Do you ever wonder what CEOs do all day? To better understand what that means in practical terms, we interviewed CEOs behind successful ventures. Industry Leaders spoke to Dalia Lasaite, CEO and co-Founder of CGTrader, the world’s leading provider of 3D content, to learn how she balances the grind.
Since joining the company in 2015, Dalia has been instrumental in growing both business lines – the B2C Marketplace and B2B Arsenal – the professional 3D designer and user community, which now tops 5 million.
How does she do it? How does Dalia weave her work into her life goal? Read on to learn what a typical day in the life of a CEO and a successful female founder looks like.
Dalia’s Morning Routine
- Wake up at 6, go for a quick run, stop to grab a coffee and head home as my family is waking up.
- Go through morning routine with my toddler as she requires a lot of attention so I try to spend some time with her at the start of the day.
- Working from home has been beneficial for me to be a more present mother.
- Work typically starts at 9 when I head upstairs into my home office.
A Typical Workday
- Review emails and slack messages.
- I don’t schedule meetings in the morning to have focus time unless it’s an emergency or urgent issue.
- Meetings in the afternoons due to global staff (U.S. and EU).
- Spend some time with kids on quick breaks while working from home that gives me a good boost of energy.
- No screens from 7-8 p.m. at home – spend quality family time and go through bedtime routine with my toddler.
- Working pre-covid always had me in the office doing long hours.
- Pre-covid with a newborn, I was going from home to office, back to home mid-day and back to office to tend to a feeding schedule.
- The best part of the pandemic has shown me that we can be remote first and allowing me more time to be a mom and spend quality time with my family.
- Being remote first has allowed us to hire the best talent for our roles, no matter where they are in the world and creating a better balance in fairness as everyone can be remote, not just the ones who aren’t close to an office.
Managing Emails
- I manage to a zero inbox.
- Send emails to myself with different tasks and reminders.
- Folders and trying to organize emails into them did not work for me, there were just more emails going unanswered in different folders.
- I also use the snooze function quite a lot and follow up in a few days.
- I don’t use push notifications for emails, most emails are external (slack for internal).
- I do use email when on vacation or traveling but the snooze function is the most helpful during these times to be able to remind myself and answer when I’m back in work mode.
One Thing That Grounds Her
- I make an annual list of the best things that happened in the year – family, work, joy, passions (in December to reflect).
- There are some questions around things that weren’t achieved, challenges that arose, reasons where ideas or plans pivoted and should I move forward into the next year.
- I try to be extremely honest with this list and add positive things that I actually loved and not supposed to love (as dictated by society).
- I read older lists sometimes and remember the memories and experiences and appreciate writing them down.
- I also love reading in my spare time – it’s a great way to release and escape reality and let go of current stresses.
On Leading By Example
- Data is really important and to look deeply at every problem so I always try to lead by asking for the evidence, the numbers, and how to come to a conclusion – taking the emotion out of it.
- Respectful to everyone and being empathetic – trying to understand the other person’s perspective.
- Understanding of speed and urgency and knowing that some conclusions take a bit longer.
Challenges
- Find and accelerate growth – finding new solutions to a growing business line, trying to predict the future.
- Having the right team in place to collaborate and work together and not having too many differing opinions and personalities that are clashing.
- For personal challenges – I’m trying to incorporate personal events into my life, currently. With work and family that’s taking up most of my time, it’s been hard to keep up with social events and friends and also including our toddler.
Ambition
- I’ve always thought that anything is possible.
- Both of my parents are entrepreneurs so I had this sense that I could do anything I wanted to and it’s all within reach.
- Shoot for the moon and do it early.
- I started working on my first startup during the evenings while working my first corporate job during the day.
- When you break out on your own – I realized that you reap what you sow, if you do a lot, most of the time, the return is worth it but if you don’t do anything, nothing will happen and won’t be handed to you on a platter.
- I think the biggest learning for me about ambition is that it’s a lot of hard work and you have to put in the work and effort with a small side of luck.
Decision-Making
- There’s no sense in making a popular decision, because it would’ve been made anyways, it’s logical and most people would’ve gotten there on their own.
- Leaders only have to make decisions that are unpopular ones – you just have to do it, swiftly and rip it off like a band-aid.
- I like clarity and data and usually come to a conclusion that way but always thinking about how quickly a decision can be reversed if it doesn’t pan out, no strict framework, take one scenario at a time.
Creating A Sense of Purpose at CGTrader
- The purpose always comes from the customer or our designer community, once someone sees how it helps our customers scale their business or how the designer community it making a living from our projects, you want to keep going knowing that it’s helping everyone, especially when it’s enabling someone’s livelihood.
- Endless possibilities for our customers to innovate their business.
On Decompressing
- Running, intense activities help me the most to decompress – using my focus and energy on physically intense activities is the best way to work through mental blocks and challenges and perhaps even find a solution.
- Traveling and holidays help sometimes too but you can’t do it all the time and when you have a problem or challenge, it travels with you so it’s not always the best solution.
