From Busy to Strategic: The Real Job of an STR CEO

Kaye Putnam: Most CEOs are spending a ridiculous amount of time on the wrong things. According to Harvard Business Review, 30 to 50 percent of a CEO’s time is spent on low-value activities. What makes this even more challenging is that as your business grows, your priorities shift, and where you should be spending your time changes with it.

That’s what we’re talking about today. Eric, welcome back to Get Paid For Your Pad. As the CEO of Freewyld and Freewyld Foundry, how do you decide where to put your time?

Eric Moeller: It’s not an easy task. I understand why those numbers exist. When you’re growing a company, there’s so much to do and so many decisions to make. One of the biggest challenges I’ve noticed in myself is decision fatigue.

When you’re making decisions all day, every day, you eventually get exhausted. When that happens, you tend to default to the easiest thing in front of you, and those are usually not the most important things. That’s where a lot of CEOs get stuck.

Something I’ve really been implementing this year is allowing the little fires to burn. I used to get caught up in every moving part of the business. Now, I’m focusing on recognizing where my time has the biggest ROI.

At a certain level, CEOs have to start recognizing patterns in their business. You have to ask yourself where your time creates the most impact. Otherwise, it’s very easy to stay busy without actually moving the business forward.

Right now, my focus is recognizing the biggest opportunities and identifying the bottlenecks that are preventing us from maximizing those opportunities.

**Kaye Putnam:**That makes sense. Decision fatigue is the reason Steve Jobs famously wore the same outfit every day. What are some examples of low-value activities you catch yourself slipping into?

**Eric Moeller:**For me, it was things like emails, customer service, and small tasks. One big one was reacting emotionally when someone was unhappy, even if it was a small comment on a post or a minor email response.

That used to grab not just my attention, but my emotions. I would react immediately. Now, I’ve learned to distance myself from those small fires.

We’ve built a strong customer service team and systems that escalate real issues to me when needed. I’m no longer involved in the small things. I’m focusing on the activities that create the biggest ROI.

You can’t confuse action with momentum. You can be doing a lot of things and still not be moving the business forward. The question is where does the business need you to solve the biggest problems so momentum continues.

**Kaye Putnam:**What signals told you where to focus your time right now? What’s the big project?

**Eric Moeller:**One of the most important skills for a CEO today is pattern recognition. Honestly, it’s not just CEOs. Anyone in a high-level position needs to develop this skill.

You start noticing how one action leads to another, where opportunities form, and where challenges are likely to appear next.

Earlier this year, we were building out our marketing department. There was a lot to build from scratch, websites, social media, systems, teams. A few months in, things really took off. We cracked the code in Foundry.

Suddenly, we didn’t have a marketing problem anymore. We were flooding our sales team with qualified companies. That created a sales challenge.

So I stepped in to rebuild the sales department. Now, as we solve that, I can already see the next challenge forming. It’s going to be fulfillment.

Once sales improves, fulfillment gets overloaded. We need more revenue managers, more support staff, more systems. Then, once fulfillment is strong, we’ll need more qualified leads again. This is the cycle every growing company goes through.

**Kaye Putnam:**What I’m hearing is that you could try to fix marketing, sales, fulfillment, and AI all at once, but that creates a cost. Task switching slows everything down and makes progress feel impossible.

**Eric Moeller:**Exactly. Entrepreneurs want to build everything at once. In the beginning, you have to do some of that. But once you have traction, trying to attack everything at the same time creates a tax.

If you don’t have unlimited resources, you have to work within constraints. If the team tries to solve everything at once, the first thing that gets taxed is morale and excitement.

We had a lot of “good idea fairy” moments. New ideas kept coming up. We had to ask, is this urgent right now? Will implementing this disrupt what’s already working?

If marketing is working, we shouldn’t disrupt it just to chase faster results. We should focus on the biggest fire, which at the time was enrollment and sales.

That’s a heavy lift. It requires deep conversations, audits, and understanding who we can truly help. Once that’s solved, I already know the next bottleneck will be fulfillment.

The big takeaway is developing the ability to recognize patterns in your business and in life.

**Kaye Putnam:**You mentioned ego. It would be easy to say, “I’m the CEO, I’m not doing sales calls or stepping into operations.” How do you manage ego?

**Eric Moeller:**Jiu-jitsu. I’m serious. Anytime my ego pops up, I go get tapped out by someone half my size. It’s incredibly humbling.

More broadly, I put myself in situations that remind me how much I still have to learn. We’re just getting started. This is a long race.

When I feel resistance to doing something, I see it as an opportunity to create a system, train someone, or hire someone. If it needs to be done, it’s my responsibility to make sure it gets done.

Everything is in my title. Even things outside the business. We hired a personal assistant to handle household tasks that were consuming my time. Those tasks are necessary, but they’re not the best use of my time.

I ask myself what my hourly rate is and whether it makes sense for me to be doing that task. If not, I invest in someone else so I can focus on higher-ROI work, my health, my relationships, or rest.

I look at every task on my desk and ask if I’m the best person to do it. If not, how can I automate it or delegate it? AI has changed the game here.

**Kaye Putnam:**Who should be leading AI adoption inside a company?

**Eric Moeller:**The most successful companies implementing AI have CEOs leading the charge. Not necessarily building tools themselves, but recognizing where AI creates the biggest opportunity.

There’s too much noise and too many shiny objects. AI can’t be ignored anymore. Over the last 30 to 45 days, growth has been incredible.

Everyone needs to pay attention to this shift, regardless of industry. You either learn it yourself or hire someone and lead them. There are no true experts yet. Everyone is figuring it out.

AI needs to be part of daily operations, not a side experiment.

**Kaye Putnam:**Where are you most excited to use AI?

**Eric Moeller:**We’re building AI agents to enhance our team, not replace them. For example, helping revenue managers eliminate repeatable tasks so they can focus on reasoning and decision-making.

AI can process data faster, but humans still need to interpret it and make decisions. It’s similar to radiology. AI didn’t replace radiologists. It increased demand because humans are needed to make sense of the data.

These tools solve small fires so people can focus on what actually matters.

**Kaye Putnam:**Are there activities you think you’ll still be doing as a CEO five or ten years from now?

**Eric Moeller:**Routines. Morning routines especially. Every successful person I know has disciplined routines.

I start my day the same way every morning. I review priorities, revenue, bank accounts, customer service alerts, and then balance my day.

Leading the team is also constant. Getting on calls, listening, understanding what’s happening on the ground, and shifting resources to solve problems.

Discipline, routines, and leadership don’t change, even as tools do.

**Kaye Putnam:**We live in a world that constantly pulls us away from presence and focus. That’s a powerful place to end. Thank you for sharing.

**Eric Moeller:**Thank you. This was fun.