Founder Leadership Identity: Why You Can’t Scale What You Started

Most founders hit a wall around $1M and never break through. Here’s why – and how to fix it. Hint: it’s all about their founder leadership identity.

In this deep dive, I share my personal transformation from a burned-out, overweight founder stuck at $300K to building a 7-figure business while working 30% less.

Founder leadership identity points

What you’ll learn:

• Why the same grit that got you here keeps you stuck
• The 3 critical stages of founder evolution (0-1M, 1-10M, 10M+)
• The 5 domains you must align before you can accelerate
• Why belief comes before ability in leadership growth
• How to shed your operator identity and become a true CEO

Key takeaways:

• Vision: Do you know where you’re going or just hoping next month isn’t worse?
• Health: Your body is the first business you lead
• Leadership: Are you a CEO or an overpaid firefighter?
• Systems: Is your business a machine or are you chasing trends?
• Standards: Is your team a community or a headache?

Key problems addressed:

• 8:44 How do you transform from a struggling founder to a successful one?
• 18:21 What’s the secret to true success in business?
• 19:21 What are the 5 domains every founder must align before accelerating?
• 22:42 How do you align who you are with how you grow?
• 28:00 Why is the person who started your business not the person who can scale it?
• 30:08 How do you transition from 0-1 million in revenue?
• 30:31 What must you master to grow from 1-10 million?
• 32:02 How do you scale from 10-30+ million in revenue?
• 34:52 Why does belief come before ability in leadership?
• 39:04 How do you identify what’s holding you back as a founder?
• 41:48 What belief do you need to claim to grow your next leadership identity?
• 43:05 What stage of the founder journey are you currently in?

The harsh truth:

The person who started your business isn’t the person who can scale it. Growth isn’t about mechanics – it’s about identity transformation.

If you’re a founder ready to stop drifting and start building a legacy, this is for you.

Summary

Focus and Growth for Founders

Simon hosted a focus hour session for top 1% founders, discussing leadership identity and the challenges of building a business. He shared his personal journey, including how he transformed his business from $300,000 in revenue to significant growth, and explained that focus means different things to different people – for him it’s a state of being where he’s “locked in” and “zoned in.” The session aimed to help founders who feel stuck or burned out, offering a space to connect and discuss their challenges.

Personal Transformation Through Coaching

Simon shared his personal transformation journey, highlighting how coaching and relationships have significantly impacted his life and business. He discussed his struggles with weight, alcohol, and business growth before finding clarity and success through coaching and mentorship. Simon emphasized the importance of relationships in achieving results, noting that hiring coaches and building connections have been crucial to his transformation. He now leads a fulfilling life, balancing work, family, and personal growth, and advises other founders while maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

Founders’ Vision and Personal Alignment

Simon discussed his journey to becoming a leader with vision, focus, and control, emphasizing the importance of aligning personal and business growth. He shared that scaling a business at the expense of health and family is not successful and highlighted the five domains every founder needs to align for accelerated growth: vision, health, focus, execution, and alignment. Simon explained that vision is critical for business success and shared his own 10-year vision, contrasting it with his previous approach of hoping for improvement month by month. He also stressed the importance of founder health, noting that an unhealthy body can hinder one’s ability to drive value through their business.

Founders’ Path to Business Scaling

Simon discussed the five key components of business success: leadership, systems, standards, team, and alignment. He emphasized that founders must evolve from doing everything themselves to delegating, systemizing, and scaling as revenue grows. Simon shared his Revenue Journey framework, which divides business growth into three stages: 0-1 million (where founders must learn to delegate), 1-10 million (where systematization is crucial), and 10-30+ million (where scaling becomes the focus). He stressed that founders cannot scale their businesses while remaining in a hands-on leadership role, and must transform into a different type of leader to achieve significant growth.

Leadership Growth and Identity Transition

Simon discussed the stages of leadership growth, emphasizing that each stage requires a new identity and that belief precedes ability. He highlighted the importance of growth being about identity, leadership, and resilience rather than just mechanics or information. Simon also shared his experience of hiring a coach to help him see aspects of himself during a transition to the next leadership level. He concluded by urging leaders to focus on belief and faith in what’s possible rather than fear of failure or loss.

