Inside Out Leadership

CEO coaching, for founders, by founders. We help early/mid-stage startup founders scale into executive leaders & build low-drama companies, through CEO-coaching that blends psychological growth and operational excellence.

Founder, Executive Coach

Endeavor

Endeavor is a global non-profit that for 19 years has helped entrepreneurs and their companies in 25 countries reach global scale and relevance.

Endeavor Entrepreneur

GVSU Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Board Member

On Deck

Helping founders step fully into their lives and scale their masterpieces.

Coach for Scale-Up Founders (via On Deck Scale)

The largest and fastest growing high school sports communication platform in America.  As the exclusive web/mobile platform for over 11million passionate fans across 40+ states (20% of the total US market), VNN is rapidly aggregating the fragmented, multi-billion dollar high school sports market onto an intelligent platform, and transforming high school sports.

Co-Founder + CEO

Helping entrepreneurs in West Michigan connect to the resources they need, while cultivating strategic positioning within the Michigan startup community.

Entrepreneur in Residence

West Michigan All Star

The largest high school sports publication in Michigan.  A tight knit group of sports junkies who made it their business to ensure that high school athletes in West Michigan got the positive coverage and recognition they deserve.

Founder

Exited founder turned CEO-coach | Helping founders discover who they are as leaders and build high-performance, low-drama companies

Over 15 years I founded and served as CEO to three companies. The last of those, VNN, became the largest and fastest growing high school sports marketing platform in the US. I raised $20M from leading VCs, built a world class team of over 100 professionals, and scaled that company to nearly 20% of the US market.

All while doing everything I could to present only the most polished, hyper-competent version of myself and my company, at all times.

And then in 2020 I left it all behind.

When I signed the papers, officially removing myself as CEO of the company I’d started a decade prior, it felt like I’d been punched in the gut.

Without my persona as the “CEO of VNN,” I realized that I had no idea who I was anymore, or what to do with my life.

It was the opportunity of a lifetime.

I spent the next 2 years searching, meditating, hanging out with monks, diving into psychedelics, and trying on new identities that never felt right.

I was stuck.

And then, I finally opened up.

I started being honest about my struggles, despite the voice in my head telling me to play a role. I let go of my compulsion to be “Ryan the CEO,” or “Ryan the entrepreneur,” or even “Ryan the guy who’s raised a ton of money and scaled a media company.”

I was just, Ryan.

And the most surprising things happened.

1. The more I opened up, the more everyone else did around me. My network grew and developed into one of deep relationships spanning life and business.

2. The more I let go, the more the universe seemed to place exactly what I needed on my doorstep. Things began to happen organically, in ways much better than I could have planned.

3. The quieter my mind got, the more I was able to access an innate wellspring of creativity and inspiration that, frankly, made work feel easy and joyful.

Me, the guy who’d worked so hard his whole life to be perfect, when I learned to let go and be me, great, meaningful work flowed out of me.

And from that foundation, I started Inside-Out Leadership, a boutique executive coaching firm that helps founders transform their companies into their masterpieces and step fully into their lives.

Today, in my work as a coach I see the tendency to present that veneer of polished competence in nearly every founder I meet. And while I recognize the need for presentation in some cases (fundraising, recruiting), I also see how that need to look good actually gets in the way of our learning and growth.

If you're tired of doing your own impression of the "perfect leader," you're not alone.

Shoot me a DM. There's another way. And it's fucking incredible.

Ryan H. Vaughn

When I co-founded VNN in 2010, I didn’t know what I was doing. My degree was in creative writing, not business. But I learned fast how to play the part - to be whoever the room needed me to be.

Raising $20 million from top VCs? I could project unshakable confidence.
Scaling from two people to nearly a hundred? I could figure it out.
Even when I had seven days of runway with fifty families depending on me, I kept that mask perfectly polished.

For years, I mistook this performance for leadership. I thought my job was to absorb the fear so my team didn’t have to. When we were down to weeks of cash, I’d make decisions through the lens of survival, while my team wondered why I wasn’t thinking bigger.
They didn’t know we were on the edge of collapse.
And I was too afraid of being vulnerable to tell them.

The startup bias toward action became my nervous system. Move fast. Check boxes. Solve the next crisis. Never stop.
But the armor that once kept me alive was now suffocating me.

Then in 2020, I signed the papers and walked away from the company I’d built for a decade. The moment the title disappeared, so did the identity that had kept me upright. It was as if I’d been holding my breath for ten years - and now, all at once, I was empty.

Without the performance, I didn’t know who I was.
I’d spent a decade building something that looked successful on the outside, but I’d never stopped long enough to meet the person underneath it.

So I went searching.
I stayed at a monastery.
I studied meditation under Zen masters.
I sat in silence until the noise of ambition started to dissolve.

Meditation taught me something simple: when you learn to sit with urges without acting on them, you discover a space between stimulus and response.
In that space, I began to see how much of my leadership had been driven by fear disguised as responsibility.

When I finally dropped the armor, something unexpected happened.
Real conversations began.
When I shared the truth of what I was struggling with, everyone around me began to do the same.
It turned out we were all exhausted from pretending to be unbreakable.

I started a small meditation group for ten founders. Within six weeks, it grew to five groups - just people calling, saying they needed this space.
They were tired of performing too.

And then, because the Universe is weirdly awesome, that somehow evolved into Inside-Out Leadership - a place for founders to do the inner work while they’re still building.

Because you don’t have to wait for the exit or the breakdown to become whole.

If you’re tired of performing the perfect CEO and ready to lead from clarity instead of fear, let's talk.

Sometimes the most courageous thing a founder can do is to take off the armor and see who’s been waiting underneath it all along.

Exited founder turned CEO-coach | Helping early/mid-stage startup founders scale into executive leaders & build low-drama companies

Years ago, I gave a talk on risk that included jail time and went semi-viral. In my experience, risk is profoundly misunderstood. And this talk is every bit as relevant today...

I got to that jail cell by chasing the great American novelist dream the way Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson did, which is to say I drank like a fish and experimented with everything I could get my hands on. It led exactly where you'd expect.

Sitting there, I couldn't see past the next hour. The novelist dream was dead. My relationships were damaged. The path forward looked like court dates and probation, not companies and meaningful work.

I'd like to take the opportunity now to say that I'd advise you all to avoid jail at all costs. But that cell did teach me something pretty profound about risk:

Most of what stops us isn't the actual risk. It's our imagination of what the risk could be.

Risk = the actual possibility something bad happens.
Fear = your automatic emotional story about it.

When you've hit actual rock bottom - not the fear of failure, but genuine loss of freedom, you gain perspective on this distinction. And it changes how you evaluate every decision after.

The framework for separating these: 

First, name your catastrophic fear story. 
Then name the actual risk, stripped of drama. 
Most founders realize their fear is playing a 10 when the risk is a 3.

This distinction powered everything that came next for me.

I hid the concept for my second company, VNN, for months, terrified someone would steal it. Then Matt Anderson approached me at Ford Field and pitched the exact same idea I'd been sitting on. Turns out if you have a good idea, a hundred other people probably already have it.

I started VNN with Matt in 2011. During our first funding round in 2012, I had to separate the real risk (they might say no) from my fear (I'm a fraud). I can tell you now, the risk was not equal to the fear. 

I also remember being terrified when our two largest competitors announced an alliance. We had 20 schools, they had 500+. I remember walking around telling a friend it was over, and he agreed.

My fear said: We're finished, I'm exposed as a fraud, it's all over.

The actual risk: Competitive dynamics might shift.

Separating those two kept me building, and we ended up being 10x their size.

I learned this through a painstaking process of trial and error, and now I see a ton of other founders trapped in the same pattern. Every overwhelmed CEO convinced they're about to be exposed, every founder paralyzed by decisions, confusing actual risk with fear stories.

I gave this talk nearly a decade ago, running an entirely different company, and yet parts of it have become the foundation of how Inside-Out Leadership helps founders move from fear-based decisions to clarity-based action.

If you're making decisions based on fear rather than actual risk, DM me. I've sat exactly where you are, scared the next choice will be the wrong one. There's a better way.

I’ve invited one of our awesome clients to tell his story about working with Inside-Out. Stories like these are usually highly confidential, but this client has agreed to share theirs. Here goes:

I reached out to Ryan on Twitter in 2021 after launching my business the year before. From the outside, everything looked good - new company, new role, clear opportunity. But inside, I was drowning.

I'd been to therapy and worked with coaches before. It had always helped, but I'd plateaued. I had this gnawing sense that if I didn't overcome my personal challenges, I could experience very scary consequences.

The first year Ryan and I worked together, we focused 80% on my personal life and 20% on work. Because, as I came to learn, there's no separation. It's all just me issues. Early on, Ryan would ask where a feeling was located in my body, and I'd go completely blank. I felt embarrassed, deficient.

So he'd guide me: "Do you feel it in your throat? Your chest? Your stomach?"

