Why Capable Founders Stall, and the Internal Bottleneck Behind It

Nate Grossman: I got off a growth clarity call recently with a consultant who helps e-commerce companies automate their operations. Solo operator and almost no revenue over the last 12 months. He came in asking about outreach. He wanted to know whether to pay one of those services that promised to fill your calendar. So I went and at what a buyer actually sees first. One profile said he served operations leaders at logistics companies.

Simone Henry: founder we work with hits the same wall. The that ⁓ built business, the personal control over every decision, ⁓ being person every answer runs through. It worked. It got to a real level of success. Then one day it stops working. And they can't out why. ⁓ Doing more of made them successful is suddenly making things worse. Here's what most of them never consider.

Nate Grossman: Another said e-commerce teams. A third offered AI training for real estate. Three different businesses depending on where you found them. was never the problem. A buyer doing five minutes of homework could not tell who he was for. And here is what was actually missing underneath that. His positioning lived in his head, not in a document. He had changed his ideal client twice, and the old profiles just sat there telling the old story.

Simone Henry: They keep looking at the market and the strategy when the barrier is internal. The same drive that got them here is now the thing holding them in place. And they don't even see that it's happening. guest today works on exactly that. Welcome the Growth Ceiling Podcast. ⁓ Today, Aaron Morrison, he is a performance coach and sales strategist who spends his time helping high performers.

Nate Grossman: There was no single place his message came from, and nothing that said when the client changes, every profile changes with it. His free discovery call had the same hole, no qualification step, so the calendar filled with friendly conversations instead of buyers. Until the message gets written down ⁓ used everywhere, every hour of outreach points buyers at profiles that contradict each other, and that's this week's growth ceiling.

Simone Henry: Clear the internal barriers that cap what they are capable of. The overthinking, the hesitation, the self-sabotage that shows up right when they reach for their next stage of growth. whole premise is that capability keeps expanding. ⁓ so does what becomes possible once you remove the barrier in the way. So today we're gonna get into what exact what actually lives. between a founder and their next stage of growth and how to take it apart. Welcome Erin. Welcome Nate. Hello.

Nate Grossman: All right, yes. Yeah. Thanks, Simone. ⁓ welcome, Aaron. Yeah. I think one thing that ⁓ I found interesting about Aaron ⁓ the question he says that started all of this for him, which is scale or bail. So he ⁓ he built a 20 year sales career and he kept ⁓ running into high performers who had hit a number installed, not because they lacked the skill, but because something internal

Aaron Morrison: Thanks for thanks for having me.

Simone Henry: ⁓ my.

Nate Grossman: was in the way. And that is what he does now Wyldfyre Dynamics, helping people clear those internal barriers that cat performance. All right. So Aaron, before we get into the work itself, let's can you tell the audience how you ended up doing this? What pulled you toward that internal side of performance instead of the usual sales tactics route?

Aaron Morrison: As you said, the ⁓ the inflection point that I had hit was what I called scale or bail, where I had to either grow the business, which I didn't really want to do, or I had to quit and start over somewhere else, which was And after spending several years stuck in that place, was going to get some training and take some get some ⁓ continuing to switch into a parallel kind of a career, so I thought. And it was ⁓ in midst of that training where I had the realization that the whole scale or bail dichotomy kind of choice that I had created for myself was fictitious. It was a false, it was ⁓ illusion that I could take the skills that I'd already acquired and use them in a different context. And the image in my mind was of all of us, right? Humanity collectively as high performance machines like Ferraris and Lamborghinis and sports cars.

Nate Grossman: Nice. ⁓

Aaron Morrison: And yet the thought bubble over our heads was, you know, four-door passenger sedans and minivans and you know, you know, things that just did not match that level of performance. And, you know, that that analogy to me the realization that we all have untapped potential inside of us that ⁓ not accessing simply because most people don't even know that it's there. They don't believe that that's possible for them. And so my

Nate Grossman: Okay.

Aaron Morrison: You you alluded to it before when you said or maybe it was Simone who said, you know, as the as our capabilities expand, the possibilities expand. And to me, that's a very exciting prospect because it means ⁓ there is unlimited growth. We can go as as far as we possibly can and still not reach the end of what's possible for us. And so that's ⁓ it it's the the potential that lights me up.

Nate Grossman: No. Nice. I love it. So we talk a lot on here about three main things. Visibility, viability, and value. You know, building a business that's visible to the right people in the right places at the right time. Building a business that is viable can stand on its own two legs, right? of course, ⁓ of those things together make a automatically make a business that's more valuable, but there's other things in there too. But I think what you're talking about here really hits to that viability layer of a business. It's not the marketing necessarily or the strategy, but you know, whether that day-to-day system, which includes the founder running, it can actually execute consistently. so I think that was a an interesting ⁓ an interesting angle, I think. So so most founders ⁓ assume that if they know what to do and they're motivated, then the execution follows, right? So it sounds like what you're telling what you're telling us is that. is not necessarily how it works. So where does that assumption break down?

Aaron Morrison: Well d Part of it ties into the viability, part of it ties into the visibility. And the visibility aspect of it is I think what we're we're talking about right now, which is the founder has to be willing to do the actions, right? And there has to be no unconscious resistance to doing the actions, because if there are unconscious fears, then the founder will not do the things that they need to do. They will avoid, they will distract, they will get brain fog at the moment of execution. And they'll choose to do the easy, non-threatening things and avoid the difficult, uncomfortable things. a lot of times the one of the big challenges I see is the lack of visibility or the lack of willingness to be visible in the marketplace because of whatever the unconscious fear is. And usually it's some fear of rejection, fear of criticism, which would mean I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy, I don't deserve. a lot of times something that comes up, especially if there's been some tumultuous of un uncertainty and lack of consistency in childhood where like they don't know when ⁓ it's gonna pop and you know something's gonna go down. And so there's a lack of safety. I'm not safe. And that shows up a lot. And so if somebody feels inherently unsafe and they're hypervigilant. They're not going to go out there and expose themselves to the marketplace and risk that rejection. And it it's the way that I see it manifest is when someone makes an unconscious decision, right? Because limiting belief is just a decision that somebody made about an event, right? So when they make an unconscious decision about that thing, it they can consciously know that it's not true. Right. Because I'll ask somebody, is it true or not? And they'll say no. I know, I know that it's not true, yet there's still that unconscious emotional charge associated with that thing. ⁓ they'll do is their unconscious mind, in order to protect them, will prevent them from getting into situations that could prove that thing true. So they would rather live in the uncomfortable not knowing than they would in the even less comfortable certainty that, yeah, I proved that thing true. When really it's it's not true or not tr un it's not true or false, it's whatever's true for them. They make it true by choosing to believe it. And so we can talk about the beliefs that we choose that are useful and not useful, but hopefully that answered your question.

