𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 𝗖𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁-𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀
It’s not just about scaling your business.
It’s also about scaling you.
From Fortune 500 companies to fast-growing startups, I’ve coached leaders at every stage. Today, my mission is focused: helping first-time founders scale themselves as fast as they scale their companies.
 
𝗠𝘆 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀
Your startup can only grow as fast as you do. As a first-time founder, you’re under pressure from investors, your team, and your family—all while learning on the fly skills that others spend decades mastering. Whether you’re raising capital, hiring your first team, or pushing toward product-market fit, I help you close the gap between where you are and where your company needs you to be.
 
𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗠𝘆 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀
I bring 20+ years of coaching 10,000+ leaders, founder experience, and cutting-edge insights from neuroscience and behavioral psychology. The result: a proven path to accelerate both personal and company growth. My frameworks help you:
• Transform self-doubt into clarity and influence
• Build and inspire high-performing, durable teams
• Raise capital while staying true to your vision
• Create sustainable success without burnout
• Leverage your existing strengths while closing critical skill gaps
• Grow yourself as fast as your company 
 
𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗜 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲
My one-on-one clients are founders who:
• Want tailored, responsive coaching that meets them where they are
• Care deeply about building strong teams and cultures
• Aim to create both impact and enterprise value
• Refuse to accept that success means sacrificing their families, health, or lives outside the company
• Are willing to grow personally and professionally to become the leader their company needs 
 
𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁
From doubling revenue to unlocking fundraising rounds to transforming team dynamics, my clients consistently achieve breakthrough results—while building lives they actually want to live.
 
𝗪𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁?
Visit www.andrewpoles.com/contact or DM me here.

Andrew Poles

We use the word “complete” all the time.
But most people confuse it with “finished.”

They’re not the same.

You can end a relationship and still be carrying it.
You can be in an ongoing partnership and feel fully clear.

Completion is a function of how you relate to reality - not a status update.
In this clip (from my conversation on the Sleep Is A Skill podcast with Mollie), I break down what I mean by being complete - and why it has real implications for how you live, lead, and even sleep.

Coaching first-time founders to grow themselves and their companies | 3x Founder | 22+ years coaching partners like NASA, Dell, Schwab + 10,000 people worldwide

What does insomnia have to do with integrity?
More than most leaders realize.

I once worked with a man who had slept 1–2 hours a night for years. His health was at risk. After doing deep completion work in his relationships and life, he slept 8–10 hours for the first time in decades.

There’s a connection between how complete you are and how well you sleep.
And more than that - your sleep may be a lagging indicator of how powerfully you’re living and leading.

If this resonates, I unpack it further on the Sleep Is A Skill podcast with the amazing Mollie Eastman, episode linked below.  

Sometimes it’s not a sleep issue.
It’s a leadership issue.

#Leadership #ExecutiveCoaching #SleepIsASkill #FounderHealth #Integrity

This is the part of leadership most spreadsheets can’t capture. When behavior stops making sense, there’s almost always unseen pressure in the room.
What stands out here is the refusal to confuse kindness with lowering standards. Real leadership is keeping the bar high AND removing shame from the climb.
Culture isn’t what you say you value - it’s how safe it feels for people to be human while doing hard work.

3 Exits | Founder @ Humble | Strategic Partner @ Loud | Follow for Self Improvement, Growth Strategy & Being A Better Human | Entrepreneurship Coach & Mentor

You have no idea what people are dealing with.
Not even close.
And that’s ok.

Because you just have to be kind.

The person who snapped in your meeting might have a kid who’s struggling.

The one who “doesn’t care anymore” might be keeping a marriage together with duct tape.

The quiet one who missed a deadline might be dealing with a parent who’s fading, fast.

Work makes it easy to pretend everyone is a machine.

Metrics. Output. Deadlines. Slack green dots.

👉 But leadership is what you do when the spreadsheet stops explaining the behaviour.

Bad leaders get this part wrong: 

They think kindness is a personality trait.

It isn’t.
It’s a professional skill. 
And it’s different to being NICE.

Kind isn’t soft.
Kind is controlled.

Nice avoids the hard chat.
Kind has it, without making the person feel small.

Nice lowers standards so nobody feels uncomfortable.
Kind keeps standards high and removes the shame from getting there.

I learned this the hard way building companies from nothing.

⚠️ When you’re under pressure yourself, your instincts get ugly, and you start to:
Push harder. Watch closer. Assume the worst.

It feels “productive”.

It’s usually expensive.

Because people don’t leave jobs first.
They leave the feeling of being misunderstood.

