Most CEOs didn’t start out feeling stuck. But the weight of leading builds quietly until one day you realize you’re carrying too much alone. The decisions get harder. The conversations get safer. And the people who used to challenge you now just wait for direction.

I know that place. I lived it for years.

I founded and led Applied Educational Systems for 36 years. Built it. Scaled it. Made mistakes that cost me. Had wins that taught me even more. And for too long, I thought I had to figure it all out myself.

That changed in 2003 when I joined Vistage. The group didn’t let me hide. They asked the questions I was avoiding. Gave me the accountability I didn’t know I needed. That shift helped me lead differently. We earned five straight years on the Inc. 5000, and I exited on my terms in 2022.

Now I privately coach business owners and chair a private Vistage group for CEOs and business owners in Central Pennsylvania.

I don’t coach strategy alone. I coach the whole person, because the business only grows as far as the leader does. I ask the questions no one else will ask—the ones that get below the surface, the ones that make you stop and rethink what you thought you knew.

This isn’t for everyone. It’s for CEOs who know they’re the most important hire in their company. Who are willing to invest in themselves. Who want real feedback, not validation. Who are curious, open-minded, and brave enough to be vulnerable in a room of peers who get it.

I limit my coaching clients and my Vistage group to the right fit. It has to be right for you and for the group.

Married 40 years. Five kids. Still asking better questions every day.

Jim Schultz

She was one of our best. Then I promoted her.

Reliable. Sharp. Got things done.

A few months in, she was floundering. One of her direct reports wasn't engaged and she knew she had to address it.

When we talked about the conversation she needed to have, I saw it. Fear.
That's when I realized I didn't promote her. I set her up to fail.

I never prepared her for what the role actually demanded. I saw an opening, she was capable, and I made the move.

That was my mistake.

Great individual contributors and great managers require very different skills. Execution isn't leadership. Getting things done isn't holding people accountable.

I've made this mistake more than once. Talented people lost confidence in roles I put them in without giving them what they needed to succeed.

If you're a CEO or founder, ask yourself: When you promoted your last manager, did you set them up to win or just fill the seat?

#Leadership #CentralPA #BusinessGrowth

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12.31.25

'I'll start Monday' is rarely about Monday. It's about avoiding the hard thing. We tell ourselves we need more time, more information, more readiness. Usually we just need to start.

1.2.26

One question worth asking yourself: Do the people closest to you get your full attention or what's left after work takes its share?

Inbound

Helping Business Owners and CEOs Lead with Clarity, Purpose, and Courage

After founding and leading Applied Educational Systems (AES) for over three decades — and guiding it through a successful acquisition by a global private equity firm — I started Felix Enterprises to focus on the work I find most meaningful: helping CEOs and business owners grow through honest reflection, intentional leadership, and deep personal insight.

At Felix, I work exclusively with CEOs and owners of companies ranging from $5M to $500M in revenue, primarily in Lancaster and the surrounding region. My approach is rooted in one-on-one coaching — no groups, no noise — just focused, candid conversations that lead to real clarity and deliberate action.

This work is not about offering quick fixes or recycled advice. It’s about asking the right questions — the ones no one else dares to — and creating space for leaders to think more clearly, act more intentionally, and grow with greater confidence.

The lessons I bring to this work were forged over 36 years of real-world leadership — scaling AES, earning a place on the Inc. 5000 list five years in a row, and navigating everything from growth and complexity to succession and exit. Much of that journey was shaped by my 19-year membership in Vistage, which provided me with a peer group and framework that profoundly impacted both my business and personal growth.

Now, through Felix Enterprises, I aim to pay that forward — helping growth-minded leaders thrive in their business and in life.

Founder & President

Everything we do at AES is about believing in life-long learning. We believe that life-long learning sets people free.  We empower lifelong learners by developing digital curriculum systems that easily saves time for a teacher, promotes interaction, is simple to use and current. We make great interactive eLearning curriculum systems that give teachers the time to develop relationships with students.

