Grow Without Hiring

[00:00:00] Ken: I am not your business therapist, but I've had clients who've gone off camera, mid-sentence, not because of a technical glitch, but because something real hit.
[00:00:13] Ken: I've also had founders cry.
[00:00:16] Ken: Not because we're talking about their childhood, because suddenly they see it. The pattern that got them there
[00:00:24] Ken: is the one that's also keeping them stuck.
[00:00:28] Ken: No, it's not therapy, but it is therapeutic. So you might say that a lot of people lay down on my virtual couch.
[00:00:37] Ken: Taking care of yourself is important. Taking care of yourself as an entrepreneur, even more important. No one is coming to give you your next check. No one is plopping your next deal right in front of you.
[00:00:51] Ken: You might also be a parent. You might also be a spouse.
[00:00:55] Ken: So all of the things that a normal person does, you just have [00:01:00] that much more stress, responsibility,
[00:01:04] Ken: And pressure.
[00:01:05] Ken: and it's not that I don't appreciate warm fuzzies, but my view of business therapy.
[00:01:10] Ken: Is that the best mindset Work is done differently.
[00:01:14] Ken: And it's true that you may just need that person in your corner,
[00:01:18] Ken: but without equipping you with everything else that I talk about in these conversations, and without equipping my clients with systems and tactics that get them results.
[00:01:29] Ken: And changes the way that they approach doing business,
[00:01:32] Ken: they will just keep riding the same merry-go-round.
[00:01:37] Ken: You'll never get off that proverbial hamster wheel.
[00:01:41] Ken: So the moment that those people stop and go off camera or get teary-eyed and ask for a minute.
[00:01:46] Ken: There's one of two realizations.
[00:01:49] Ken: The first and more obvious one is, whatever I'm saying is something they've clearly struggled with.
[00:01:55] Ken: It's something that is a challenge for them. It's something that they are already aware of and working [00:02:00] on in their life.
[00:02:00] Ken: But the other side of that
[00:02:02] Ken: is possibly coming to terms
[00:02:04] Ken: that they haven't even admitted to themselves, that they're the ones in their own way.
[00:02:09] Ken: For example, I recently spoke to a founder who previously reached out over a year and a half ago.
[00:02:16] Ken: We had some brief conversation, didn't really get too far in the process, and they said it was too soon. They wanted to get further along before they got help.
[00:02:25] Ken: They came back after a record breaking month.
[00:02:29] Ken: The numbers looked great,
[00:02:30] Ken: but as I listened. It was obvious the foundation was fragile.
[00:02:36] Ken: Underneath it all, one good month is just that one good month.
[00:02:41] Ken: That's not systems. That's not scalability.
[00:02:44] Ken: One Spike does not erase years of grinding or doing everything yourself.
[00:02:50] Ken: let me put it to you this way, especially if you're someone who's in a second stage of your career, you can't scale adrenaline. I absolutely have [00:03:00] had clients who are in different parts of their life. They don't have kids, they don't have mortgages, they don't have responsibilities. I also have certain clients who are in other stages of life who also still don't have those things.
[00:03:12] Ken: So yes, they have time to invest more deeply if they choose to do so in their business. Obviously within reason.
[00:03:20] Ken: But when it's about energy, hustle and grinding alone, that is the hard way of growing your business.
[00:03:29] Ken: And even those people that I mentioned are getting help, they're making those years or this time of their life more impactful because they realize this thing,
[00:03:40] Ken: the ego that got you there becomes the liability that keeps you stuck.
[00:03:47] Ken: When you are good at everything, you can juggle it for a while.
[00:03:51] Ken: You could even make yourself look successful on platforms like LinkedIn.
[00:03:55] Ken: But just like this person
[00:03:57] Ken: You can't get those [00:04:00] years back. You can't get that time back. It's the fastest way to stall or burnout.
[00:04:06] Ken: if that sounds familiar. It should. Back in episode five, the a hundred K Trap, I talked about how legacy mindsets. Keep founders trapped and always saying yes to the next thing for years, to the wrong deals, to the wrong clients.
[00:04:24] Ken: And even though we dealt in that conversation with these bad legacy mindsets, I did also mention one of my clients saying, Ken gets things done. He's not just a business therapist, but they were only half right.
[00:04:40] Ken: And it's why so much of my work does start with mentality without giving you a warm, fuzzy blanket.
[00:04:47] Ken: Because you can call it growth, but if the foundation hasn't changed, it's still the same legacy. Thinking underneath. That's not truly scalable.
[00:04:57] Ken: This is why I've also mentioned in the past [00:05:00] that some of my favorite testimonials are not just about people saying. Ken helped me get to 50 K plus months.
[00:05:07] Ken: Obviously that's great financially. It impacts them personally. Some people who have families, it changes the trajectory of the family unit,
[00:05:16] Ken: but there has to be more than just that. Or I'm just another guy who's talking about making money.
