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May 2017\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Eight or nine Magnetics became Implementers; nine of Josh's own clients did too\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>You can't manufacture that ripple, you just do the work and become who they might follow\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":191},"f_01Jj78WJq3s1CV1gVdZmCed0bd","Category","category",[192],{"sort":154,"content_link":193},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":194,"language":197,"content_type":198,"published_at":5},{"title":195,"schema":196},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},"145",{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":204},"f_01JJ9RXe955ST44Vq9ke25WKbN","Post Body","post_body","blocks",[205],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":206,"content_type":211},{"text":207},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":210,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"f_01Jj9S61fz9he3E4rEtmECzPCT","Text","\u003Cp>Every year at the annuals, we try to get the photo.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It doesn't always come together, because we're spread across the room and the days move fast. But when it does, it's the best few minutes of the week: eight or nine of us, all EOS® Implementers now, all from the same company.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Magnet 360.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>We look around at each other and it still feels a little insane. One company sent this many of us into this work.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I didn't set out to build that, nobody did. It just happened, one person at a time, and tracing it back is the best way I know to explain what this work actually does.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>A special company\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>I learned EOS® at Magnet 360, around 2013.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I can't take credit for the culture there. I came in through an acquisition, and by the time I arrived the place was already running on EOS®, with Peyton as the Integrator. So I got to watch something rare from the inside: a company that had its values sorted out and actually used them to hire, fire, review, reward, and recognize.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>We called ourselves the Magnetics. Our founder loved music, so the whole company leaned into a rock and roll theme, right down to the nicknames and the conference room names.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It sounds like a gimmick when I describe it, but it wasn't. It was the visible edge of something real underneath, which was a group of people who were clear on where we were going and why. I felt that clarity every day, I just didn't have a name for it yet.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>When it got quiet\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>Then we got bought, and I found out what that clarity was worth by losing it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Justin Cox left first, we sold the company about a year after that. I stuck around for another year to see what would happen, and what happened was quiet and total: we became part of a twenty thousand person company, and the work stopped being fun for me.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So I called Justin. He had found this thing, EOS® Implementing, and he talked about it the way you talk about something you can't quite believe you get to do. It sounded fun, and rewarding. After the year I'd just had, both of those words carried real weight, so I jumped in and went to boot camp in May of 2017.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Here's the part I didn't see coming: Justin wasn't the only one. Over the next nine years, I watched person after person from Magnet 360 make the same jump, some from the leadership team, some a level down. Eight or nine of us, from one company, are Implementers today. Peyton alone is responsible for most of that pull.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>We didn't plan a pipeline, we just each found our way to the same work, because we'd all felt the same thing and wanted to go give it to other people.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>The ripple keeps going\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>And it didn't stop at Magnet 360.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Next May will be my tenth year. In that decade, nine clients or people I've mentored have become Implementers themselves. Entrepreneurs I sat across from, who ran their businesses on the tools, who then decided they wanted to go do this for other people.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>There's a phrase I reach for and can never source correctly: “leaders creating leaders creating leaders”. When someone tells me they want to become an Implementer because of the work we did together, that is the highest compliment I get. It means the impact didn't stop at their business: it reached their employees, and their families, and their vendors, and their customers, and then it turned around and found its way back to me.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},"ct_01Jj9S5BvAa9VjgnYt8X5kpQwv","Blog Text","blog_text","block",{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":220},"f_01KTv7166HbwbaF5NdYM99dw36","Guest Author","guest_author",[221],{"sort":154,"content_link":222},{"id":223,"uri":224,"url":225,"name":226,"slug":227,"fields":228,"language":197,"content_type":255,"published_at":259},"c_01m2J6daNY6gb1352YAJDqZ6pD","contributor/josh-holtzman","https://www.success.co/contributor/josh-holtzman","Josh Holtzman","josh-holtzman",{"bio":229,"name":234,"role":238,"image":243},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":232,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},"f_01kTv6Yn76zvVyMCbd7qEW2P95","Bio","\u003Cp>Over the past decade, Josh has coached nearly 100 leadership teams and facilitated close to 1,000 sessions. Before that, he spent a decade building and exiting companies. Two businesses, three exits. He has watched organizations grow from 10 employees to 500 and beyond from both sides of the table. He can think of no greater privilege than to give back by sharing his experience, and coach leadership teams to live the EOS Life\u003C/p>","bio",{"id":235,"name":236,"text":226,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},"f_01KTV6y0EQZPJe11Q59623V3c0","Name","name",{"id":239,"name":240,"text":241,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},"f_01KTv6yat28W49aejr8mQKe99q","Role","Expert EOS Implementer","role",{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":245,"handle":150,"help_text":26},"f_01ktV6z30X2zWp08t304Z3yybC",[246],{"sort":154,"asset":247},{"id":248,"url":249,"name":250,"path":251,"size":252,"width":253,"height":253,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":254,"updated_at":254,"description":26},"a_01m2j6eVZ97b7FE4Nv1B0mJ426","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1764089474353.jpeg","1764089474353","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1764089474353.jpeg","8.67 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Meeting","blog/how-to-run-a-great-state-of-the-company-meeting","https://www.success.co/blog/how-to-run-a-great-state-of-the-company-meeting","2026-09-21T12:20:52+00:00","2026-09-21T12:24:41+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":284,"description":285,"robots":26,"canonical_url":278,"open_graph":286},"How to run a great State of the Company Meeting — Success.co","Most teams nail the rollout meeting, then never gather the company again, and here's how to fix that.",{"title":276,"description":285,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":278},{"image":288,"title":296,"author":297,"schema":299,"excerpt":300,"summary":301,"category":303,"post_body":311,"guest_author":318,"sidebar_cta_text":331,"sidebar_cta_title":332,"sidebar_cta_button":333},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":289},[290],{"sort":154,"asset":291},{"id":292,"url":293,"name":158,"path":294,"size":160,"width":161,"height":162,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":295,"updated_at":295,"description":26},"a_01M31YM32ZdDcRV6AJ84VhdZeA","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/Gemini_Generated_Image_5g6ih35g6ih35g6i.jpeg","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/Gemini_Generated_Image_5g6ih35g6ih35g6i.jpeg","2026-09-21T12:21:31+00:00",{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":276},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":298},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":285},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":302},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Start the 90-day cadence right after rollout and never let it slip\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Pick the format your geography supports: in-person, hybrid, virtual, or roadshow\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Share the mic across the whole leadership team, don't leave it all to the Visionary\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Run the three-part agenda: where we've been, where we are, where we're going\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Build in your culture and use it to model accountability on your Rocks™\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":304},[305],{"sort":154,"content_link":306},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":307,"language":197,"content_type":310,"published_at":5},{"title":308,"schema":309},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":312},[313],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":314,"content_type":317},{"text":315},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":316,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>Most teams nail the rollout meeting and then disappear.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I see it constantly: a leadership team finishes VB2, holds a great EOS® rollout meeting, gets the whole company in one room, shares the vision for the first time, and everyone leaves energized.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Then six or nine months go by and the company has never been brought back together for a single status update. People have started their Level 10 Meetings™, sure, but the quarterly discipline of gathering everyone never took hold.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is a huge missed opportunity, and it's usually our fault as Implementers for not making the State of the Company meeting part of the rollout conversation in the first place. So let me walk through how I coach it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Start the cadence the moment you roll out\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>Zoom out to the top of the EOS® model.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Strengthening the Vision component comes down to two disciplines: answering the eight questions on the V/TO™, and getting your vision shared by all. My job with a leadership team is to get them one hundred percent on the same page using the V/TO™. Their job is to move everyone else's energy in the same direction. The State of the Company meeting is how they do that.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The rollout meeting is your line in the sand. It isn't a pure State of the Company meeting, but it's the kickoff, the moment you tell the whole company you're starting this journey. From there, get into the 90-day cadence right away. Hold your first State of the Company meeting roughly 90 days after that rollout event, and never let it slip after that.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The reason is simple: people lose their way after about 90 days.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Your employees are human beings, same as you. They need to hear the vision something like seven times before it sticks, and they need regular updates on what's actually happening in the business.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Draw out the full EOS® pulse for your client and you'll see where it fits. Annual planning, then the State of the Company, then quarterly planning with departments, then Level 10 Meetings™ running throughout the quarter. Ninety days later, you repeat the whole thing. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You'd never skip a quarterly planning session or an L10™. Treat this meeting with the same weight.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cbr>\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Share the mic across the whole leadership team\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>There's an assumption I've seen in a lot of organizations that the Visionary runs the show end to end. That's fine if it works for you, but it has two problems. You put an undue burden on one person to prep and carry the whole thing, and you fail to show the company that the entire leadership team is bought in.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Get everyone on the leadership team involved. It demonstrates a united front, and it varies the energy in the room. Your delivery and mine land differently, and that variety keeps people's attention. When different people present, the meeting breathes.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Run the three-part agenda\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>The high-level agenda is one we've all been taught: where have we been, where are we, where are we going. Here's a version I've seen work well, assuming you have a Visionary who's comfortable galvanizing a room:\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch4>\u003Cstrong>Where have we been.\u003C/strong>\u003C/h4>\n\n\u003Cp>Cover the last quarter or year and the highlights. The Visionary handles the highlights and the rah-rah. Then the Integrator steps up to share the actual results, because the Integrator owns those results.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch4>\u003Cstrong>Where are we.\u003C/strong>\u003C/h4>\n\n\u003Cp>This is where you get everyone involved. Department heads give quick three or four minute updates: wins to celebrate, opportunities, changes coming.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch4>\u003Cstrong>Where are we going.\u003C/strong>\u003C/h4>\n\n\u003Cp>Tag team it. The Visionary takes the vision side of the V/TO™ to inspire and galvanize and remind everyone why this journey is worth it. The Integrator takes the traction side, because they're accountable for execution, and walks through what has to get done.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>This isn't the only way to structure it, but it's one of the best I've seen.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Build your culture into it\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>The State of the Company meeting isn't only about disseminating information and getting aligned. It's a chance to build culture and send people out re-energized, so inject what makes you you.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>At Magnet 360, with our rock and roll theme, we called the meeting the rock and rally. We assembled a band from anyone who volunteered and played an instrument, and we mic'd it so remote folks could watch on screen.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Employee of the quarter was the rock star of the quarter: we ran a project contest called the battle of the bands, where three or four teams presented their quarter's work and employees voted.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Two recognition details worth stealing. First, do core values shout-outs during the meeting, so people see their peers celebrated for living the values. Second, reveal your top award last. We saved the rock star of the quarter for the very end of the agenda, which created anticipation and kept people in their seats, because nobody knew who it was going to be. Drum roll, everyone patting their knees, then the name. We even made a custom keepsake tied to each winner's favorite band. Small touches, big loyalty.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Use it to model accountability\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>There's a mindset piece under all of this that I wrote about years ago in an article I called the Planning Paradox.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>As leaders, we love to rally people around a big destination: become a hundred million dollar company, lead the space, whatever it is over the next five, ten, or fifteen years. That long-term goal can and often should be aspirational. The problem starts when you take that same grand mindset and apply it to the short term. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Long-term planning is where you're ambitious and inspiring. Short-term planning is where you set them to hit them. It's the accumulated momentum, the flywheel, that actually transforms an organization, and you only build it by hitting your quarters.