Ep. 214: Why Working Harder Isn’t the Answer—and What to Do Instead with Donna Dube

“I was working way more than I should have been—and it was my husband who sat me down and said, ‘This family is going to break if you don’t make a change.’”

For Donna Dube, a former ICU nurse turned business operations expert, that moment was a wake-up call. In this episode, Donna shares how she transformed her life by setting boundaries, leveraging time management strategies, and focusing on what she calls “CEO-level work.”

Her insights can help you escape the busywork trap and build a business that works for you, not the other way around.

We Also Talked About:

• The wake-up call that helped Donna reclaim her time and set boundaries.
• How to use a time audit to uncover inefficiencies and regain control of your schedule.
• Breaking tasks into “maintenance” vs. “growth” categories to maximize ROI.
• How fractional support roles like a Director of Operations can help entrepreneurs grow.
• The importance of identifying your hourly rate and delegating low-value tasks.
• Using tools like AI to simplify workflows and boost productivity.
• Why Donna loves “Atomic Habits” and “Traction” for transforming your business and life.

Want to be notified when new episodes come up? Sign up to my newsletter here.

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

• Download Donna’s free CEO Power Hour Playbook at  https://ceoamplify.ca/ceo-power-hour
• Explore Donna’s other services at ceoamplify.ca
• Books: 
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Traction by Gino Wickman 

Want regular access to tips, techniques, and advice from experts about growing your business? Sign up here.

_____________

Trudy Rankin is the host of the Online Business Launchpad Podcast, Director of West Island Digital and the founder of the Online Business Lift-Off program.

Affiliate Disclaimer: If you click on links on this page and then make a purchase, I may earn a commission (at no extra cost to you).  I am a proud affiliate of these resources because I use them in my own life and business.

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

• Download Donna’s free CEO Power Hour Playbook at  https://ceoamplify.ca/ceo-power-hour
• Explore Donna’s other services at ceoamplify.ca
• Books: 
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Traction by Gino Wickman 

TRANSCRIPT

Episode 214: Why Working Harder Isn’t the Answer—and What to Do Instead with Donna Dube

Trudy Rankin: [00:00:00] Have you ever felt like you’re buried in busy work while the big ideas and the fun projects sit on the back burner? Well, you’re not alone. Myself included, many, many entrepreneurs get caught up in the day to day and they miss out on the tasks that really move the needle. So what if there were a way to finally escape that trap so that you’re prioritizing the right tasks and doing it in such a way that it still leaves time for life outside of work?

Today I’m talking with Donna Dube, a former ICU nurse turned business operations expert. Donna saw so many entrepreneurs running themselves into burnout that she knew there had to be a better way, and in this episode she shares how she learned to set boundaries the hard way, and her own family intervened.

Donna really opens up about her journey from juggling endless client demands to reclaiming her time through time blocking, task delegation and prioritizing what she calls the CEO level work. You’ll hear [00:01:00] tips on avoiding busy work and the importance of tracking your time to focus on what truly matters.

Donna’s unique background, from life saving ICU work to helping business owners save their time, makes her a really invaluable resource, and her stories and strategies for avoiding burnout while staying productive are really packed with actionable steps. Learn Welcome to the Online Business Launchpad podcast.

I’m Trudy Rankin, and I bring you stories, tips, and advice from online entrepreneurs who have overcome small problems, who have overcome problems and challenges to get to success, because if they’ve done it, so can you. My mission is simple. I want to help you solve the challenges you face as an online business owner so that you can have more time and business, so that you can have more time and money for yourself and your family, and more choices in how you live your life.

[00:02:00] 

Trudy Rankin: Welcome to the Online Business Launchpad podcast. I’m your host Trudy Rankin. And today we have got Donna Dube with us and we’re going to be talking about leveraging something that is every entrepreneur’s greatest asset. And that’s not money. It is actually time. We have all got a finite amount of time.

And, we don’t want to be wasting it. We also want to be using it to the best effect that we can. So I asked Donna to come on to the podcast and we’re going to have a conversation around time. Thanks for being here, Donna. 