AES achieved the Inc 5000 list for five years (2018-2022). In addition, AES was honored as one of the Best Places to work in PA.

In October 2022, The Riverside Company, a global private investor, acquired Applied Educational Systems (AES), a digital career and technical education content provider for K-12 schools and career centers. AES is an add-on to Riverside’s iCEV platform, a leading developer of SaaS-based digital curriculum, instructional materials, and industry certifications.  Read more here:  https://www.riversidecompany.com/currents/aes-news-release/

After the acquisition in October 2022, I helped with the integration of AES and iCEV as a consultant.

Founder & CEO 

I served as an advisor and, since 2013, as a Board of Director member. Cargas offers a rare and unique employee ownership culture called Shared Success. Creating a winning environment for owners, employees, customers, partners, and the community is simple.

My contribution from experience focused on sales, marketing, strategic development & planning, and process improvements.

During that time, Cargas, an employee-owned company, accomplished the following:

Sales Grew - 5x
Profits Grew - 20x
FTE Growth - 4x
Best Places to Work in PA - 10x
Inc 5000 list - 4x
Private Company "Board of the Year" Award

Member Board of Directors

Vistage brings together business leaders from diverse businesses and backgrounds to coach and advise each other to drive better decisions and achieve better results.  I was a member of Rick Oppenheimer's, then Shaun Balani Central PA Vistage Executive group 349.

Member of CEO Group

Member of the Board of Advisors

I was responsible for executing an annual sales plan within the United States by working with independent sales representatives to help open, manage and close sales opportunities in the career education and technical training market.  I provided outside sales support for independent sales reps as needed, including making sales presentations to potential customers, using selling techniques to assist the independent sales reps in negotiating sales, exhibiting and presenting at shows and conferences, and training new and current independent sales reps on Link's Simulation Systems products and sales processes.  The work also included developing close working relationships with independent sales reps.

Vocational Sales

Entrepreneur & Exited Founder | Supporting CEOs Who Scale Smarter, Build Legacy, and Create Life Beyond Business

2019 Entrepreneur of the Year 

Association Career and Technical Education

Exited Founder | Guiding Business Owners Through Growth, Transition, and the Hard Calls In Between

Our fourth grandchild arrived last week.

Our first girl.

Three grandsons prepared us for chaos and energy. Now a granddaughter adds something new to the mix.

Watching our family grow makes me think more about the future. About what we're building. About what lasts.

What makes you pause and appreciate the generations ahead?

Tracy Schultz

Retired- Human Resources at Applied Educational Systems

Thirty years as a founder. Thirty years of doubt. Then someone nominated me for Entrepreneur of the Year.

My first thought? Who the hell nominated me?

Turns out it was Jen Strobel, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, MSOCL. Barely knew her. She said she'd watched me coach her son's youth wrestling team.

That's it. She saw me coaching kids. And nominated me for Entrepreneur of the Year.

She wasn't watching me run a company. She was watching me get down on one knee with a nervous 8-year-old. Apparently, that's where she saw leadership.

The Lancaster Chamber interviewed me. I sat there thinking: Maybe it was one bad year and I just repeated it 30 times.

During the interview, I broke down and cried.

Michael DeBerdine was on the committee. I knew Mike. Embarrassing. But later he told me that's just who I am.

I told them about pivoting our business and watching sales go from $10 million to zero. Losing $3 million over two years. Going from 35 employees down to four.

Things got so bad, our HVAC broke and we got rejected for a $15,000 line of credit. Too much debt.

So I called my oldest son. Fresh out of college. Working in New York City.

"Alex, can you lend us $15,000?"

My son loaned his parents money to fix the heat.

Our two younger sons went to West Point. I think they knew the financial burden college was going to be for us.

I won the award. That night, they played my interview video for 2,000 people. There I was on the big screen, breaking down talking about my sons.

Not some slick entrepreneur telling a polished success story. Just me. Crying.

Afterward, everyone wanted my advice.

I kept thinking: You want my advice? I've been grinding for 30 years. No magic formula. No hack. No playbook. Grit.