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The State of the Company meeting is where you demonstrate that in front of everyone. It's the quarterly game where all eyes are on the results. When your leadership team stands up and reports how you did on your Rocks™, including the quarters you fell short, you model the exact accountability you're asking the whole company to live. That's the difference between telling people you're going to the moon and never mentioning it again, and knowing you'll all be back in that same room in 90 days to report what actually happened.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>What you get if you run this consistently\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>When the vision is shared by all, everything in the organization gets easier. People are clear on the values because they've heard them quarter after quarter and watched peers celebrated for living them. They're clear on the purpose, cause, or passion, and when they're genuinely motivated by it, they don't need much motivation from you. You're not babysitting. You're leading a company that's rowing in the same direction, one quarter at a time.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>If you want the full list, I presented ten disciplines for an exceptional State of the Company meeting at the EOS® conference a few years back, and the article, carousel, and cheat sheet are all free at \u003Ca href=\"http://simpleleadership.com\">simpleleadership.com\u003C/a>. We covered three of them here: frequency, setting, and who speaks. Go grab the other seven.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":319},[320],{"sort":154,"content_link":321},{"id":223,"uri":224,"url":225,"name":226,"slug":227,"fields":322,"language":197,"content_type":330,"published_at":259},{"bio":323,"name":324,"role":325,"image":326},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":232,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},{"id":235,"name":236,"text":226,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":241,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":327,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[328],{"sort":154,"asset":329},{"id":248,"url":249,"name":250,"path":251,"size":252,"width":253,"height":253,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":254,"updated_at":254,"description":26},{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":334},[],{"id":336,"published_at":337,"slug":338,"name":339,"uri":340,"url":341,"language":10,"created_at":342,"updated_at":343,"author":344,"content_type":345,"seo":346,"fields":350,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01M2jE3ew2DJ3p5a4A563WjKz1","2026-09-15T11:49:00+00:00","how-to-build-a-practice-on-human-connection-what-12-years-and-1-000-sessions-taught-me-about-trust","How to Build a Practice on Human Connection: What 12 Years and 1,000 Sessions Taught Me About Trust","blog/how-to-build-a-practice-on-human-connection-what-12-years-and-1-000-sessions-taught-me-about-trust","https://www.success.co/blog/how-to-build-a-practice-on-human-connection-what-12-years-and-1-000-sessions-taught-me-about-trust","2026-09-15T11:44:12+00:00","2026-09-16T13:11:21+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":347,"description":348,"robots":26,"canonical_url":341,"open_graph":349},"How to Build a Practice on Human Connection: What 12 Years and 1,000 Sessions Taught Me About Trust — Success.co","The tools are fifteen percent of the work. Here is what the other eighty-five percent looks like.",{"title":339,"description":348,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":341},{"image":351,"title":365,"author":366,"schema":368,"excerpt":369,"summary":370,"category":372,"post_body":380,"guest_author":387,"sidebar_cta_text":415,"sidebar_cta_title":416,"sidebar_cta_button":417},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":352},[353],{"sort":154,"asset":354},{"id":355,"url":356,"name":357,"path":358,"size":359,"width":360,"height":361,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":364,"updated_at":364,"description":26},"a_01m1xvXnB63mwWZe9hFPgXevbv","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/generated-image-(27).png","Generated Image (27)","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/generated-image-(27).png","1.29 MB","1376","768","png","image/png","2026-09-07T12:01:39+00:00",{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":339},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":367},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":348},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":371},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Most Implementers learn the tools before they learn people: but trust, not competence, is what actually builds a practice.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Storytelling that works is honest and specific, sharing real struggle and resolution, not polished anecdotes: people feel the difference.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Five meaningful conversations a day beats any amount of email or social content; the phone call has become a differentiator because almost no one makes them anymore.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>In the session room, the less you talk the better: the best questions surface the real issue, and the most valuable thing you can give a team is self-discovery.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>The Implementer who can create genuine human connection is becoming rarer and therefore more valuable as the world gets noisier and more fragmented.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":373},[374],{"sort":154,"content_link":375},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":376,"language":197,"content_type":379,"published_at":5},{"title":377,"schema":378},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":381},[382],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":383,"content_type":386},{"text":384},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":385,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>The problem no one names\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>Most of us learned the tools before we learned people.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is not a criticism, it is just how the sequence works. You go to boot camp, you learn the EOS® framework, you go out and run your first Focus Day, and you are very focused on doing it right. The tools, session structure, puzzle, everything is all clear.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>What is less clear, and what I have spent twelve years getting better at, is the human layer underneath all of it: the reason a team opens up or shuts down, the reason a client calls you back, or the reason some Implementers build practices that feel effortless and others grind at the same level for years.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The answer, in my experience, is trust. And trust is not built through competence alone, it is built through connection. And connection, in a world that is increasingly fragmented and distracted, comes from storytelling.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Why storytelling is not what you think it is\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>When most people hear \"storytelling,\" they think of polished presentations. Speaker-ready anecdotes, something you rehearse.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>What I have learned is different.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Storytelling, in the sense that matters for building a practice, is the willingness to share your own stories of struggle and resolution honestly: the things that were hard, the things you got wrong, the places where you did not know what to do next.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>My mentor Scott Mann talks about connection happening below the waterline. Below the conscious, transactional layer of a business conversation. When you share something real, people feel it land somewhere they recognize. Trust is all dependent on relatability, and when your story carries real struggle, people become more willing to trust you with their own.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That availability matters. When someone is genuinely open to what you have to say next, obstacles to any kind of influence drop significantly. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>What this looks like in practice: attracting and retaining clients\u003C/strong>\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The EOS® Implementer community talks a lot about business development. Ninety to ninety-five percent of Implementers want more clients in the next year, the question is how.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The honest answer is that nothing replaces authentic human conversation; not email campaigns, not social content, not scraping databases for warm leads. Those things exist and they have their place, but they are not the primary source of the trust that leads to a booked Focus Day.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>What I have found works: five meaningful conversations a day.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Not sales calls, not pitches, just conversations with people in your world. Dan Wallace talks about this, and I have come to believe it deeply. The phone call you actually make is increasingly unusual. In a world where text messages and emails have replaced phone calls, picking up the phone and talking to a person is a differentiator. It sounds like it should not be, given how long phones have existed, but that is where we are.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The tactical version of this for client retention: have your assistant reach out by email to schedule a thirty-minute call midway through the quarter.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Clients appreciate knowing when the call is coming so they can prepare. Almost all of mine are also willing to have a short conversation before the session itself to update me on anything relevant. Over many iterations, scheduled over random has worked consistently better.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>What this looks like in the session room: reading the room\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>The other place connection shows up is inside the work itself.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The best IDS™ sessions I have run are the ones where I am quiet. My mantra has always been: the less I am talking, the better off the team is. We are conduits, our job is to keep the pipe clear, and the biggest thing that clogs the pipe is us. Our clarity, our wiring, our instinct to fill silence with words.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Facilitating well requires being tuned to what my colleague Chris Beer described as \"the emotional frequency of the room.\" Not just the content of what someone is saying, but the quality of their silence. The awkward pause that means something is not being said. The stammering that means the real issue has not quite surfaced yet.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Getting better at this comes from one place: the quality of your questions. Todd Smart, someone I learned from early in my career, used to say the sessions in his world got much more effective with the quality of the questions he asked. Better questions, better sessions. I have found this to be true without exception.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The goal is self-discovery. When a team finds the answer themselves, when they have the conversation they have been avoiding, that is the work. That is what they are paying for. We cannot give them that with our mouths open.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>What goes wrong\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>The most common failure I see, and one I was guilty of earlier in my career, is substituting activity for connection: sending more emails, or running a tighter session agenda.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>These things can create the feeling of forward motion without producing the actual thing: trust. Trust is built in moments that feel less efficient. The unscheduled phone call when something good happens. The story you share over lunch that has nothing to do with business. The uncomfortable silence you decide not to fill because you can feel that something real is about to come out.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Another common failure is performing connection rather than having it. There is a version of storytelling that is polished and practiced and technically correct and entirely hollow. People feel that. The women who put their forks down at the golf outing were not responding to technique. They were responding to something true.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>The payoff\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>I am twelve years in and about to mark my twelfth year at QCE. I have run over a thousand sessions with roughly seventy-five clients. What I carry from that is this: the tools themselves are great, but it is the dialogue and the health of the team that makes everything go. That is the role we have to play.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>In a world that continues to fragment and distract and pull people apart, the Implementer who knows how to create genuine human connection in a room is not going to run out of work. That skill is becoming rarer, which means it is becoming more valuable.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Build it with the same seriousness you built your knowledge of the EOS® framework. Practice it. Study it. And pay attention to the moments when someone puts their silverware down.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":388},[389],{"sort":154,"content_link":390},{"id":391,"uri":392,"url":393,"name":394,"slug":395,"fields":396,"language":197,"content_type":413,"published_at":414},"c_01M0yWqdf0C42WzAh1n9C6gfM1","contributor/john-mc-mahon","https://www.success.co/contributor/john-mc-mahon","John McMahon","john-mc-mahon",{"bio":397,"name":399,"role":400,"image":402},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":398,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>In 2012, John started using EOS tools as the Integrator in his own company. With a clear vision and a united leadership team, I saw the power of the EOS system firsthand. That transformation sparked the next chapter of his career. Today, as an Expert EOS Implementer, he has guided more than 75 entrepreneurial companies through over 1,000 sessions. Outside of the session room, John is an avid amateur athlete (a skier, cyclist, runner, and golfer) who values endurance and discipline. He has been married to his wife, Stacy, for thirty-eight years, and his favorite title by far is G-pa to his beautiful granddaughters, Shae and Zoe.\u003C/p>",{"id":235,"name":236,"text":394,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":401,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},"Expert EOS® Implementer",{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":403,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[404],{"sort":154,"asset":405},{"id":406,"url":407,"name":408,"path":409,"size":410,"width":411,"height":411,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":412,"updated_at":412,"description":26},"a_01M0YwS5yCNBnnnkkyFGdCYztQ","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1741271845131.jpeg","1741271845131","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1741271845131.jpeg","103.47 KB","800","2026-08-26T11:20:13+00:00",{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},"2026-08-26T11:20:24+00:00",{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":418},[],{"id":420,"published_at":421,"slug":422,"name":423,"uri":424,"url":425,"language":10,"created_at":426,"updated_at":343,"author":427,"content_type":428,"seo":429,"fields":433,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01M2JDzw53Xe4GvT4f48xZqqM7","2026-09-15T11:43:00+00:00","the-day-i-watched-strangers-put-down-their-forks","The day I watched strangers put down their forks","blog/the-day-i-watched-strangers-put-down-their-forks","https://www.success.co/blog/the-day-i-watched-strangers-put-down-their-forks","2026-09-15T11:42:14+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":430,"description":431,"robots":26,"canonical_url":425,"open_graph":432},"The day I watched strangers put down their forks — Success.co","Twelve years in, over a thousand sessions, and a charity golf outing still managed to teach John McMahon something new about human connection.",{"title":423,"description":431,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":425},{"image":434,"title":438,"author":439,"schema":441,"excerpt":442,"summary":443,"category":445,"post_body":453,"guest_author":460,"sidebar_cta_text":473,"sidebar_cta_title":474,"sidebar_cta_button":475},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":435},[436],{"sort":154,"asset":437},{"id":355,"url":356,"name":357,"path":358,"size":359,"width":360,"height":361,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":364,"updated_at":364,"description":26},{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":423},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":440},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":431},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":444},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>A rain delay at a charity golf outing becomes the moment John realises connection happens below the conscious level, before anyone decides to listen.