Donna Dube: Thank you, Trudy. I’m so happy to be here. 

Trudy Rankin: Let’s just get started by introducing you.

If you could just tell the listeners just a little bit more about yourself. Okay. Who you are, where you’re from, a bit about your background and then what you do to help people. 

Donna Dube: Yes. Thank you. So I’m in Canada, in Ontario, near Toronto, and I got into the online business space about five or six years ago.

I [00:03:00] actually had a career in nursing. I was an ICU nurse for a number of years. And so that’s a big switch, long story, but I came into the online space, actually helping people manage a project. So I was a project manager behind the scenes. And so I’ve come in and if it was a launch of a new product, or they wanted to write a book or, helping them get through that major project and making sure if they had team, that team was on board and everyone knew what they were supposed to be doing meeting budgets and timelines. And so while I really enjoyed that, I quickly found out that online business owners, many of them were drowning, meaning that on the outside, things looked good. Their social media looked good, their sale pages, everything looked good, but they were running themselves ragged, working way more than they needed to be.

Keep saying to themselves if I just get to this next level, then I can take a break. But we all know that break never comes. We keep going. And so this hustle culture was [00:04:00] built into a lot of the entrepreneurs. And unfortunately I had to see some of them go through burnout.

And that was really disheartening to me and not something that we want anyone to go through. And so from there, I moved a little bit more into operations and really helping that leader leverage three things. their time, their talent, and their tactics So that whatever amount of time they spent on their business, they were really getting that return on investment and, not doing what I like to call busywork.

Trudy Rankin: Yeah. Cause unfortunately that whole concept of busywork is a bit of a trap that we can easily get into because we think if we’re busy, we must be making progress. But in reality, some of the stuff that we’re working on, we all do it. I have to say, to confess, I do it, some of the stuff that I end up working on, it’s like how much did that move the needle?

Maybe not a lot. So I think that’s really very relevant. I’m interested that you said that you started Liftoff. Coming away from being an ICU nurse, and I’ve got nurses in my family, my side of the family, [00:05:00] so I know how hard they work coming out of that world and then moving into a world of entrepreneurship.

How quickly did you do that? How long did it take you to make that shift? 

Donna Dube: Yes, it wasn’t a quick shift. That’s the truth. And so what happened was when I left the nursing world, I had small children and was home with them, homeschooled them for a little while, and then it was a time when they were older.

They didn’t need me in the same way anymore. And so I was looking, okay, what do I want to do? And bedside nursing wasn’t really something I wanted to get back into and trying to figure that out really took some deep introspection, to be honest with you, because trying to figure out, okay, where are my skills and talents and how can I use that in a different way?

And so for me, it actually happened. I had a friend who was an online business owner, and she said, can you come and help me with this because you always seem to be able to plan and organize. And I said I don’t, I haven’t really done that before. Let’s give it a try.

And so that’s got my [00:06:00] foot in the door and to start with it. But it was a lot of, really looking back on myself and figuring out what are my skills and my talents, and how can I use those in different ways. to help other people, right? And so I am a planner, no doubt. You won’t find me going on vacation without, planning everything out.

I think sometimes that drives my family crazy, but that’s how we are, right? And so I do compliment those visionary leaders quite well, because for many of them, planning the details is not their strong suit. Coming up with the brilliant ideas. Now that’s where they’re strong, but then those nitty gritty pieces underneath, that’s not where they want to be spending their time, nor is that their zone of genius.

And so I can come alongside them and help with that piece and also be a bit of a sounding board, right? Because many visionary leaders, they got ideas coming faster than they can think sometimes and we can’t implement them all, right? And so if I get on a call [00:07:00] with my client, they’re like, oh, let’s do X, Y, and Z.

Great, those sound good, but we’re still doing these other three projects, let’s see those to completion and let’s add x and y in the next quarter and we’ll put it in idea parking lot for now and sometimes we do have to adjust and say, no, we’re going to drop that project and bring this other project in, but really just having that strategic partner, if you will, alongside to help do that reasoning has has really helped.