The outside never matches the inside.

People see the award. The stage. The success.

They don't see the rejection letters. The phone call to your kid asking for money. The nights wondering if you should just shut it down and get a job.

We're all more broken than we let on. And that's okay.

What would it take for you to stop discounting the hard thing you built?

PS: My wife and two of my kids at the Lancaster Chamber award night. They knew the real story.

Business Executive | Operations, People & Organizational Strategy | Scaling Teams, Systems & Leaders

CEO at Rhoads Energy

We'd been running EOS for about a year when somebody on my leadership team said in a meeting, "I think I'd be a better person to run the L10 than Jim. Let's discuss."

I shut them down.

Didn't ask questions. Didn't try to understand where they were coming from. I got defensive, pulled rank, and killed the conversation.

"No, we're not making that change."

Internally, I was thinking: I'm the founder and CEO. I can do this.

Six months later, I handed them the meeting.

For the next four years, they ran it at a level I never could have. It played to their strengths. We gained real momentum from that one change.

But here's what still bothers me.

I was running a meeting literally designed to surface issues. And when someone surfaced an issue about me, I couldn't hear it.

That's the trap. You think you're open to feedback because you've built systems for it. But the moment feedback threatens your identity as the leader, you stop listening.

So here's my question.

When's the last time you shut someone down because the feedback threatened how you see yourself?

#CentralPA #Leadership

Your leadership team is waiting for you to leave. They won't say it. No one will. So I will.

Seneca wrote of the lawyer who dies at court, still seeking approval from strangers in old age. He called it disgraceful.

We all know a version of this person.

The legend in your industry. The founder still running things in their 80s. Everyone is too polite to say what needs to be said.

They're not brave. They're scared.

Their business became their identity. The only thing they have. So they hold on because letting go means facing a question they've been avoiding for years: Who am I without this?

Here's what it costs. They stop building and become caretakers. They don't have the energy they had in their 40s or 50s. And worse, they're stunting their people. Their leadership team can't grow because there's no room.

I decided early I was building something that didn't need me. I knew at some point my value in scaling and growing the business would diminish. I didn't want to be a caretaker for 20 years.

But that required reflection. Preparation. And letting people hold up a mirror to me and ask the hard questions.

Most business owners won't do that. Fear stops them. We get together and make excuses for each other instead of challenging each other.

So here's the question: Are you still building... or just protecting what you built?

"Son, you need to understand the first rule of holes. Stop digging."

A business owner told me this story this week.

When he was in middle school, he'd done something wrong. He didn't think his dad knew yet.

His dad sat him down and delivered that line.

His dad was an entrepreneur. He wasn't just talking about whatever dumb thing a 13-year-old did.

I broke this rule many times as a founder.

I held onto a wrong-fit leader for two years. I kept a product line that produced great revenue but dragged down our margins. I defended decisions long after the evidence said otherwise.

Founders dig a lot of holes:
➡️ Bad hires we keep defending
➡️ Strategies that aren't working
➡️ Difficult relationships we tolerate
➡️ Customers who don't fit

The problem? We often can't see we're digging.

That's what peer groups and coaches are for. Not to hand out advice or solutions. To point out the obvious blind spots you're too close to see.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗱𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴?

"Every time you solve a problem your team could have solved, you rob them of growth."

In my 20s, 30s, and 40s as a founder, I didn't understand this.

I was intense. Grinding. Willing to do anything to get stuff done. When an employee had a problem, I jumped in with solutions. I told them what to do.

It took years of coaching and hundreds of reps to change. To stay calm. To ask questions instead of answering them.

The last five years at Applied Educational Systems were the most enjoyable of my 36 years.

Less stress. I finally worked ON the business. And I got to watch people grow.

A-players started coming to me with options they'd already evaluated and the one they were picking. We built a framework that gave them clarity on which decisions were theirs to make.

Some people got frustrated with my questions. A few self-selected out. That was okay.

Now, coaching CEOs and sitting in a #Vistage CEO group for 21 years, I see the pattern everywhere. The itch to solve is strong. Especially for founders under $20M still in the doing phase.