Founders’ Identity Transformation for Growth

Simon discussed the importance of personal growth and identity transformation for founders seeking to scale their businesses. He emphasized that founders must shed old identities and embrace new beliefs to break through growth ceilings, sharing his own journey of transitioning from an ideator to a builder. Simon highlighted that business performance is deeply personal, and leaders must address their own limitations to unlock their companies’ potential. He encouraged attendees to reflect on their current identities, question what beliefs they need to claim for growth, and consider how personal development aligns with their business goals.

Simon’s Alignment Program Overview

Simon discussed his alignment program, a 12-month initiative aimed at supporting world-class founders, and emphasized its significance as his flagship program. He highlighted the importance of alignment in achieving success, contrasting it with drift, which he claimed can destroy dreams. Simon also mentioned a two-day workshop called the Alignment Intensive and offered a free document for those interested in an alignment check. He concluded by encouraging viewers to join his live sessions on LinkedIn every Thursday at 1 PM Mountain time and invited questions via email.

Full Transcript

My name is Simon. This is just a space here for us to connect, for me to show up on LinkedIn and be present and have conversations with anyone else who might be a founder or might be interested in connecting.

The reason I started doing this is because every week I would have conversations with founders, leaders, and business owners here on LinkedIn in the comments. We would comment on each other’s posts or DM, and it was like, “Hey, would love to connect.” I’ve been on some calls – we would hop on a call here and there, but that can just be time consuming. Oftentimes it’s hard – sometimes people don’t check LinkedIn messages or whatever. So what I ended up doing was just creating this space. I’m calling it Focus Hour, and it’s just for me to show up.

So if you follow me, if you want to connect, if you want to chat, this is just a space to do that. We’re going to go live for about an hour and hang out. I would love to have you, and if you have any comments, feel free to just make them. If you have any questions, I will see them on my side. If I can, I’ll bring you onto the call, and we can chat back and forth if I can figure that part out. But would love to have you here, and maybe we can connect.

Let me share my screen, and we’ll get into the material for today.

Today’s topic is Leadership Identity, and Focus Hour is this space for the top 1% of founders who refuse to drift. If you’re a founder, if you want to build a business that’s great, you want a life that you love, you want to be the best, you want to perform, you want to grow, you want to build, and when I say top 1%, you go “I want that to be me” – you’re in the right place.

This is what we’re going to be talking about – what that looks like, how to be that, and what it takes to be that. I’m going to share what I’ve learned in my journey. I’ll share about me, I’ll share from what I’ve learned from other founders who are in the top 1%, and we’re going to explore and grow together.

Here we are. This is for you if you’re frustrated. If you’re staring at the ceiling at 3 AM stuck in a loop – you know what I’m talking about. That was me last night, and oftentimes we all have this experience if we’re trying to build something. Straining your family to carry your team, wanting growth, but it feels random and distant. If you just feel like, “Man, if I quit, everything falls apart, and if I keep going, everything falls apart” – this is for you.

Let’s get focused.

That word focus – I know that maybe means some different things to different people. I talked to my wife about this the other day, and for her focus means having her calendar aligned, knowing what she’s doing when, knowing what dates things are coming. She’s got everything in its place, and for her it’s very tactical or operational or pragmatic. For me, focus is more of a feeling. It’s more of a state of being where I’m locked in, zoned in.

That’s where a lot of founders that I know and have worked with – 7 and 8 figure founders – that’s what we just long for, that feeling of being focused. It’s like if you’re on a run and your heart’s caught up, it’s not struggling to keep up anymore, and you’ve got that runner’s high going, and you’re just locked in, and you’re just lost in that run. That’s what we’re talking about here.

But unfortunately, your freedom vehicle, this business that you’ve built, may feel like a prison. It might even feel like every decision, every crisis, every dollar is on you to make, to do, to create. You think that if you push harder it’ll finally all click, but when focus is scattered, every distraction looks like an opportunity.