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>After twelve years and over a thousand sessions, he understood the tools were only fifteen percent of the work.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Storytelling builds trust not through persuasion but through relatability, when people recognise their own struggle in yours, they open up.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>The best sessions he has run are the ones where the team didn't feel him there, self-discovery is the gift, and it only comes when he stops talking.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>His practice is evolving: fewer session days, more mentoring and coaching, but the same principle underneath it all.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":446},[447],{"sort":154,"content_link":448},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":449,"language":197,"content_type":452,"published_at":5},{"title":450,"schema":451},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":454},[455],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":456,"content_type":459},{"text":457},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":458,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>We were at a charity golf outing, rain delay, lunch inside with a few colleagues, the kind of unscheduled downtime that fills itself with conversation. I had been working on a new story, and one of the people at the table called me on it. Said: “well, you've been talking about this new story. Why don't you share it?”\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So I did.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>About two minutes in, I noticed something in my peripheral vision. Four women at the round table across from us, people I had never met, people who were not part of our conversation and had no reason to pay attention to ours, were putting their silverware down.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>They weren't doing it consciously nor deciding to listen. They just were.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I have been an EOS® Implementer for twelve years and have sat in over a thousand sessions. I have watched teams work through hard conversations, avoid hard conversations, and occasionally have the breakthrough that makes the whole room feel different. I thought I understood connection. What I saw at that lunch table told me I had only scratched the surface of it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>What I realized in that moment was that connection is not a technique.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It is not a tactic you layer on top of a business development conversation, it is something that happens below the waterline, as my mentor Scott Mann puts it. Below the conscious level. When it works, people are not deciding to be available to you, they simply are.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>And when someone is available to you, when they are leaning in and their defenses are low and they are genuinely curious about what comes next, the obstacles to any kind of influence drop away. In a selling situation, in a session room, anywhere you are trying to move a person or a team toward something.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I came to EOS® as a practitioner who could run a clean session. I knew the tools, I could get a team through IDS™ efficiently and keep the meeting on time and land the session at a good place. What I did not fully appreciate until later in my career is that the tools are only fifteen percent of the work, the other eighty-five percent is human. It is the quality of the questions, the willingness to sit in an uncomfortable silence, the ability to read the emotional frequency of a room and respond to it rather than barrel through it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Storytelling, as I have come to understand it, is what builds the container for all of that to happen. When you share a real story, something with struggle and texture and honest resolution, people feel it land somewhere. They recognize something of themselves in it. And when that happens, trust accelerates. Not because you convinced them of anything, but because they felt a connection.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>This is not soft. It is not secondary to the practice. In a world where attention is fragmented and real conversation is increasingly rare, the ability to create genuine human connection is becoming one of the most valuable things an Implementer can bring to a client relationship.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I have watched my own practice shift as I have invested more in this. I am not chasing a hundred and twenty session days anymore. That chapter has passed. What I am building now is different: mentorship, community, coaching other Implementers, and continuing to develop the craft of storytelling itself. The work has changed shape, but the principle underneath it has stayed the same.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The best sessions I have ever run are the ones where the team did not feel me there. They found the answer themselves. They had the conversation they had been avoiding. Self-discovery, as I have said to many groups now, is the greatest gift we can give a team. We cannot offer it with our mouths open.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The women at the lunch table put their forks down because a story pulled them in before they had a chance to decide otherwise. That is the thing I keep thinking about. Not what to say next. How to create the kind of moment where someone is available before you even start.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":461},[462],{"sort":154,"content_link":463},{"id":391,"uri":392,"url":393,"name":394,"slug":395,"fields":464,"language":197,"content_type":472,"published_at":414},{"bio":465,"name":466,"role":467,"image":468},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":398,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},{"id":235,"name":236,"text":394,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":401,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":469,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[470],{"sort":154,"asset":471},{"id":406,"url":407,"name":408,"path":409,"size":410,"width":411,"height":411,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":412,"updated_at":412,"description":26},{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":476},[],{"id":478,"published_at":479,"slug":480,"name":481,"uri":482,"url":483,"language":10,"created_at":479,"updated_at":484,"author":485,"content_type":486,"seo":487,"fields":491,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01m1ZykFQ90T76x7H61s48an08","2026-09-08T07:27:00+00:00","they-kicked-me-off-the-island-and-they-were-right-to-copy","How to grow an EOS® Implementer practice by helping, not selling","blog/they-kicked-me-off-the-island-and-they-were-right-to-copy","https://www.success.co/blog/they-kicked-me-off-the-island-and-they-were-right-to-copy","2026-09-16T13:11:18+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":488,"description":489,"robots":26,"canonical_url":483,"open_graph":490},"How to grow an EOS® Implementer practice by helping, not selling — Success.co","Paul Detlefs fills a full EOS® practice without a single sales pitch, and here is the simple system that lets him do it.",{"title":481,"description":489,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":483},{"image":492,"title":502,"author":503,"schema":505,"excerpt":506,"summary":507,"category":509,"post_body":517,"guest_author":524,"sidebar_cta_text":551,"sidebar_cta_title":552,"sidebar_cta_button":553},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":493},[494],{"sort":154,"asset":495},{"id":496,"url":497,"name":498,"path":499,"size":500,"width":360,"height":361,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":501,"updated_at":501,"description":26},"a_01M1EGjPtgJXFnVa8P2zq0AjyN","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/generated-image-(25).png","Generated Image (25)","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/generated-image-(25).png","1.36 MB","2026-09-01T12:54:49+00:00",{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":481},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":504},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":489},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":508},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Paul grows his practice without selling, by treating business development as finding people he can help.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Diagnose your real bottleneck first: behavior, attitude, or technique.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Have five conversations a day with anyone in your world, and log every follow-up in a simple system.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Turn your peer community into a referral engine by giving first and never keeping score.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>The same method works from a standing start, even where nobody knows you.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":510},[511],{"sort":154,"content_link":512},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":513,"language":197,"content_type":516,"published_at":5},{"title":514,"schema":515},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":518},[519],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":520,"content_type":523},{"text":521},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":522,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>Plenty of us know the model cold and can run a strong first meeting, and yet the practice sits stuck. That was me for years, bouncing between ten and fourteen clients and certain there was more in me. What finally moved it was not a personality transplant. It was a system, put together with help from a few coaches, that grows a practice without any selling at all. Here is how it runs.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Reframe the job before anything else\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>Every part of this sits on one shift, and it is not a tactic, it is a definition. You are not selling, you are looking for people you can help.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I'm not selling, I'm trying to find people to help, and if I can, good. If I cannot, I move on and find someone I can. Make that your working definition of business development, because the rest of the system only clicks once the pressure to close is gone. Help first, then see whether there is a fit.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Diagnose which of the three is actually broken\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>Before you add any activity, find out what is holding you back. The Sandler way splits business development into three parts, behaviors, attitude, and technique, your batting average, and most of us have one leg dragging the other two.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Run the check honestly. If you know the model and hold a good first meeting, technique is fine. If you go quiet for weeks and stop reaching out, that is behavior. If you dread the whole thing and take every loss to heart, that is attitude, and piling on more activity will not touch an attitude problem.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>In my experience, attitude is the leg most people underrate, and the hardest to admit to. Work on the one that is actually broken, not the one that is easiest to practice.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I did not fix this alone, over the years I worked with three coaches, each for a different job.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>One gave me the reframe and the language of behaviors, attitude, and technique. One helped a group of us build the systems I will come to. One taught several of us to sell better and handed me the line that took the sting out of losing. You will want different help in different seasons, one voice for mindset, one for systems, one for technique.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Do not hold out for a single coach, and do not wait until you are desperate to go looking.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Have five conversations a day\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>If I could hand a newer Implementer one habit, this would be it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>On any day you are working on business development, have five conversations. Not five pitches, five conversations with anyone in your world: friends, family, neighbors, current clients, former clients, connectors.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is the entire rule. It is small enough that you will actually do it, and broad enough to keep a pulse in the practice. You are not closing five deals by lunch, you are staying in touch with the network this business runs on, and good things come out of that contact in their own time. It turns business development from a dreaded event into a steady habit, which is the only version that survives a busy quarter.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Turn your peer community into a referral engine\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>Join or build a tight local group and treat it as a place where referrals move in both directions. In my own small firm of Implementers, we meet quarterly, work through our issues with IDS™, and pass each other work, and it runs on help first rather than on tallies.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>A few things make that actually work.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Give first, with no expectation of return, because help first is the whole point. Never keep a scorecard of who sent whom how many, since the moment it becomes a ledger it stops feeding anyone. And give it real structure, a leadership team, a calendar set a year ahead, meetings people can rely on. The groups that thrive run on discipline and an abundance mindset, not on good intentions left to chance.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":525},[526],{"sort":154,"content_link":527},{"id":528,"uri":529,"url":530,"name":531,"slug":532,"fields":533,"language":197,"content_type":549,"published_at":550},"c_01M0ywSq5c9cZt46ys7rDdPW9F","contributor/paul-detlefs","https://www.success.co/contributor/paul-detlefs","Paul Detlefs","paul-detlefs",{"bio":534,"name":536,"role":537,"image":539},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":535,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>Paul Detlefs is an Expert EOS Implementer and one of the earliest members of the EOS Worldwide community, the 11th Implementer ever certified. Over 15 years, he has guided entrepreneurial leadership teams as a teacher, facilitator, and coach through the EOS process,  drawing on more than 35 years of experience helping business owners execute.  Before EOS, he built a career in finance and operations; he’s a licensed CPA in Illinois and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Chicago-based, he works with growth-minded companies looking to strengthen their leadership teams.\u003C/p>",{"id":235,"name":236,"text":531,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":538,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},"Expert EOSⓇ Implementer",{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":540,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[541],{"sort":154,"asset":542},{"id":543,"url":544,"name":545,"path":546,"size":547,"width":411,"height":411,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":548,"updated_at":548,"description":26},"a_01M0yWtntat9hcZ1H1szsDjg7c","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1757098887989.jpeg","1757098887989","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1757098887989.jpeg","135.15 KB","2026-08-26T11:21:02+00:00",{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},"2026-08-26T11:23:00+00:00",{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":554},[],{"id":556,"published_at":557,"slug":558,"name":559,"uri":560,"url":561,"language":10,"created_at":562,"updated_at":343,"author":563,"content_type":564,"seo":565,"fields":569,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01M1ZyFQp5w9Acv67wWAN707ff","2026-09-08T07:26:00+00:00","they-kicked-me-off-the-island-and-they-were-right-to","They kicked me off the island, and they were right to","blog/they-kicked-me-off-the-island-and-they-were-right-to","https://www.success.co/blog/they-kicked-me-off-the-island-and-they-were-right-to","2026-09-08T07:24:57+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":566,"description":567,"robots":26,"canonical_url":561,"open_graph":568},"They kicked me off the island, and they were right to — Success.co","Paul Detlefs got kicked out of the EOS® community for six months, and it forced him to fix the one thing quietly holding his practice back.",{"title":559,"description":567,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":561},{"image":570,"title":574,"author":575,"schema":577,"excerpt":578,"summary":579,"category":581,"post_body":589,"guest_author":596,"sidebar_cta_text":609,"sidebar_cta_title":610,"sidebar_cta_button":611},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":571},[572],{"sort":154,"asset":573},{"id":496,"url":497,"name":498,"path":499,"size":500,"width":360,"height":361,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":501,"updated_at":501,"description":26},{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":559},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":576},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":567},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":580},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Paul underachieved for years, then missed the criteria one quarter and was put out of the community for six months.