Eventually, I could say, "I guess... in my throat," and that felt okay.

I was learning the language of my own feelings. I remember thinking, "It's like he's speaking a language I don't speak. I feel really illiterate."

Ryan helped me see my disconnection wasn't a problem. It was reasonable. It had served me. That release of shame let us go deeper.

2022 became the year I learned that awareness alone is progress. I got curious about my patterns without trying to immediately change them.
In 2023, we landed on a theme of where to go next: messy and connected.

I'd spent my life creating safety through control. Being the "good" son, husband, CEO. But control is an illusion. Real safety comes from being messy and connected. From showing up as who you actually are.

At work, I started speaking from uncertainty. "I'm feeling fearful about this decision" instead of always having the right answer. My team didn't pull back - they leaned in. They wanted more of the real me, not less.

My business grew from 1 company with 75 employee-owners to 4 businesses with 250+ employee-owners. Enterprise value up 200%. But more importantly, my stress dropped from unsustainable to manageable.

Here's what captures it best.

I always felt I needed to be perfect. Now I understand I was put on earth to be me. The best version isn't perfect. He's the messiest, most connected version. How much more fulfilling could life be if just being me is the point?

---

Nearly every founder I work with wears some version of the perfect CEO armor. Achieving externally while struggling internally.

If you recognize yourself in this journey, if you're achieving but not thriving, send me a DM.

I work with founders at this inflection point. The work isn't easy. But it might be the most important work you do.

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My parents got divorced when I was 15, and 15 years later, it almost killed my business...

I was blindsided when my dad told me, driving home from school, that he was moving out. At the time, I played it off like it didn't faze me - no big deal. But I can see now just how thoroughly that event shaped my view on life. On relationships. On business. On people leaving me.

Fast forward 15 years. I was running a venture-backed company. We'd scaled from 15 to 75 people in 9 months post Series A, hitting all our numbers.

But I'll never forget the specific brown of the boardroom chair in which I was sitting when an investor told me the presentation I'd spent weeks on was garbage. He instructed me angrily to take an entirely different angle.

The CEO's job is to push back, and I knew this. But I didn't, because fear took over.

I remember the wave of shame hitting me. A bodily rush that turned me from a competent CEO to a defensive little boy, scared his father would leave if he didn't do what was asked. That fear whiplashed me into a 180-degree turn in how we were going to market.

None of this happened consciously. I simply found myself executing a new plan because the investor was so convinced.

I changed the pitch to what he wanted. And naturally, because I didn't believe in it, the investors I pitched didn't believe it either. Our raise failed. We closed a bridge round with our tails between our legs, and it took years to recover.

We can call this poor leadership, but ultimately it's just a symptom of unexamined fear.

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate." - C.G. Jung

The issue is that we treat this internal fear as a personal flaw to be hidden, rather than a quantifiable business risk to be controlled.

Think of how many times you've seen:

• Burnout
• Being uncoachable
• Flat investor pitches
• Flinching in a negotiation
• Defensiveness or blaming
• Underhiring key direct reports

These are all fear-based. Mostly unexamined. We can see it in others easily, but struggle to see it in ourselves. For founders, ignoring this can mean the difference between success and failure.

So what do we do?

In short, we look at the fear directly and talk about it openly. In this way, we can learn the texture of our fears and manage them consciously.

For those brave enough to do the work, the best bet is to do this with a trained professional, which is one reason why so many venture funds are funding mental health programs for their founders. 

As in my case, we’re often too close to see how our decisions are being made, so it’s helpful to have an outside perspective to help us see what’s going on. 

Doing this, helping founders navigate their fears consciously to enable authentic leadership, is one reason why I coach.

We need to treat fear as a business risk to be managed, not a weakness to be shunned.

If you're ready to look at what's really driving your decisions, send me a DM.

For years running a startup, I only used 2 notes: On and off. On meant running full tilt toward the next objective, and off meant recharging so I could do it again. 
But I became so optimized for productivity, my creativity died...

While I checked boxes efficiently, my company's innovation slowly died. What had once been a font of creative output, slowly, by degrees, became an optimized machine driving ever more efficiently to where the puck used to be.

It's remarkable how quickly nimble startups turn into slow legacy companies when they stop nurturing the creative recklessness they started with.

I've since learned there's a spectrum, with productivity on one side and creativity on the other, and I'd been stuck at the productivity extreme for so long that I'd forgotten about everything else.

So the question became: is it possible to optimize for creativity?

I used to think creativity was chaotic. Something spontaneous, unmanageable - useful for artists, not CEOs. But I’ve learned it can be cultivated deliberately, like a muscle you’ve simply stopped using.

Creativity begins where control ends.

It can't emerge from pressure or optimization - it emerges from permission.
From leaving a little space in your schedule unclaimed.
From walking without plugging in to a podcast.
From noticing what your mind does when it isn’t told what to do.

The irony is, the less I tried to be creative, the more creative I became.
I’d gone from “on/off” to something much richer - fluid, alive, responsive.

As leaders, we model the behavior we most value. If we only reward output, our teams will learn to suppress imagination. But if we make space for curiosity, they’ll follow us there too.

You can’t build a masterpiece from binary inputs.
You need the full range.

If you're wondering how to rediscover play after optimizing it away, try the Imaginary Lives exercise, modified from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way.

If you had 5 other lives to lead, what would you do in each?

I'd be an astronaut, author, professional basketball player, hippie, physicist. You might be a cowhand, psychic, scuba diver, belly dancer, painter, rock drummer.

Write down whatever occurs without overthinking it, then select one and do it this week. If you put down country singer, can you pick up a guitar? If you dream of being a cowhand, what about horseback riding?

The secret is realizing you only have one life, and you won't get another chance unless you take steps now.

Not only does this work wonders for juicing your creative capacity, it is a great launchpad to a more nuanced, complex, and complete way of life.

---

Proud to coach with Inside-Out Leadership, CEO coaching by exited founders who've been there.

I've never been big on business books. Most say their point in 3 chapters, then repeat themselves for 200 pages. But these 5 books changed everything for me - in my business and my life:

1. Reboot by Jerry Colonna

Written by a former VC turned executive coach, this was the first time I felt someone really understood what I was going through as an early-stage CEO.

Colonna's questions helped me see how my need to appear competent was actually making me a less effective leader. After reading it, I stopped presenting only the polished version of myself in meetings and started being honest about my struggles with my leadership team.

Perfect for: Founders struggling with the weight of the role.

2. The Second Mountain by David Brooks

This book transformed a monthly book club I set up over a decade ago.

So many of us spent years chasing success, only to realize upon getting there that it was an incomplete goal. Brooks helped me shift my focus from optimizing my company's appearance to investors to building it around what truly mattered to me.

Perfect for: Accomplished leaders questioning their "why."

3. The Meaning Revolution by Fred Kofman

The former head of culture at LinkedIn taught me that people yearn to dedicate their lives to work that outlives them and connects to values beyond themselves.

His framework helped me reframe our team's work from hitting metrics to building something that mattered. We went from tracking outputs to talking about impact.

Perfect for: Second-stage companies hitting a ceiling.

4. The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

Most founders look back at their early days as a time of tremendous innovation. Then the constant demands of running a company beat the creativity out of them.

Cameron wrote The Artist’s Way to help people rediscover their creative spark. For a leader, this can be the key to unlocking previously inaccessible levels of growth, as founders are simply artists working at scale.

Perfect for: Leaders looking to regain their edge.

5. The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni

The most useful "how to run a business" book I've read.

Lencioni's blueprint for company operations was foundational to how we rebuilt our corporate culture at VNN, aligning a 100-person team with only a few key structures.

Perfect for: Entrepreneurs leading companies >20 people

Reboot helped me see my patterns. The Second Mountain helped me question my goals. The Meaning Revolution helped me rebuild culture around purpose. The Artist's Way reignited my creativity. The Advantage gave us the structure to scale it all.

These books provided the frameworks. But turning frameworks into lived transformation is where the real work begins.

That journey from founder to conscious leader is exactly what we help navigate at Inside-Out Leadership.

And to save me some time, help me out. What other business books are worth reading all the way through?

In 2015, when Volkswagen’s emissions scandal broke open, the world focused on the software - the quiet lines of code that made 11 million cars look cleaner than they really were. But what struck me was the culture required to create it...

To build something that deceptive, you first need a room where truth has become dangerous.

A room where engineers are aware that the math doesn't quite add up, but also know that saying so might cost them their careers.
A room where fear, often slow, invisible, and cumulative in nature, has more influence than integrity.

Every founder builds some version of that room.

I certainly did.

Early in my first company, there were days when I moved through the office like a storm. I didn’t yell or threaten. I just radiated tension - the kind that makes people speak in careful, buffered sentences. I thought this was me being “focused.” My team thought otherwise: Don’t bring him anything he won’t want to hear today.