It takes practice to sit with the discomfort. To ask instead of answer.

How much growth are you stealing from your people by being the one with all the answers?

I was a terrible CEO for years.

Skipped lunch to finish proposals.
Took calls on vacation because "it'll just be five minutes."
Worked "one quick hour" after dinner that ended at 2am.
Never set up coverage when I traveled.

"You're so dedicated." - Everyone said it like a compliment.

Meanwhile, I wasn't dedicated. I was trapped.

I'd designed a company that couldn't run without me. And I called it success.

Now I work with founders and business owners of companies between $5M and $300M. The exhausted ones aren't lacking discipline. They've designed their lives to guarantee exhaustion.

One client told me, "I'm playing defense. I just can't control it."

He hadn't been in his office for two weeks. Handling fires from his phone while traveling. His team waiting on decisions only he could make.

But he could control it. Not the fires. The structure.

Everyone is out there relying on willpower.

Grinding through.
Pushing harder.
Staying later.
Answering faster.

But I learned something different.

The shift didn't come from more discipline. It came from building systems that removed future decisions from my plate.

Structure beats willpower. Every time.

Here's my challenge: Pick one structural change this month. Make it small. Not some grand plan. Not something that takes hours. Just one thing you can control.

Name someone who can actually make decisions when you're out. Put your phone in another room after 9pm. Block Friday afternoons and protect it like a client meeting.

What's one small structural change you could make?

I made three successful leadership hires over five years. Then I got a little too big for my britches.

The next hire didn't work. And it was my fault.

Peter Drucker once wrote that one of the most important questions an employee can ask is: "How will I know I've done a great job?"

I never gave them the chance to ask it.

I never clearly described what great work looked like in that role. I expected them to guess. How can someone do great work if they don't know what great work looks like?

I knew I had to make a decision to honor the company and our customers. I let them go.

That failure reinforced something I now believe deeply: get the work in the role correct before any interviews. No more generic job descriptions that say nothing. Describe the work in detail. Make it safe to ask Drucker's question.

Now, as a CEO coach, I see this pattern constantly. A business owner gets frustrated with a leadership hire. The anger is directed at the person. But when we hold up a mirror, it almost always comes back to the same place.

Lack of clarity. Not the employee's fault.

When's the last time you asked yourself: Does this person actually know what great work looks like in their role?

Your business network isn't your friendship network. Or is it?

We flew to Florida last week.

Not for the beach. For friends who've known each other 35 years.

We met when our kids were in diapers. Same neighborhood. Young families figuring it out together. Then life scattered us. Midwest. East Coast. All over.

No "how's business?" No career updates. No shop talk.

We talked about our kids becoming parents. About faith. About the hard seasons we've walked through together. We laughed.

Thirty-five years of trust buys you something rare: friends who don't care what you do. They care who you are.

Are all your close friends connected to your work?

Do you have people in your life who couldn't care less about your business and love you anyway?

Nobody's coming to save you on the mat.

I was 10 when I watched Dan Gable dominate the 1972 Olympics. Years later, I learned it myself.

No teammates to hide behind. No excuses. Just you. Own every outcome.

Entrepreneurs need that same grit. If you don't bring it, you're in trouble.

What early experience built your grit?

P.S. Met Dan Gable in 2008 with two of my sons. Still one of my favorite memories.

Two months. Four funerals. All people I know who were active and healthy. Two in their sixties. Two were business owners.

Here's the irony.

Business owners fear the exit. What comes next? Who will I be without my company?

But death doesn't ask permission. It doesn't wait for your succession plan.

We tie our identity to our business. We tell ourselves we'll figure out "life after" later.

What if later never comes?

The Stoics called this memento mori. Remember you will die.

Not to be morbid. To be awake.

If you never think about what matters beyond your business, how can you plan for it?

What would change if you got a diagnosis tomorrow?

I used to have conversations FOR my employees. The ones they were avoiding.

A deadline at risk? I'd work into the night to solve it myself.