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>His real problem was never the work or his technique, it was his attitude.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>One reframe changed it: he was not selling, he was finding people to help.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Losing a client used to knot his stomach, until he learned he could be himself and still fill a practice.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>He made Expert as himself, and now enjoys rebuilding from scratch in a new market\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":582},[583],{"sort":154,"content_link":584},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":585,"language":197,"content_type":588,"published_at":5},{"title":586,"schema":587},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":590},[591],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":592,"content_type":595},{"text":593},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":594,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>There was a quarter, years into this work, when I did not meet the criteria to keep my designation and, just like that, I was off the island. Out of the community for six months, cut off from the QCEs and the rooms where I did my best thinking.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I could have waited a single quarter and slipped quietly back in, but I decided not to. If I was going to come back, I wanted to come back in a way that made sure this never happened to me again.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Before EOS®, I was the one who fixed things\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>I did not arrive here as a natural rainmaker: I am a math major who became a CPA and then a computer consultant, twenty four years of it at a big consulting firm that is now Accenture, mostly with small and mid sized companies. I loved that work, but in my last few years I enjoyed it less, so I left.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>After that I ran a peer group and coaching business for owners through an outfit called TAB, the Alternative Board, a little like Vistage for smaller companies. I facilitated their monthly meetings and coached the owners one on one.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>What I had always wanted, underneath all of it, was to teach. I did a little substitute teaching after I left the firm, and even looked into teaching at a university. When I came across EOS®, the role was teacher, facilitator, and coach all at once, and the teaching part lit me up. I think I have a knack for making complicated things land simply, and the model is already simple, so my job was to explain it well and stay out of its way\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I am not a naturally creative person, and I never had the itch to build my own thing. I was happy to take a proven system, learn it cold, and stay true to what it was meant to be. It felt like being handed something beautiful and being told, do not mess this up.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>How I am wired\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>It helps to know how my brain works, because it explains the trouble I got into.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I am a Kolbe Fact Finder, a nine, the kind who wants the numbers and the details. For years I was the only nine in the room: I used to sit up front, and Gino and I would parry back and forth. I would correct him on something now and then, and he would find a way to prank me back. Troy Schuette came along as the second nine eventually, but there were never many of us.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>On DISC I am an S and a C. I like people, I am not particularly assertive, and they do not give me as much energy as some other things do. I went to boot camp in 2011, one of twenty five people around a table in a private room off the bar of a hotel in Detroit. There are close to a thousand of us now. Set aside Don and Gino, and I am eleventh in tenure, which is a strange and nice thing to be able to say. None of that tenure, though, made me good at the part of this job I dreaded.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The number I kept not looking at\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>For a long stretch I bounced between ten and fourteen clients and called it fine. Thirty to fifty sessions a year, enough to feel busy, enough not to look too hard at the number. The people around me were kinder to me than I was to myself. They would say “Paul, come on, you're better than that, you should have twenty clients”. And I knew they were right. That was the part that stung: I knew there was more in me, and I was not planning or executing like a person who believed it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So when the quarter came that I missed the criteria, part of me was not surprised. Back then there were only two designations, and when I did not meet the criteria one quarter, well…\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I was out.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Six months on the outside. Chicago, my home community, never let go of me during that stretch, and I am grateful for it, but I still had to sit with a plain fact: I had underachieved my way out of the room. The forced pause did one useful thing, it made me get serious about the part I had been avoiding.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>What took me the longest to see was that my problem was never the work. Put me in front of a leadership team and I am steady, I can teach the model in my sleep. A coach and friend of mine, John, used to describe business development the Sandler way, as three parts: your behaviors, your attitude, and your technique.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>My technique was fine, my behaviors came and went, but my attitude was the anchor dragging the whole thing down, and I had been trying to fix everything except that.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Underneath it was a story I told myself. I am not a salesman, and I did not want to be one. Being an S and a C, not the type to work a room, felt like a disqualification for the whole business-development half of the job.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The sentence that changed everything\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>John moved that story with one reframe, and I still remember the relief of it landing.He got me to see that I was not selling at all: help first is a core value, and it is my number one. So the sentence I started saying to myself was simple. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I'm not selling, I'm trying to find people to help.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>If I can help them, wonderful. If I cannot, that is fine too, and I go and find someone I can. The pressure came off, and for the first time business development felt like something I was allowed to do as myself.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The knot in my gut\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>The old way had lived in my body. For years, losing a client sat in my stomach. I remember an Implementer walking up to me right before a meeting to tell me he was talking to a prospect I wanted, and that they had decided to go with him.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I felt it drop, a physical knot. A later coach gave me the line for exactly that moment.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>“Some will, some won't, so what? Someone's waiting”.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You click with some people and not with others, and when you do not, you go and find the next one you do.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I have worked with about seventy five clients over the years, and maybe four or five were never really a fit as people. That leaves around seventy who were glad to have me in the room, which is more than enough for the part of me, the part in most of us, that wants to be liked.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Once I understood that I could be fully myself and still fill a practice, the knot let go, completely. When I lose a bake-off now, or hear that another Implementer is talking to a company I am talking to, it does not touch me the way it did. I can wish it well and move on to the next conversation.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Becoming myself, not Gino, not Paton\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>The work itself changed as I stopped performing. Early on I leaned hard on teaching, because the material was new to me. Now, past seven hundred and fifty sessions, I rarely open the guides. Knowing the model frees me up to watch the room instead, to read the body language and the faces, to listen for the thing under the words and ask the question that surfaces it. If you know the arc from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence, I lived it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Being calm did not get me out of the hard parts: you still have to enter the danger and name what a team is avoiding, but I just learned to do it my way.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I do not shout and I do not swear, I simply point out what I am seeing and ask a difficult question quietly. I was never going to be Gino Wickman or Mike Paton, and once I stopped trying to be, I got better.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It took me eleven years to reach Expert, and let me tell you: I will not pretend that was quick. I once had a slightly competitive back and forth with another Expert about which of us had been slower.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>But I got there as myself, and that has held up.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":597},[598],{"sort":154,"content_link":599},{"id":528,"uri":529,"url":530,"name":531,"slug":532,"fields":600,"language":197,"content_type":608,"published_at":550},{"bio":601,"name":602,"role":603,"image":604},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":535,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},{"id":235,"name":236,"text":531,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":538,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":605,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[606],{"sort":154,"asset":607},{"id":543,"url":544,"name":545,"path":546,"size":547,"width":411,"height":411,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":548,"updated_at":548,"description":26},{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":612},[],{"id":614,"published_at":615,"slug":616,"name":617,"uri":618,"url":619,"language":10,"created_at":620,"updated_at":484,"author":621,"content_type":622,"seo":623,"fields":627,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01m1e34mcMJfdCV31pYq2E705c","2026-09-02T10:12:00+00:00","how-to-build-an-eos-implementer-practice-from-day-one","How to Build an EOS® Implementer Practice From Day One","blog/how-to-build-an-eos-implementer-practice-from-day-one","https://www.success.co/blog/how-to-build-an-eos-implementer-practice-from-day-one","2026-09-01T08:59:56+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":624,"description":625,"robots":26,"canonical_url":619,"open_graph":626},"How to Build an EOS® Implementer Practice From Day One — Success.co","Mark shares why building a practice is a discipline problem, not a knowledge problem, and the handful of things the Implementers who take off do relentlessly.",{"title":617,"description":625,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":619},{"image":628,"title":638,"author":639,"schema":641,"excerpt":642,"summary":643,"category":645,"post_body":653,"guest_author":660,"sidebar_cta_text":688,"sidebar_cta_title":689,"sidebar_cta_button":690},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":629},[630],{"sort":154,"asset":631},{"id":632,"url":633,"name":634,"path":635,"size":636,"width":360,"height":361,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":637,"updated_at":637,"description":26},"a_01m1e30YwtAav449CBZ58TMx5w","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/generated-image-(24)_1UKUEDR7UX.png","Generated Image (24)","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/generated-image-(24)_1UKUEDR7UX.png","1.19 MB","2026-09-01T08:57:56+00:00",{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":617},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":640},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":625},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":644},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Building a practice is a discipline problem, not a knowledge problem: win by doing a few things relentlessly, not by learning more.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Book a Focus Day in your first 90 days: it's the clearest line between those who make it and those who don't.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Learn just in time, not just in case: master the 90-minute meeting first, learn the rest when you actually need it.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Only ~15% is teaching the tools; the other 85% is storytelling, coaching, and concluding, learned through reps, not a classroom.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Keep biz dev alive even when delivery gets busy, and keep running the checklist through the stretch where it feels broken.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":646},[647],{"sort":154,"content_link":648},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":649,"language":197,"content_type":652,"published_at":5},{"title":650,"schema":651},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":654},[655],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":656,"content_type":659},{"text":657},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":658,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>Most Implementers who stall don't stall because they lack ability. They stall because they treat building a practice as a knowledge problem, when it's really a discipline problem.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I've watched it happen the same way for years.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Someone finishes boot camp, does a bit of biz dev, hits a stretch where it isn't working yet, and decides the answer must be more learning. So they go on a search. This tool, that course, some other methodology. Meanwhile the thing that actually builds a practice, the boring repeated checklist, sits half-done.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I built my practice from January 2015 while still running nine other companies, and as Visionary I've watched 762 Implementers come into the community since 2020. The ones who take off don't know more than the ones who don't. They do a small number of things relentlessly. This is what those things are.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Get a Focus Day on the calendar in your first 90 days\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>If you take one thing from this, take this.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>There's a direct line between when you land your first Focus Day and whether you build the practice you want. The Implementers who get their first Focus Day within ninety days of boot camp, in my experience, every one of them makes it. On the other side of that line, over the last six years, I can count the Implementers still in the community who didn't have a Focus Day in their first ninety days. It's about two.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So point everything in your first quarter at one outcome: a booked Focus Day. Not more learning, not polishing your materials, not getting comfortable. A paying client with a date on the calendar.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Treat your first seven days like you were shot out of a cannon\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>The first week out of boot camp matters more than any week that follows, because it's when an identity shift has to happen, and identity shifts don't wait politely.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You're known in your network as whatever you were before. I was the pharma biotech guy, former Johnson & Johnson. That's who my contacts thought they knew. Becoming an Implementer meant becoming someone else in their eyes, and I had to force it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>A mentor of mine, Ed Callahan, told me to go into my LinkedIn \"and just unfriend every pharma biotech person because you have to go through an identity change.