So if you want a practical way to lead like a grown up, try this:

Before you judge the performance, check the pressure they are under.

BUT, a simple “You alright?” is not leadership.
Anyone can say that.

📌This is leadership:

1.	Ask a better question
“What’s taking up headspace right now?”
It gives them a door that isn’t dramatic.

2.	Offer a real option
“Do you want time, help, or privacy?”
Most people just need one of the three.

3.	Separate the person from the work
“You’re not your output. Let’s fix the work.”
That one sentence changes everything.

4.	Adjust the load, not the standards
“What do we de-scope for 7 days?”
Pressure without control creates mistakes.

5.	Protect them in public, coach them in private.
If you correct someone publicly, you teach the whole team to hide.

None of this is “being nice”.

It’s how you keep good people good.

Your culture isn’t your values on a Notion page.
It’s how safe it feels to have a bad week around you.

So yes, you seriously have NO idea what people are dealing with.

Lead like you know that.

-
♻️: Repost to inspire.
➕: Follow Charlie Lass.

Most founders don’t get stuck because things are hard.
They get stuck because of the story they tell themselves about why things shouldn’t be this way.

Loss. Missed signals. Bad hires. Broken trust.
The pain is real — but the suffering is optional.

This week I'm sharing about how leaders unknowingly trap themselves after setbacks, and how dropping one word can unlock clarity, resilience, and forward momentum.

If you’ve been carrying something heavy lately, I hope this offers you some needed clarity.

Sadness: Yes. Suffering: No. Over the last few weeks, several founders I coach have been moving through loss. Not just personal loss — though that’s b

Open article: The “Should” Trap in Leadership by Andrew Poles • 4 min read

When Ken Cox and I were talking recently on the Clicks and Bricks podcast, we kept circling back to something that doesn’t get talked about enough in business:

Your company grows at the speed of your own growth.

Not just revenue.

You can still be making money and feel something in the business has stalled.

Energy drops. Culture gets stale. Decisions feel heavier.

I’ve lived that.

In my first business, I thought learning business meant learning tactics. Strategy. Sales. Operations.

And yes — you do have to learn the “game.”

But what I didn’t understand then was that every ceiling I hit in the business was connected to a ceiling in me.

Fear I hadn’t dealt with.
Conversations I didn’t want to have.
Identity I hadn’t owned yet, or hadn't generated the courage to let go. 

Ken asked me about authenticity and about “next right actions.”

For me, performance really comes down to that:

What is the next right action of integrity here?
Not the most comfortable action.
Not the one that protects your ego.
The one that’s actually right.

That’s where growth happens.
And when that shifts, the business shifts.

If you’re a founder, especially early-stage, I think you’ll appreciate how deep this conversation goes. 

I'll put the link to the full episode in the comments.

Most founder tension isn’t about strategy.

It’s about what no one is saying.

When something is clearly impacting performance–but everyone is pretending it’s not–trust erodes, capacity drops, and the team feels it.

This is about how to name the “boulder in the room” without creating drama, shame, or overcorrection.

If you’ve ever:
-Avoided a hard conversation at the top
-Worried about overstepping vs. under-supporting
-Felt silent tension on your leadership team
-Tried to protect the business without adding pressure

This is for you.

A founder asked me this week how to support a co-founder going through a deeply disruptive personal situation. You know the kind. Sleep off. Nervous s

Open article: The Boulder in the Middle of the Room by Andrew Poles • 5 min read

Your calendar is lying to you.
Not because you’re incapable - but because it’s built on optimism, not reality.
If your day assumes you’ll get everything done, with no interruptions, no fatigue, no tradeoffs… that’s a fantasy, not a system.
You don’t need better memory.
You need a structure that maps real work to real time - and forces honest choices.
High performance starts with a calendar that tells the truth.
Where is yours overpromising right now?

Will Steel Enterprises

ENTREPRENEURIAL BUSINESS & CORPORATE CONSULTING
►I partner with businesses and corporations to produce collaborative and unprecedented results that would not otherwise have come to light.
►Freeing people up to enable them to be more efficient and effective at producing results
►Impacting corporate culture by impacting the way people communicate with one another.
►Expanding people’s creativity and idea generation.
►Causing business owners to effectively delegate and empower their teams.
►Reduce the number of hours worked each week for business owners.
►Getting people to work on their business and increase their business vs. in their business.

ONE-ON-ONE COACHING
►Breathed new life into dead marriages.
►Caused breakthroughs in health, wellness & vitality.
►Empowered people to change careers and start businesses and entrepreneurial ventures.
►Disappearing stress that people are experiencing.
►Empowered people to have conversations with their bosses to cause breakthrough results.