Nate Grossman: Mm. Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, it's it's the ⁓ you know, was it ⁓ the ⁓ was it Heisenberg's cat? Is that Schrdinger's cat, yeah, not Heisenberg. ⁓ the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. But it's Sh Schrdinger's cat, right? That's like we we're we're leaving the lid closed and we're not ever finding out one way or another, I guess. That's interesting. ⁓ okay, so when a high performer hesitates or overthinks,

Aaron Morrison: Schrodinger's cat. Right. Yes, exactly.

Nate Grossman: kind of what you're just started, you know, y what you were touching on there. Usually the advice is, ⁓ you gotta push through it, you know, you gotta have or you gotta have more discipline. So why why do you think that that advice or does that advise tend to make things worse?

Aaron Morrison: think that advice is valid for different people at different stages. ⁓ ⁓ when there is ⁓ issue, when there is some resistance or something that's not working, we really need to interrogate it from a number of different angles and perspectives to determine, you know, what's really going on here, what's operating below the surface. And it's a ⁓ an unconscious fear, sometimes it's a they've got everything they need. There's really nothing in the way, they just need to do the darn thing. You know, so sometimes the David Goggins style advice or the Alex Hormozy style advice is what what they need. You know, they just need a little kick in the pants to get ⁓ going, light a little fire. and sometimes it's an unconscious program that's operating. But we really don't know until we get into it and start asking questions. So it could be useful.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So some of that advice just that some of that advice just might break on the on that internal wall, right? Like it isn't doesn't matter. Yeah.

Aaron Morrison: Yeah, it's it's a lot of that

Simone Henry: this very ⁓ interesting sorry I I found this very interesting ⁓ because we're talking about high performers we're talking about people who have who have achieved a certain level of success is it so seems me like they don't they don't truly have a ⁓ they don't have a problem ⁓ acting or on what they know what they know to do Is it that that they tend to hit an upper limit of of some sort where they feel like, Okay, I've I've achieved I've achieved a lot and I'm afraid to go even further? Like what's what's going on there?

Nate Grossman: Yeah, is it is it the matter of like in most cases these people have already achieved cer certain level of success and that is, you know, what proves that they're a high performer, or is it like some high performers may not yet be there? You what I mean? Like they haven't because they have all these barriers.

Aaron Morrison: So part of what you're talking about, I think, is we we we want to interrogate what is their internal financial set point, or what is their internal success thermometer saying. it varies from individual to individual, according to you know what their expectations are, what their standards are, what they feel they deserve. And so we to investigate what is their internal financial set point. And also we want to take a look at what is it that drove them to get to where they are. what I find a lot of times is for highly successful, very driven individuals, a lot of times, it's that they want to get away from some negative circumstance so strongly that it blasts them through whatever the obstacles were that were in the way. The problem with that is, right? It that's what we would call away from motivation. As opposed to towards motivation, when it begins with away from motivation, the issue is that is pushing energy, right? They're pushing off, pushing away from that thing. And just like if we were to get down on the floor and do a push-up, we can push as hard as we we want. And I've seen people push themselves several feet in the air. The problem is push motivation always has a ceiling to it. It always has a limitation. And what happens is when somebody is oriented away from that thing that they don't want. Once they get far enough away, it actually becomes the tether that holds them back. Because while they're fixated on what they don't want, once they put enough distance between themselves and whatever that is, then motivation ceases to be sufficiently motivating. So what we need to do is we need to orient them toward what they want, right? Away from can be useful, but it's limited. We want to use it in conjunction with toward motivation. So

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Aaron Morrison: Perfect example of that. A client that I was working with, he was making two 2.5 million a year income, right? And he was dissatisfied because he wasn't making five. And this client was very, very strongly away from motivated. And so what we had to do to keep him on his upward trajectory was we had to cut that cord that, you know, we had to sever that tie to the past. and eliminate that emotional charge around those circumstances so that he could focus on what he wanted to and just leave that behind.

Nate Grossman: Gotcha. wanted more that.

Aaron Morrison: operating as a motivation. ⁓ the issue was the attachment to the past was what was holding him back and preventing him from continuing to move forward. ⁓ Because if it's like he wants to go way and he knows his goal is over here, right? This is the toward over there, but he's focused on this. So what we gotta do is we gotta turn him around, right? If get him focused on this, make that the primary motivator, and leave that in the past, right? So even though

Nate Grossman: Okay. Catcha. Catcha. Okay. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Aaron Morrison: we're moving backwards away from what we want, it creates the illusion of progress when really all we're doing is moving away from what we don't want. Right. And so the question is, are they oriented away from the thing they don't want or toward the thing that they do want?

Nate Grossman: Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. Okay.

Simone Henry: That's interesting. There's a a a a coach I like to listen to and he always talks about like when you're in in in marketing space, when you're ⁓ when you're creating your lead magnets, you're to a cold audience, you want to draw them away from pain rather than towards pleasure. And that sounds like it's it's kind of the same the same thing. You know, am I yeah, am I, you know, running away from this thing that I don't like that's painful, am I running towards the pleasure, the the the thing that I do want. And that's interesting.

Nate Grossman: It's kinda the opposite in this case.

Aaron Morrison: Mm-hmm. I agree with that that advice, incidentally. ⁓ the re the the the fact is people are twice as likely to run from pain as to walk toward gain. ⁓ yes, it is true that some people are toward motivated primarily, that is the minority of cases. Most people are away from pain motivated. So in a marketing context, it makes a heck of a lot more sense to market to the pain avoidance than it does to the to the pleasure attraction. So ⁓ definitely paint Paint Island all day long, that's where the money's at.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. all right, so when when you have, you know, this kind of internal barrier in a business owner, it's let you know, their the small business owner, there's no buffer ⁓ b usually that their state, you know, whatever state that they're in and the company's output in that case. What does that look like day to day?