Trudy Rankin: Yeah, absolutely. And just, I’m just thinking because in my background back way back in the deep dark past, I was a project manager and I’m still a certified project manager, because I think it’s a skill that you absolutely have to have. Even if it’s, even if you’re not so much into the planning, there has to be some discipline around it, actually doing of things.

So I think that’s really important. I’m really curious. I want to ask you a couple of questions about the distinction that you’re making between project management, coming in and helping with, these projects, to [00:08:00] becoming more of a strategic partner, but you’ve called this sort of operational side of things.

Would you equate that with online business management? Is it like a, is it like an online CEO hat or COO hat? How would you describe what you do? 

Donna Dube: Yes, so what we call it is Director of Operations. Now that’s, a corporate term that we’ve moved into the online world, but it is similar to an online business manager, depending on the online business manager that you have, they may or may not be wanting to move into the strategic level.

And so some are happy staying at the management level. some are happy to move up and do some strategy as well. That’s one difference. The other area I see is that as a director of ops, I’m looking at your business holistically. So while I’m not the bookkeeper and not the accountant, I do join those monthly meetings with your bookkeeper.

So we can see where are we up? Where are we down? What do these numbers mean? And what are we doing on the backend to make a difference to these [00:09:00] numbers? So looking at your numbers, looking at your KPIs. along with the business owner is a big part of what I do as well. 

Trudy Rankin: So do you do this as a, like a fractional type of an approach where you work with multiple companies, but you don’t, it’s not it’s not like the company has to pay for a full blown full FTE or full time employee a thing.

Yeah.

I’m curious because I run that type of a, of an approach for my chief digital officer type side of my business. 

And one of the things that personally I’ve found, so I’m curious to know if you’ve managed to crack this challenge, is that, it. In terms of the number of people that I can work with at anyone’s time, it’s obviously limited to a specific number of people, especially if you’re going to go full bore, really do the work that needs to be done to help them to move their business forward.

How do you manage that time constraint? 

Donna Dube: Yes, good question. And you’re totally right. There is a cap on your capacity in terms of how many one on one fractional clients I can work with at [00:10:00] a time, right? I am very much into doing time blocking for my own calendar, and so I will block off certain times to work on certain clients businesses.

And so that helps me, stay focused and in the zone, and I’m not Switching tasks frequently and jumping from one client to another because that’s when I lose a lot of productivity. Let’s just put it that way. So that does help in terms of my calendar. My clients, I’m very clear with expectations.

So if they email me or send me a Slack message or something, they will get a response, but it’s not going to be instantaneous. And so setting up those clear boundaries and those expectations right from the get go has really helped our relationship. So they know what to expect. They know I’m not ignoring them, but at the moment, I’m involved in something else.

The other piece of that is I do have a lower cost membership where I work with a group for those clients who aren’t ready for that fractional piece yet, but can still use some of the framework and the pieces that I [00:11:00] can help them with and aren’t quite ready for that, that higher level yet.

So that sort of helps to bridge the gap. 

Trudy Rankin: Okay. No that’s really interesting. And I think that’s a really good way of moving into the main theme and thought of today’s episode, which is all about managing time. In terms of how you manage your time, you’ve obviously just explained a little bit about what you do.

Time blocking is really important. How did you, were you just naturally that way or did you have to go through a process of becoming in order to be somebody who’s able to manage their time very effectively so you can help as many people as possible? 

Donna Dube: Yes. No, I was not always that way. And thank you for asking.

It’s a journey that everyone goes on. And I try to take one step forward and become a little bit better each day. But certainly a lot of the frameworks, a lot of the tools I use, I had to develop myself. So just a little bit of a backstory when I was doing, project management, taking on different clients in that role, I really enjoyed what I was doing.

