Optimized | Growth Marketing Agency

Founder

UPTHRUST | Growth Marketing & Digital Product Studio

Digital Marketeer

We help ambitious DTC & SaaS brands​ grow by pairing our proven growth systems with performance creative and landing page testing.

We work with 25+ 6 to 8 figure brands. Some of our success stories:
✅ Helped a subscription baby brand launch and scale to $250k/month in 12 months
✅ Reduced MER by 60% for a CPG brand in the first 90 days
✅ Helped a fashion DTC brand cut CPA by 43% through structured creative testing and UGC

Here's how we help you scale your brand:
👉 Performance creative: a consistent inflow of high-performing ad creative built around consumer psychology.
👉 Landing page testing: we design and build landing pages that match ad intent, messaging and customer pain points.
👉 Influencer & creator whitelisting: tap into trust and leveraging authentic creators that help increase brand awareness and social proof through .


If you’re a 6 to 8-figure DTC brand looking to break through a growth plateau or scale profitably, DM me “𝗚𝗥𝗢𝗪” to learn more.

Alexander Pauwelyn

Apps, sites, & software for startups and the big companies they strive to become.

You know the Stanford Marshmallow Test?
 
Give a kid a marshmallow. Tell them if they wait 10 minutes, they get two.
Researchers followed those kids for decades.
The ones who waited earned more, achieved more, outperformed across the board.
 
Self-control, the story goes, predicts success.
 
But what if it was possible to have too much of a good thing?
 
What if instead of a line going up and to the right, it's a curve?
At the top is a sweet spot where discipline, focus, and drive produce extraordinary results.
 
On the other side of that peak is suffering.
 
→ Depression that won't lift
→ Treatment-resistant anxiety
→ Burnout that persists beyond time off
→ Chronic pain with no clear physical cause
→ Relationships that function but never feel close
 
This other side of the curve is called Over-Control.
 
The founder pulling 80-hour weeks.
The person who never misses a deadline.
The leader whose team performs but never trusts them.
The executive who hasn't felt anything in years and calls it "focus."
 
Society rewards every step of the climb.
Praise. Promotions. "Success."
 
So it goes unrecognized for decades,
until the body starts keeping score,
or the loneliness becomes unbearable,
or the thing that defined you suddenly shifts beneath your feet.
 
That's where we come in.
 
The Wise Mind Group is a therapy and coaching practice built for high-achievers.
 
My wife Danielle is an ex-big law litigator turned licensed therapist and our Clinical Director, specializing in evidence-based approaches for this exact population:
people whose greatest strength has quietly become their greatest liability.
 
I'm not just the business guy. I'm patient zero.
25 years in tech. Five startups. 80-hour weeks.
I built a software agency, ran it for over a decade, and optimized every system in my life except the one that mattered most.
 
When I was a kid, my mom said I could have ONE birthday party.
I kept postponing it, waiting for the "right" time.
I never had one.
That's Over-Control in a sentence.
 
Now I work at the intersection of what I know and what I've lived.
 
We specialize in:
→ The mental health impact of AI and career disruption
→ Burnout and anxiety that "shouldn't" be there
→ The quiet suffering of being "the strong one"
→ Chronic pain without a clear physical cause
→ Leadership transitions and identity shifts
 
We use RO-DBT, IFS, EMDR, and Pain Reprocessing Therapy, approaches built for people who spent a lifetime building walls.
 
If this sounds familiar, you're not broken.
You might just have too much of a good thing,
and you can let go of the parts that are making you unhappy.
 
→ thewisemindgroup.com

Elijah Szasz

Your growth isn’t measured by pursuit.

It’s measured by restraint.

Early in your career,
you chase everything.

→ The title
→ The funding round
→ The recognition
→ The invite to the table

It feels like ambition.

Sometimes it is.

But often, it’s insecurity
with a productivity app.

Maturity in leadership
isn’t about what you add.

It’s about what you refuse to pursue.