It happens gradually. A roadmap that’s slipping. A sales forecast that needs optimism to survive. A technical debt warning softened because last time you talked about it, your jaw clenched and your tone tightened.

No one lies. They just start performing.

This is how cultures drift - not through dramatic moments, but through tiny shifts in reality. The truth becomes something people handle with gloves.

Volkswagen’s investigation blamed “individual misconduct and weak processes.”
But the deeper, human truth is far simpler:

When leaders react poorly to hard truths, teams learn to stop sharing them.

And it almost always starts inside the leader.

For me, it started with fear:
Fear of slowing down. Fear of appearing uncertain. Fear of confronting the parts of myself I’d spent years outrunning.

When I couldn’t hold difficult truths internally, I couldn’t hold them externally.
So people shielded me. Humans are prone to protecting each other from discomfort, especially when power is involved.

It took burning out, emotionally and physically, to realize the actual cost of this. Once your team learns to protect you from reality, you very quickly lose the ability to lead it.

Unfortunately, like all complex things, the antidote isn’t as simple as transparency training or an open-door policy.

It’s inner work.

The slow, sometimes painful excavation of the fears, patterns, and old identities that make certain truths feel threatening.

When a leader builds internal safety - the ability to hear hard things without collapsing, defending, or retaliating - a strange thing happens:

People start telling the truth again. They bring you problems earlier. They stop curating the world on your behalf.

And the company breathes.

Volkswagen is an extreme example, but the pattern is universal. A culture of honesty starts with a leader who can sit with uncomfortable truths without flinching.

If you’re scaling fast and want to make sure fear isn’t quietly writing your culture’s code, DM me.

Moneyball came back to Netflix recently, so Laura and I watched it for the umpteenth time. Billy Beane’s quest to change baseball teaches us a surprising lesson about disruption in any industry...

In every field, the status quo resists outsiders. Disruptors must push against inertia, often alone, with a hunch, limited data, and a willingness to risk more than others. Beane spends the movie confronting the possibility that he’s wrong, and the failure and ridicule that would follow.

Even inside his own organization, people push back. They tell him all the reasons he’s wrong, all the reasons he should give up and build a team “the way it’s always been done.”

But as the disruptor, Beane’s job is to keep going. Disruptive ideas aren’t recognized as such until after the fact. Until then, the leader’s task is to persist through doubt.

Once he’s “convinced” his staff to sign players based on on-base percentage instead of conventional value, the pressure ramps up. For the first dozen games, his approach seems to fail - providing early data that “proves” the old way is best.

At the early stages, success is often indistinguishable from failure when measured by traditional metrics.

He keeps going.

“A good process produces good results.” - Nick Saban

With every reason to quit, Beane continues because his team’s actions align with success, even if results don’t yet show it. He sees that consistent actions matter more than short-term outcomes. It’s one of the deepest truths in entrepreneurship.

He doubles down on his belief that optimizing for on-base percentage will win in the long run. He sees his players getting on base and trusts his system to translate that into wins.

And it does.

The same story unfolded in the NBA with Daryl Morey and the Houston Rockets. “Moreyball” valued threes, layups, and dunks above all else. Early on, focusing on shooting threes, and not necessarily making them, looked absurd. But when the Rockets started winning, every team copied them.

As The Athletic put it, “Results, often, are the least important thing. The process of what happens does matter.”

Beane’s A’s looked like a misguided experiment until they rattled off 20 straight wins. Now, every team in baseball follows their playbook.

Moneyball shows what real disruption looks like. We imagine it as a bold founder rewriting an industry overnight. In truth, it’s an entrepreneur pushing an unproven idea uphill while everyone says he’s wrong and every metric says he’s failing.

When the world finally catches up, the disruptor feels vindicated. But after so many sleepless nights, doubts, and near-collapse, the first thing he actually feels isn’t pride.

It’s relief.

Keep going, friends. Second-guessing yourself is part of the process.

“How will your company become a unicorn?” The question seems innocent enough. But there’s a trap inside, just like there’s a trap in any question that asks a founder to predict the future with certainty... 

No matter how much you know about your business, how compelling the opportunity, or how confident you feel, you cannot predict the future.

Describing a spectacular outcome and a straight path to get there can seem like the norm when we pitch our companies. But predicting the future with certainty, besides being inaccurate, may also cause you to hold onto a bad strategy for too long and sink your company. This is backed by science.

A famous study once showed that rats preferred receiving shocks to the brain in the present to the possibility of receiving bad outcomes at some later time in the future. They feared the uncertainty of the future more than the pain itself.

We're not so different. Humans also hate uncertainty - so much so that we are immensely attracted to folks who seem certain. Given that, it’s no wonder startup founders project certainty in order to attract others. Certainty gets coffee, because certainty is a closer. 

But as effective as certainty is at closing deals, it’s equally effective at closing minds. 

The minute we fixate on a singular solution, not only do we stop looking for alternatives, but our minds (specifically the Reticular Activating System) filter out any evidence to the contrary. For example, when you buy a new car, and you suddenly start seeing that car everywhere. It's not that there are more of them; your mind just notices what it chooses to notice.

So when someone asks you how your company will become a unicorn, and you tell them precisely how you’ll get there, you’re locking your nervous system - and your company - into a single path.

If everything goes according to plan, you're fine. But the moment something off-script happens, your previous prediction may become your blindfold.

The best leaders, on the other hand, are confident but never rigid. 

They are confident, even when they’re uncertain, because their confidence is rooted not in their plan coming to fruition, but in their ability to navigate the uncertainty. Some leaders hide the areas in which they are unsure. But the most effective leaders own their uncertainties, knowing that uncertainty is unavoidable, and are confident in their ability to pivot and figure shit out.

Next time you spot the trap, “How will your company become a unicorn?”, I invite you to smile and confidently own your uncertainty:

“I don’t know. The current data suggests it might happen this way. But if not, we have a plan for that, too.”

Why would someone follow a leader who answers like that?

Because they see that you have the same doubts that they have, but you are confident in your ability to navigate the unknown, and you’re betting your life on it anyway.

Proud to coach with Inside-Out Leadership, CEO coaching by exited founders who've been there.

It seems self-evident that the harder and longer you work, the more you get done. It's also not true. NASA's long-term study showed that taking a 26-minute nap in the middle of each shift increases job performance by 34%:

To restate: take a 26-minute power nap and you'll get 1/3 more done.

Before you dismiss this as "interesting but I gotta get back to work," recognize that most major breakthroughs come from leaning into something that's both counterintuitive and true.

I speak with stressed CEOs regularly, and when I talk about self-care I usually hear the same thing: 

"I'm too busy. I know it's important, but right now I'm just strapped. Maybe tomorrow."

If I share this NASA data, most get excited about it. Many even think about how their teams could power-nap. But almost none would take a nap themselves later that day.

If I told them that Harvard Business Review found:

Healthy eating leads to better moods and higher energy, exercise increases blood flow and boosts learning and memory, and good sleep improves focus, creativity, and empathy... they'd probably still think that's compelling for someone else, but they themselves have too much to do.

I get it. I've been there. And now I spend 5-7am every morning on a rigorous self-care routine, simply because it makes me more effective.

Here's the thing: trying to outwork your problems is precisely how most leaders react to the idea of taking care of themselves first. 

And that's the popular choice.

Which means there's a competitive advantage when you lean into the counterintuitive benefits of self-care.

Eat healthy, exercise, sleep well, and take naps. Go win your market.

If you're ready to address the deeper patterns driving your burnout and your inability to stop, shoot me a DM. I'd love to help.

I chased achievements for 20 years and felt empty the moment I got each one.
Only the next goal mattered, until that became meaningless too.
Here's the pattern that kept me trapped (and how to break it):

Everything humans do is either to steer toward feelings they interpret as positive or to avoid those they interpret as negative. There isn’t much more to it than that.

I’ve gone to incredible lengths to curate the feelings I’m exposed to. Ended relationships rather than face my failings. Blamed others rather than confront what I’ve done wrong. Most often, I imprison myself in tunnel vision, diminishing everything that isn’t the Goal to avoid my deepest fear: 

The fear that I’m not good enough.

That fear leads to knee-jerk decisions that seem right in the moment but that I regret later. I’ve sent so many emails that gave me a dopamine hit of productivity, but did more harm than good.

I learned early in life that I wasn’t good enough, and decided I’d do anything to prove otherwise. My life became one long chain of achievements, each seeming like the most important thing until I attained it, at which point it became irrelevant. I was still not enough. Only the next achievement would prove otherwise.

It wasn’t until I stopped achieving - forced through failure to slow down - that I could see the operating system I was living through. It was painful as hell, but it forced me to confront my inadequacy head-on. Through that pain, I finally saw the pattern and realized I had a choice.

Instead of achieving to outrun inadequacy, I could stop. Face it.