GROUP COACHING (COMING SOON)
►Leading bi-weekly transformational coaching webinars

RAINMAKER
►Connecting people and leveraging my network to allow for business collaboration between clients to a mutual benefit.

High Performance Coach

Landmark Worldwide

GLOBAL SCOPE 
►Delivered transformational programs for over 21 years to over 60,000 people all over the world in 26 countries and in over 18 different languages.
►Unique in the personal and professional development field, Landmark is recognized as a worldwide leader with more than 2.4 million people having participated in their courses.

Forum Leader

Maersk Air

Airline Pilot

Royal Air Force (RAF)

Royal Air Force Pilot

I help Business Owners Double their businesses and double their time off in 12 months.

Let's get things moving!!!

BACKGROUND

►21 years of leadership experience in personal and professional growth training
►Transformed 90,000+ people in 26 countries and 18 languages
►Trained leaders to present, listen, and interact powerfully
►I work with CEOs, top executives, entrepreneurs, athletes, and more

UNIQUE ABILITY TO CAUSE BREAKTHROUGH RESULTS

►Quickly identify what is blocking you from producing breakthrough results
►Work with an ontological expert perspective to immediately reveal blind spots
   coaching that enables clients to act free from limiting beliefs
►Receive unprecedented results that will exceed your expectations
►Unblock and access actions and cause real breakthroughs

LEADERSHIP EVOLUTION

►Leveraging military and commercial pilot experience - you will access leadership skills honed 
►All coaching is beyond tips and tools, unblocking clients for lasting results
►Sensitivity and listening skills needed for the civilian and business world
►You will naturally evolve your leadership style and increase confidence

Book a Free 15 minute Strategy Call with me below:

https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/booking/LOmkl6JnKkjSJJAt9Csm


Will Steel

Does this resonate...? If there’s one thing I feel certain about after coaching so many leaders through their transformations, it’s that the universe will help you if you tell the truth about what you really want. The problem is we have become so conditioned in our thinking and in our belief systems that we’re no longer in touch with what we want.

When you were a kid, and you saw an athlete or someone you admired, like a rock star or a doctor, you said, ‘I want to do that!’ But let’s say you wanted to be a doctor; then you found out that doctors need to be good at chemistry and biology— and you don’t do well in those subjects. Without realising it, you closed a door for yourself. Now, being a doctor is out of the question for you. Or perhaps someone insulted you or called you ugly—now you’ve decided you’re unattractive. So, you never put yourself out there to pursue the romantic relationships you truly desire. Again and again, as you go through life, more and more doors close. You don’t just have a glass ceiling; you’ve enclosed yourself in a multifaceted glass box. You no longer dream and imagine what’s possible for you. Instead, you’re resigned to who you are in life, and you go through it settling for mediocrity.

- Extract from Free To Lead: Unleash Your Hidden Leadership Genius.
Will Steel

High Performance & Executive Coach │Business Coach & Consultant │Global Transformational Coach │ Author │ Causing Breakthroughs

Such a wonderful opportunity to engage with such a great podcast host Darren Mitchell. I hope you all enjoy this conversation as much as we did...

Helping Sales Leaders think bolder, lead smarter & build exceptional teams ► Sales Leadership Coach & Mentor ► Sales Trainer & Speaker ► 🎙Host of The Exceptional Sales Leader Podcast (850+ Episodes)🎙

***Free to Lead with Will Steel***

In this riveting episode of The Exceptional Sales Leader Podcast, I engage in a thoughtful conversation with Will Steel, a former RAF pilot turned High Performance Coach. Broadcasting from Bologna, Italy, Will shares his journey from piloting fast jets to guiding individuals and organisations towards authentic leadership. 

He discusses the pivotal moments in his career that led him from aspiring to fly Harriers to finding his true calling in personal development and coaching. Listeners are taken through Will’s exploration of ontology, the study of ‘being’ and its application in his coaching practice. The episode highlights the significance of understanding one’s perceived limitations and the profound impact of self-sabotage on one’s career and life goals. 

Throughout the conversation, Will offers insights rooted in his personal experiences, offering invaluable guidance to those looking to lead with authenticity. The discussion also covers the importance of establishing a vision and understanding the deeper motivations that drive successful leadership.

To listen to the episode, to connect with Will, and to learn more about what he does, as well as to grab a copy of his new book “Free to Lead”, click the links in the comments below. 👇

#podcast #sales #freetolead #exceptionalsalesleader #coach #mentor

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