You stop chasing:

1. Every opportunity
↳ If it’s for you, it won’t require desperation

2. Every room you’re not invited into
↳ Not all tables deserve your time

3. Every argument
↳ Being right is overrated

4. Every trend
↳ Relevance fades, principles compound

5. Every client
↳ Revenue without alignment is expensive

The strongest leaders I know
don’t look frantic.

They look focused.

Calm.

Selective.

They’ve learned that energy is finite.
Attention is sacred.
Time is non-renewable.

So they choose carefully
what deserves pursuit.

Refusal is a strategy.

When you stop chasing noise,
you hear your own standards again.

When you stop chasing approval,
you start leading with conviction.

When you stop chasing growth at all costs,
you build something sustainable.

You don’t need everything.

You need the right things.

Say no more often.

Protect your focus.

Let others sprint.

Build at your pace.

♻️ Repost to help your network.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for actionable insights on AI, systems, and strategy.

The most overlooked skill in leadership?
 
Trusting your own signal over the noise.
 
Most high performers have a dirty secret.
They don't trust themselves.
 
They trust the consensus.
They trust frameworks.
They trust mentors.
They trust data.
 
But the moment they're alone
with a decision that has no playbook,
they freeze.
 
Not because they lack intelligence.
Because they've been trained to believe
that certainty must come from the outside.
 
Here's what nobody tells you:
 
Certainty is a feeling, not a fact.
And waiting for it is a trap.
 
The leaders I respect most
didn't have more information than you.
They had less hesitation.
 
They made the call.
They stayed in the room with discomfort.
They let the results teach them.
 
Trust isn't built by getting it right.
It's built by surviving getting it wrong,
and realizing you're still standing.
 
A year from now,
the version of you that took the shot
will have something the cautious version won't:
 
Evidence.
 
Not evidence that you were right.
Evidence that you can handle
whatever comes next.
 
That's the real unlock.
 
Stop waiting for confidence to arrive.
Make the decision that builds it.
 
♻️ Repost to help your network.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for tips on staying grounded in the age of AI.

Starting something new can be terrifying. 

And I think that's the point.

Here's what I've learned about fear:

It's a terrible measure of readiness.

Most high performers misread the signal.

They feel uncertainty and conclude:
"I'm not ready."
"I don't have what it takes."
"The timing isn't right."

None of that is true.

Fear doesn't measure your capability.

It measures the distance between
what you know
and what's next.

That distance is supposed to exist.

If you could step into the next chapter
without any discomfort,
it probably wasn't much of a chapter.

The anxiety you feel at the edge
of a new decision isn't a warning.

It's a compass.

It's telling you:
"You care about this."
"This one actually matters."
"You're not just going through the motions."

Here's the reframe that changed how I operate:

Your nervous system wasn't built
to distinguish between danger
and growth.

Both feel like threat.

The job is to get better at telling them apart.

Danger says: "Turn back."

Growth says: "You've never been here before."

One of those is worth listening to.
The other is worth walking through.

The hardest system to debug
is your own perception.

Because when anxiety sits in the analyst chair,
every piece of data looks like a stop sign.

So before you let hesitation
make the decision for you:

→ Ask if this fear is protecting you
  from harm, or from newness.

→ Ask what you'd tell a friend
  who was exactly where you are.

→ Ask what you'd regret more:
  trying, or not trying.

Fear isn't the enemy of good decisions.

Mistaking it for certainty is.

♻️ Repost to help your network.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for tips on staying grounded in the age of AI.

You think your team has a performance problem.

They have a safety problem.

There's a version of leadership that looks strong
from the outside.

Tight systems.
High standards.
No excuses.

And underneath it all:

A team that's terrified to tell you the truth.

Here's what nobody tells you about scaling:

Your stress is not private.

It leaks into every meeting.
Every Slack message.
Every two-second pause before you respond.

Your team isn't reading your strategy deck.
They're reading you.

And if what they read is:
"This person cannot handle bad news,"

they will stop giving you bad news.

That's not a loyalty problem.
That's not a communication problem.

That's a signal problem.

You trained them, without knowing it,
to protect you from reality.

So the SOPs don't get followed.
The real blockers stay hidden.
And you're making decisions
on information that's been
quietly curated for your comfort.

The fix isn't another system.