And [00:12:00] I was working way more than I should have been. But it was fun for me, I was enjoying it, and it was actually my family and friends saying, when are you going to have time to go for lunch for us? Mom, when are you going to come to my baseball game, right? Husband saying, Oh, you’re working again tonight.

And I listened a little bit to those, but to be honest with you, Trudy, I wasn’t taking action. I wasn’t making a change, right? And eventually my husband sat me down and said, listen, we need to make a change here. You need to make a change here or this family is going to break. Oh, that was a little harsh.

And honestly, it stung a bit because for me, I was happy, but I was not fulfilling my role as wife, as mother, et cetera. And so I really did have to take a step back and say, how can I continue to grow my business without being in it 24 seven? And what am I doing? That’s taking my time. Is it worth my return [00:13:00] on investment?

And if it is, Can I automate it? Can I delegate it? Can I set up a workflow? Can I batch? What can I do to be more efficient with what I need to keep? So that’s where a lot of this has stemmed from. 

Trudy Rankin: I think that’s a really important point is that a lot of times it takes a wake up call from something happening in our life or somebody in our life saying, oi, what do you think you’re doing? You’re ruining this relationship or whatever. And it’s, it is a little bit of a wake up call. So you’ve just quickly mentioned a few of the tactics. How about let’s just do a bit of a hypothetical situation here where we’ve got someone who’s a service based business owner older person, they, most of their time goes on one to one type services, and they need to free up their time to be able to start to bring in other ways of servicing or serving people.

So that they’re making at least the same or more income with it at the same or less time. How would you [00:14:00] approach that? 

Donna Dube: Yes, for sure. So I think there’s a few things we do here. One is we need to be able to set up clear goals for the next 90 days. So if actually, developing this new service or offer is a clear goal for the next 90 days, then we want to break it down to what are we actually going to cover each month. So what am I going to do in month one, month two, month three? And by doing that, we get a sense of how much time that’s going to take us. And it also helps us to see, I don’t have to swallow the whole thing all at once. I can break it down in this month. I just need to concentrate on what Maybe setting out the outline of my content or, my pricing or my messaging.

And then eventually I will get to what my actual video or my actual training or wherever that’s going. But each piece needs to be planned out beforehand so that we can take it one step at a time. And then once we know that, we know how much [00:15:00] time that’s going to take. Now we have to look at how the business owner is actually using their time daily and weekly.

And for me, the most effective way to do that is a time audit. And I know the listeners are going, no, time audit. I don’t want to do that. And I totally understand it’s not the most sexiest thing in business. And it’s not, the first thing you think of that you want to do, but honestly, the golden nuggets that we can get from you auditing your time for three days at a time is a lot. And so we get to actually see where you’re using your time and how we can do things with those. So once you’ve laid out all the activities that you did for three days, now we’ve got four different bucket buckets that we can put those in. So are you going to keep doing those things? Yes or no? To make that decision, we need to know if it’s giving us a return on investment.

So that usually takes a little digging into the data. So we decide what we’re actually keeping and what we’re going to let go [00:16:00] of. And then we decide if it’s something that we’re keeping and me as business owner has to continue to do it. right? So for example, let’s look at this podcast. Trudy needs to be here to do the podcast.

She can’t send someone from her team to be on the other side of the Zoom call, right? But there are pieces of this podcast that Trudy doesn’t have to do herself. So the booking in a calendar, we can use software tools to help with that. Editing the podcast afterwards, sending it out on social media, sending it out through emails, letting the guests know the podcast episode is live.

lots of those pieces don’t have to have the business owner in them. So breaking down, what pieces do I have to do in this process or this workflow? And what pieces can I automate or delegate? So what I’m keeping for myself, what I’m letting go of, and then what can I transfer to someone else? And that someone, we can think broad here.

That could be a real person, or that could be a [00:17:00] software tool that we’re automating. Because really, when we’re automating, we’re really delegating that to a computer instead of a person, right? And I know there’s always concern, oh, I can’t delegate or I don’t want to automate my whole business. I’ll lose that human touch.