Sitting in that inadequacy was exquisite torture, yet freeing. I didn’t have to reflexively jump into action. I could simply be and, as Trungpa Rinpoche says, “lean into the sharp points.” Feel what I’d been running from and let it pass.

By sticking with the feeling, I developed familiarity with it.

For me, fear feels like:
• Wired eyes, like I haven’t slept
• A tight chest, like after smoking too much
• A pounding heart when I see success in others
• A spinning mind, comparing my achievements to others

I can now recognize it when it comes, and resist the reflex to act. I know it always passes, even when it feels like it won’t.

I’m familiar with my primal fear. Not friendly with it, but acquainted enough to recognize it. The fear I once jumped through hoops of fire to avoid is just bodily sensation mixed with an urge to achieve.

For years, that feeling drove my actions - fueling both success and destruction.

Now, when it arises, there’s a choice. Most of the time, I sit with it and appreciate how its intensity reminds me I’m alive.

Then I look at the situation with clarity and do the next right thing.

That shift from reactive to conscious changed everything.

I created Inside-Out Leadership to guide founders through this transformation because I know how powerful it is - and how difficult it is to do alone.

If you recognize this pattern, let's talk.

Ben Horowitz says most successful companies will experience 5 "WFIO" (we're f*****'d, it's over) moments. It’s an entrepreneur’s resilience in those moments, not strategy or tactics, that separates the successful companies from the rest:

I use the word resilience intentionally, deliberately drawing a distinction between it and its close cousin: persistence.

Most founders hear "resilience" and think of a stone-cold badass shrugging off every challenge. A scarred warrior gritting through the pain, lifting up his spear once more.

That's persistence. 

Persistence is force.
It’s the inner voice that says, “Keep moving, no matter what.”
It gets you out of bed when everything hurts.
It carries you through the sprint, the crisis, the all-nighter.

But persistence runs on pressure. And while it works in the moment, it comes with a huge cost.

It demands control, suppresses emotion, and burns a fuel that will eventually, without fail, run out.

As decades of psychological science will attest, every time you push down your emotions to get shit done, you incur what I call emotional debt.

Like companies incur technical debt, leaders incur emotional debt when they repress fear, worry, or anger to keep moving. A little can be useful when managed consciously and paid back quickly. But perpetual emotional debt clouds your judgment.

Think of a time when you’ve seen a leader bite an employee’s head off for asking a question. Or think of the dreaded burnout. I know this one personally. I thought I could will myself past the unpleasant stuff with no repercussions. Then it all came due at once and I had to take a sabbatical. 

It can be a good decision to max out your emotional credit cards by persisting in the heat of a crisis. Just remember that debt compounds, and if you don’t pay your bills, don’t be surprised when the creditor comes calling to break your kneecaps.

Resilience is different.

Resilience is supple. It bends.

It's the way skyscrapers flex in the wind, moving with every gust before returning to center. It's water adjusting to every obstacle but never stopping its flow.

Resilience is intentionally feeling the emotions without changing them, all the way through to completion, and then moving forward with a clear head.

As counterintuitive as it sounds, leaning into your negative emotions - consciously feeling the texture of your fear rather than trying to fix it - produces profound results.

By processing emotions in real-time with curiosity rather than resistance, you allow them to move through you and be completed. You pay the emotional cost in cash, not credit.

Next time you get bad news, try this:

Before opening Slack or calling your team, take 90 seconds. Close your eyes. Notice where the emotion lives in your body. Chest tight? Stomach dropped? Just observe it without trying to make it go away.

That's resilience.

How about you? Are you habitually practicing persistence or resilience?

I ask one question in every CEO group I run: Tell me about the time when you felt most alive. 90% of the answers are the same (and not what you'd expect):

One CEO, fresh off selling his company: "Halfway up a mountain in Patagonia, alone between everything. Looking back at how far I'd come. Looking forward at where I was going. That moment."

Another: "Almost dying in a truck in Asia during a freezing rainstorm. I'd never felt more alive."

A third: "After 100-hour weeks, standing at our kickoff watching it unfold. Everything went wrong the day before. But we did it. I felt like I could do anything."

These moments have something in common. They all happen in liminal space. 

The transition space between who we were and who we're becoming. When we step off our path and see it clearly. In these spaces, stripped of our everyday answers, we're awake to the fundamental question of ourselves.

We feel infinite. Alive.

Yet we spend most of our lives avoiding these moments.

We optimize away uncertainty. We convince ourselves we know exactly where we're going - Series A by Q3, Series B by next year, exit in 5 years. We shine our pitch decks and LinkedIn profiles until every rough edge is gone. We tell ourselves once we hit the next milestone, close that round, get to profitability - then we'll have time to figure out who we are and what we want.

But when faced with the fundamental question of our lives, we race for the next answer. The next salve of certainty, in a milestone, a compliment, or a white picket fence. The very moments that could wake us up - uncertainty, transition, not-knowing - we treat like problems to solve as quickly as possible.

The power of liminal space, and the importance of intentionally creating it in your life, is actually the oldest topic in the book, and as close to perennial human wisdom as it gets.

Richard Rohr: 

"If at least one-seventh of life is not consciousness, presence, and naked human being, the other six days will be caught up as human doings that have little depth, meaning, or final effect. 

If at least one-seventh of life is somehow Sabbath and sabbatical, the rest will take care of itself. 

Without daily, weekly, and yearly choices for liminal space, our whole lives eventually become liminoid and we end up just doing time.”

Read this post ten times and you'll find no answers. No four steps. It's uncomfortable publishing this way. But I'm not writing for comfort. I'm writing to feel alive.

Life will create opportunities for liminal space whether we like it or not. The question is whether we'll rush toward the next answer, or allow ourselves to be changed by the question. 

This is some of the work we do with founders through Inside-Out Leadership. Creating the liminal spaces where you see yourself clearly, stepping off the path long enough to know if it's the right one, and accessing the aliveness that's always been available.

What a fun job I have :)

I worked with a founder recently who was about to begin raising his Series B. His company was doing well, its unit economics outstanding, and its growth rate solid. But he was still worried he was going to f**k it up...

He had tried and failed to raise the year before. He’d told investors the story, generated interest, gotten partner meetings with top-tier funds, moved through diligence quickly. But then every firm passed.

Failed fundraises are traumatic.

It’s not for nothing that people refer to a founder’s company as “their baby” - founders pour every ounce of their lifeblood into their company for years in an effort to help it grow up. Then, when other smart people tell you your baby isn’t worth their time, it tends to leave a mark.

As a good CEO, he went back to the drawing board, broke down the story he’d been telling investors and himself, and identified critical issues that needed fixing. He and his team spent twelve months ruthlessly addressing them.

And yet, preparing for the growth round, he hesitated.

What if it turned out the same as last time?

His failed fundraise had given him valuable data, which he used to improve the business. But the driver of that change was also traumatic.

The reptile part of our brains deals with trauma in a way so highly adapted to survival that it hurts. His nervous system was “helpfully” reminding him how dangerous fundraising was. It recognized a threatening situation it had survived and sent the same red alert.

Our brains are wonderful tools, but trauma can sabotage high performers and prevent them from regaining confidence. And to get a fundraise across the finish line, confidence is everything.

So he needed to process the trauma.

One way to deactivate a traumatic response is to look analytically at the present with your more evolved brain, clarifying what’s different now so the fear center calms down. For him, that meant examining the previous raise closely.

Looking at it through a process lens, we noticed something important: all investors passed post-diligence. That meant he’d actually done a great job getting them excited - otherwise they never would have completed diligence. They passed because they uncovered flaws in the business - the same flaws he’d gone on to fix.

Which meant this: 

If he was the guy who convinced smart people to invest time into a fundamentally broken business, he was certainly the guy who could get them to invest time in the rocketship he was running now. And if they invested time now, he was confident they’d invest capital.

This simple reframe turned a confidence-sapping failure into a proof point of his fundraising mettle.

And this time, the odds were in his favor.

Nothing had changed. But by looking more closely, everything had. He left our conversation jacked up (a term I don’t use lightly) and ready to pitch. 

I felt like Wendy Rhoades in Billions.

I’ve always liked Paul Graham’s essay about how to do what you love. He describes a two-step process for achieving the career you've always wanted. However, research from Johns Hopkins suggests that he got this all wrong...

Graham's first step: working hard, with ridiculously incomplete information, to determine what you actually love to do.

Second step: incrementally steering toward that outcome via a specific process of either A) gaining influence to enable you to do more of what you like and delegate what you don’t, or B) moonlighting in what you love to do until you can make money at it.

This process is very similar to how I got started in entrepreneurship. 

I first decided I wanted to watch sports and call it “work,” then figured out how to make that happen. That also happens to be how Inside-Out Leadership started: I identified a passion for helping entrepreneurs build life-giving companies without self-immolating, and from that I’ve constructed a business to make that happen. The hard part, and Graham talks about this, has always been figuring out what you want.

So we’ll call this paradigm “How to do what you love.” 