It's learning to signal:
"You can bring me the hard thing.
I won't punish the messenger."

Calm is a leadership output.
Not a personality trait.

The leader who stays regulated
when everything is on fire
creates a team that runs toward problems,
not away from them.

That's how you actually scale.

Not by gripping tighter.
By making it safe to be honest.

Ask yourself:

→ When did someone last tell you
  something you didn't want to hear?

→ How did you respond?

→ What did that response teach them?

Your answers tell you everything
about the culture you've actually built.

♻️ Repost to help your network.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for tips on staying grounded in the age of AI.

The worst leaders I've worked with

had one thing in common.

They confused control with power.

They ran tight ships.
Had every metric dialed.
Never missed a deadline.

And their best people kept leaving.

Here's what took me years to learn:

Control is a grip.
Power is a lift.

The leaders who actually move markets
aren't the ones white-knuckling
every decision and outcome.

They're the ones who make people
feel safe enough to tell the truth,
free enough to take real risks,
and seen enough to stay.

Your team doesn't need a warden.
They need someone who creates
the conditions for them to be dangerous.

Not dangerous to themselves.
Dangerous to the competition.

That requires you to loosen the grip.

→ Stop hoarding information
→ Stop reacting to mistakes with heat
→ Stop confusing compliance with loyalty

The most powerful person in the room
is rarely the loudest.

They're the one who made everyone else
feel safe enough to speak.

Calm is contagious.
So is fear.
You get to choose which one you spread.

P.S. Who was the leader that made you
feel powerful, not small?

♻️ Repost to help your network.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for tips on staying grounded in the age of AI.

You don't lose people overnight.
 
You lose them slowly.
 
It starts when effort goes unnoticed.
 
When consistency is expected,
but appreciation is optional.
 
Most leaders focus on replacement math.
 
Hiring speed.
Salary bands.
Ramp time.
 
That's the obvious cost.
 
The real cost shows up earlier.
 
→ When trust erodes quietly
→ When motivation turns into compliance
→ When commitment becomes transactional
→ When people stop bringing their best
 
Once loyalty breaks, everything gets expensive.
 
Time.
Energy.
Focus.
Reputation.
 
Perks don't prevent this.
 
Neither do slogans.
 
What actually works:
 
→ Treating people with baseline respect
↳ Not as a reward, but as a standard
 
→ Paying attention before performance dips
↳ Disengagement is loud if you're listening
 
→ Valuing contribution while it's happening
↳ Not only during exit interviews
 
→ Creating stability people don't want to escape
↳ Safety fuels performance
 
→ Remembering that consistency is earned
↳ Not assumed
 
Most departures aren't caused by better offers.
 
They're caused by accumulated disregard.
 
If you want people to stay,
make staying feel sensible.
 
♻️ Repost to help your network.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for tips on staying grounded in the age of AI.

The busiest person on your team shouldn't be you. 

That's not leadership. That's a trap.

That line should make leaders uncomfortable.
Because it exposes a quiet truth.

If progress depends on your presence,
you didn’t build capability.
You built dependency.

Most bottlenecks don’t look like problems.
They look like dedication.

→ Always available
→ Always fixing
→ Always stepping in


It feels responsible.
It feels supportive.
It feels like leadership.

Until you step away.
And things stall.

That’s the signal.

Not of commitment,
but of control.

Managing keeps things moving today.
Leading ensures they move tomorrow.

When everything routes through you:
↳ Decisions slow
↳ Confidence erodes
↳ Initiative fades
↳ Growth caps out

The issue isn’t effort.
It’s architecture.

Leadership is a system,
not a performance.

Three reframes that unlock real leadership:

1. Design for absence
↳ If you vanished for a week, what breaks?

2. Transfer judgment, not tasks
↳ Ownership beats instructions every time

3. Measure outcomes, not activity
↳ Motion hides fragility, results reveal it

If your team can’t move without you,
they’re not empowered.
They’re waiting.

Strong leaders don’t disappear.
They become unnecessary.

That’s not neglect.
That’s success.

Look at your week.
What still needs you there to work?
That’s your next leadership problem to solve.