Aaron Morrison: It looks like inconsistent performance. It looks like action out of necessity rather than ⁓ of you know possibility. So they the bank account dwindle, get less and less and less and less. That internal set point acts up and goes, ⁓ we gotta do something. Holy cow, look, my goodness, ⁓ we're about crash. ⁓ And then start taking action out of necessity, right? And so Once they get far enough, they get enough money in the bank where to where that ⁓ that fight or flight mode quiet down a bit, they get a they get far enough away from you know their problems that that once that level of comfort sets in, they stop taking action and the bank accounts bank account starts to dwindle again. And I I call this riding the revenue roller coaster, where they take action because they have to enough to get to a level of comfort. Once that level of comfort hits,

Nate Grossman: Yeah, yeah.

Aaron Morrison: the action stops. Right. So it's it's motivating enough to overcome the internal resistance when it's necessary, you know, when that love that that ⁓ level of urgency rises to a certain degree. But then once that subsides, the the the motivation evaporates. And it's not even it's not even the motivation so much as it is the willingness, right? The ability to get themselves into action you know, beyond the internal resistance that they're experiencing. So that that's the that's the target that I want to address is is not the problem isn't the lack of consistency. The problem is the internal programming that's causing them to be inconsistent and not take action. So we want to go upstream to the root cause and figure out what the heck is is actually driving the behavior. What's the fear that's causing them to avoid.

Nate Grossman: Hmm. Interesting. Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. So let's get into this approach here. this is, you know, hopefully where it's going to get useful for the listeners later ⁓ on. have something that you call rapid recalibration. So I'm wondering if you can take us through that step by step. What's the sequence when someone is stuck in hesitation or self-sabotage?

Aaron Morrison: Correct. it it varies depending on the the client engagement, but generally speaking, it's is the problem that they perceive? And usually it's a surface level problem. It's it's some behavioral thing or they want to do something and they can't get themselves to do it. It's the procrastination and the ⁓ the hesitation and the overwhelm, you know, that Simone mentioned earlier. So ⁓ first thing that we're gonna do is, you know, what is the The presenting problem that the client believes is the issue. What is the thing that they want to change? And then I have a process of asking questions that digs down below the surface to identify what specifically is the program that's operating in the background. typically those programs are going to break down to one of three kind of buckets. I'm not good enough, I can't have it, or that's not possible for me, and I don't belong here, right? And so I don't belong here. They won't go into the rooms that they need to be in, or I'm not good enough. They won't be visible and they won't take the actions to do the outreach and the and the prospecting that they need to do. Or, you know, they'll they'll go into a a room doing a presentation and they'll get all up inside their head and then their performance will suffer as a result of that. So ⁓ on what it program is operating below the surface, once we identify whatever that is, I utilize whichever technique or tool I have in my toolbox, which is most appropriate for that specific thing. And then we just knock it out. so it it's it's there is a rough ⁓ of template blueprint to what how it works, but essentially it's talk to the client, figure out what they want to change, identify what the program is that's driving the unwanted behavior, and then utilize whichever appropriate technique to eliminate the program. Or change the program so that they don't have the same association with it. Doesn't have the emotional charge. It doesn't derail them, doesn't, you know, hold them back anymore. And it's it isn't like a, you know, transformational like thing where the the clouds part and the angels sing and they're like, ⁓ my goodness, this is so earth-shattering. It's more like a, huh, that issue, that problem's just not there anymore. Hmm, interesting. It's kind of like that.

Nate Grossman: Okay. Okay. you're you're not promising ⁓ holy revelation here. This is not necessarily what we're talking about. ⁓ that's good. ⁓ So a bonus. ⁓ All So w when has a decision that they're fully capable of making, but they're overthinking it, what's going on there?

Aaron Morrison: No, it it happens from time to time, but I don't that's not part of the guarantee. Right, yeah.

Nate Grossman: Is that something that you've encountered? Okay.

Aaron Morrison: More of that unconscious programming. I mean it that's that's ⁓ probably about as simple as I can make it, you know, that let me put it this way. The way I see it is that there's two kinds of results. There's the results that we want and the results that we have. The question is how big is the gap between those two things, right? How close to the mark are we actually hitting? Because that is going to be ⁓ what informs, you know, how much our unconscious mind is driving the bus versus the conscious mind is driving the bus. So how close are our unconscious programs to our conscious desires? Cause that's what's going to affect the size of the gap. Right. So that's what I'm gonna primarily look at is are they doing behaviors that they don't wanna be doing? And if that's the case, well then there's some unconscious program operating that we need to identify and eliminate.

Nate Grossman: That's a yeah. Okay. So you're you're recalibrating the relationship between the unconscious with the conscious and getting the making sure that all the horses are pulling in the right directions. Yeah.

Aaron Morrison: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Nate Grossman: ⁓ okay. So Hm. So let's say I I I you haven't I don't think you've touched on how long this takes, but let's say, you know, business owner is running a business two million to three million, they have a team of like say twelve, and they don't really have time for a months long program. What would what would it working with you look like in that case?

Aaron Morrison: Mm-hmm. Well, everybody that I work with, I run them through my clean slate process, which is it's an eight week program. it I used to do the all the work in a day, but that's just too much. ⁓ just too much. For me, for them, it's exhausting. And and then I extended it to four weeks ⁓ and worked well. and then I extended it to eight because I like having more time with the client and also

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Aaron Morrison: giving them the opportunity to see the changes happening in real time on a week to week basis. So I'm working with a client right now where we just had we did the three weeks of transformation followed by five weeks of implementation and integration. And just had our first follow-up call following the three week transformation. And basically we've already hit the mark that we established at the beginning. So it doesn't take that long. The changes begin immediately. It's just about, you know, how long does is it gonna be before we hit the the actual target that we s agreed upon in the beginning? And in a hundred percent of the cases, it's happened inside of the time allotted. So no more than eight weeks. And the changes in the behavior begin immediately.

Nate Grossman: Hm. Okay.

