be as simple as interacting with comments on Instagram posts or threads.

What are people saying? What are people complaining about? What are people loving right now?

All of that is data that can help you so that you can focus. You have limited time and attention. That's just the reality. Time, attention and energy are very limited for everyone, but I think even more specifically for a solopreneurs because you have so many hats to wear.

You have so many things to think about, so many things that have to get done in your business, and you're the one-stop shop, so you have to have some precision with how you deploy your time, your energy and your focus.

You don't want to make your decisions on emotion as much as you want them to be based on data.

Emotion is what's going to drive you in the beginning. Because you're starting, you don't have data yet. But once you are in the trenches and your business is successful, data needs to be the thing that leads your decision making and where you're putting your focus.

That's like the top takeaway: data, data, data, data.