♻️ Repost to help your network.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for tips on staying grounded in the age of AI.

AI is about to break organic content distribution.

And most people don’t see the window yet.

Everyone’s arguing about AI writing posts.

That’s not the shift.

The shift is distribution.

For years, organic growth was simple:
→ Write good content  
→ Stay consistent  
→ Learn the platform  
→ Hope the algorithm cooperates  

Now we’re entering a different phase.

AI can:

→ Analyze what formats are spiking in real time  
→ Generate variations fast enough to test daily  
→ Personalize outbound at scale  
→ Repurpose one idea into 20 native formats  
→ Identify overlooked audience pockets  

That creates arbitrage.

Not forever.

For a window.

Here’s how this usually plays out:

1. Early adopters exploit distribution gaps  
2. Platforms tighten the rails  
3. Loopholes close  
4. New surface area opens  

It’s cat and mouse.

But the cycles are accelerating.

The real opportunity?

Not replacing your voice.

Building systems around it.

→ AI as research analyst  
→ AI as distribution engine  
→ AI as testing machine  
→ You as strategist  

The creators who win won’t be the loudest.

They’ll be the most systematic.

Organic isn’t dying.

It’s becoming a systems game.

♻️ Repost to help your network.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for actionable insights on AI, systems, and strategy.

The harsh truth about growth:
 
It’s painful, but staying stuck hurts more.
 
Staying stuck feels safer,
but it comes at a hidden cost:
 
→ It drains your energy.
→ It steals your potential.
→ It keeps you locked in a cycle of regret.
 
Here’s a framework to escape:
 
Acknowledge the pain
↳ Growth hurts, but it’s temporary
 
Choose a small step
↳ Don’t tackle the mountain; focus on the first hill.
 
Reframe the challenge
↳ Every difficult moment is proof that you’re evolving.
 
Lean into it.
Every step forward compounds.
The discomfort of growth is worth the reward.
 
P.S. Next time fear of change holds you back, ask yourself this:
“Which pain am I choosing, growth or regret?”
 
♻️ Repost this to help someone in your network who might need to hear this.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for the human side of high performance and the AI conversation.

Most leaders I know are chasing wealth.

While quietly ignoring the only 3 assets that matter.

You can stack wins for decades.
Grow revenue.
Build teams.
Expand influence.

And still feel like something’s missing.

Because real wealth was never about the scoreboard.

It’s about three things most people treat as optional.

1. Your health.

→ Do you wake up with energy?
→ Do you protect your sleep like it’s sacred?
→ Can you train your body without breaking it?

If your business is thriving
but your body is deteriorating,

You’re not rich.
You’re renting success.

2. Your peace.

→ Can you sit in silence without anxiety?
→ Do you trust your own judgment?
→ Can you detach from outcomes?

If your mind never turns off,
the money won’t make it quieter.

Peace isn’t soft.
It’s a competitive advantage.

3. Your people.

→ Do you have relationships without performance?
→ Can you be honest without losing status?
→ Do your closest friends make you better?

Influence is public.
Wealth is private.

A small circle of solid humans
beats a large audience of spectators.

Here’s the reframe most leaders resist:

If your health is intact,
your mind is steady,
and your circle is strong,

You are already ahead.

Everything else is a bonus.

The smartest operators I know
don’t optimize for more.

They defend these three at all costs.

Because once they’re gone,
no amount of success can buy them back.

♻️ Repost to help your network.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for actionable insights on AI, systems, and strategy.

Your inner circle is your competitive advantage.

Guard it like your most important asset.

Most people treat their network
like a numbers game.

More connections, more reach, more noise.

But the people closest to you
are shaping your ceiling every single day.

The curious ones keep you sharp.

The driven ones raise the bar.

The grateful ones keep you grounded.

The real ones tell you what you need to hear,
not what you want to hear.

The ones still growing
are proof that growth never stops.

That's the tribe worth protecting.

Not the loudest people in the room.
Not the ones with the most followers.
Not the ones who only show up
when things are going well.

Here's the law:

You will become the average
of the five people you protect most.