Simone Henry: Fantastic.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, yeah. I think people can get be get behind that. okay, so where where does your work end in the next in that next layer of the growth picture begin? So, you know, once you once you've cleared that internal barrier, what what has to be true in the rest of the business for that clarity to actually turn into revenue?

Aaron Morrison: It kind of automatically turns into revenue just because when the internal resistance is no longer present, the actions naturally follow. ⁓ they're consistently taking the actions because they're not fighting with themselves every day, then when when it becomes easier, they just naturally do the things and then they as a byproduct of that are gonna make more money. and I said, you know, the changes begin immediately. They they start noticing the differences right off the bat. ⁓ just by throughout the process of gaining clarity around what exactly is the bottleneck and how will we know that we've been successful in eliminating it. and that becomes the target that we we we want to hit. But how do they know it they're ready for the next level? It that is d ⁓ determined by the client. They just know when they know, you know. So most of my clients do end up working with me s between six months to a year, and then they're like, Yep, got what I came for, and there's just You know, no more problems to solve. So they're ready to go.

Nate Grossman: Mm. Okay. And

Simone Henry: Do any of your clients ever kind of bounce back again? Like maybe after a a year or two, like maybe you know something happened or yeah, there's a relapse or anything like that. Does that ever happen?

Nate Grossman: Relapse. ⁓

Aaron Morrison: I've personally not experienced that. have come back to work with me again on other unrelated things or things that are unrelated to what our initial engagement was around. but ⁓ not no relapses, so to speak.

Nate Grossman: Good. Good to know. ⁓

Aaron Morrison: And and I and I I'll say here that I I do invite my clients to reach back out if that's the case. Cause I I wanna know if the work that we did isn't holding, like I wanna know what I need to be doing differently so that we can permanently solve the issue. Cause that's my objective, right? Greatest result, shortest time, least effort. I wanna hit it once, be done with it, and then move on to something else.

Nate Grossman: Hmm.

Simone Henry: So it's like once that once their mind changes or their subconscious, their subconscious mind like learns how to think differently, it's pretty much set. They don't have to they don't have to they're not bouncing back and forth. And once your mind is set, now your actions are are your actions follow.

Aaron Morrison: Right. And I it so Yes. And and here's the reason why. So at the unconscious level, it the primary function of the unconscious mind is to keep us alive, right? And we know this because we have all these biological processes that happen outside of our conscious awareness, you know, our heartbeat and our temperature regulation, digestion and healing and all these things. So we know that there's an intelligence that lives inside of us, and its job is to keep the machine running, to keep us going. Well, preserving resources Relates to keeping the machine running and keeping us going. Therefore, if we're doing a behavior, anything that we do, up to and including emotion, which is energy in motion, when we're doing any sort of a behavior, the base assumption is that there's a benefit to doing it. Because doing behavior requires resources. Therefore, if the unconscious mind has decided to expend those resources, there must be a greater perceived benefit to doing the behavior than not. So it's my job to figure out what is the perceived benefit at the unconscious level. A lot of times, that perceived benefit self-protection, right? Perpetuating my own survival. And so knowing that behavior has a positive intention for the self, not always a positive effect on everyone else, but a positive intention for the self, right? And the unconscious mind is always selecting. The easiest, most efficient path to the goal, right? Whatever the outcome is, the unconscious mind is going to expend the least amount of resources to get there. Right. So we can from that extrapolate that any strategy that is being utilized is the strategy which at the unconscious level is believed to be the most efficient, the best option available, right? So if we know that there's a positive intention and we know that the unconscious mind thinks that this is the best option available. Then, if we can present the unconscious mind with ⁓ a superior option, right? A more useful, more resourceful option for behavior, a better strategy to get the outcome without the negative effects, right? Without the the internal resistance and doing the things the old way. When I can negotiate with the unconscious mind and demonstrate, hey, this other thing over here, this is a better way of doing that. The unconscious mind, because Its mechanism is always going to select the most efficient option, the best strategy available. It will go, ⁓ I can now see this strategy is better. It automatically makes the shift, automatically lets go of that old strategy. Because once I can demonstrate to the unconscious, this is better, you want to do this instead, it'll go, okay, and it'll let go of that old problem. So sometimes I'll ask the client once we identify what the problem is, right? For example, I'm not safe. And I'll ask the client, is it all right with your unconscious mind for you to release this limiting decision today and for you to be aware of it consciously? Right. Because I want permission both from the unconscious and the conscious mind to eliminate this program. Well, if that program is perceived to relate to their survival, a lot of times there's resistance to letting it go. And so they'll say, Nope, I'm I'm getting a feeling that it's not okay to let this go now, right? Because the unconscious mind, that hypervigilance perceives, right. letting go of the hypervigilance as a threat in and of itself. So my job then becomes to negotiate with the unconscious mind to get it to see that this is actually an unproductive strategy. That yes, while it got us here, it's not gonna get us there. And it's actually now the thing that's holding holding us back. Right. And so it's it's a it's a way of talking and a way of utilizing different words and techniques. To negotiate with the conscious and the unconscious mind, right? To get it to do what we want it to do. And once, once I can demonstrate at the unconscious level, this is a better way to do it, right? This is more likely to get you the result you want without any of that that other negative, unproductive, unuseful stuff, the unconscious mind just makes the shift automatically because that's just the way that it works, right? So I'm I'm leveraging the natural tendencies of the unconscious to get it to do what we want it to do.

Simone Henry: Sounds like mind hacking. ⁓ so for founder that wants to ⁓ they want this like these new unconscious ⁓ thoughts ⁓ stick, ⁓ not for themselves but for their team. where do ⁓ systems and repeatable processes need to you know it need to carry it so that it doesn't just depend on you on on a coaching session every week or or when you're finished working with them how do they kind of carry this across their their teams so that ⁓ everybody in the organization adopts or Accepts the new way of thinking that the founder now has.

Nate Grossman: Or at least benefits from it, you know.

Aaron Morrison: Mm-hmm. I what I would say is that how the founder is showing up, ⁓ you know, Nate talked a little bit about state before. the emotional of the founder, the leader is going to affect the entire team. So when we change their internal state, when we increase their ability to emotionally self-regulate effectively, when we change their behavior.

Simone Henry: Mm-hmm.