It turns out, it may not be the best way.

Research from John’s Hopkins University indicates that it actually works the opposite of this. They showed in a clinical setting that humans random choices lead to preferences, not the other way around. We decide something, and then create reasons why we like that decision. From this, it follows that choices lead to preferences lead to habits lead to identity, to us becoming the person we somehow decide we were born to be.

In other words, from a granular, neuroscientific, process perspective, human beings don’t choose what we like - we like what we choose.

The implications of this on doing what we love are profound. The process of painstakingly finding what we like to do and then creating a life in which we get to do that is a tried-and-true one. But it’s hard, as Graham illustrates:

"Whichever route you take, expect a struggle. Finding work you love is very difficult. Most people fail. Even if you succeed, it's rare to be free to work on what you want till your thirties or forties. But if you have the destination in sight, you'll be more likely to arrive at it."

However, based on the science about how we actually develop what we love, there may be a better option, significantly less arduous and more in keeping with the mechanics of what it is to be human.

Instead of searching for what we want, we can simply search for why we love what we do. The “how to love what you do” paradigm, if you will.

As Seth Godin said: If we commit to loving what we do, we’re more likely to find engagement and satisfaction. And if what we do changes, we can choose to love that too.

---

Where in your life are you still waiting to “feel passion” before making a choice?
And what might happen if you flipped the sequence?
DM me or let me know in the comments.

I see over and over how traditional goal-setting methods can actually demotivate founders. Here's a quick, 7-step process for setting goals that actually produce momentum:

Here’s a typical case:

You set a long-term goal - say 1M users. You break it into milestones, like 500 users in 30 days. You build an action plan: SEO, paid ads, landing pages. You work nights and weekends, sacrifice everything - and miss.

Maybe your software went down, or Facebook changed its rules, or your target was just too ambitious. Either way, you worked hard and still missed. Now you’re not just fighting market challenges, you’re questioning whether you even have what it takes.

This is the trap: tying your self-worth to outcomes. Society tells us this is how it works. But it doesn’t have to.

Starting a company is hard enough without setting yourself up to feel like a failure when things outside your control go wrong.

The most effective founders attach their sense of accomplishment to completing actions, not to producing results. That way, they can generate momentum - the lifeblood of any startup - through their own efforts, regardless of outcome.

Here’s what that looks like:

You set your goal, break it down, and execute your plan. You finish your landing page, your SEO, your ad campaign. You celebrate completion because that’s the win. Then something breaks. You miss the goal - but you’re still winning. You iterate, adjust, and keep going.

You can imagine which approach produces better results.

The best founders I know follow this 7-step process:

1. Set your goal
2. Break it into milestones
3. Build an action plan for the first milestone
4. Complete the plan (this is where you either succeed or fail)
5. Analyze, dispassionately, whether actions taken produced expected results
6. Accounting for that analysis, iterate action plan to reach revised milestone
7. Repeat

Your job as a founder isn’t to control outcomes - it’s to complete the actions you commit to.

So by all means, set goals. Big hairy audacious ones. But remember: you control your actions, not the results. Be ruthless about doing what you said you’d do, and leave the rest to the universe.

Proud to coach with Inside-Out Leadership , CEO coaching by exited founders who've been there.

Jacksonville Jaguars

Performance Psychologist

Toronto Tempo

Advisor

Momentum Labs

Co-Founder and CEO

ReGen Ventures

Advisor on Human Potential

evio.vc

Advisor and Performance Psychologist

Founder Mental Health Pledge

Chief Medical Officer

Athletic Intelligence Measures, LLC

Business Consultant

Toronto Raptors Basketball Club Inc.

Sr. Director, Wellness & Development

Director of Wellness and Development

University of Arizona

Director, Clinical and Sport Psychology

Assistant Director, Clinical and Sport Psychology

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Doctoral Psychology Intern

Performance psychologist & Coach working with the world's best performers | Applying the principles and practices of elite sport to everyday health and high performance.

If you want athletic dominance, higher performance, and consistent financial success…

You need to learn the blueprint to unlocking the unfair advantage every top performer shares:

For over 10 years I’ve studied the DNA of elite performance.

I discovered a secret the best athletes & Founders share that allows them to reliably perform at their peak (without burning out or taking drugs)…

This ONE similarity gives them an unfair advantage.

It’s NOT:

- Their network
- Their physique or diet
- Their skills or knowledge

All of these ARE important… but they won’t save you.

I’ve seen pro athletes with poor diets, or successful executives without a large network…

There’s only ONE trait every single successful performer has:

They are “high-agency”.

High-agency individuals:

- Act more than they analyze
- Take responsibility for everything
- Focus on growth instead of achievement
- Control and direct their internal narrative
- Never doubt themselves, only their performance

I’ve never seen someone get to the top without this trait…

You don’t have to be the smartest, most gifted, or hardest worker.

But you do have to flip a switch.

When you flip this switch, nobody can dent your confidence or slow you down.

How do I know this?

I’m a certified mental performance consultant & board-certified sports coach. Over the past 10+ years, I’ve worked with the NBA, NFL, Olympians, Army Special Forces, Fortune 5 Companies & Venture-Backed Startups.

Here’s what people say about me:

"Alex is one of the best in the game. His ability to dive deep and explain this is next level. By going through his training, not only did I make massive improvements in my professional life (income and performance), but also benefits in my personal life." — Kevin KD Dorsey, #1 LinkedIn Sales Influencer

"Alex has worked directly with some of the world's most elite athletes. Combined with his deep expertise in human psychology, he's seen first-hand what it takes for someone to perform at the elite level while maintaining their health and sanity." — Andy Johns, Venture Advisor; Former VP of Growth - Twitter, Facebook.

Want to learn more about high performance?

Reach out and connect.

(𝘋𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘍𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯)…

Alex Auerbach

I've spent 10+ years studying what separates elite performers from everyone else. 

The pattern is always the same:

They build 5 layers of performance excellence, in order.

Layer 1: Wellbeing & Capacity

You can't perform if you're not well, full stop.

The foundation is adaptive capacity; pairing stress with recovery so you can progressively take on higher challenges.

Without this foundation, everything else crumbles.

Layer 2: Self-Regulation

Research is clear that this one skill separates the best from the rest:

The ability to control and direct your thoughts, emotions, and physiology toward your goals.

Elite performers know what mental skill to use in what context, and can deploy it on command.

Layer 3: Mental Architecture

This is where you build unshakeable confidence and the right beliefs about stress and challenge.

Champions don't “push through,” they reframe and adapt. They build mental models that serve performance.

Layer 4: Performance Preparation

Here's what rarely gets covered in performance books: quality preparation.

The best performers prepare obsessively. Diana Taurasi can walk you through exactly how she wants to feel 30 minutes before tipoff, 10 minutes before, and at game time.

She learned to get into that state through preparation and self-regulation.

Layer 5: Peak Performance Delivery

Only now, with all four other layers mastered, can you consistently deliver when the lights are brightest.

This is about:

→ Staying immersed and present in the moment
→ Optimizing your energy for 8-hour surgeries or board presentations
→ Adapting to evolving demands in real-time
→ Bouncing back from setbacks without losing momentum

Peak performance is the outcome of every layer beneath it. You can't fake this layer.

Most founders are trying to build layer 5 before they've even touched layer 1, which is why they plateau. 

These layers are ultimately trainable, and accessible to everyone. You just have to build them in order.

Where are you in building your performance foundation?

Alex Auerbach Ph.D.

Sharing insights from psychology to help you live better and unlock your Performance DNA. Based on my work with NBA, NFL, Elite Military Units, and VC

MLB players working with sport psychologists average 2 more years as pros.

That could be $9.96 million extra in career earnings, just from training their mind.

Now here's the question most practitioners never ask themselves:

If mental training adds $10 million to an athlete's career, what does YOUR ongoing development add to yours?

Most sport psychologists and mental performance coaches obsess over their clients' progress. They track every session metric, read every new study, document every intervention.

But when it comes to their own development…they wing it.

And I know this as I used to be the same early in my career.

No peer consultation on tough cases. No regular feedback on their interventions. No structured learning from people who've solved the problems they're facing.

They assume they should just know what to do.

After working with practitioners across professional and college sports, I've noticed something:

The difference between good practitioners and great ones isn't technical knowledge. It's not even client results (though those follow).

Great practitioners have built ongoing development into their systems.

They don't wait until they're second-guessing every intervention to ask for help and they don't treat their own growth as optional.

They treat their development exactly like they tell their clients to treat theirs: systematic, consistent, and supported.

If mental training could be worth $10 million to an athlete's career, investing in your own development isn't optional. 

It's fundamental.

I'm opening 10 spots this month in the High-Performance Circle for experienced sport psychologists, mental performance coaches, and allied professionals who are ready to treat their own development with the same rigor they expect from their clients.

Weekly sessions with committed practitioners, expert guidance from leaders in the field, and real feedback on your actual client work.