I told myself I was helping.

I wasn't.

I chose fixing instead of solving the core issue.

Here's what made it worse. When you rescue someone:

They don't understand what just happened.

And you never ask the questions to understand where they're actually struggling.

That second part is the hard work. You have to dig in. The first thing they're going to do is get defensive. So how do you create safety while also getting to the truth about what's not working?

Most of us skip that. We fix instead.

I've learned this coaching CEOs and business owners: The leaders who love fixing problems often struggle with confrontation and accountability. Not because they don't care. Because they care too much about being helpful.

But rescuing isn't helping. It's robbing your people of the reps they need to grow.

Clear is kind.

The conversation you're avoiding? It's usually a relief for both of you.

What problem are you solving that's actually a conversation you need to have?

He had decades of experience. He didn't ask a single question.

Fourteen years ago, I was in trouble. We'd gone from $10 million to almost zero. Eighteen months of free fall.

I'd bet everything on a pivot - ditching our legacy solution for 100% recurring subscriptions. Everyone thought I was crazy.

So I sat down with someone I respected. A coaching legend. I figured he'd help me think it through.

He listened for a few minutes. Then gave his verdict: "No prayer."

That was it. No questions. No curiosity. Just dismissal.

Here's what I didn't realize until years later: he never asked me a single question. Not about our customers. Our runway. My conviction. Nothing.

He just told me what he thought.

Ultimately, I proved him wrong. The pivot worked.

Now that I coach business owners and CEOs myself, I think about that conversation. It taught me what not to do.

The best coaches don't have answers. They don't give clichés. They don't give advice. They have questions. They listen. They dig to the bedrock.

When's the last time you asked instead of told?

Six years into building my company, I was 31 years old. Raw. Intense. Convinced I had all the answers.

I was still doing all the sales work myself.

Some years I traveled 200,000 miles. Spent over 125 nights on the road. My wife was home alone raising three kids under six.

I missed first steps. Missed bedtimes. Missed so much.

And for what? Because I told myself I was the best at sales. That I cared about customers the most. That no one could close like me.

The truth? I was young and dumb. Too proud to admit I was drowning. Too scared to spend money on someone who might be better than me.

Then I finally hired a really capable salesperson. Someone who cost real money. Someone I wasn't sure I could afford.

Within months, I realized he was 10 times better than I ever was.

All those nights away from my family. All that grinding. And this guy walks in and outperforms me without breaking a sweat.

My first thought? Why didn't I do this three years ago? How stupid was I?

I see this same fear in business owners now. We keep saying "we just need a little bit more, then we'll hire that person."

That's not strategy. That's fear dressed up as patience. And it costs us more than money.

What capable person are you putting off hiring right now? And what's it really costing you?

Two questions on a 3x5 card taped to my monitor. I asked them every day for three years. Should have started twenty years earlier.

Every week I'd walk into Applied Educational Systems thinking: What do I want to work on?

Marketing felt important. I understood it. I was decent at it. So I kept doing it.

Meanwhile the business needed me somewhere else entirely.

Peter Drucker wrote about this in The Effective Executive. Two questions that forced clarity on what my actual job was:

What needs to be done?

And then: What should I be doing versus what do I like to do?

Those are not the same question.

When I finally gained clarity, the business needed me to stop running marketing. To hire people better than me in that area. To step back and think about strategy instead of staying busy.

I see this pattern every week now. A common thread across the business owners and CEOs I coach.

One reviews every detail because they need them to make decisions. Really they're avoiding the harder work of developing people who can own those details.

Another spends hours on content and social media while the sales manager hire that would unlock their next stage has been dragging for months.

Another avoids spending time in sales and with customers. Doesn't like it. But at under $5 million, his company needs him there.

We do what we want. The business waits for what it needs.

Drucker's questions lead to one more: Chris Marr taught me this question: What's the single thing you could do that makes everything else easier or unnecessary? That's probably not what's on your calendar today.

What does your business need from you right now that you've been avoiding because it's not what you like to do?