Aaron Morrison: the way that they show up, that's automatically going to have an effect on the team because the team is going to follow their example, right? It's like do as I say, not as I do, but that's not that's not how that works, right? They do it, they do as the founder does. So the founder is going to have an if the the change in the behavior is automatically going to have an impact on the team. in of codifying that across All the contacts inside of that organization is going to be dependent dependent upon them creating those SOPs and then enforcing that, which is outside of my purview. They're going to want to call in like a COO or somebody like that to systemize that stuff. my is to remove the resistance that's preventing them from doing the things that the business needs, or even removing internal to delegating. Effectively, so that they don't become the bottleneck and everything having to run through them. Right. And it could be an unconscious fear that causes them to grip all of those tasks so tightly because they're afraid of them not being done right or somebody else not being capable as them, ⁓ know, or standards are just unrealistically high. and high standards are not a problem, by the way. The problem is when people beat themselves up over not meeting those unrealistically high standards, and then that takes them out of the game because they lower their emotional state. yeah, so it's identifying what are the internal resistances to ⁓ delegation or ⁓ the necessary actions and removing those and then letting letting it just kind of organize itself and and naturally spread throughout the organization because it will.

Simone Henry: Or maybe it's ⁓ even also having ⁓ maybe formerly having say you you set a standard, but it was very loose and you weren't really enforcing it that well or or ⁓ or ⁓ sticking to the standard yourself and then so your team is like, ⁓ well, you know, it's of a it's more of a nice to have, not a not a mandate for you know, for the team. ⁓ Whereas if you're you hold yourself to a standard and you're following that standard, then you know, you want to enforce it with with your team. And now everybody is everybody has to come up to this new standard, right? That the the founder is now enforcing.

Aaron Morrison: It might not have not might not even be a new standard. It might just be an unenforced standard that was already in place. to and to your point, the the team is going to follow the example of the founder. And ⁓ that a that I operated by when I was in the construction industry was, you know, when I was I would hire my guys and I would train my guys, I would climb up there, put my tool belt on, and I would show them how to do it.

Simone Henry: Sorry. Yeah. ⁓

Nate Grossman: Mm. Yeah.

Aaron Morrison: And and do it for them and demonstrate exactly how I wanted it done, because they understood I wasn't asking them to do anything that I couldn't do myself. And I wasn't holding them to a standard that I didn't hold myself to. And yeah, if the founder is expressing, you know, standards that the founder themselves is not meeting, then that's going to create low morale and issues in the organization, possibly even turnover. ⁓ but yeah, yeah, it's it's definitely incumbent upon the founder to meet the standard that they set. A hundred percent.

Nate Grossman: Yep, all right. I like that. let's get into the multiplier effect. when is actually working for a business owner, for a founder, You know, they clear that internal barrier that was holding back their execution, they're they figured it out. What else starts to work that maybe they didn't expect to actually work quite that way? What are what are some of those ripple effects in in the business?

Aaron Morrison: Things become easier just across the board because typically, whenever a client engages me, it's for a specific context, usually professional, and often because they want to become more productive and make more money. Right. That's primarily why folks come to me is they c because they want better, bigger results. their relationships improve because they're not as reactive to things. And their communication changes because those old programs aren't operating in the background. And so the the first phase of the work that I do with clients, what I call the offloading phase, and that's the clean slate, right? Everybody comes through that because I don't want them dragging old emotional baggage and stuff into the coaching relationship because I don't want to have to constantly fight with it. So we want to clean wipe the slate clean, get rid of all that old stuff. That makes every day easier for them because they're not fighting the resistance. It's like driving down the road and the car wants to pull to the right and they're constantly having to f hold the steering wheel straight just to avoid getting derailed and going into the ditch. Right. So when we remove that misalignment, they're no longer fighting with themselves. And so everything gets easier, which means they have more energy to do the things that they that are their highest leverage tasks, there's less internal resistance to doing those things. So that ⁓ you start stacking all these outcomes and all these results, does kind of multiply itself, that multiplier effect. ⁓ and then the second phase of what I do with my clients is what I call up leveling. So we take them from that clean slate experience, and now we start applying different strategies for thinking, for internal state management, for emotional self-regulation, so that they again non-re become less reactive to things. They acquire the ability to be that calm, centered energy in the In the chaos and the storm that's raging around them that we all deal with, you know, in a professional context, stuff comes up. We got to put out fires. you so and and the cohesion between the team ⁓ increases because now the communication is different, right? So we work on all these different ⁓ aspects it. and there one of my clients, he he came to me because he wanted to make more money. we ended up doubling his income from 120 to 240 in 12 months. And Saved his marriage, right? So that wasn't part of the official like objective, like the goal when we started working together. He wanted to make more money. Well, we got it more. We doubled his income and saved his marriage at the same time. So, you know, those are the kinds of things that at the client comes to me and I sell them what they want and then I give them what they need. And they end up getting more than what they more than what they bargained for.

Nate Grossman: Nice. Yeah. Mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Simone Henry: was gonna ask about that if the if if some of the effects are not just in their in their working lives but also ⁓ over into into personal relationships. But I I think you answered that one. You know, if it's saving marriages, that's all the better. We're not just making making ⁓ more money, but know, also

Aaron Morrison: Mm-hmm. It's it's very rare.

Simone Henry: Yeah. Better better relationships with your your spouse, your children, your friends, all that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Aaron Morrison: Everybody. Everybody. Yeah. And and so it's very rare that a a limiting belief or a limiting decision operates in only one context. It usually applies across the board in every context. But we we focus on one specific context for the purposes of the the clean slate, right? So it's either going to be the relationship, which I've done individuals and couples. it's going to be for the For the business. Most clients who come to me come to me for a professional, in a professional context. They want their, you know, up level their career, get done in less time, make more money with less stress, and that's what I help them do. And then we ⁓ just on a bunch of other ancillary benefits that they didn't ask for and didn't expect.