And that’s not what we’re doing. We’re just looking at little pieces of the process and saying, what can we automate to get that off my plate and make things run smoother? And then lastly, what do we want to delegate to a human? Because depending whether you have a team already or not, that may change.

You may have someone on your team who’s perfect for doing that task, and you just haven’t actually taken the time to think about it and then actually hand it over to them, right? 

Trudy Rankin: I think that’s really interesting. The whole do delegate. What is it? Delete. And there’s another one, you’ve mentioned it, that all 

Donna Dube: Decide.

Yes. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah. What are you going to just let go of? And I you mentioned something a couple of times and I want to come back to it because I don’t think that people think about this enough and [00:18:00] that’s that whole concept of return on investment. And we usually think about return on investment in terms of money that we’re getting in.

And, but I think that there’s a time in every business where the ROI actually has to come back to return on invested time. 

So what is it that you want to get out of the time that you’re spending? Can you talk a little bit about your thinking process when you’re working with clients about how to come up with answers around the ROI or the return on investment side of things?

Donna Dube: Yes, for sure. So I like to think of all the tasks that happen in your business, they can go into buckets, maintenance and growth. So maintenance are those things that have to happen on a regular cadence. But I questioned, do they have to happen by you as the business owner? So things like your bookkeeping, your invoicing, changing wording or pictures on a landing page, setting up emails and your email service provider.

Those things we want to happen on a regular cadence. but not necessarily [00:19:00] are they directly tied to revenue. On the other side, the growth level tasks, that’s where you as business leader want to be spending most of your time. So those things are things like networking, sales calls, if that’s what you do in your business, sales to one, sales to many, JV partnerships, teaching in front of other people’s audiences, getting in front of other masterminds, doing webinars, creating a new offer with new content.

Those are things that are higher level tasks that you as business owner have to do. You can’t be delegating or automating a lot of those things. And so that’s where we want you as CEO to be spending the most of your time. So when we think about those two buckets, and then we look at the time audit. Okay, yep, that Canva image had to be changed and that landing page had to be changed, but that was not a growth level task.

So you as business owner maybe spent an hour and a half doing that, but you have Suzy Q over here on your [00:20:00] team who could do that for you at a much lower rate. And I remember Trudy working with a client once and this was hard for her to get because she was a very creative lady and really enjoyed doing those things, making me images and fiddling with her website and that type of thing. And so I actually brought it down to money for her. So I said, okay, what’s your hourly rate as business owner? It’s X amount. Okay. So for that, those three hours you spent this week doing these maintenance level tasks, we spent your hourly rate times three.

Now, we didn’t actually pay you that, but we think about that in terms of our business. We already have Sally on our team who can do that at a much lower rate. And she has capacity to do that at a much lower rate. So while you enjoy doing it, you missed out on doing some growth level tasks because you were, spent your time on the maintenance tasks.

We’ve got a team member over here ready and willing to do it at a lower rate. So when [00:21:00] I pointed it out to her in terms of, the objective data in terms of what it’s costing, that made a lot more sense to her and she said, okay. I’m going to now just, play with that, play with my art, play with this and that outside of my business and try and delegate these things the best I can.

Trudy Rankin: I think that’s a really good example because a lot of the times we stick with the stuff that we know how to do because we’re in our comfort zone, but it might not be the most effective use of our time. And I’m as guilty as anybody for, doing those things. You just have to be aware. I want to come back to something that you also mentioned.

And that is you talked about your hourly rate. Now, I’ve spoken with people who do know what their hourly rate is. And I’ve spoken with people who’ve gone, what’s an hourly rate? Can you just explain to our listeners who might not know? What an hourly rate is and how will you figure it out? 

Donna Dube: Yeah, so I think there’s a couple ways we can look at this.

I like to look at it from the sense that as business owner, [00:22:00] yes, you want to help people, you want to serve people, but at the end of the day, you want to bring in revenue, you want to make profit. And you want to use some of that profit to pay yourself because you have bills, your family have needs, right?