Choose deliberately.
Audit often.
Prune without guilt.

Your business can survive a bad quarter.

It can't survive the wrong people
in your inner circle.

♻️ Repost to help your network.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for tips on staying grounded in the age of AI.

Screens are rooms now.

And most founders are ignoring that.

In-person will always matter.

But attention is the real currency.

A screen holds attention.

A podcast.
An Instagram feed.
A blog post.
A YouTube clip.

If someone is spending 10 minutes with you,
that’s a room.

The difference?

You can’t clone yourself for conferences.

But you can replicate yourself on camera.

That’s leverage.

Look at any high-output founder.

They don’t just “post content.”
They build distribution machines.

→ Production
↳ Cameras, editors, studios

→ Distribution
↳ Multi-platform clipping
↳ Team-run accounts
↳ Paid amplification

→ Repetition
↳ You see them everywhere
↳ Because it’s intentional

And here’s the part most people ignore:

Scale costs money.

Serious production isn’t free.
Distribution isn’t free.
Consistency at volume isn’t free.

You can talk in a room for 50 people.

Or invest in systems
that put you in 50,000 feeds.

AI makes this even more interesting.

Because now:

→ Scripts can be drafted faster
→ Clips can be generated automatically
→ Personas can extend your voice
→ Workflows can publish while you sleep

The Renaissance of in-person is coming.

But the founders who win
will understand both rooms.

The physical one.
And the digital one.

Build rapport.

Then build systems.

One scales.
One compounds.

Use both.

I had a great time recording this week's "AI at Work" with Kevin Williams. Listen to the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Link is in the first comment. 

♻️ Repost to help your network.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for actionable insights on AI, systems, and strategy.

You don’t need a perfect plan.  

You need a first move.

Progress isn’t built  
in polished moments.

It’s built in messy starts.

Most people delay action  
because they want certainty.

They want the full roadmap.  
The flawless strategy.  
The guarantee it will work.

That’s not leadership.

That’s fear disguised as preparation.

Every meaningful thing I’ve built  
started incomplete.

→ The first version was rough.  
→ The first conversation was awkward.  
→ The first hire was uncertain.  

But action clarified what thinking never could.

Here’s the shift:

1. Clarity follows motion.  
You don’t think your way into confidence.  
You act your way into it.

2. Imperfect reps create real capability.  
You can’t optimize what doesn’t exist.  
Ship first. Refine second.

3. Waiting feels safe.  
But it quietly erodes momentum.  
Small steps compound. Hesitation does too.

Perfection is a moving target.

Progress is a decision.

The first draft.  
The first pitch.  
The first uncomfortable ask.

That’s where momentum lives.

You don’t need everything figured out.

You need enough courage  
to begin.

What’s one step you could take today  
without having it all solved?

♻️ Repost to help your network.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for actionable insights on AI, systems, and strategy.

Ever feel like everyone else has it all figured out?
 
Spoiler alert: Nobody really does.
 
Each one of us
 
→ navigate struggles
→ endure suffering
→ keep growing
 
But here’s the thing:
 
Growth doesn’t require perfection.
It only requires showing up.
 
Especially when things feel messy.
 
The next time you catch yourself
comparing your journey to someone else’s,
ask yourself:
 
"Would I be willing to trade my entire life for theirs?"
 
→ Your failures
→ Your triumphs
→ Your great loves
→ Your great losses
 
If you can't answer with an unequivocal "yes"
(and who can honestly agree to this??)
then why compare one piece of it?
 
Your story isn't over until it's over.
 
✅ What’s one small action I can take today to move forward?
✅ What’s one habit I can build to create momentum?
 
Progress doesn’t come from waiting for the perfect moment.
It comes from doing the best you can, right now.
There's nothing to "figure out."
Just a life of growth to live.
 
P.S. We're all in this together. Literally. Enjoy the ride.
 
♻️ Repost this to help someone in your network who might need to hear this.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for the human side of high performance and the AI conversation.

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Alexander Pauwelyn

Elijah Szasz

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The Battle

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Elijah Szasz

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Elijah Szasz's LinkedIn Performance

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