My Story

I’ve been there too. This is my story, why I’m here, why I’m talking about this – because this is so personal to me. It’s something I’m passionate about and is also something over the last 10 years that I’ve helped founders go through and work through as well.

I’ve lived every moment of these pains. When you say you’re the bottleneck of your business – yep, I get that. You’re burned out and spinning – oh yeah, I know exactly how that feels. You’re lost and confused – yes, been there, most days or every day.

I totally get that. What I want to share is just a little bit of my story. This is me on the left and me on the right. They are the same person. They may or may not look that different to you, but to me it’s a massive difference. I see a completely different person.

Both photos, I’m smiling, but on the left this was back at the start of 2022. We were at a point in our business where we were stuck at about $300,000 in revenue. I look happy, my wife was happy – this is us in Coeur d’Alene taking a walk on the boardwalk. But the truth is, I was 50 pounds overweight. I was doing anything for anyone who would pay me as a functional alcoholic, wandering through my life trying to lead and figure out how to build a business and figure out how to manage clients and a growing family.

It was a bit of wandering, struggling with constant sinus infections because it wasn’t only my business that was struggling – it’s not this compartmentalized thing. It was affecting my body, and the drinking was tearing my system down. Like I said, struggling, capped at $300,000.

On the right, this is me at the start of this year, 2025. This is a picture of me and my son Peter going to a Phoenix Suns game. Totally different guy – 50 pounds gone. I’m in a place where I’m doing what I’m best at, and I’m doing what I love, and I know what that is, and I’ve delegated everything else. I’ve got a clear 10-year vision for my business and my life, and I’m operating on my one-year goals. I’m building an intentional business and intentional life that’s going somewhere that I know exactly where it’s going.

I’ve got visible results in my body and in my mind. I’ve lost the weight, working on abs, working on getting some bicep veins starting to pop out. It’s not there yet – it’s still a work in progress, but it’s completely different from fat Simon, struggling Simon, embarrassed Simon, insecure Simon from 2022.

In my mind it’s clear. I show up every day with clarity. The difference is like I’m not hungover for half the day trying to make it by. Totally different Simon. I’m up at 5 AM doing a run or a workout, getting my kids to school, getting to work, operating a 7-figure consulting business and coaching business while working 30% less than I worked then.

But the thing is that I tried on my own for years to break through. It was crazy because I just remember this one moment – I tell this story often. I think it was like a Labor Day in September, and I was working (my whole team was off, of course), and I was pacing around the room in my master bedroom, losing my mind, stressed out. This was back in 2022.

I was losing my mind trying to figure out: what am I going to do? How do I grow this thing? How do I get out of this stuck spot? I thought of someone who could help – this person I’d followed for years. I thought maybe they have a business, I know they coach or consult something, maybe they can help me. So I reached out, set up a sales call. They could help. We set up a meeting. It was a massive breakthrough.

What I realized out of that moment is every time I got stuck, every time I’ve gotten stuck, it’s been a coach that’s helped me grow.

The Power of Relationships

I just want to share with you – these are some of my coaches. I tried it on my own for years. And it’s taken many, many people to help me through this journey.

If you’re a founder and you’re in this position, you’re probably using ChatGPT, you’re probably Googling growth hacks, you’re probably trying to figure stuff out. But I think what I realized for me is that I could Google growth hacks, I could ask chat questions, but what I really needed was alignment and execution. It was really the people, the relationships, the coaches that were in my life that gave me the roadmaps I needed to get clear and focused enough to transform.

Yes, I’ve used chat while getting coaching, but the point is between Chris and Matt and Scott and Dale and James and many others – Carl – my list could go on and on. There have been so many transformative moments in my life that these people helped me through.

Chris is helping me see with clarity and focus on operations. Matt is getting data and precision on my numbers. Scott is helping me become more of an operator, more of a builder. Dale helped me learn how to dream big and see what’s possible in life as an entrepreneur. James helped me overcome internal battles and hurdles and limiting beliefs that were holding me back.

I remember he said some of the most mind-blowing things to me. Our first meeting in a coffee shop, I went to get a coffee refill and sat back down. We were talking, and he’s like, “You know, I know what your problem is now.” I was like, “What?”