Co-Founder & Coach of The Pathfinder System

"This year, I'm going to delegate more."

I've heard this from dozens of business owners and CEOs over the years. I've said it myself.

It sounds decisive. But here's the problem:

It means nothing.

What are you delegating? To whom? By when? What does success look like?
Without answers, "I'm going to delegate more" is just noise. An emotional release disguised as a decision.

I see this every January. Business owners return from the holidays with bold declarations:

"I need to work ON the business, not IN it." 
"I'm going to hold my team more accountable." 
"This is the year I get my life back."

The feeling is real. But feelings aren't plans. And goals aren't systems.

James Clear nailed it in Atomic Habits: we don't rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems.

When a CEO tells me they want more accountability, I ask: what's the system?

Weekly check-ins? A structure for feedback? A habit of addressing issues within 48 hours instead of letting them fester?

If the system doesn't exist, the goal won't either. It'll just be a declaration you make again next January.

Business owners and CEOs who actually change don't just set goals. They build systems that make those goals inevitable.

What system is missing from your biggest goal this year?

I knew he wasn't the right fit. I spent months pretending I didn't.

Early in scaling my company, I hired a director of operations. It didn't take long to see the truth.

I didn't have the conversation. Not that week. Not that month. Not for far too long.
Instead, I brought it up in my peer group. Vented to people I trusted. Told myself I was "thinking it through."

I wasn't thinking. I was circling.

There's a difference between parking a decision because you need more information and rehashing the same problem because you're avoiding what you already know.

One builds clarity. The other just builds frustration.

Every lap around that same issue cost me energy, focus, and momentum I couldn't get back.

If you keep coming back to the same problem, you probably don't need more time.

You need to act on what you already know.

"Can you say that again? I wasn't listening."

Tracy Schultz heard that from me more times than I want to admit. I was at the dinner table but solving a cash flow problem. At the soccer game but drafting an email in my head. Physically present. Mentally gone.

She's a patient woman. Thirty-nine years of marriage patient.

Recently I sat in a peer group of business owners and CEOs. The topic came up: at what point does professional success stop being the priority and life success take over?

The room got quiet. Heads nodded.

Most of us spent our 20s, 30s, and 40s telling ourselves "later." Once we fix this. Once we hit this number. Once we get through this year.

Then somewhere around 55, you realize "later" has a shelf life.

I've talked to enough founders to know I'm not alone in this. The business becomes your baby. You pour everything into it. And one day you look up and wonder what you missed while you were building.

What are you telling yourself you'll get to "later"?

What would your spouse say if you asked: "Am I present enough?"

"Life success over professional success."

A member said this in our #Vistage CEO peer group this week.

He is not even 50 yet.

But he is already asking the question most founders never ask until it is too late.

Here is the formula most of us live by:

Professional success leads to life success.

Work hard. Build the company. Hit the numbers.

Life will follow.

Somewhere between 50 and 55, the formula flips.

And nobody warns you how disorienting that flip will be.

I sold AES in 2022 after 36 years.

I wish I had a coach who asked deeper questions.

I wish I had peers who talked openly about what comes after.

Most peer groups slap you on the back after you sell.

Nobody asks the harder question.

What is your purpose now?

Not playing golf.

Not staying busy with hobbies.

Purpose.

Why did you start this business?

What will matter when you are on that porch at 75?

When the company is no longer there, you will be adrift.

And if your identity is tied to your business, you will not even see it coming.

Nobody questions successful founders and business owners.

They just celebrate your wins.

But what actually happens when you are alone and thinking about things?

You can tell yourself this will come later.

If you are younger, that is true.

The earlier you start reflecting, the more time you have to learn and adjust.

Or you can decide to work and die at your desk.

The choice is yours.

What is the one thing that will matter to you when the company is no longer there?

Are you building a life or just a business?

Experienced Account Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the e-learning industry. Skilled in Career Education, Strategic Planning, Teaching, Educational Technology, and Training. Strong support professional graduated from Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology - Okmulgee. 

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