[00:05:22] Ken: The whole reason why I started this. It is not just about making money. It's about making money on our terms as a remote solopreneur, as someone with a different mentality as someone like me who walked away from helping build a billion dollar business to be home and look for that life work integration versus that work-life balance that I've talked about so often.
[00:05:44] Ken: And that is why the testimonials of someone who is doing a lot better. for example, a mother who went from barely surviving, burnt out as a freelancer to thriving as a solopreneur, and yes, she's hitting record highs now.
[00:05:59] Ken: [00:06:00] But that's not the entire story. Just like that comment about me being the business therapist was only half true. The real win is that she feels like she has her life back. She feels like she finally has control of her business. She's showing up better for her kids who have noticed this and called it out to her,
[00:06:21] Ken: and I promise you that didn't come from another cold outreach tip or from a viral lead magnet.
[00:06:28] Ken: It came from reprogramming the way that she thought about herself, her business. And what she was capable of building. And of course it doesn't stop just with that reaffirmation. It comes through the systems, the tactics that we do day after day after day. That is why we need both parts of what I do.
[00:06:51] Ken: There are plenty of people who just talk about your mindset and there are plenty of people who will just help you understand how to get more [00:07:00] leads, but there are very few who can do it in a way that understands precisely the seat that you're in and meet you at a human level. It's not sympathizing, it's empathizing.
[00:07:13] Ken: One thing that I have noticed in building businesses, both for myself and building it with others is that a lot of. Companies can get to a certain level purely based on the personality and the skillset of that person.
[00:07:30] Ken: There is a place that personality can ultimately reach and then without showing you
[00:07:37] Ken: the limiting beliefs, the imposter syndrome that still hides and lurks in the parts of your mind, or that there truly is a different and better way to do something. That is why you get capped at 200 k. Or 300 K instead of hitting 500 K or a million dollars a year.
[00:07:54] Ken: The same thing that made you successful can also break you.
[00:07:58] Ken: So growing [00:08:00] without hiring. And being a remote solopreneur isn't just about stopping
[00:08:05] Ken: following the nine to five,
[00:08:07] Ken: it's also not just about ditching playbooks built for different centuries.
[00:08:13] Ken: It is about rewiring a lifetime of patterns
[00:08:17] Ken: instilled in your brain from things like identity being tied to performance. Fear of discomfort
[00:08:26] Ken: or the lie that asking for help makes you weak.
[00:08:30] Ken: And it's why sometimes I have conversations like I had more recently where yes, I could help someone with their offers. I'm well known for it. I have hundreds of testimonials about helping. Rebuild offers from the ground up, including for the most well-known names on the internet. But the bigger question for this person more recently and for a lot of others, is not about closing more of an offer.
[00:08:55] Ken: It's instead asking if we should even be in that business, [00:09:00] should we even be building around something that you're no longer passionate about?
[00:09:05] Ken: It's why I challenge my clients with questions like, what is the business that you're gonna build after this one?
[00:09:11] Ken: Because if the next version of you. is stuck inside a legacy mindset. No system, no strategy, no record month. It's gonna stop you from getting out of that cycle.
[00:09:26] Ken: Most quote unquote coaches will only talk to you about this week's tactic.
[00:09:32] Ken: Business therapy and growing without hiring isn't about that. It's about a mentality. That makes you unstoppable for years.
[00:09:42] Ken: That's what it's looked like for me to close down businesses that were no longer serving me well,
[00:09:47] Ken: to pursue, things that were unknown.
[00:09:50] Ken: To cut losses when they were just dead weight and to dream new dreams and reinvent myself dozens of times
[00:09:58] Ken: because without that, the [00:10:00] record month you just celebrated is a blip.
[00:10:03] Ken: Blips don't build businesses.
[00:10:05] Ken: If you don't do your own business therapy now, life will do it for you, whether it's through burnout, plateau, or both.
[00:10:14] Ken: I wish I did this sooner for myself. I did fine, but I know that I would do better faster if I. Learn this lesson earlier.
[00:10:23] Ken: Don't just learn it the hard way
[00:10:25] Ken: and with that, your time's not up remote solopreneur.
[00:10:29] Ken: but that is where we will end this conversation. The conversation continues though, if this struck a nerve with you.
[00:10:36] Ken: If this is different than other things that are in your podcast queue, do me a favor, leave a rating or review. Don't just get past this part. I put a lot of time and effort into these conversations. I am trying to do things that I know I would personally have listened to when I was in your seat. So take a second to do that now, or if you'd like to connect more deeply with me, you can send me a [00:11:00] note on LinkedIn, either a DM or a connection request with the phrase business therapy.
[00:11:04] Ken: It'll let me know that you're listening to it podcast. Both of those are in the show notes. I keep them tight so that you don't have to scroll forever to get anything useful.
[00:11:14] Ken: We will continue on.
[00:11:16] Ken: I love these conversations. I love helping you think differently in your business, and I can't wait to have another conversation with you about how to grow. Without hiring.