He said, “You have this big old sticker on your head. It’s right here. You have a sticker and on it says ‘I’m too busy for you.'” It just shook me up. He’s like, “You’re sitting here saying you want to grow, you want clients, you want opportunities, but you’re walking around this coffee shop and you’re walking a hundred miles per hour. You’re not looking anybody in the eye, you’re not saying hi, you’re just saying I’m busy, so nobody’s going to approach you.”

It just wrecked me because I was saying I got all this time, how do I use it? He just totally wrecked me. I could probably keep telling stories, but I should probably stop there. But what I want you to see is my transformation journey was a series of relationships.

There’s this phrase that I use: relationships determine results. No matter what goal, what type of thing you’re trying to achieve in your life as a founder, in your business as a founder, the way to get there faster and straighter is to have relationships, to have coaches to help you.

I know a founder that also runs endurance marathons and stuff, and every time he signs up for a new race, his first job is to hire a coach to help them get there. Anyway, I just want to share with you – this transformation that I’m sharing is not on my own.

Current Results

Today, because of what I’m going to share with you today, what I’ve learned from others, I’m leading with clarity in my life. My marriage runs on midday syncs, not midnight arguments. You know what I mean – if you’re married, you know those arguments, those conversations have to happen. If you don’t have a place for them, they happen at the worst times.

My kids get one-on-one daddy dates, not just my evening leftovers. We have a time on Friday that I take them out in the afternoon. It’s pretty special, means a lot to them, means a lot to me.

I’m advising 7- and 8-figure founders without working 80-hour weeks. Like I said earlier, I’m in a place where I can do what I’m best at, have a team who does the other things, and I can play a role that includes me living my best life and doing what I’m best at. It’s possible. It doesn’t mean it’s perfect – that’s not what I’m saying. But what I am saying is that you can be a leader who grows with vision, focus, and control.

What I want to share with you today is how I became a leader who grows with vision, focus, and control, and how you can do that too.

The Key Insight

One of the key things I want to point out at this point is the transition. That was my story. Now I’m going to share a little bit more about today’s topic, which is leadership identity. What I want to share is that growth and scaling in life and business is different than what I thought. I thought growing and scaling my business was something I could just do, or that it was operational, or that if I just had the right piece in the right place, or if I found the secret.

The secret that I found is this: scaling at the expense of health and family isn’t winning, and it’s not wealth. True success is having an aligned life and business. What we’re going to get into is how you are going to create the most success and how you’re going to feel the most successful – it’s through aligning your life and your business, because you don’t get business growth without personal growth.

My question is: if I can transform, if I can lose 50 pounds, if I can go from $300,000 to breaking $1 million, if I can go from frustrated to focused, why not you? If I can make a transformation, why not you? Well, there’s a plan, there’s a path that I want to share.

The Five Domains of Alignment

These are the five domains that I believe every founder needs to align before they can fully accelerate. Let me share one more thing. Why I created this is because it has come from my life. This is what I believe, this is what I know, this is what I’ve seen, and this is what I’ve walked clients through. I’ve also seen this go through other people.

When I say these are the five domains every founder needs to align before they fully accelerate, I say that because over the last 10 years I’ve built a marketing agency, and the founders that have come to me for growth – many of them have come to me wanting to accelerate their business. They want to scale, they want to increase revenue, they have these growth goals. Let’s do it.

We’ve served hundreds of clients over the last 10 years, and what I’ve found is that the ones who actually grow and succeed, the ones who go to the next level, the ones who break through, do this – they align to accelerate. The ones who just want to accelerate without doing the alignment work fail, inevitably, every time.

At first I thought maybe it’s just maybe they’re on the wrong platform, maybe there’s not product-market fit, maybe the market is not favorable for this type of product, maybe the messaging is bad. There’s all these factors to growing that you go, “Oh, how do I get all these pieces right?” And they’re all important.

But what the most important thing that I saw was not just messaging, was not just platforms, not just strategy or content mix – what it was was vision, goals, vision, execution, alignment. Whatever we did, whatever they did, aligned with who they are and how they believe.