\"\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So I did: I literally disconnected from my old world, made the shift, and then reconnected. It sounds drastic, but that was the point. You have to leave the past in the past and put on the identity of an Implementer, deliberately, in week one.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Do your own version of that. Whatever you were before, make the break clean enough and public enough that you start to believe it yourself.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Learn just in time, not just in case\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>New Implementers burn enormous energy learning content they can't use yet.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Don't sit in base camp trying to learn everything. If you don't have a Focus Day booked, you have no business learning VB1 or VB2 content. It's a waste of time, and worse, it feels like progress while you avoid the real work.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Master the 90-minute meeting first. That's the thing standing between you and a booked Focus Day. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Then book a Focus Day, have your oh-crap moment, and learn Focus Day content because you finally need it. Book a VB1, then learn VB1. These are tomorrow problems, and you solve them tomorrow, not today.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Lead with help, and let the 4-2-1 do its work\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>I never charged a dime for a Vistage talk. I did countless SCORE talks, chamber talks, and EO forum talks, all for free. Not out of charity, though it felt good, but because it worked.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The old Zig Ziglar idea holds up: help enough people get what they want and you'll get what you want. Follow the 4-2-1 biz dev rhythm, keep generating the activity, stay in motion, and the clients come. They tend to arrive in batches rather than a smooth trickle, so don't panic in the quiet stretches. Your job is to keep feeding the top of it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>If you want the masterclass in this, Don Tinney and I recorded a video on our YouTube channel in Australia, about an hour and twenty minutes, walking through how Don built his practice. It's the most help-first, relational, intentional method you'll find. I'll be honest that I always ran more transactional than Don does, but the principle underneath is the same. Be useful first, at volume, without keeping score.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Understand the 15 and the 85\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>This split reorganized how I think about the job.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Being EOS® pure, teaching the tools exactly as they're meant to be taught, is about \"fifteen percent of what it is we do in a day.\"\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That fifteen percent matters, because teaching the tool purely is how you set the context and sell it. But it's only fifteen percent.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The other eighty-five percent is the client sitting there thinking “Huh, I'm not sure what to do with that”.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That eighty-five percent is you: storytelling, coaching, facilitating, and above all concluding. You pull every arrow out of your quiver to get the team to a decision with a tidy bow on it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Nobody can hand you that eighty-five percent in a classroom. The way we learn it is experiential: \"we teach you something, we send you off, you go do it, you come back, we clean you up.\"So stop waiting to be trained into competence. The competence is on the other side of the reps.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Sell in your own style\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>There's a persistent rumor that some Implementers can't sell but are brilliant in the session room. I think that's \"like chupacabra.\" There are rumors of it, but I've never seen one.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The reason it can't exist is simple. Everything you do in the session room is selling. When you're in front of a leadership team, \"you are selling the crap out of a tool to get them to go do things that are good for them.\" That's the eighty-five percent. If you can't do that, you can't sell anything, and the room falls apart.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So don't imagine selling and facilitating are two different muscles, they're the same. Learn to sell, but in your own style, because everyone has their own way of helping. The one rule I'd hold you to is the one Shelley Woodrow puts well: the you who gives the talk has to be the same you who runs the room.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>If those are two different people, prospects feel it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Be someone worth hiring\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Come back to the thing underneath all of it: your clients want to become you.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>They live in chaos, so you need to be the calm, disciplined, focused person they wish they were. That's not a pose, it's a standard you hold yourself to. I built my week around it using the free, focus, and buffer day discipline I learned from Dan Sullivan at Strategic Coach. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Monday is a buffer day: you take your calls, watch the videos, clean up your pipeline. Session days are focus days. Then you buffer, then you take real free days. The discipline is visible to clients, and it's part of what they're buying.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I invested like I believed it, too. I spent about $150,000 a year on my own development, every year, on facilitation, coaching, negotiation, speaking, and storytelling. Not because I had money to burn, but because clients deserve the best version of me, and the person they want to become is not standing still.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>One small tell of this: keep your VTH call short. Mine averaged about seven minutes. Who wants to hire someone who has infinite amounts of time? A short call signals that you're busy and disciplined, and it gets them into the 90-minute meeting where the real work starts.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>What goes wrong\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>A few predictable ways this breaks, all of which I've either done myself or watched up close.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You stop selling the moment you get busy delivering. There's an up-down, up-down rhythm to this work. You can only onboard about four clients a quarter well, and when you're heads-down on delivery you go quiet on biz dev. Then delivery ends and your pipeline is empty. Keep a trickle of biz dev alive even in your busiest stretches.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You wait on referrals you can't predict.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I got lucky with a couple of super connectors, one of whom has referred something like three hundred Focus Days by my count. But most clients are not super connectors, and you can't build a plan on lightning striking. Keep asking, keep helping, and treat a super connector as a gift rather than a strategy.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The differentiating moment \"is when you don't think it works and you keep going doing it anyway.\" The Implementers who take off are the ones who kept running the checklist through the stretch where they were sure it was broken. The ones who stall are the ones who went looking for a better checklist instead.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":661},[662],{"sort":154,"content_link":663},{"id":664,"uri":665,"url":666,"name":667,"slug":668,"fields":669,"language":197,"content_type":686,"published_at":687},"c_01M0w0bWvRT38Xwrkyz825GKne","contributor/mark-o-donnell","https://www.success.co/contributor/mark-o-donnell","Mark O'Donnell","mark-o-donnell",{"bio":670,"name":672,"role":673,"image":675},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":671,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>Mark O’Donnell is a highly successful entrepreneur, CEO, and Expert EOS Implementer. He is the current Visionary and CEO of EOS Worldwide. Mark has also served as Head Coach for the company. He has helped more than 100 companies achieve their goals and get what they want from their businesses. Mark is a lifelong learner and an alumnus of Albright College, Northeastern University, and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He lives outside Philadelphia, PA, with his wife, mother-in-law, three children, and his one-hundred-pound dog, Blue.\u003C/p>",{"id":235,"name":236,"text":667,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":674,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},"Visionary and CEO at EOS Worldwide",{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":676,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[677],{"sort":154,"asset":678},{"id":679,"url":680,"name":681,"path":682,"size":683,"width":684,"height":684,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":685,"updated_at":685,"description":26},"a_01m0W0d4WkPqCB7Q614eZ0QD7Y","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/marko.png","Marko","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/marko.png","160.5 KB","400","2026-08-25T08:25:50+00:00",{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},"2026-08-25T08:25:56+00:00",{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":691},[],{"id":693,"published_at":694,"slug":695,"name":696,"uri":697,"url":698,"language":10,"created_at":699,"updated_at":484,"author":700,"content_type":701,"seo":702,"fields":706,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01m1E30hhhN36RsF628Gf0wxg0","2026-09-01T08:59:00+00:00","gino-told-me-it-would-never-work","Gino told me it would never work","blog/gino-told-me-it-would-never-work","https://www.success.co/blog/gino-told-me-it-would-never-work","2026-09-01T08:57:42+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":703,"description":704,"robots":26,"canonical_url":698,"open_graph":705},"Gino told me it would never work — Success.co","In this blog post, Mark tells how he and his brother built 23 companies from chaos, why Scaling Up never stuck, and how an Amazon recommendation led him to Traction and, eventually, to becoming a full-time EOS Implementer, despite Gino Wickman telling him it would never work.",{"title":696,"description":704,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":698},{"image":707,"title":715,"author":716,"schema":718,"excerpt":719,"summary":720,"category":722,"post_body":730,"guest_author":737,"sidebar_cta_text":750,"sidebar_cta_title":751,"sidebar_cta_button":752},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":708},[709],{"sort":154,"asset":710},{"id":711,"url":712,"name":634,"path":713,"size":636,"width":360,"height":361,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":714,"updated_at":714,"description":26},"a_01M0W09nd28V6bf35H4GJ6sm3r","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/generated-image-(24).png","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/generated-image-(24).png","2026-08-25T08:23:56+00:00",{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":696},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":717},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":704},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":721},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Mark and his brother started 23 companies (9 made it), landing multiple businesses on the Inc. 500/5000 list at once, but behind the success it was chaos with no real system.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>He deliberately shut off his distributions to \"starve himself of cash\" so he'd stop being soft, stop fearing getting fired, and say the hard thing in the room: clients want to become you, so you'd better be worth becoming.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>The real transformation wasn't client count or title but trading a scarcity, win-at-all-costs mindset for an abundance one, learning to hold leads and wins loosely and to root for other people's success.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":723},[724],{"sort":154,"content_link":725},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":726,"language":197,"content_type":729,"published_at":5},{"title":727,"schema":728},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":731},[732],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":733,"content_type":736},{"text":734},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":735,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The chaos that looked like success\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>From the outside, it looked like I had it figured out.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>My brother and I had caught the entrepreneurial bug and gone all in. Between us we started twenty-three companies, nine of them made it. At one point I had multiple businesses on the Inc. 500/5000 list at the same time, four of them in a single event.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>People saw that and assumed there was a system behind it, there wasn't. On the inside it was complete and utter chaos. We were succeeding in spite of ourselves, and I knew it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I tried to fix it the way ambitious founders do: I hired a Gazelles coach, read Rockefeller Habits, set out to implement Scaling Up across the whole portfolio, so sure this was the thing that would finally make everything run in harmony.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>But it didn't stick. My leadership team wouldn't absorb the tools. My brother, my business partners, one of them a guy named Brian Underhill, just didn't take to it. Half of them didn't even know I'd hired a coach.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That's the part nobody warns you about. The problem usually isn't the framework, it's that you can't drag people into something they haven't chosen for themselves.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>You may also like Traction\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>So I stopped pushing and changed tack. I got my brother Tom to read (and by read I mean listen) Rockefeller Habits himself. And at the end of the audiobook, Amazon did the thing Amazon does: “You may also like…”.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The book it suggested was Traction.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Tom got to it before I did. He called me and said, \"Mark, I found what you've been looking for.\"\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I picked it up half expecting to be underwhelmed, and my honest first reaction was, \"this is just like every business book I've ever read, but with templates.\" Timeless things, obvious things. But the templates were the whole point: they turned ideas I already believed into something a team could actually run.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I started self-implementing right away. I did it for about a year, and it was a case of doctor heal thyself. I was learning the tools on my own companies, in real time, with real money on the line.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>It'll never work\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>The turn came at, of all places, the Pentagon.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I was part of the Inc. Business Owners Council, and there was an event there. I found myself having lunch with a three-star general, and at that lunch I met a man named Jonathan Smith. I had no idea he was an EOS® Implementer. We just got to talking.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Not long after, he did a VTH call with one of my business partners, who came back to me and said, “This guy Jonathan is doing EOS®, we're doing EOS®, should we talk to him?” We booked a ninety-minute meeting, hired him, and set our Focus Day for September 2014. I'd gone to boot camp that August. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Somewhere in there I got my chance to ask the man who wrote the book. I was in Gino Wickman's office in 2014, and I put it to him plainly. “You wrote this. Can you help me get my whole portfolio of companies running on EOS®”?\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>He said, \"It'll never work, don't even bother.\"\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I said, \"Well, I'll show you.\"\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Then I went through boot camp, and something happened I didn't expect. I wasn't just taken with the tools, I was taken with the culture. I remember thinking two things at the same time: \"I think I might have accidentally joined a cult,\" and \"I'm with my people for the first time ever.