Nate Grossman: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I I've worked with before, and one in particular that can that comes to mind in this case is ⁓ he you know, in during the course of ⁓ my consulting work with him, we were supposed to be working on the strategy and the business and the systems and processes and the and all that kind of stuff, like the vis visibility, viability, and value, right? ⁓ he kept coming back to like his life story and like you know, how people did him wrong, you know, and this kind of stuff. And I'm like, man, if if he just would just, you know, get get past that. just remember thinking that a lot. but that was out of my ⁓ scope of ⁓ you know, work. So could could have used you at that point, ⁓ I think. ⁓

Simone Henry: Yeah. Now you have somebody to refer him to 'cause yeah, I I've seen people like that too. It's like, okay, you're you're trying to get them to move forward in something but their but their minds are just stuck in this in this place and they just can't seem to get past it. They can't get past that. They can't they can't function, you know, they can't move forward in in the work that they wanna do or where they wanna go.

Aaron Morrison: No, absolutely.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, they don't they don't realize it. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Morrison: Yeah. Yeah. And that that ties directly into what Tony Robbins talks about in his three S's, right? Is state story and strategy. most business owners, they think strategy. Let me let me go get the strategy. And if I have the strategy, then you know everything else will work itself out. And that's not entirely true because if they're not able to manage and and control their internal state, then they're not going to be in an optimal state to actually execute the strategy. And what you were just talking about.

Nate Grossman: ⁓ yeah. Mm-hmm.

Aaron Morrison: Is the is their story. Like what is the story that they're telling about the circumstances of their life or their past experiences? And right. And that story becomes their their truth and their reality. And just based on the story, is the meaning that they make out of whatever it was that occurred. Right. And some people they're oriented towards a more of a a victimhood mentality where everything outside of them is in control of their ⁓ their world and their circumstance. And some people have a victor.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Right. Telling themselves over and over again, yeah.

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Right. Right.

Aaron Morrison: Mentality where they take responsibility for changing the circumstance. It's like, it doesn't matter whose fault it is that this thing is here. It doesn't matter who created it or or who's to blame. The only thing that matters is what to what degree are we taking responsibility to influence those outcomes? Because it's only to the degree that we take responsibility that we actually can influence the outcome. Because if we're going to sit around and wait for somebody else to take action for us to have the result that we want, well now we're we're literally giving our power to them. We're giving control to them.

Simone Henry: Exactly. Yeah.

Aaron Morrison: If we're waiting for their their their behavior to change. So yeah, so that that's a

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah. You I think

Simone Henry: completely powerless to do anything. Because it's all the power's all in someone else's hands.

Nate Grossman: Yep. what is it? you control you know the one thing you can't control is what other people do, right? You can only control what it is that you do and that you know, that's that's sometimes that's hard lesson to learn, I think. But you know.

Aaron Morrison: man, ⁓ I still, you know, gotta rein myself in sometimes. And, you know, I I get upset about stuff and gotta remind myself like I can't control that. And so this anger that I'm experiencing, this feeling that I have, this is not productive. It's not useful. It's not getting me where I want to go. So I have to make a conscious choice to let that go and focus on what I can control. And, you know, I've been doing this work seven and a half years and I still have to sometimes, you know.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Aaron Morrison: recognize in the moment that I've moved into an unproductive, unuseful emotional state and go, Come on, Aaron, let's get back on track, man. Let's let's let's not splash in the puddle any longer than we have to.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Snap out of it. ⁓ ⁓ it? ⁓ I heard some some time or one time long time ago, the the root of all frustration is when ⁓ expectation does not meet reality. ⁓

Simone Henry: Absolutely.

Aaron Morrison: Yes. Yeah, I I talk about that with my clients all the time. It happiness and the degree of control that we feel are very tightly correlated. So that our our exact amount of unhappiness is going to be the degree to which reality does not meet our expectations. So where reality is and our expectations are, that is the exact amount of unhappiness we're going to have because we're not in control of it. That's exactly the gap.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Right, right. Yeah, that's the gap. Yeah. Yeah. So we talked about untapped potential. All right. As our capabilities expand, possibilities expand with them. We mentioned that at the top. So can you connect that for us here to practical of ⁓ let's say the the founder's calendar and their revenue? If they have this expanded capability, what does that do? Like as far as like what's that freeing up for them and and so forth?

Aaron Morrison: well for my clients specifically, ⁓ they get fifteen to twenty-five percent of their time back. so that they're leaving the office because they're done and not because they got to go home and feed the kids. ⁓ so can choose what to do with it, right? So they get they're they become more productive, they get more work done in in less time. So they can either maintain the same level of productivity in fewer hours and use those hours for whatever they want, usually spending time with their families, or

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Aaron Morrison: They can work the same number of hours and get even more done. So how they choose to utilize that is entirely up to them. In terms of what goes on the the calendar, there is something like we we're all familiar with the Pareto principle, the 80-20 rule that 20% of our actions drive 80% of our results. So to clients about ⁓ is on the calendar and is this ⁓ or is this an 80% task? and ⁓ choosing. Consciously to focus on the highest, absolute highest leverage tasks. So there's a book that I read, ⁓ 10x is easier than 2x. I'll give you the basically the premise, premise of the book ⁓ in a minute, which is the with 2x goals is it's a very logical linear process. And there are so many things that are capable of producing a 2x return that we get bogged down in analysis paralysis. And The problem is too that once we get to the, you know, that that 2x return, many of these strategies aren't capable of continuing to produce a 2x return reliably. They depend on additional usage of resources, time, energy, and money. Versus if we set a 10x goal, then it acknowledging up front that it's unrealistic and probably not achievable, right? But what happens is we focus on the tiny fraction of things, of behaviors, of actions that can actually produce that 10x return. We, by definition, by necessity, must focus on the most high leverage tasks. And so that that clears the field significantly and helps to ⁓ to provide a lot of clarity very quickly if we choose to look at it that way.

Nate Grossman: Hm. Okay. Nice. ⁓ all right. ⁓ hmm. So let's say let's say that you know people are out there kind of like, you know, ⁓ this sounds good and everything. I just I'm not so sure about that. Talk to them for a second here. They're basically leaving those barriers in place, those internal internal barriers. What is it costing?

Aaron Morrison: ⁓ that that's usually what people say, right? Like, what what's it costing you? ⁓ it's costing me everything. it's costing them ⁓ their of mind. It's costing them productivity, it's costing them profitability, it's costing them ⁓ the of security that they would enjoy if they were getting the level of results that they ⁓ not want, but know they're capable of.