This phrase has come out of this for us, which is: aligning who you are with how you grow. When these companies aligned who they are with how they grow, they could grow.

I created this out of that to help our clients get growth-ready so that they could accelerate at the level that they want to and reach those goals. This is basically the pre-work process.

1. Vision

Do you know where you’re going? It always starts with vision. I did a session – the first session I did was on vision. I will keep talking about vision.

• Vision is massive.
• Vision isn’t just elusive and big – it is critical.
• Vision is very tactile, very specific, very operational.

But vision is the core of the puzzle. You can’t build a business without execution, but without vision, the old proverb says, “Where there is no vision, people perish.” It’s so true – your business will die, your team will die, everything will die when you have no vision.

So do you know where you’re going, or are you just hoping next month won’t be worse than this month? I understand that – I’ve been on both sides. Now I’m operating out of a 10-year vision. Before that 2022 picture, it was just a hope that next month is not worse than this month. We’ll see how it goes.

When you have vision, it gives you clarity.

2. Health

Do you have rhythms that help you grow, or are you running on fumes and burning out? I did a session last week – you can go back and watch it on founder health. The big concept here is: your body is the first business that you lead. The first business. If your body is unhealthy, you’re not going to have what it takes to show up fully and drive value through your business that you hope for.

When you have health, it gives you energy.

3. Leadership

Are you the leader your business needs, or are you actually an overpaid firefighter? This is what we’re going to unpack a little bit more today. When you have leadership, you get confidence. You feel confident, your team feels confident, the market and the clients feel confident. This is a massive component.

4. Systems

Is your business running like a machine, or are you chasing new trends just to survive? Big difference here – the machine runs itself. The machine requires inputs. The machine with the right inputs and the right processes spits out outputs. This is how business works: leading inputs, actions, systems, outputs.

As a founder, you can be at a million dollars and not really realize that because you’re so deep in the hustle and grind. I say that because that’s me – that was me. I’m not saying that out of theory, it’s literally true. But without systems, you can’t really build a business that’s going to survive the time, survive trends, technology, market shifts, your life, team changes, bad performers – all this kind of stuff. Systems are going to create resilience.

5. Standards

Standards and culture. Is your team a community you want to be a part of, or are they a headache you want to get rid of? Team is a massive topic. Team is a very popular topic. If there’s any topic from any content I put out on LinkedIn or TikTok, team always gets the most views. Team always gets the most engagement, and it’s because teams are hard.

Leading a team is so hard, managing a team is so hard – there’s so many components to it. We’ll continue to unpack that over time. But when you have a team, you can get results. One of the biggest things that I want to share is that you will not be able to accomplish your vision without a unified team. I mean, unless your vision is very, very small. But if you are here because you want to be in the 1%, you’ve got a 10-year vision, you’re trying to accomplish something big, you want to build a legacy, you can’t do that without a unified team.

These are the main pillars to alignment so you can accelerate. Without clarity and alignment, you’ll drift into shallow, wide growth. With clarity and alignment, you’ll build a durable, focused legacy growth. That’s what I’m here to do. What about you?

Leadership Identity: The Core Challenge

Let’s talk about leadership identity specifically. We’re going to dive into this topic and start unpacking it from a high level. The key thing that I want to unpack is: the person who started your business isn’t the person who can scale it. This is a harsh truth. If you’re the person who started it, you cannot be the person who scales it.

Now you’re instantly going to say, “So are you saying I have to hire an outside CEO?” No, I’m not. But I am saying change, transformation is needed. That may be an outside CEO, but it may not be.

This is really the leadership identity trap in a nutshell: the same grit that got you here – and if you’re like me, if you’re here, if you want to be a top 1%, if you’ve got a legacy vision, you are probably a gritty person. You put up with a lot. You can weather some storms. You’re going to put in the work, and it’s easier for you to grind and hustle than it is for you to sit back and relax on the beach with a margarita. But that same grit becomes the very thing that keeps you stuck.