You might want to invest whatever things you want to do for your own life. And so while you’re running a business, you still have to be bringing in money to support yourself and your family. And so we want to make sure that we’ve looked at what are my personal expenses that I’m responsible for? How much is that going to be annually? Now, yes, we have to take a little bit of a guess, but it doesn’t take long to go through your bills and figure out what that is, approximately. And then, depending on your, how much revenue you’re bringing in, you’re going to at least two times that to look at what you need for revenue. As an example, let’s say I figure out I need to bring in 50, 000 to be able to feed my family and do the things I want to do in my life.

So I’m going to be looking for a [00:23:00] revenue of at least 100, 000 because by the time I pay my taxes, pay my small team, I pay my operating expenses, what’s left over, right? And I think many business owners are not looking at it that way. What they’re doing instead is, Picking a number out of the sky, picking a number that sounds good.

What maybe their business friend is doing. I’m going to make this much this year, but there’s no objective data behind that. And so I really like to reverse engineer it and take it back and say, what do I need to make to be able to live the lifestyle I want, and then go forward from there and say, okay, so that means I need to make a revenue amount of X amount and then take it a step further and figure out how am I going to get there because it’s all fine for me to say, Oh, I’m going to make 200, 000 this year and stop.

That’s like me saying I’m going to drive somewhere and not use my. my GPS to get there, right? I have [00:24:00] no roadmap, I have no plan for how I’m going to make that income. And so really setting up those foundations I think makes a huge difference when we’re starting to see where we want to go. I want to make X amount, so much is going to come to me as my family, so much to the government, etc.

And I’m going to sell these services, products, programs, to be able to make that revenue. It’s not so I’m going to make my revenue and then whatever I have left over, maybe I’ll pay myself.

Trudy Rankin: So coming back to the concept of hourly rate, you take your expenses and what you need to earn for a particular year and then break it down by number of hours that you work during the year. Cause, cause not everybody works full time, so people work part time on their business. And so it’s that breaking it down.

So per hour, how much can you reasonably expect to be bringing in? And I like that. I like that because you can take that number and go yeah, I want to be playing on Canva. As your example said, I want to be playing on Canva. Yeah. But [00:25:00] this is my hourly rate, and I could be paying something at least half that in order to be able to get the task done.

Yeah, I think that’s an important concept, a very important concept. I want to come back to something that We didn’t really touch on so much as, it’s tangential, but it’s relevantly tangential to what we were talking about when we were talking about spending time on tasks, figuring out what needs, what kind of tasks are gonna move the needle, and what you should be focusing on.

Can you just talk a little bit about your experiences to date? with using AI as an assistant to your business and in ways that might save time. 

Donna Dube: Yes, for sure. And listen, I’ll just say up front, I’m not an expert in AI by any means, but I do think it’s a useful tool and I like to approach it this way.

Back in my day when I was younger, we had bank tellers, anytime you want to do anything at the bank, you had to go to the teller. And [00:26:00] then they said, Oh, we’re going to bring in the ATMs, the bank machines. Oh, people are going to lose jobs. We won’t have, we’re going to, our bank accounts won’t be right and et cetera, et cetera.

And now we’re just used to bank machines. as part of our daily life. And I think we’re going to get there with AI as well. But right now it’s the learning curve. We’re all trying to figure out where is this going and how can I use it? But I think as a business owner, it can be very useful to get you started.

And so think about those times when you’re like, Oh, I want to write. a sales email, or I want to write a nurture email, or I want to write a social media post, and you’re sitting there, and the cursor is blinking in front of you, and nothing’s coming, and then your phone dings, so you pick that up, and you look at that, and you scroll a little bit, and you get up, you get a glass of water, and you come back, and it’s still blinking at you, and there’s no, words written on the page.

And so I find AI really helps with that because I can prompt it. Yes, takes me a [00:27:00] little time to get that prompt right, but I can prompt it with what I’m looking for, and it gets me started. Do I think it’s going to replace everything I write? No, I don’t think so, because I believe that my human touch is a piece of that.