Nate Grossman: Okay.

Aaron Morrison: It's costing them their confidence and their self esteem because they're watching themselves underperform their potential every day. And if they're a, you know, type A like me, like standards are up here ⁓ ⁓ have very high expectations of ourselves. And if we don't execute at that level that we know we're capable of, you know, it's like, had a coach ⁓ one one of my coaches tell me one time, he goes, You know what your problem is, Aaron? He goes, your problem is that your forty percent is better than most people's hundred percent. And he goes, and I don't mean that as a compliment. You know, he goes, what it means is that you can get away with not trying as hard and still get the result. But you know when you underperform your potential and you can't hide that from yourself. And so for those individuals, that's that's what it's costing them. Right. It's the time, it's the money, it's the the business that they could have, it's the the savings and the that they could leave for their families and their children. you and it's costing them that peace of mind when they lay their head on the pillow at night that they did the best that they know that they did the best that they could.

Nate Grossman: goes beyond just revenue, you know, and and like hard dollars and gets into some deeper costs there. Okay. Yeah.

Aaron Morrison: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, because the internal is what really matters. I mean, we we can measure the external. We can measure the the pro the work output. We can measure the revenue. ⁓ it's the intangible internal experience that that's what's really getting in their way anyway, right? It's that internal resistance that's stopping them from doing the things they need to be doing.

Nate Grossman: All right. Do you do you have some speaking of ⁓ hard numbers, do you have hard numbers of, you know, like you've helped clients achieve when once they've destroyed that internal barrier and and moved past it?

Aaron Morrison: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. So in terms of time savings, I I think I mentioned just a a minute ago, ⁓ you know, fifteen, twenty-five percent of their time, they're so they're more productive. it depends on the client. You know, when the client comes to me, most of my clients are six figure earners, multiple six figures. I've even worked with multiple eight figure earners. ⁓ and so the increase in their revenue really depends on the client, their business,

Nate Grossman: Fifteen, twenty percent.

Aaron Morrison: Some some factors that are beyond our control, like the economy in the market and you know, just what's going on in the world. I have helped you know, one of my clients I mentioned took him from 120 to 240. ⁓ I have helped sales, ⁓ both individuals and sales teams, 3x to 10x, their sales volume by training on the ⁓ internal state control as well as different communication strategies that aren't very well known in the market. ⁓ the soft skills of rapport, persuasion, and influence. So so yeah. Ultimately at the end of the day, when my client comes, when the prospect comes to me and we're having this conversation and we're gonna dig into what is the problem actually costing, right? Because we want to put a hard number on it. I want my client, their work with me, to have a 100 to 200 X ROI, no brainer, easy math that it it's just I I know that the impact is is going to be completely outsized, that they're gonna get way more value than what they're paying for. and I also I I heard a stat somewhere that every coaching client that we have impacts a thousand other people and over the course of their lifetime. Right. So that I I'm looking at the ripple effect of the work that I do with my clients as well because now they're gonna show up as a better example of themselves for their families, for their team. You know, 'cause they're they're just when they don't have all that old stuff dragging them down and holding them back, more of who they truly are can shine through.

Nate Grossman: Nice. right. Let's get into our rapid clarity round to wrap things up here. you wanna take us out here on that?

Simone Henry: Well sure. is one question every founder should ask themselves this month ⁓ where they're where they're hesitating?

Aaron Morrison: What's the source of the hesitation? Like where's the hesitation coming from? sometimes it's going to be a ⁓ lack information. They don't have enough information to actually make a decision. And it could be that there's an unconscious fear that's operating that once they go to ⁓ at moment of execution, things like brain fog and distraction and confusion will show up. they'll be s crystal clear on exactly what needs to get done. But at the moment that it it needs it it's going to going to get done when action is required, that's when all this other stuff shows up, right? To kind of muddle the thinking and muddy the water. So the the question would be, what's the source of the hesitation? Where's it where is it really coming from? And be honest with themselves about the answer.

Simone Henry: Okay. a high performer has never worked on the internal side of execution, ⁓ what's single first step that they should take this week?

Aaron Morrison: This week. To practice awareness.

Nate Grossman: It'll it'll actually be next week, but

Aaron Morrison: the whichever week they're listening to it, I would say that the the the highest leverage thing that they can do is to practice self awareness. what that means is to what their emotional state is on a to moment basis. And specifically when the emotional state has moved into unproductive, unuseful, unuseful, unresourceful territory. And so when experiencing a negative emotion, a negative reaction to something, that's information.

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Aaron Morrison: That we want to utilize. And so the question then becomes what is there to learn from this? So a ⁓ self-awareness in the moment is the first step always. Because if we don't, if we're not aware of the problem, we can't solve it, right? So becoming aware is always the first step, noticing the emotion. Because by definition, when we move into a place of noticing and become the noticer and the observer of the emotion, we're no longer in it, participating in it, doing it. We're now looking at it and examining it with an attitude of curiosity. And that is a heck of a lot more useful than spiral going into this emotional downward spiral that a lot of folks habitually do simply because they don't know that there's a better option, right? So become the noticer of the emotion. And when it's a negative reaction to something, the question is, what is there to learn from this? Because the problem isn't that thing out there that hooked and triggered me in here. It's that there's something in here that can be hooked and triggered. So that in this from this perspective, I look at that thing out there that that ticked me off. And I go, hey, thing out there, thank you for showing up and ticking me off so that I had the opportunity to observe my reaction and to learn whatever it is that needs resolution so that I don't react like that in the future. So that right there, like that is a lifetime of work. I'm still doing that work, but that is one of the one of the highest leverage. ⁓ things I think, highest leverage lessons that that ⁓ your listeners can learn and apply that I think will cr make the largest degree of change in their lives in the shortest possible time.

Simone Henry: Fantastic. It's like ⁓ taking an inventory. What is the difference between a performance problem and an internal barrier? ⁓ how does the founder tell which one they have?