If you're done grinding in isolation, DM me "CIRCLE."

The Eagles went from Super Bowl favorites to playoff disasters in 5 weeks.

They made one critical mistake I see in leadership teams all the time: 

They stopped playing to win, and started playing “not to lose.”

This is a psychological phenomenon called avoidance motivation.

When you're motivated to avoid a particular outcome, your behavior is guided by fear.

Fear makes you tight, and starts to restrict your focus. It directs your attention toward threats instead of opportunities.

Plus, avoidance can easily overload you. It doesn't tell you what TO do, it tells you what NOT to do. The range of things to avoid is infinite. The range of things to accomplish is narrow and specific.

When you tell players "don't make mistakes," you haven't told them what to do. You've just activated a vigilance system that's exhausting to maintain. Every decision becomes about threat detection instead of execution.

Under pressure, this collapses entirely. The cognitive load of constantly scanning for what NOT to do drains the mental resources you need most when the game is on the line.

But the real damage happens at the leadership level.

When leaders motivate through avoidance, they can't convey clear objectives. People stop knowing what success looks like because everyone's focused on what failure looks like.

Task conflicts turn into relationship conflicts; Disagreements about how to do things become disagreements about people.

Luckily, the alternative isn't complicated.

Playing to win means orienting people toward what you want them to accomplish. Not what you want them to avoid.

It means providing clarity about standards and what success looks like. When people know what TO do, they can execute. When they only know what NOT to do, they freeze.

It means keeping a positive attitude even after loss. Identify what can be improved, ten focus on winning the next game. Not on not losing.

Life is a game you should always play to win.

Army Rangers taught me a mental tool that eliminates panic under pressure.

I was at Fort Bragg during live demolition training.

Watching them take explosives into simulated building entries.

Under those conditions, you can't be half in. And you definitely can't afford to panic when something goes sideways.

One Ranger told me: "We don't hope nothing goes wrong. We have a plan for when it does."

That's the difference between elite performers and everyone else.

Most people prepare for things going right. Elite performers prepare for things going wrong.

The tool is called mental contrasting with implementation intentions. I've taught this same framework to executives before board presentations, athletes before championships, and founders before investor pitches.

Here's how it works:

Step 1: Think about a high-stakes event coming up.

Step 2: List every challenge you might actually face. Be specific. Don't sugarcoat it.

E.g. For a big presentation: screen doesn't work, mic cuts out, tough question you can't answer, key stakeholder walks out mid-pitch.

Step 3: Write down exactly what you'll do if each one happens. Turn them into if-then statements.

"If the screen doesn't work, then I'll use my written outline and engage the room directly."

"If I get a question I can't answer, then I'll say 'That's a great question. Let me get back to you with a thoughtful answer rather than speculate.'"

Do this for every obstacle you can anticipate, and something shifts.

I worked with a CEO preparing for his Series A pitch. He was anxious, rehearsing the perfect version over and over.

We stopped practicing the perfect pitch. We started practicing what happens when things break.

What if an investor interrupts with a hostile question? What if the demo fails? What if they push back on your valuation?

He walked into that pitch room having already "been there" mentally for every scenario. When an investor did challenge his numbers aggressively, he didn't freeze. He'd already planned for it.

He closed the round.

Here's what the research shows: mental contrasting significantly improves goal achievement because it accounts for reality instead of ignoring it.

Anxiety comes from uncertainty and surprise. When you've mentally rehearsed the obstacle, it's no longer a surprise. The moment feels familiar instead of terrifying.

Most founders and executives spend 100% of their prep time on the ideal scenario. That's why they panic when reality doesn't cooperate.

Elite performers spend at least 30% of prep time on adversity planning.

Here's the challenge: 

- Pick one high-stakes moment in the next two weeks.

- List three things that could go wrong. Write your if-then plan for each one.

You'll walk in feeling different than you ever have before.

Try it out and DM me, let me know how it goes!

Present time with family is an investment in future performance.

Research backs this up:

Leaders who practice self-care have higher-performing, more engaged teams. When you model wellness, your team learns to do the same.

But here's the trap most high performers fall into...

You get home late, and miss bedtime. Then you spend tomorrow kicking yourself for it, which distracts you from the work you're supposed to be doing.

You've created the exact problem you were trying to avoid.

The solution is very, very simple: Go home. Put your kids to bed. Enjoy it.

Then tomorrow, you won't have to waste mental energy on regret.

This weekend, instead of powering through, create space for real present time with the people you love.

It’s the best win-win investment you can make.

Have a great Saturday!

What if hiring the “best” person for the job is actually the wrong decision?

Here's what the NBA and MLB can teach you about hiring high performers:

Research on NBA teams reveals when teams require high interdependence, more talent can actually tear them apart.

But most founders miss this and try to pack all their teams with A players.

The reality is that too many dominant individuals don't just coexist peacefully. They create disputes over authority and status that undermine team performance.

As a result, people start jostling for attention and influence rather than focusing on outcomes. In extreme cases, team members will actively undermine each other to advance their own standing.

Here's the fascinating part: researchers found the too-much-talent effect in basketball, but not in baseball.

The difference lies in interdependence.

Basketball requires constant fluid coordination. Baseball players mostly perform individually, then hand off to the next person.

When your work requires people to constantly coordinate and adapt together, too much dominant talent becomes toxic.

Studies show that reduced cooperation and coordination explain why high-talent teams underperform. The rate of additional talent benefit decreases much faster than people believe.

Translation for founders: the COO who crushed it at their last company might be the reason your exec team can't make decisions anymore.

Instead of just hiring "the best," consider:

→ Does this person's dominance profile fit our team's existing composition?
→ How much fluid coordination does this role actually require?
→ Are we accidentally creating status competition where we need collaboration?

The goal is to build teams where talent serves coordination rather than competing with it.

If you're a founder or executive struggling with team dynamics despite having exceptional talent, DM me and let's talk about what's actually happening under the surface.

Harsh high-performance truth:

You can’t seek balance AND seek excellence.

If you want to be great, there will always be sacrifice involved.

8 other harsh high-performance truths that took me 10 years to learn:

1. There's no substitute for hard work

The best NBA shooters still miss 60% of their shots. Jordan attributed his success to the thousands of shots he missed. Excellence requires years of sustained effort, not hacks or shortcuts.

2. You probably won't learn from your failures

Science shows that learning from failure is actually incredibly hard, as our egos protect us. The solution isn't obvious when we fail; we only learn what not to do. Most people mistake anxiety about failure for actual learning.

3. You cannot build complete self-awareness alone

No matter how introspective you are, you're blind to your own impact. You need feedback from peers, subordinates, and mentors. Yes, it's uncomfortable, but self-awareness requires seeing yourself through others' eyes.

4. You can’t perform if you aren’t well

Mental and physical wellness isn't optional. After 126 days of 5:30am to 11pm work, I learned that human potential isn't limitless. It can suck at the outer limits of your capacity.

5. Learning styles are a myth

The idea that people have unique "learning styles" (visual, auditory, kinesthetic) has zero scientific credibility. You've been lied to. People don't fit into four neat buckets, and matching "learning style" to presentation doesn't improve outcomes. 

6. Excellence requires sacrifice

If you want to be truly great at something, you have to be willing to sacrifice. You can have balance, but you won't achieve excellence in anything. Greatness isn't for everyone, and that's okay. Just be honest about what you actually want.

7. Most people are cognitively biased and don't realize it

We all engage in mental gymnastics to confirm what we already believe. We scan for information that fits our worldview and discredit everything else. To break out of it, you need to be aware of it.

8. Hustle culture is as stupid as avoiding hard work

Working 80-hour weeks makes you inefficient, but so does avoiding difficulty entirely. The answer isn't more or less. It's finding your own individualized formula.

Great performers accept these truths, while decent performers ignore them.

There’s a reason why so few achieve excellence, and that’s because it’s uncomfortable.

So if greatness is your goal, ask yourself: What truth are you avoiding?

I saw a coach nearly destroy his team's culture with one very common mistake:

Certain times call for specific psychological environments. But most just build one and get stuck there.

In this case, the coach tried to maintain the same psychological environment during the championship run that they'd built during the regular season.

Players couldn't execute under pressure, leaders second-guessed every decision, and the organization crumbled when the stakes got too real.

Some organizations believe that you can run high-performance environments the same way all the time… but you can’t.

Functional development environments need specific conditions: 

→ Focus on development over current performance

→ Emphasis on effort over talent

→ Room for mistakes and error

→ Clear values that are lived daily

But when these environments transition into performance mode, the rules change.

That’s because these performance environments (championships, high-stakes presentations, other make-or-break decisions) have consequences:

→ You can lose your job
→ You can lose your role
→ You can let the entire team down

High-performing environments are rarely "safe" in the traditional sense. 

The mistake most often made is trying to maintain development-level conditions during championship moments. 