I believe that people who are listening and want to buy from me want to know something about me as a person, and so I like to be able to put my stories in there, put my little anecdotes in there, and so for me, it starts me off, and then I can take it and edit it and make it mine, but certainly helps when I’m sitting there looking at the blank cursor going, What now?

And so for me, I find it really helps in the marketing space because that’s not my strong suit. Looking at a spreadsheet, making a project plan, being in a project management tool, I don’t need ChatGPT for that. But the marketing side, ooh, I struggle a little bit with that. And so same for business owners.

Look at the part that you’re like, Oh, this part gets me every week. And what can I use ChatGPT to [00:28:00] help me get started? 

Trudy Rankin: I think that’s a really smart way of looking at it and focusing on it is certainly… AI is something that I’m interested in because I enjoy the technology side of things, but also it’s because my schedule is so crazy busy that I’m always looking for ways of trying to pare back

tasks, or do them more smartly or more efficiently and effectively. And it’s been interesting to find out what ChatGPT, because I use ChatGPT, there’s others, but what it can do to actually help you. So I’m just curious for you specifically in your business, you’ve talked about how you, it’s helpful in terms of the marketing side of things.

I’m putting you on the spot. What was the last prompt that you put into ChatGPT? 

Donna Dube: Ah, interesting. Yes. Okay. So the last one was actually for a LinkedIn post. And so I wanted to make a LinkedIn post about setting goals. And so I had a few ideas of what I wanted, but the sentences just weren’t coming together.

And so I told it that, I’m a business operations expert. I work with [00:29:00] small business owners. And I want to do a LinkedIn post about goals. And here’s a few things that I wanted it to mention. And sometimes what it spits back, I’m like, no, that’s not really right. And so I’ll go in and then correct, update my prompt and say, okay, I want it more on this angle or more with this tone.

So I don’t necessarily think that it’s wrong. I feel that it’s more about me giving it the right information.

Trudy Rankin: And it’s if you were working with a human, you would have to give them all that background information anyway, in order for them to be able to do their job. And it’s no different with AI to, to do something that, that’s useful and usable.

That’s really interesting. I find it’s interesting finding out how people are using AI. Because I’m always picking up sort of tips and techniques and things like that. 

Donna Dube: And non-business related, the last time I used it, was to actually help with recipe.

So I, I had a day where I wanted to make something, I didn’t have the things I needed. And so I did a quick look in the cupboard of what I had, and I went to ChatGPT and said, okay, I have this, and this. What can I make? [00:30:00] And so that was helpful to get, out of a pinch in a tight spot.

Trudy Rankin: That’s fascinating. I hadn’t thought about you using it like that. Because, I hadn’t even thought about using it for recipes, but it is interesting. I found talking to people and myself, we were moving away from search in the old way of doing search. You go in and say, you put in a search query. And I find I’m moving more towards the, Hey, ChatGPT, here’s the situation.

What could I do? And it summarizes everything for you. It’s not like you’d spend hours doing that on search, sieving through information, trying to figure stuff out. Whereas with this, it pulls it all together into a tight summary that you can look at and go, Oh, that wasn’t quite what I meant. Or yeah, wow, I hadn’t even thought about that.

I could do that. And it’s just really useful. The last time I used. I think the idea behind ChatGPT was to create a description for a actually, it was a description for a YouTube video. But in doing some of the research for that video and stuff just, [00:31:00] you, ChatGPT went out and found Three top YouTubers in a specific niche that I’d never heard of before and I didn’t know anything about them And so I was able to go immediately go and actually check them out Make sure that they were real and that doing 

the things that ChatGPT said they were doing. It’s just it was incredible.

The time saved is just amazing. It’s really interesting. 

Donna Dube: Yes, and I was just talking to someone today actually who said They were using it for keyword research and I thought oh, that’s pretty cool Brilliant. So instead of going, to these keyword search tools, they were going in there, explaining a little bit about their business, and then having ChatGPT give them a bunch of keywords.