\"\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I still don't fully know which one it was.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>“Go do a ninety minute meeting, dummy”\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Here is what's strange.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Even after boot camp, I had no intention of becoming an Implementer. I graduated and did zero sessions, I was just running EOS® inside my own nine companies.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Then I got my first lead, and it came from Sue Hawkes. I sat there staring at it with no idea what to do, because words like abundance mindset were not in my lexicon back then. Why would another Implementer just hand me a lead? What was the catch?\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I asked her exactly that. She said, \"go do a ninety minute meeting, dummy.\"\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So I did, and fell in love with the client work on the spot. I walked out of that room free as a bird, no to-do's, nothing hanging over me, just the clean feeling of having helped a leadership team see themselves clearly. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I'd been a full-time Implementer from January 2015, even though I didn't sell my own companies until 2018: the portfolio guy became the Implementer.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Starving myself on purpose\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Early on I realized something that reframed the entire job for me. Our clients want to become us. Not the tools, us.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>They are living in chaos and fear and uncertainty, waiting by the mailbox for a check to clear so they can make payroll. And you walk in cool, calm, collected, disciplined, almost monk-like. You are, in that moment, everything they want to be. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Once I understood that, I had a new bar to clear. If every client wants to become me, then I had better be someone worth becoming.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The problem was that I had a safety net, and it was making me soft. I was still taking distributions from my other company, so I turned them off. I chose to \"purposely starve myself of cash.\" I needed the check from my sessions now, which meant I had to follow the process, do the work, and get it right.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It changed how I showed up: I stopped being afraid of getting fired, because \"the person they want to become is not a wimp.\" There were plenty of early moments where \"I didn't enter the danger where I should\" have.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Starving the safety net is what pushed me to say the hard thing in the room instead of protecting the relationship.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>We made it a game\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>I should be honest about the era I came up in, because it shaped everything, including what I later had to unlearn.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>When I started, the EOS Life® did not even exist as a phrase. I remember around 2016, Don Tinney standing up at a QCE with a little three-by-five card and reading it out for the first time anyone had ever heard it. Before that, nobody was building an Implementer business to live some balanced life. It was about freedom, and freedom came from cash flow and serving clients well and following the process.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The standard was twenty clients in your backyard. Not an aspiration, just the baseline. Thirty, thirty-five, and you were overachieving.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I had thirty-four at my peak.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I ran in a competitive T-group we called the Honey Badgers, and we made it a game. It was help first, but underneath that we just wanted to win. We were aggressive winners, most of the community was back then, and I loved it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is the Mark who needed to change. Not by losing the drive, but by learning what to do with everyone else's success.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The change I never saw coming\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>If you showed the Mark of those years the person I am now, the thing he wouldn't recognize isn't the client count or the title. It's the abundance mindset.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I was trained in scarcity. I came up as an aggressive, competitive winner, and I would get worked up when a competitor won, feeling like I had lost, even when, as I can see now, \"I wasn't even in that game.\"\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is the part that changed.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Not my drive, my relationship to other people winning. Learning to hold knowledge and leads and wins loosely. Learning to be the person who hands another Implementer a lead and says go do a ninety-minute meeting, dummy. It took years, and it is simply a better way to live.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Gino told me it would never work. The portfolio-on-EOS® part, maybe he was right about. The rest of it worked out better than the guy starving himself of distributions could ever have pictured.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":738},[739],{"sort":154,"content_link":740},{"id":664,"uri":665,"url":666,"name":667,"slug":668,"fields":741,"language":197,"content_type":749,"published_at":687},{"bio":742,"name":743,"role":744,"image":745},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":671,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},{"id":235,"name":236,"text":667,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":674,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":746,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[747],{"sort":154,"asset":748},{"id":679,"url":680,"name":681,"path":682,"size":683,"width":684,"height":684,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":685,"updated_at":685,"description":26},{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":753},[],{"id":755,"published_at":756,"slug":757,"name":758,"uri":759,"url":760,"language":10,"created_at":761,"updated_at":762,"author":763,"content_type":764,"seo":765,"fields":769,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01m07hhe585r6S7cBPkPYyJ6JW","2026-08-18T08:52:00+00:00","why-marketing-didnt-build-my-eos-practice","Why marketing didn't build my EOS® practice","blog/why-marketing-didnt-build-my-eos-practice","https://www.success.co/blog/why-marketing-didnt-build-my-eos-practice","2026-08-17T09:41:13+00:00","2026-09-16T13:11:22+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":766,"description":767,"robots":26,"canonical_url":760,"open_graph":768},"Why marketing didn't build my EOS® practice — Success.co","A marketer turned EOS® Implementer on why campaigns never filled his practice, and what reps, referrals, and cheap mistakes taught him instead.",{"title":758,"description":767,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":760},{"image":770,"title":780,"author":781,"schema":783,"excerpt":784,"summary":786,"category":788,"post_body":796,"guest_author":803,"sidebar_cta_text":830,"sidebar_cta_title":831,"sidebar_cta_button":832},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":771},[772],{"sort":154,"asset":773},{"id":774,"url":775,"name":776,"path":777,"size":778,"width":360,"height":361,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":779,"updated_at":779,"description":26},"a_01M07C6XQtj0h41B1gxDDbq6Hd","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/generated-image-(23).png","Generated Image (23)","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/generated-image-(23).png","1.24 MB","2026-08-17T08:08:06+00:00",{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":758},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":782},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":785},"I spent seven grand this year on a CRM that did nothing, and it was one of the cheaper lessons I have paid for in this practice.",{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":787},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Stas came from marketing and assumed his background would be his edge in building a practice. It was all BS: clients do not come from campaigns.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Two things actually get you clients: doing great work in the room, and answering your phone. Word of mouth closes the rest.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>When you are new and have not done the great work yet, you get reps any way you can, including a first client (a friend) at half rate, locked forever.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>His mistakes were big mistakes with small numbers, so he learned at \"community college tuition\" rates rather than paying for them later.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>What he sells is narrow: he implements the system for money and does everything else, mentoring included, for free. Cow, salt, fire. Keep it simple.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":789},[790],{"sort":154,"content_link":791},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":792,"language":197,"content_type":795,"published_at":5},{"title":793,"schema":794},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":797},[798],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":799,"content_type":802},{"text":800},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":801,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>This year I spent seven grand on a CRM that did nothing for me. I am a marketer by background, so of course I did. Building and adding is in my nature, and for a long time I was sure that instinct was my edge.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>I thought marketing was my advantage\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>When I started, the math seemed obvious. I had spent a career in marketing, and here was EOS®, a proven system worth talking about. Put the two together and it had to be amazing. I would do all the clever marketing things and the practice would fill itself.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It was all BS.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The clients do not come from campaigns. There are two things that actually get you clients, and neither one is a funnel. You do great work in the room, and you answer your phone. That is the whole engine. A client walks out of a session lighter than they walked in, someone in their life notices, and they hear that it is this EOS® thing and they should call me. By the time that person picks up the phone, the work is already done. They want what their friend has, and there is nothing left for me to sell.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The marketing version of me took years to accept that. I kept reaching for the sophisticated answer when the plain one was sitting right in front of me.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>You get clients by getting reps\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Here is the problem with an engine that runs on great work: when you are brand new, you have not done the great work yet. Nobody is walking out of your room lighter, because you barely have a room. So you have to find people willing to let you practice on them, so you can get reps.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>My first client was a dear friend. I told him what I was doing. I was going out at four thousand dollars a session day, and I would charge him two thousand, and I would never change his rate. He is still with me. Years later he gave me the feedback only a friend gives you: you really sucked five years ago. Of course I did. He kept paying anyway, and now, in his words, I am actually worth what I charge. He still thanks me for the six thousand dollar a session discount he is riding.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is the real early strategy, and it is not glamorous. Get as many reps as you can. Go help charities. Go help entrepreneurs. Go to every networking thing, target market and non-target market, and ask people about their businesses. Give them a nugget they can use. Do not try to EOS® them, ever. Just be useful and let the room teach you what a session is supposed to feel like.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>Big mistakes, small numbers\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>The seven thousand dollar CRM was not my only expensive lesson this year, just the most recent one. I make errors like that because I am a builder and an adder, and that instinct is exactly what gets people like me into trouble. We want to bolt on the new tool, the new system, the new clever thing.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The saving grace is that I made my big mistakes with small numbers. I learned from them at community college rates, and now I can afford Ivy League tuition. A seven thousand dollar error stings, but it is less than a single session day, and I would much rather have learned that lesson then than now.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You cannot describe skinning your knee to someone. They have to do it. A buddy of mine lost six figures on a comp plan because it was not written right. He has made millions since, because every comp plan he has written since is airtight. He built himself a template out of that loss, and now if you do not want to fit his template, he will not work for you. The loss was tuition. Everything after it was return.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>What I actually sell\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>I was standing around with Gino at the last QCE, just chatting, and he asked how things were. I told him the truth. A hundred and sixty five session days. I do nothing but EOS® and drink bourbon and hang out with entrepreneurs. I make no money doing anything other than that.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is the line I keep coming back to. I implement this proven system for money. Everything else I do for free. A mentee of mine, twenty five years old, was about to buy a business. We were sitting around one night and a friend of ours told him flat out that if he bought the business, he would find him and punch him in the head, because he needed to build it, not buy it. He built it. He runs it on EOS®. He called the other day to say he thinks he made forty grand last month. I did not charge him a cent for any of that, and it is the part of the work I would never give up.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>None of this came from marketing myself. It came from doing great work, answering my phone, and paying my tuition one skinned knee at a time. Cow, salt, fire. Keep it simple. That has been the whole thing.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":804},[805],{"sort":154,"content_link":806},{"id":807,"uri":808,"url":809,"name":810,"slug":811,"fields":812,"language":197,"content_type":828,"published_at":829},"c_01m07BMX491QK8ySpVHg1H6znP","contributor/stas-balanevsky","https://www.success.co/contributor/stas-balanevsky","Stas Balanevsky","stas-balanevsky",{"bio":813,"name":815,"role":816,"image":817},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":814,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>As a seasoned entrepreneur and Certified EOS Implementer, Stas brings over 30 years of diverse industry experience, including healthcare, digital marketing, media, sporting goods, and international finance. Starting his first business at 13, he has a lifelong passion for entrepreneurship and helping others succeed. Outside of work, Stas enjoys skiing, sailing, traveling, and spending time with family and friends.