They want the same "safe space to experiment" energy when what's actually needed is clarity, accountability, and execution.

The best organizations I've worked with toggle between modes intentionally. 

The key is being explicit about which mode you're in. Don't pretend the championship game feels the same as practice.

Your team doesn't need you to eliminate pressure. 

They need you to prepare them for it, then give them permission to execute when it matters most.

For years I’ve studied why first-round NFL picks fail. 

Most hiring processes I’ve seen have the same major flaw:

You’re asking the wrong questions.

NFL teams used to focus on one thing: 

Physical ability. Can this player throw? Can they run? Can they catch?

Turns out, that's not why players fail. They fail because they can't handle the mental demands and team dynamics that present themselves in high-stress environments.

Companies make the identical mistake.

Question 1: "Is this person talented?”

You’re on the right track, but this is a flawed approach. 

Talent is contextual; it depends on the ENVIRONMENT the person is placed into.

The "A-player" you’re hiring with experience working with a huge competitor might be a C-player on your team.

The right question: Will this person’s talent integrate well into our environment?

Question 2: "Can they execute the work required for this role?”

The truth is, if you’re already considering them for the role, they CAN execute. And any hard skills they lack can be improved upon over time.

But their psychological fitness is what makes or breaks their position in your company.

If you're not assessing stress tolerance, motivation, and how someone handles feedback, you're gambling.

The right question: "Can they handle the mental load required for this role?"

Question 3: “Do they fill in this position perfectly?”

Championship teams don't just draft the best available talent. They draft for how that player will DEVELOP over 3-5 years and how they fit with the team they're building.

Sometimes you need someone who will challenge the culture, not fit perfectly into it. That friction might be exactly what you need.

The right question: "How will this person evolve with our team?"

Every founder has lived through the disappointment of hiring someone who looks great on paper and then letting them go six months down the line.

You probably told yourself it was on them: "They just weren't a good fit.”

But in reality, the evaluation process and its errors are what caused the mismatch.

See, championship teams don’t have magical access to better talent. They have better systems for evaluating who will actually succeed in their specific environment.

They collect multiple data points over time. They assess psychology with the same rigor as physical ability. They think about team composition, not just individual talent.

And they're patient enough to get it right, even when it's uncomfortable or tedious.

Your next hire doesn't need to be perfect.

But your process for evaluating them needs to be better than a 10-second impression and a one-hour interview.

A practitioner in my community struggled to get buy-in for 3 years.

Here’s the one messaging shift that changed everything for his business:

The problem wasn't his expertise, he had plenty. It was how he talked about his work.

When he walked into team meetings, he could feel it: He was seen as a “nice to have,” not something essential.

When you look at his old approach, you can see why:

→ "I can teach you visualization."

→ "Let me help you get your mindset right.”

→ "I can teach you breathing techniques and mental skills.”

This sounds helpful. But, when framed this way, people feel like the fixes are very DIY. Anyone can google “mindset tips,” so you’re positioning yourself as optional.

This was his new, improved approach:

→ "The brain controls the body."

→ "I help the team be more confident in high-pressure moments."

→ "We're going to make sure the brain-body connection for everyone in your organization is in the best possible state it can be."

Notice the difference?

You're not talking about techniques anymore. You're talking about outcomes. This positions mental performance as something essential (which, of course, it is.)

I made this exact mistake early in my career. I listed techniques I could teach instead of results I could deliver.

Once I started talking about optimizing the brain-body connection for performance, buy-in changed completely.

This is what we work through in the High-Performance Circle: how to position your value, communicate clearly, and get the buy-in your expertise deserves.

I'm opening up a few more spots to close out the year for sport psychologists, mental performance coaches, and allied professionals.

If this resonates, DM me "CIRCLE."

My biggest job as a parent isn't what most people think.

It’s not to make my kids happy. It’s not even to make them successful.

It’s to make them feel safe. 

Emotionally, physically, mentally. Safe enough to be whoever it is they want to be in life.

That changes everything about how I show up on weekends:

→ Less “fixing,” more listening.
→ Less teaching, more staying present.
→ Less planning for their future, more space to allow them to discover it for themselves.

Research shows that children who feel psychologically safe develop better. They're more resilient, and they trust themselves more. 

But I honestly don’t need research to tell me that. 

I can see it for myself whenever I watch my kids, knowing that they know I'm fully there with them.

What's one way you're showing up for the people who matter most?

I've worked with NBA and NFL players for nearly a decade.

When I work with executives, I see a mistake athletes rarely ever make.

Most founders think they're optimizing their day by going meeting-to-meeting-to-meeting.

But they're actually destroying their performance.

NBA players come to the bench after 8-10 minutes on the court for a reason. They need to recover.

You'll see them put a towel over their head, control their breathing, reset their mental state.

They understand that without recovery, the next shift suffers.

But they also understand that it doesn’t take long to quickly recharge.

Founders do the opposite. Four meetings in a row, then they wonder why they're fried.

There's research on this – your brain activity after back-to-back meetings shows you're basically useless. But 10 minutes is enough to reset you back to baseline.

With pretty much every executive I work with, one of the first rules I implement is 10-minute breaks between meetings. Get up, walk around, do some squats. Anything.

Just break up the back-to-back-to-back.

Most founders resist this. "I don't have time for breaks."

But you can't afford not to take breaks.

If you’re thinking about recovering after you’ve burned out or started underperforming…

It’s too late.

The good news is that it doesn’t take much.

People underestimate the value of 5-15 minute actions. "I don't have an hour to exercise."

What if you walked for 15 minutes? 5 to 15 is better than zero.

Recovery works the same way. Four 15-minute breaks throughout the day gets you that same recovery time, just spread out.

Athletes understand that recovery is part of performance.

Most founders think recovery is what you do after you burn out.

But it’s too late then.

If you’re a founder and executive currently feeling stuck DM me “Clarity” for an audit of your situation.

Think you “don’t have time” to rest for an entire day?

Then don’t. Just take 15 minutes.

You can start small: 

→ 10-minute walks between meetings
→ 15-minute power naps on Saturday
→ 5 minutes of breathing before bed

You might not think it matters, but I swear it changes everything.

Here's what research shows: 

Micro-recovery is often as effective as long breaks.

So really, your issue isn't time. It's the belief that recovery has to be elaborate to count.

This weekend, try one 15-minute block doing something that restores you.

That's it. See what happens.

Have a great weekend!

Every coach I know wants to be “evidence-based”.

The problem is, most don’t have time to stay current on the evidence.

Here's what actually happens…

You're managing 15-20 clients, writing notes, and navigating team politics. If a new study drops on autonomy and performance, you’ll just bookmark it and tell yourself you'll read it this weekend.

…but you never do.

Three months later, you're working with an athlete on motivation and you can't remember if that research was relevant or just another theoretical paper.

Meanwhile, you're second-guessing your intervention because you genuinely don't know if what you're doing aligns with the latest evidence.

And here's another problem few talk openly about…

You spent years learning how to cite research, but zero hours learning how to price your services, position your expertise, or build a sustainable practice.

You can help a founder overcome performance anxiety in 8 weeks, but just sit staring blankly at your screen when it comes to building your revenue model.

These types of problems are exactly why I built the High-Performance Circle.

It’s almost impossible to stay on top of all the cutting-edge research out there without a community of like minded professionals.

The Circle also covers pricing strategies, positioning frameworks, and client acquisition. AKA, all the business skills you actually need for your practice to thrive.

This is what graduate schools should provide, but can't.

I've still got a few spots left this month for experienced sport psychologists, mental performance coaches, and allied professionals.

If you’re interested in getting started DM me "CIRCLE," or if you’d like access to some of the free resources I have then message me as well!

I've coached NBA players and startup founders for 15+ years. 

These 10 habits separate high performers from everyone else:

1. 7-8 hours of sleep, every night

Sleep is the number one performance enhancer. There's no substitute. When you're sleep-deprived, your brain tricks you into thinking you're functioning well when you're not. 

2. Build short pre-performance routines

Routines create predictability and control. The key is keeping them short and simple, as long routines give your mind time to wander and doubt.

3. Practice 2-12 minutes of mindfulness daily

Mindfulness clears your mind, but it also trains your attention. Each time your mind wanders and you bring it back, that's two mental reps: strengthening your ability to stay present when it matters most.

4. Use mental rehearsal before big moments

Your brain can't always tell the difference between imagining an action and actually doing it. Elite performers see themselves executing perfectly in vivid detail. 

5. Journal after performances

Use three questions:

→ What did I do today that I want to keep doing?
→ What do I want to do differently?
→ What did I learn?

This turns every performance into data for the next one.

6. Reframe stress as fuel, not a threat

Stress is your brain preparing you to do something effortful. Acknowledge it, welcome it, then use it. High performers who see stress as enhancing consistently outperform those who see it as debilitating.

7. Double down on your strengths

Most people obsess over fixing weaknesses. Elite performers identify their signature strengths and engineer their roles around them. 