The Revenue Journey

What I want to show here is what I’ve called the Revenue Journey – the founder journey by revenue stage. I’ve got three stages. I learned this through my coach Chris, who learned it through the Infusionsoft or Keap founder Clay Mask. Clay actually is here locally in Phoenix – I met him and been to some of his events. I’ve simplified this. I think Clay has maybe seven stages, and he breaks it up in a lot more detail. But I don’t want to really do that right now. I’ve simplified it into three main stages for our conversation here today.

Stage 1: $0 to $1 Million – Learn to Delegate

At $0 to $1 million in revenue, you as a person, as a leader, as a founder, must learn to delegate. You can go from $0 to $300-500k on your own. I have heard in rare cases founders going to $1-1.5M with them and like an EA, but that’s pretty rare. Usually around $300,000, you hit your cap.

• You can’t go further.

• You can’t spread yourself more thin.

• You can’t acquire new skills fast enough or even have the time enough, no matter if you’re working 10-12 hour days.

You’ve got to learn to delegate and work through others. So this is when you start building a team. This is when you start really feeling leadership pains. You don’t really have to change a lot until the end of $1 million.

Stage 2: $1 Million to $10 Million – Systemize

From $1 million to $10 million, you must systemize. This requires you thinking beyond “I do work.” You think of it more like a machine, a thing that runs that you have inputs that you plan, you design, you create, you plug other people into, and that spits out outputs at the end. If you’re not to a million, that concept doesn’t quite make sense unless you’ve been through this multiple times.

But this $1M to $10M is systemizing, running the machine. That’s team building, it’s leadership, it’s all the things. But what it is is you disassociating from that thing and you being someone who contributes to it so it can run.

Stage 3: $10 Million to $30 Million+ – Scale

From there, $10M to $30M+, and I’m not going to go too much beyond that right now, but this stage – I work with founders in each of these stages – and this $10M to $30M is where you must scale. If you’re not delegated, if you’re not systemized, and if you’re not aligned with your vision and values, scale really can’t happen. Scale is fairly boring, but it’s really hard if you haven’t become the leader who can scale.

At this point, this is where people bring in external CEOs because they get to this moment where they think:

• Do I have what it takes to keep building this?
• Do I have the resources?
• Do I have the skills?
• Do I have the stamina?
• Do I have the knowledge?

That’s where they bring in someone else who they think is more experienced, usually on the upper side of the stage.

But each of these stages requires a shift, an identity shift, a different person to lead the business. What I want you to start to see as we go through this is: if you don’t change, if you don’t grow, if you don’t expand who you believe you are over time, you will not be able to take this ladder and go to these stages or these levels.

This is a process of being bold, of being very tolerant to insecurity and new things, of learning and growing. It requires a lot of faith and a lot of imagination.

Guiding Principles

Here are my guiding principles along this leadership identity:

1. Every Stage Requires a New Identity

If you feel like you’re out of your depth at any of these stages, especially as you go to the next one, you’re normal and you’re in transition. I have seen this, and I’ve watched my clients go through this. I have been through this, and this is very real. It’s a very real moment where you feel out of your depth.

I just want to say: lean into it because it’s very normal and you can use it as an opportunity to transition.

2. Belief Comes Before Ability

Do you believe in your ability to be CEO at every stage? Now this is maybe if I had one thing to say on this topic, it might be this one right here: belief comes before ability.

What most people don’t do, but they should do, is when you go into starting a business, you should look at this ladder, these three stages, or get the whole thing – get Clay’s thing and look at all seven stages – and ask yourself: “Do I believe that I can do what it takes to take a company through every stage?”

It’s not failure if you don’t, but the question is:

These are really great questions. But the key here is that you can have the ability, but it all starts with believing that you have that ability.

3. Growth Is About Identity

Growth isn’t just about mechanics. It’s not just about hacks or tricks or information. This is the thing that ChatGPT can’t give you, that Google can’t give you, that just another course can’t give you. This is why I hired another coach. My CFO Nick just asked me the other day, “Why did you hire another coach?” My answer is: because I need to see what I don’t yet see about myself, because I’m in a transition. I’m going to the next level, and in order to do that, it helps seeing what I don’t see.