\u003C/p>",{"id":235,"name":236,"text":810,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":241,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":818,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[819],{"sort":154,"asset":820},{"id":821,"url":822,"name":823,"path":824,"size":825,"width":826,"height":826,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":827,"updated_at":827,"description":26},"a_01M07BpaRbJgEMZjh5p4fsXJt1","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1722803636364.jpeg","1722803636364","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1722803636364.jpeg","65.74 KB","659","2026-08-17T07:59:02+00:00",{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},"2026-08-17T07:59:06+00:00",{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":833},[],{"id":835,"published_at":836,"slug":837,"name":838,"uri":839,"url":840,"language":10,"created_at":841,"updated_at":842,"author":843,"content_type":844,"seo":845,"fields":850,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01M07hrmZ8h19vkJc6aG1DfyRC","2026-08-18T08:51:00+00:00","onboard-self-implementing-eos-team","How to take on a team that's been self-implementing EOS®","blog/onboard-self-implementing-eos-team","https://www.success.co/blog/onboard-self-implementing-eos-team","2026-08-17T09:45:09+00:00","2026-09-16T13:11:23+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":846,"description":847,"robots":26,"canonical_url":840,"open_graph":848},"How to Onboard a Self-Implementing EOS® Team — Success.co","A three-mode method for taking on teams that ran EOS® on their own, so you keep what works and fix what doesn't.",{"title":849,"description":847,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":840},"How to Onboard a Self-Implementing EOS® Team",{"image":851,"title":855,"author":856,"schema":858,"excerpt":859,"summary":861,"category":863,"post_body":871,"guest_author":878,"sidebar_cta_text":891,"sidebar_cta_title":892,"sidebar_cta_button":893},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":852},[853],{"sort":154,"asset":854},{"id":774,"url":775,"name":776,"path":777,"size":778,"width":360,"height":361,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":779,"updated_at":779,"description":26},{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":838},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":857},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":860},"Teams that self-implement arrive in three very different states. Here is how to tell which one you have before you touch a thing.",{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":862},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Self-implementing teams arrive in very different shape, so treat them the same and you either insult the strong ones or rubber-stamp the weak ones.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Ask for their tools first and take an honest look before deciding anything, the way good cooking starts with everything prepped.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Sort every team into one of three modes: read a different book (start with a Focus Day), decent tools (run a self-implementer session and layer, do not level), or genuinely strong (jump into the next quarterly).\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Whatever the mode, the thing they are almost always missing is third party accountability, the impartial voice that will say a number is nonsense when it is, illustrated by the 3.71% EBITDA room.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Bring the data set they lack, then hand the decision back through IDS™: live with it, end it, or change it, and if it is change it, articulate the Rock™.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":864},[865],{"sort":154,"content_link":866},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":867,"language":197,"content_type":870,"published_at":5},{"title":868,"schema":869},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":872},[873],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":874,"content_type":877},{"text":875},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":876,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>Teams that have been running EOS® on their own arrive in wildly different shape. Some come to you with real humility, aware of exactly where the cracks are. Others read a different book, built something adjacent, and believe they are running EOS® when they are running a version of it that only half works.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>If you treat both the same way, you lose either way. Come in hot on a strong team and you insult the work they did. Rubber-stamp a weak one and you leave them exactly as broken as you found them. So before I decide anything, I figure out which team I am actually sitting across from.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Here is how I run it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>Ask for their tools before you do anything\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>The first thing I say is simple: send me your tools. Their V/TO™, their Accountability Chart™, their Rocks™, their Scorecard™, all of it. Then I take an honest, judgmental look at what is there.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Good cooking is mise en place. Everything chopped, everything ready, before you turn on the heat. You cannot decide how to engage a self-implementing team until you have seen what they built, because the whole plan depends on it. A ten minute look at their real tools tells you more than an hour of them describing how they think they are doing.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>Sort them into one of three modes\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Once I have seen the tools, every self-implementing team falls into one of three modes.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Mode one: they read a different book.\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>The tools look EOS®-ish but the foundation is off. These teams need to start with a Focus Day and build it properly, because you cannot optimize a structure that was never sound. Do not let the fact that they have been at it for a year talk you out of starting at the start.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Mode two: decent tools that need sharpening.\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>This is where most teams land. The bones are good, the execution is uneven. Here I run a self-implementer session: we stop, we fix, and we optimize wherever it is needed. The rule I hold myself to is that I am not there to throw everything out. I am there to layer stuff on top. Every time you rip out something that was working, you spend trust you did not need to spend.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Mode three: genuinely strong.\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>Every so often you open the tools and they are just good. These teams do not need a foundation or a tune-up. Ask when the next quarterly is and go run it with them.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The spread is close to a bell curve. Most teams sit in the middle in mode two. Roughly one in six are strong enough to jump straight in, and roughly one in six read the different book and need to start over. Figure out which sixth or which middle you are in, and the engagement plan writes itself.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>Name the thing they're almost always missing\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Whatever mode they are in, self-implementing teams are almost always missing the same thing, and it is not a tool. It is third party accountability.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I was in a room once where a team was projecting the following quarter, and they landed on 3.71% EBITDA, and nobody blinked. I tilted my head at them like a confused Labrador and asked why nobody was mad. I told them I was mad. That number was nonsense, and everyone at the table could see it, and not one of them would say it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is what happens without an outside voice. The CFO put the number up. The sales manager said he could sell it. The CEO nodded along while privately deciding who he was going to have to let go. Everybody had a reason not to be the one to call it, so the bad number sailed through. The value I add in that moment is that I have no reason to protect anyone. I am not telling you how to run your business. I am telling you how to run a business, and this leaves you no flexibility.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>A team can build every EOS® tool correctly and still not have this, because you cannot be impartial about your own numbers. That is the gap you are really there to fill.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>Give them the data, then hand back the decision\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>The other thing I bring that a self-implementing team does not have is a data set. They have run their company. I have run this problem across dozens of companies. When something surfaces in the room, I can tell them they are somewhere around client sixty eight to hit this exact wall, here is how other teams went after it, here are the outcomes those teams saw, and here is why I think they got them.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Then I stop, because the decision is not mine. I hand it back through IDS™. Are you going to live with it, end it, or change it? Live with it is rarely a real answer. End it is rarely a real answer. So we are changing it, and if we are changing it, then articulate the Rock™ for me. I give them the fullest, most honest picture I have, and they make the call. That is what keeps it their business instead of mine.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>What goes wrong\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>The predictable ways this falls apart all come from skipping a step or leading with ego.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You pick a mode blind. You skip the tool audit, guess at where the team is, and run a Focus Day for a mode three team or drop a mode one team straight into a quarterly. Look first.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You come in as the expert who trashes their work. It feels good and it costs you the room. Whatever they built, they built with real effort, and the fastest way to lose a self-implementing team is to tell them it was all wrong. Layer, do not level.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You name the problem and then solve it for them. If you diagnose the bad number and then tell them what to do about it, you are now running their company. Give them the data and make them decide.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You let sloppy language slide. If a team is calling the tools by the wrong names, fix it early. Getting the terminology right is part of getting the system right, and it signals that precision matters here.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>The payoff\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Run it this way and you meet the team where they actually are instead of where your process assumes they should be. You keep everything they got right, which is often more than they get credit for, and you install the one thing they could never install for themselves: a voice with no reason to protect anyone, that will say the number is nonsense when the number is nonsense.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That voice is what they were missing the whole time they were self-implementing. It is why they finally called you.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":879},[880],{"sort":154,"content_link":881},{"id":807,"uri":808,"url":809,"name":810,"slug":811,"fields":882,"language":197,"content_type":890,"published_at":829},{"bio":883,"name":884,"role":885,"image":886},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":814,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},{"id":235,"name":236,"text":810,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":241,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":887,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[888],{"sort":154,"asset":889},{"id":821,"url":822,"name":823,"path":824,"size":825,"width":826,"height":826,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":827,"updated_at":827,"description":26},{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":894},[],{"id":896,"published_at":897,"slug":898,"name":899,"uri":900,"url":901,"language":10,"created_at":902,"updated_at":842,"author":903,"content_type":904,"seo":905,"fields":909,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01M007z2aMSkRMXyJr097nQ30G","2026-08-14T13:40:00+00:00","cutting-my-practice-in-half","I'm sixty, and I'm cutting my practice in half","blog/cutting-my-practice-in-half","https://www.success.co/blog/cutting-my-practice-in-half","2026-08-14T13:39:13+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":906,"description":907,"robots":26,"canonical_url":901,"open_graph":908},"I'm sixty, and I'm cutting my practice in half — Success.co","At sixty, Scott decided to cut his practice in half. Here's why that felt like the fog lifting, not slowing down.",{"title":899,"description":907,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":901},{"image":910,"title":920,"author":921,"schema":923,"excerpt":924,"summary":925,"category":927,"post_body":935,"guest_author":942,"sidebar_cta_text":969,"sidebar_cta_title":970,"sidebar_cta_button":971},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":911},[912],{"sort":154,"asset":913},{"id":914,"url":915,"name":916,"path":917,"size":918,"width":161,"height":162,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":919,"updated_at":919,"description":26},"a_01KzqxdsHfE5Nq3579Tnnngv6M","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/Gemini_Generated_Image_vlw68qvlw68qvlw6.png","Gemini Generated Image Vlw68Qvlw68Qvlw6","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/Gemini_Generated_Image_vlw68qvlw68qvlw6.png","7.65 MB","2026-08-11T08:01:06+00:00",{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":899},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":922},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":907},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":926},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>On Monday Scott said no to two opportunities he wanted, and instead of regret felt \"a heavy blanket fog lifting off me.\"\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>At sixty, he sees himself entering the fourth quarter of life, the part where you give back and reap what you spent thirty years planting.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>So he's cutting his practice in half in two years, going deeper with fewer clients instead of chasing session-day counts.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>He's done this before: years ago he stopped being a \"water beetle\" spread across every methodology and focused on being the best EOS® coach he could be, and the practice took off.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>The freed-up time is the point. Two months in Italy, mornings watching the surf, a life built so the right people find you. \"You get it by saying no.\"\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":928},[929],{"sort":154,"content_link":930},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":931,"language":197,"content_type":934,"published_at":5},{"title":932,"schema":933},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":936},[937],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":938,"content_type":941},{"text":939},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":940,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>On Monday I said no to two things I actually wanted to do.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>One of them was a collaboration, the kind of thing I would have jumped at a few years ago. Good people, real upside, the sort of opportunity you feel a little proud just to be asked about. I said no to it, and I said no to the second one right after, and then I waited for the regret to show up.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It didn't.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>What showed up instead was a heavy blanket fog lifting off me. I sat there for a second, genuinely surprised by how light I felt. So I kept going: I looked at the next 30, 60, 90 days and pulled out three or four more commitments that had quietly crept onto the calendar. By the time I was done, I could breathe again.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I told my wife that night, she didn't try to talk me out of it and said “yeah, let's not do that, but let's do this”. That is usually how the important calls go in my life.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Someone I trust holds up a mirror, and I finally admit the thing I already knew.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Walking into the fourth quarter\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>And what I already knew was simple. I'm sixty, I just turned it. Somewhere in my mid-fifties, a thought started seeping in that I have not been able to shake since: I'm walking into the fourth quarter.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I think about a life the way you'd think about a game, in four quarters. In the first quarter you can blow the whole thing up. You can hand-grenade your life doing something foolish, and plenty of people do, but nobody wins the game in the first quarter.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The second quarter is where you lay a foundation. Then there's halftime, where if you're smart you catch your breath. The third quarter is where you decide whether to take it up a notch, and I've watched good people just quietly retire in their mid-forties instead.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I never understood that: the fourth quarter, the way I see it, is the part where you give back and finally reap what you spent thirty years planting.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I'm writing a book about this, called Fourth Quarter Mindset. It started as a passing thought and it has refused to leave me alone since.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Cutting it in half on purpose\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>So last year I made a decision that surprises people when I say it out loud. In two years, I'm cutting my practice in half.