And I thought, I’m going to try that. So yes, it’s interesting how many different ways we can use it. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s also interesting that it doesn’t take away the need for SEO. You still need to do good SEO. You still need to create original content. So that, that they can be found, but it’s just a [00:32:00] different way of thinking about how you search, which is fascinating. Fascinating. 

Donna Dube: Yes. 

Trudy Rankin: So have you, just out of curiosity, have you done your learning about AI just ad hoc and as you’ve needed it, or have you taken a course, or have you read a book? How have you learned about how to use AI? 

Donna Dube: No, not at all. So yes, just ad hoc and just listening and learning and trying.

Yes. No, I have not taken any sort of official course or anything like that. 

Trudy Rankin: Okay. No I think it’s interesting because there’s obviously there’s in this explosion of everybody’s now an AI expert and, you, they can teach you how to do stuff. Some people are, and some people really aren’t.

So it’s a bit hard to wade through the stuff. So one more quick question before we, Things to a close. As you’ve made your, as you’ve gone through your journey of moving through from ICU nurse to project manager to somebody who’s a, basically in their director of operations and really taking control and charge of making things happen inside a business.

What would be the, and if you were thinking [00:33:00] and you were talking to somebody who was not as far along that journey as you, what would be the top one or two books or podcasts or whatever resources that you’ve used to help you make that journey? 

Donna Dube: Yeah, good question. So I have really enjoyed the book Atomic Habits by James Clear.

Interesting that I read that book long before I was a business owner. And then again, when I was a business owner, I went back to revisit it and you see it in a total different light, but there are so many good nuggets. for our life and for our business. So that one I highly recommend. The other one being on the operator side is I really enjoy Traction.

So really looking, it’s based on the EOS operating system. And so that sort of, me nerding out in my space, right? 

Trudy Rankin: Actually, it’s interesting that you mentioned that. Gino Wickman was the one who wrote Traction. And he came up with this entrepreneurial operating system that, that I actually use in a cut down version for my business, [00:34:00] and I used it full blown when I was running a big program for the Australian federal government and it is a useful tool, because it makes you just crunch right down to crystallize what matters the most.

And do you have the right people in the right seats? Are you doing what you’re best at? Or should you be having somebody come in as a director of operations and you be the ideator, somebody else comes in and does the doing. And I know a lot of people think yeah, that’s me, but I can’t afford to pay somebody for a director of operations type role.

And that’s where I think the whole fractional approach to getting some help can really make a difference because you might get somebody in for just a very small number of hours. A month. And they can make a world of difference to your business. So I think that’s really fascinating. Donna, it’s been really good talking with you.

If people were interested in finding out more about you, or they wanted maybe to talk to you about getting some help, where would they go? 

Donna Dube: Yeah. So my [00:35:00] website is ceoamplify.ca. And so they can go there, find out some more about me. And on there is also a free PDF they can download called the CEO Power Hour Playbook, which is really just a one hour date with yourself as a business leader to be reviewing, reflecting, and setting your priorities each week.

So that will help you walk through what I do in this power hour. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah, but it comes back to that whole thing that you said, you’ve got to sit down and plan. If you want to actually take your business to the next level, you have to plan. And if you don’t have a lot of time to do it in, the planning is even more important because it helps you manage your time so you don’t waste it.

Donna Dube: Yes. 

Trudy Rankin: Donna, that’s been really great talking with you. I’ll put those links in the show notes. And just thank you so much for being on the podcast. 

Donna Dube: Yes. Thank you. I enjoyed our conversation. 

Trudy Rankin: Thanks for listening today. I hope Donna’s insights sparked a few ideas for you on how to shift from busy to truly productive work. Her story about her family calling for a timeout was a really great [00:36:00] reminder of why we need to set boundaries and use our time wisely. And if you enjoyed today’s episode, remember to subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already and leave me a review.

Your feedback helps me keep bringing in guests who share the tips and stories that will make a difference for you. Thanks for joining me and I’ll catch you in the next episode.