Aaron Morrison: Well, they're consciously aware of the performance problem. So they're underperforming either their standards, their expectations, their potential. it almost always does tie back to an internal block of some type. because if they if they're not capable of tapping into that performance, then there usually is ⁓ an unconscious reason why. And we we also can look at are they sleeping enough? What does their diet look like? ⁓ you know, other variables. That's not really my purview. I don't really get into that a whole lot. I focus primarily on the internal stuff. yeah, it's it it almost always does tie back to some internal blockage if if that's what's going on. But again, right, asking what is the reason for the the performance block ⁓ and being honest with themselves, trusting whatever their intuition says that they're not in their They know when they're making excuses and telling themselves a a nonsense story, know. So just being honest with themselves.

Simone Henry: Okay. so what is one belief about willpower discipline you wish every founder would drop?

Aaron Morrison: Drop. I I'd how about I tell you which belief I think that every founder should adopt instead? ⁓ ⁓ and that is ⁓

Simone Henry: Okay.

Nate Grossman: just ⁓ and just ⁓ ignore the opposite of that. ⁓

Simone Henry: What's

Aaron Morrison: the least useful belief that every founder is going to have is. It's going to vary from individual by individual. But what I can say is that if they choose to adopt the belief that they're always doing the best they can with the resources that they have, then ⁓ that is that does a lot of the work, a lot of the heavy lifting. Because in that belief, inherent in that belief. Is forgiveness and grace and compassion and empathy for themselves others, right? For their their performance that day. I did the best that I could with the resources that I had, right? That doesn't mean they did the best that was possible, right? That didn't mean that they performed at the highest possible level. That means that they did the best they had with what they had where they were at that day. And so they can give themselves that grace ⁓ ⁓ do a do a case study on it, do a post-mortem. Where they look at that day and they say, okay, well, if I wasn't satisfied with my work product today, well, what went well? Right. So we can be grateful for the things that did go well and the pro and celebrate the progress that we did make. what didn't go well, right? What what's there to learn from this? And then what can I do differently next time to get a better result? And better, of course, is relative. But when we choose to believe everybody's doing the best they can with the resources that they have. I can forgive myself and give myself grace. I can forgive other people for the mistakes that they made and the ways that they might have hurt me in the past because they couldn't have done any better. Because what I'll tell you is what I've learned is that if people can do better, they do. So the fact that they didn't means that they couldn't. That possibility simply didn't exist. And going back to what we were talking about before, with the wishing, I mean, basically, all suffering is caused by wishing things were different than they are when reality doesn't match our expectations. You know, so we look into the past and we go, Well, their their behavior didn't match my expectations retroactively. So I'm gonna feel some kind of way about that today. Right. And while it might be completely valid and reasonable and understandable, the question that I would ask is, is it useful? Is it useful? Is it actually helping us to get where we want to go? Or would it be more useful to say everybody's doing the best that they can with the resources that they've got? I forgive them for what they did because they couldn't have done better.

Nate Grossman: Right.

Aaron Morrison: If they could have, they would have. And so just let it all go. Let it all go. Right. Now that doesn't mean that we're just going to be Pollyanna, right? That's a eight reference that ages me, right? We're not going to be we're not going to be all Pollyanna-ish about it and say, you know, ⁓ yeah, everything's great. It's like, no, we're going to be realistic with ourselves, but like I said before, the problem isn't having the high standards. The problem is beating ourselves up if we don't meet them, because that is unproductive. That's not useful.

Simone Henry: Ha ha ha.

Nate Grossman: Rose colored glasses. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Morrison: Right. I call that splashing in the puddle. So splash in the puddle as much as is useful stop when it's not. Right. And only ⁓ the individual will know ⁓ that line is.

Nate Grossman: Mm. Nice.

Simone Henry: I like I like that.

Aaron Morrison: And if they have trouble stopping, then I I can help them with that.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Simone Henry: There's there's another book by that same author. ⁓ 10X is easier than 2X. He wrote a book called ⁓ The Gap in the Game, where he talks about ⁓ focusing on focusing on the gain and not and not only the gap. you know, we do have to I agree with you, we do have to give ourselves grace ⁓ and thankful for the thankful for the progress that we've made, ⁓ even we're not where we want to be, we still have come a long way. And we're not where we where we were.

Aaron Morrison: Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Simone Henry: that. That's ⁓ that's that's a good ⁓ it's a good way to look at it, right? don't don't just focus on ⁓ on on the on what we haven't yet, but also look at how far we've come and give ourselves some grace and and ⁓ and forgiveness ⁓ for for not being we wanna But just, you know, but staying staying the course and ⁓

Aaron Morrison: My pleasure.

Simone Henry: Yeah, but stay in the course and and know, ⁓ out to people like you who can help us to ⁓ overcome these ⁓ internal struggles so that we can get to where we want to go. And we're not just looking back, but we're also looking forward.

Aaron Morrison: That's right. That's right.

Nate Grossman: So what Aaron's just b has been describing here, ⁓ I think I talked about it earlier, I in my mind anyway, sits right at that the viability layer of the business, right? The question of whether the business, with the founder included, obviously, can execute consistently and predictably. you have the right strategy in the right market and still stall at the point of action because of something you don't even know is there, right? And so ⁓ Clearing that internal barrier is often the difference between knowing your next move and actually making it. So we thank Aaron again for joining. what has shared has resonated with you, here's how to connect with him. Aaron is the of the Rapid Recalibration and works with entrepreneurs, executives, and sales professionals to clear the internal barriers that cat performance. You can find him at wyldfyredynamics.com If you are a high performer who keeps hesitating on the things you know he you should be doing, that is exactly the work he does. ⁓ if again, the conversation made you realize that you're not sure where your biggest growth constraint actually is, then that's the that's the work that we dig into every week. You can subscribe at to our newsletter ⁓ at thegrowcealing podcast dot dot com. Each week we're get you'll get one real growth constraint. How to spot it in your business, whether that is the internal side of execution ⁓ or Something else entirely.

Simone Henry: And subscribe to the Growth Ceiling Podcast wherever you listen. And if this episode helped you see something differently, send it to a founder who needs to hear it. Share this with others. Don't just keep it to yourself. And you learned something today, ⁓ please an aha moment or a takeaway in the comments and let us know that this is helping you. ⁓ We would ⁓ we're glad that you're you were here to listen and we'll see you next time. Thanks for for being here with us and thank you, Erin.

Aaron Morrison: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Nate Grossman: Alrighty.