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In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about how to instill a sense of urgency in your business. In the startup world, the most successful CEOs tend to be the ones that maintain a sense of urgency in order in their business. They react quickly to market changes, develop new products all the time or add new features to existing ones. And having this sense of urgency is key to the success of their startup. In this week’s episode, Steli and Hiten talk about the meaning of a sense of urgency, how to react in times of crisis, what makes a CEO good at maintaining intensity at all times and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic. 00:45 Why this topic was chosen. 01:52 Why Steli knows how to act during a crisis. 02:35 What Steli does during a crisis. 03:22 What Steli struggles with. 04:05 What makes a CEO good at maintaining intensity at all times. 05:06 The meaning of a sense of urgency. 06:25 How to react in times of crisis. 06:55 Why the sales department is an area of most businesses with the most sense of urgency. 08:36 What a sense of urgency means to Steli.  3 Key Points: There’s a very different mindset and leadership style as a CEO during wartime versus during peacetime.A lot of companies are under some level of threat at the moment.I don’t think there's such a thing as a peacetime CEO. [0:00:00] Steli Efti: Hey everybody, this is Steli Efti. [0:00:02] Hiten Shah: And this is Hiten Shah and today on the Startup Chat we're going to talk about this idea of having a sense of urgency in your business and instilling it across your business. The definition of this is basically people in the organization, you as an organization, thinking of urgency of execution, urgency as like a sort of either a framework, a mantra, a way of being, that I think is necessary in business and it's something that I strive towards in my own companies. And there's usually no better time than like when there's a pandemic or a crisis to really think through how you can have a greater sense of urgency because you're kind of forced to at this time. But how can you do that more regularly in your company, in your business, and why is it important? It's kind of like, I think what we can unpack. [0:00:58] Steli Efti: I love it. I just had to think, what a weird statement that's totally normal to be like, "There's no better time to think about urgency than during a pandemic." And it's like, "Yeah, of course this is [inaudible 00:01:12]." [0:01:12] Hiten Shah: Sounds about right, right? [0:01:13] Steli Efti: There's an old business saying that, thy shall move fast during a pandemic. I get it. [0:01:20] Hiten Shah: Yeah. I mean, come on. Okay, go on. [0:01:28] Steli Efti: So I'll challenge this, because this episode is actually inspired by our last episode around being a wartime CEO, and I think I know how to act with urgency during crisis. I had been told that I'm particularly effective when things are tough and- [0:01:49] Hiten Shah: You know why, right? [0:01:50] Steli Efti: Tell me. [0:01:51] Hiten Shah: You're steady, that's why. [0:01:53] Steli Efti: That is true. [0:01:54] Hiten Shah: You're steady. That's it. You're just steady, and when you're steady and everyone else might not be steady or needs that steadiness, you're there. That's just who you are. And I think that that's different. Different in the sense of like, that would be you being able to be calm under pressure. That would be my read on it. [0:02:19] Steli Efti: Yeah. So, so there's some truth to that. I think there's also something to be said that during a crisis, I know how to make decisions under fire and had creed clarity and execute, not freeze when there's uncertainty,