Growth is about identity, leadership, and resilience. It’s about believing.

So the question is: are you leading from belief or faith in what’s possible, what could be, or fear of what is or what could be – like being found out, imposter syndrome, fear of failure, fear of losing it all?

Oftentimes as founders, we definitely struggle through growth because instead of operating from “what if it works,” we spend all of our time avoiding, supplanting, dodging the barriers.

There’s this great analogy that Dan Martell has used. He’s CEO of Martell Ventures, runs a coaching program called The Elite. He talks about skiing downhill, skiing through trees. He did this gnarly course one time with some friends and a ski instructor, and the ski instructor said, “Hey, here’s the rule: Don’t look at the trees. Look at the gaps between the trees. Look at the sun shining, look through, look at the end.”

He said, “If you look at the trees, you’re going to hit a tree. It’s all about what you look at.” So Dan’s going along like, “Look at the sun, look at the sun,” dodging the trees. His buddy over there who came with him couldn’t help but look at the trees, and the dude whacks himself on a tree. They’re like, “Dude, what happened?” He’s like, “I just was looking at the trees.” It’s like, “You’ve got to stop looking at the trees.”

Same thing here. Growth is about seeing through the trees. Growth is about looking at the opportunities and the possibilities. But if you’re always constantly looking at the obstacles, you’re going to hit them.

Identity Alignment Prompts

One of the best ways to see yourself in this topic is to ask yourself some questions about leadership, about leadership identity, and actually explore for yourself and chew on where you’re at.

Some questions that I want to ask as a mirror for you that are also helpful for me are:

Where are you clinging to the gritty operator identity that got you here?

What got you here won’t get you there. So there’s this element of you’re going to have to let go of some parts of who you were. Doesn’t mean you have to toss out gritty operator – gritty operator probably can take you somewhere, but the question is: what’s helping you right now, and what’s not? Does that make sense?

A lot of founders that I talk to, what happens for them is hustle and grind – they cling on to. “If I just work harder, if I just do more, if I just can get more hours in, or if I can just get more…” And there’s something to say about hours. There’s something to say about working so hard and so much that it becomes unreasonable for you to fail. I mean, that’s Alex Hormozi’s thing. Is he wrong? No, he’s right. But is he all right? Well, no. Do you have to do that? Is it serving you anymore?

Alex is great, but if you’ve got a wife and kids and your wife works in the business with you, maybe you can put in 16-hour days and it’s actually part of your lifestyle, your values, and how you live your life. But the question is: is that aligned with who you are? Because I’ll tell you, I’ve got four kids, a fifth on the way – my wife’s pregnant. We just put our kids in school, and we’re building our business. The truth is, I can’t operate like Alex does if I want to be true to my legacy and my future and aligned with my vision.

Those are the questions to ask.

What belief do you need to claim in order to grow your next identity as a leader?

This is the tough one. What belief do you need to claim (that you don’t yet have, that you have not yet claimed) in order to grow your next identity as a leader? In order to go from $1M to $10M, $10M to $100M? What do you need to believe about yourself that you don’t yet believe?

For me, I know that recently one of the things that I needed to claim was that I can be a builder. I associate so much with ideator, visionary, futurist, that saying “I am going to submit to a process and endure systems, build systems and run systems and love the machine, master the machine” – that was something I had to learn to believe about myself as a CEO and as a leader in order to get to the next level.

What’s that for you?

What stage of the founder journey are you in, and what shift must you make to break through that ceiling?

What stage are you in of the three that I mentioned? Which one are you in? And then the question is: what shifts do I need to make?

These are good ways to reflect. Most – what I want you to see if you’re just here right now, if you’re watching this – I want you to know most founders never break this trap. They stay stuck here. Only the few willing to shed and rebuild their identity step into true visionary leadership.

There’s a quote that my wife, founder and co-founder of Structure with me, shared yesterday, and I hope I don’t botch it. She learned from another entrepreneur that was telling her: the ones who win aren’t the best, they’re the boldest.