8. Practice controlled breathing

Box breathing, 4-7-8 breathing, physiological sighs: Pick one and practice it everywhere, not just in high-pressure moments. When the stakes are highest, you need it to be automatic.

9. Focus only on what you can control

Identify the controllables in every situation, and release everything else. This is how you direct your energy toward what actually moves the needle.

10. Treat recovery as an investment

Elite performers are strategic about rest. They know that grinding without recovery doesn't make you tougher, it makes you worse when you need your strength the most.

The truth about high performance is that it’s fundamentally boring.

It's about doing the basics better than everyone else, more consistently, for longer.

Save this post, and choose one of these habits to start implementing tomorrow.

Let me know if you start seeing a difference!

10 Top Habits of High Performers

While working in the NBA, I observed a critical gap:


The difference between believing you're in control and truly being high agency.

I've seen this outside of sport as well. Most executives believe they control their outcomes, but again belief alone doesn't create high agency.

When I worked with the Toronto Raptors, we measured something called internal locus of control – the belief that you're in the driver's seat of your outcomes.

It was one of the key traits we evaluated in every player.

People with internal locus of control don't say "my team isn't executing." They say "I need to lead differently."

The research is clear that people who believe they control their outcomes are more motivated, perform better, and persist longer when things get hard.

But...

Internal locus of control is the belief. High agency is that belief plus the psychological capabilities to execute on it.

You can believe you're in the driver's seat all you want. But without self-regulation under pressure, without the right environment, without resilience through setbacks, that belief doesn't translate to performance.

One example: 

Researchers put people in fMRI machines and showed them disturbing images to measure stress response.

Average people? Their brains lit up like Christmas trees.

Then they tested Alex Honnold – the free solo climber who scales thousand-foot walls without ropes.

His brain barely registered a response.

The researchers thought he didn't experience fear. But Honnold corrected them.

He feels fear constantly. The difference is he's trained himself to respond appropriately to the actual level of threat.

Disturbing images in a safe lab don't require the same response as being 2,000 feet up with no safety equipment.

That's elite-level self-regulation.

Not just the belief you control outcomes, but the capability to execute under pressure.

Most executives I work with get stuck because they lack some piece of the high agency equation:

They're avoiding hard conversations that need to happen.

They're not setting boundaries they know they need.

They're delaying decisions because they're waiting for perfect information.

But building high agency isn't about motivation or willpower.

It's about developing specific psychological capabilities.

The good news is that these are trainable skills.

I’m sending a full breakdown of the psychology behind high agency in my newsletter tomorrow.

It covers:

- The three components of self-regulation
- Why autonomy-supportive environments create high agency
- The six psychological capabilities of resilient performers
- Practical steps to start building these capabilities

To get that straight to your inbox tomorrow sign up here:
https://lnkd.in/gXB_FJ9K

(You'll also receive my High Performance Playbook for free)

When was the last time you actually engaged in PLAY?

For most of us, the answer is probably uncomfortable. 

We've systematically removed play from our lives in the name of productivity.

Throughout our childhood, time for play gets reduced incrementally.

Then we reach adulthood and glorify grinding and wear exhaustion like a badge of honor.

But here's what the research actually shows:

Play is a primary technique for decreasing burnout.

It brings about full presence and immersion. It happens in an unstressed, creative state that's guided by what matters most to us. It restores our mental and physical energy.

Ironically, play facilitates the exact things that make us more productive: deep learning and rejuvenation.

Singing in the shower, playing with your kids, these “unproductive” activities are actually fuel for excellence.

We can't afford, energetically, to be serious all the time.

So this weekend, give yourself permission to play. 

No need to “earn” it. Just play!

Jimmy Johnson, legendary Dallas Cowboys coach, distilled success into a simple formula:

Positive Attitude + Effort = Performance

Early in my NFL career with the St. Louis Rams, I saw this formula in action. 

I was riding the elevator with a future Hall-of-Fame running back. Making small talk about his goals for the season, he looked at me and said: "I'm here to be great every day."

At the time, I couldn't imagine what it would look like to try and be great every day at what I did. I was just trying to survive. 

He was doing a job that was 1000 times harder than mine, and his default expectation was that he'd be great, day in and day out.

That's what this formula captures: what separates consistent high performers from everyone else. 

People might hear about mindset and scoff, but there’s research to back up its effectiveness. 

For example, research from Dr. Mustafa Sarkar shows that performers with a positive mindset use adversity as fuel for growth instead of something to simply "get through.”

The founders and executives I work with are cognitive athletes. 

They face high-stakes decisions, their identity is wrapped up in their work, and there are livelihoods on the line. Just like that Hall-of-Famer in the elevator, they need to show up ready to be great.

The cliche in sports is that you can only control your attitude and effort. 

What people don't realize is just how much control they can develop over their performance if they train those two factors deliberately.

How to have a champion mindset:

(A story about Roger Federer and his dentist)

The key lesson is: Your environment can kill your ambition before you even notice.

And a champion like Roger Federer makes no exceptions – even his dentist!

The story goes…

His dentist asked what he was up to. "I'm playing tennis," Federer said.

"Okay, what else?" the dentist pressed. "That's it?! Just tennis?!"

That was it. Federer never went back.

Sounds a bit dramatic at face value, but if you want to be great at something this lesson is so important.

Federer’s take:

"I felt like he's not really understanding what I'm trying to do here. I'm chasing a dream. I'm trying to aim for the stars, and he's trying to pull me back. I don't want to be surrounded by people like this.”

Focusing on your skills and execution is highly important. But you can’t ignore the people around you who are either building and growing with you or slowly eroding your foundation.

When the people around you question your commitment, minimize your ambition, or fail to grasp what you're building, they're actively making it harder for you to do your best work.

They don’t mean to necessarily, but they’re simply not aligned with your mission.

The erosion happens slowly. A comment here, a question there:

"Are you sure?" "What's your backup plan?" "Isn't that risky?”

Each one chips away at your belief.

This may seem obvious when it comes to sports, but the same applies for any endeavour – especially in business where building support systems around individuals isn’t as common.

Three questions to evaluate your support system:

→ Who around you genuinely understands what you're trying to accomplish?
→ When things get hard, who amplifies your belief rather than your doubt?
→ Are the people closest to you creating conditions that make high performance more likely, or less?

Champions don't get there alone; they get there by being ruthless about who they bring along for the ride.

Federer won 20 Grand Slams by protecting his environment and surrounding himself with the right team.

If you’re reaching for greatness, choose who you surround yourself with carefully.

P.S. On a similar topic of creating champion environments... 

Tomorrow I'm sending my email list a breakdown of how to build high-performance teams and my surprising answer to the question: "Can you have TOO much talent?"

*Hint: the answer isn't no.

If you'd like that breakdown from my PhD research and my time at the Toronto Raptors sent directly to your inbox then sign up here: https://lnkd.in/gXB_FJ9K

(You'll also receive my High Performance Playbook for free)

Everyone's grinding hard in Q4.

But that might be why your team is falling short.

From my experience, when pressure increases, teams don't actually get better at execution. They get worse.

Here's the pattern I see everywhere, especially in Q4:

→ Sales teams behind quota add new sequences, campaigns, messaging angles
→ Founders suddenly say yes to opportunities they would've passed on in Q2
→ Product teams sprint to ship features that weren't priorities last month

None of it moves the needle.

Under pressure, your brain looks for control. But it looks in the wrong places.

You start obsessing over things you can't control – market timing, economic conditions, factors completely outside your influence.

Or you start adding random new tactics instead of executing the fundamentals that actually work.

In sports, I see teams fixate on weather, travel schedules, referee assignments – things completely outside their control.

Meanwhile, the basics that determine outcomes get less attention: practice quality, recovery routines, game preparation.

Your Q4 scramble works the same way.

When outcomes feel uncertain, your brain defaults to "doing something"…anything…because activity registers as progress even when it's not.

Adding a new campaign feels productive. Pivoting strategy feels decisive. Saying yes to every opportunity feels like momentum.

But busy isn't the same as effective.

Here's what actually works when pressure hits:

Audit Q1-Q3: What were you doing when pressure was lower? When you were hitting targets, what fundamentals were in place?

Identify your distractions: What are you fixating on that you can't control? What new tactics are you adding that weren't part of your original plan?

Recommit to fundamentals: What core behaviors actually drive your outcomes? Double down on those instead of inventing new ones.

Resist novelty bias: New approaches feel productive but rarely deliver in the time remaining. Execution beats innovation when the clock is running out.

Build forcing functions: Create systems that keep you focused on what matters. When pressure hits, you default to whatever structure you've already built.

As pressure ramps up, the answer isn't finding new things to do. It's getting more disciplined about executing what already works so when you find the needle-movers…

Lock-in on those and remove all other distractions.

What's one thing you need to stop doing in Q4 so you can execute better on what matters?

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