I think that’s really important to know – if you want to grow, if you want to step into your next level, what’s probably not standing in your way is just operational complexities. You’ll figure them out. But what’s really standing in your way is who you believe you are, and further, who you think others believe you are. Rebuilding that, recreating that, changing that, shedding parts of that is what’s really scary. It’s really scary, and I’ve been through that as well.

The Future Is Yours

What I want you to know is the future is yours. Imagine for a second being one of the few founders who doesn’t just win but is recognized with a brand, body, and a legacy that lasts decades, not just days. Imagine what that would look like. What if? What would that look like? The truth is, that’s possible. Lots of people have done that. Why not you?

This is what I’ve learned: reforming my identity as a leader, going through these stages, is the hardest, most rewarding work you’ll ever step into. When you say “I want to be a founder,” you think “I want to make a million dollars.” However, what you’re really saying is “I want to become someone who can make a million dollars.”

That becoming is the thing we overlook, but it is the key to growth.

How I Can Help You Transform

I’m here to help. I would love to answer any questions. Any questions – what’s keeping you stuck right now in your business, in your life? Please share feelings, opinions about this topic. I would truly love to hear it. Does this resonate with you? Does this click at all, or does it feel like nonsense? Something you’ve never heard? Do you like it? Do you not like it? I would love the feedback, and not just for me, but I want to know for you.

Do you see how life performance growth drives business performance growth? Do you see how who you are as a leader determines the potential of your company?

There are these phrases that I like to use that are the core of everything I do. One of them is: business is personal. We’ve probably all heard that phrase in the negative form, which is “It’s not personal, it’s just business.” This comes from The Godfather, where I think it’s Sonny who says, “It’s not personal, it’s just business. You’ve got to just do this thing.”

We hear that when you get fired, you hear that when there’s company changes, you hear that any time there’s something bad or negative or change happening in a company. It’s just a freaking excuse, and one that bothers the crap out of me because it’s a lie and it’s not true, because business is very personal.

But business is personal isn’t just an excuse – it’s actually an outcome. It’s an outcome that who you are determines how your business performs if you’re the founder.

There’s another quote that I love to use: business problems are just personal problems in disguise. That’s something I’ve shared with my team, that’s something I’ve shared with a lot of leaders, that’s something I remember every day. The truth is, if your business is held back, is stuck, is at a ceiling, it’s something that has to do with you, likely.

Three Ways I Can Help

I’ve got a few ways I can help, and I don’t want to overwhelm:

1. Alignment Check

Quick clarity on your biggest bottleneck. This is a little scorecard that I put together, a document that I would love to send you for free. If you are watching this and you want quick clarity on your biggest bottleneck as it relates to life and business and the five domains that we talked about today, let me know. Hit me up in the DMs and just ask for the alignment check, and I will send it to you for free. I’d love to share that.

2. Alignment Intensive

This is a two-day workshop – deep dive to reset your vision, rebuild belief, and sharpen your focus. We’ve done many of these, and they’re always very high impact. We walk out of this session with a bigger vision of the future, clarity, and just a drive to make stuff happen. It’s cool to see how pieces always come together and align during that just two days.

3. My Alignment Program

This is a 12-month program into the hardest, most rewarding room you’ll ever step into. This is my flagship program that I am building. I’m going to be building this, and this is the next thing I’m most excited about right now.

My goal is to be the number one business coaching program for world-class founders out there, and I want to help world-class founders grow better than anyone else. This is the core of that mission. I’m very excited about that. If I can help you with that, if you’re interested in that at all, let me know, and I’ll be happy to share more about it.

Final Thought

If I can leave you with one thing at the end of this – if you don’t remember anything else, remember this: if you don’t align, you drift. You can drift through business, you can drift through life, and that’s what happens if you don’t align.

Here’s the thing: drift destroys dreams. Drift destroys dreams, but alignment builds legacy.

See you next time. If you joined to watch, thank you so much. I will be doing this live here on LinkedIn every Thursday at 1 PM Mountain time. If you have any questions, hit me up with an email. Hope to talk to you soon. Thank you so much.