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Some of that is being decided for me. I've got a couple of big private equity groups and a gigantic franchise in my book of clients, and they're heading toward being sold or acquired. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>But most of it is a choice.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I've been doing more than 150 session days a year, one year I did around 170. I love the work, I still get a charge out of a hard session, but I'm good. I don't need to prove the number to anyone anymore, least of all myself.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>What I want now is to go deeper with the clients I keep, and there will be half as many of them. Some have been with me ten, twelve years and will stay. Others will graduate, because two years was exactly enough and we both know it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The point is that I get to be intentional about who is in the room with me for the next stretch. I'll do more one-on-one executive coaching, which sits at the top left of my Delegate and Elevate, in the love-to-do-and-good-at-it corner. The speaking has started to roll on its own, and I plan to coach through the age of eighty (so I've got twenty more years to spend well).\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>If that sounds like slowing down, it isn't. It's the same move I made once before, just one level deeper.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The first time I subtracted\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>For years, before I joined this community, back in what I jokingly call my illegal implementer days, I was a water beetle. I skated across the surface of everything: a little scaling-up work, some Rockefeller Habits, some Lencioni, a bit of EOS® when the book first came out… I was busy, and I was spread so thin that none of it went deep. It wasn't good, and part of me knew it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The turn came when I finally slowed down and picked one thing.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I decided I wanted to be the best EOS® coach I could possibly be, and I pointed everything at that. I fixed the story I was telling myself, and got deliberate about who I spent my time with. The practice took off, not because I added anything, but because I stopped splitting myself across things that were never going to add up.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Cutting my practice in half is that same decision, ten years on: subtraction again, focus again. Just at a stage of life where the math on my remaining time has gotten a lot more honest.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>What the freedom is for\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>I should tell you that none of this is discipline for its own sake: my degree is in recreation and leisure studies.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I've been having fun all my life, and I've stopped apologizing for it. I'm the guy lying on the floor at the back of the room at QCE because I learn better that way. When you build a life you actually love, and you show up as your real self inside it, the right people tend to find you. I've watched it happen for thirty years. The version of me that pretends to be a buttoned-up professional never attracted anyone worth keeping.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is what the freed-up time is for.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>A couple of years ago my wife and I finally got our kids off to school and gave ourselves a gift: two months in Italy. I was over there, half a world away from my session rooms, and the practice did not fall apart. If anything, some of the clearest decisions of my career happened on that trip, with no calendar screaming at me. That is the kind of thing the fourth quarter is supposed to buy, and you don't get it by accident. You get it by saying no.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I live in Solana Beach now. My back door is more or less the ocean. Some mornings I look at the surf before anything else, and I'll walk out for six or seven minutes and just watch the tide come in. I'm not out there to find anything. I've spent a career learning that the good stuff finds you once you stop grabbing at all of it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>We have a lot of control we don't always choose to take. On Monday I took a little of it back. The fog lifted. I plan to keep it that way.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":943},[944],{"sort":154,"content_link":945},{"id":946,"uri":947,"url":948,"name":949,"slug":950,"fields":951,"language":197,"content_type":967,"published_at":968},"c_01KZqXgv8RSAW1NNgHG5hcRNRk","contributor/scott-rusnak","https://www.success.co/contributor/scott-rusnak","Scott Rusnak","scott-rusnak",{"bio":952,"name":954,"role":955,"image":956},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":953,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>As Co-founder of Schoollogic, Scott Rusnak built a world-class Education Technology company, competing with the likes of Apple and Pearson for a major share of the worldwide Education Technology market. Since 2008, Scott has served as a consultant, coach, and adviser for thousands of entrepreneurs. Before Scott began his entrepreneurial journey, he put all his energy into becoming a world-class athlete, competing at an international level as a cyclist. He continues to stand on top of the podium as an athlete, but he gets the greatest satisfaction by helping fellow entrepreneurs design their lives before someone else does it for them.\u003C/p>",{"id":235,"name":236,"text":949,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":241,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":957,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[958],{"sort":154,"asset":959},{"id":960,"url":961,"name":962,"path":963,"size":964,"width":965,"height":965,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":966,"updated_at":966,"description":26},"a_01KzqXJ1X86eqqrBs41hv8V64h","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1641953177036.jpeg","1641953177036","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1641953177036.jpeg","18.82 KB","314","2026-08-11T08:03:25+00:00",{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},"2026-08-11T08:03:31+00:00",{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":972},[],{"id":974,"published_at":975,"slug":976,"name":977,"uri":978,"url":979,"language":10,"created_at":980,"updated_at":842,"author":981,"content_type":982,"seo":983,"fields":987,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01m007Nt7xvvv1N55V8qsg055z","2026-08-14T13:38:00+00:00","how-to-build-business-development-around-dunbars-number","How to Build Business Development Around Dunbar's Number","blog/how-to-build-business-development-around-dunbars-number","https://www.success.co/blog/how-to-build-business-development-around-dunbars-number","2026-08-14T13:34:10+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":984,"description":985,"robots":26,"canonical_url":979,"open_graph":986},"How to Build Business Development Around Dunbar's Number — Success.co","Business development stops being a grind when the people in your calendar and the people who could hire you are the same people.",{"title":977,"description":985,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":979},{"image":988,"title":992,"author":993,"schema":995,"excerpt":996,"summary":997,"category":999,"post_body":1007,"guest_author":1014,"sidebar_cta_text":1027,"sidebar_cta_title":1028,"sidebar_cta_button":1029},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":989},[990],{"sort":154,"asset":991},{"id":914,"url":915,"name":916,"path":917,"size":918,"width":161,"height":162,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":919,"updated_at":919,"description":26},{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":977},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":994},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":985},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":998},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Business development isn't a task to dread. It's deciding who you want around you and going to be around them, not \"hanging a banner up at a trade show.\"\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Fix the mindset first. The story you tell yourself, written into your personal V/TO™, comes before any tactic.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Map your relationships with Dunbar's number (rings of 5, 15, 50, 150). \"You become the version of the people you hang out with.\"\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Audit each ring for who sharpens you and who drains you, then adjust. Only keep clients you'd genuinely choose, because \"you can't fake it.\"\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Live your real life around the right people, and the rings do the work: Revelstoke grew to 15 entrepreneurs, and one became a client with \"no intention there.\"\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1000},[1001],{"sort":154,"content_link":1002},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":1003,"language":197,"content_type":1006,"published_at":5},{"title":1004,"schema":1005},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1008},[1009],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":1010,"content_type":1013},{"text":1011},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":1012,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>Every Implementer I talk to says some version of the same thing about business development:  It's a grind, it's hard, it's the part of the week they don't look forward to... I understand the feeling, but I want to hand you a different frame, because I'm not really doing business development, at least not the way that word usually gets used.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The phrase itself is the problem.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Business development sounds like a task you schedule and dread. What I actually do is decide who I want around me, and then I go be around them: that's it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It's not hanging a banner up at a trade show or sponsoring a golf tournament. Those are fine, and you can do them, but the thing that actually fills my practice is having real conversations with people who I really bond with.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is not a slogan, it's a method, and it runs on an idea I picked up about twenty years ago called Dunbar's number.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Here is how I run it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>Fix the soundtrack before you fix the tactics\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Before any of the relationship work matters, you have to deal with the story playing in your own head. When somebody tells me their business development is stuck, my first question is about the soundtrack running through their mind, because that is almost always where the block is.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The move is to make sure you're telling yourself the right story, and that right story has got to be written in your personal V/TO™. Not a mission statement you wrote once and filed away. The actual narrative you run on: who you are, who you serve, where you're headed. The books I keep going back to are all about this, about mindset and the story you feed yourself. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>If your internal soundtrack is garbage, no clever tactic downstream is going to save you, and you'll feel like a fraud at every networking event you force yourself to attend.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So start here. Get your own head right and get it on paper. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>Map your concentric rings\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Dunbar's number is the finding that we can each only hold so many real relationships, and that they nest in rings of rising closeness. Robin Dunbar put rough sizes on them: 5, 15, 50, and 150. The inner rings take the most of your time and shape you the most.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That last part is the whole point for business development.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You become the version of the people you hang out with, so you better really make sure you're hanging out with the right people. Read that as a business strategy, not a life-coaching line. The five people closest to you are quietly setting your standards, your energy, and your expectations of what's normal.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So map your rings on purpose, and do it for both sides of your life. Start with your two groups of five. On the business side, mine is a small circle where, when I look at it, I feel like we could take on the world and win: a mentor, a coach, the people I'd call before I called anyone else… Then do the same five for your personal life.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Those two groups of five are a bigger deal than any lead list you'll ever build.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Then move out to the next ring, the 15. On the business side, that's where your best clients live, and on the personal side, it's the twelve to fifteen people you actually spend your real time with. Get honest about who is on each list.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>Audit who feeds you and who drains you, then adjust\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Once the rings are on paper, run an audit.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Go name by name and mark one thing next to each: does time with this person leave you sharper, or flatter? This is not about being ruthless with people you love. It's about being awake to the fact that your inner rings are shaping you whether you pay attention or not.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Then act on it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Take a name that consistently drains you and move it to a wider ring, and guard the hours you get back. Take someone whose work and values you genuinely respect and book a real hour with them this month. Do that every quarter and your rings slowly fill with the kind of people you'd happily work with anyway.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The subtraction matters as much as the addition. I go through my own commitments and decide what I'm going to say no to, and the relief when I clear something that was quietly draining me is hard to overstate. Protecting the inner rings is most of the job: if your calendar is full of people who flatten you, no amount of hustle at the top of the funnel will fix your practice.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>Only keep clients you would genuinely choose\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>This is the part people resist, so I'll be blunt about it: you've got to love working with your clients, because you can't fake it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>If you and a client aren't a real fit, you can't push them, and pushing is the job. When there's genuine respect running both directions, you can say the hard thing in the room, and they can say it back to you.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>One of my clients is a construction company I started with about five years ago. As we worked through their Core Values, I realized the founder and his business partner were two of the most humble people I'd met. We became actual friends, I'm still the coach in the room, but we do things after hours now, because we like the same stuff. And here's what that fit produces: they refer me. They sit down with other business owners and say, this guy helped straighten out our business, you need to talk to him.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I didn't ask for that, it's the natural output of working with people you'd choose to be around anyway.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You cannot manufacture that with a client you tolerate, so stop trying. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>Do your business development where your life already happens\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Now put the rings and the fit together, and business development stops being an activity you bolt onto your week. It becomes the byproduct of living a life you actually like, surrounded by the kind of people you want in your rings.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I'll give you the clearest example I have.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>This past winter I was heli-skiing in Revelstoke, British Columbia. Three buddies and I planned it about a year in advance, and then it grew. I mentioned I had a couple of friends who were also clients who wanted to come, and by the time we went, we had 15 like-minded, fun entrepreneurs on the trip.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The relationships and the conversations went as deep in two or three days as I thought I'd ever go with people I barely knew. One of them I later onboarded as a client: no intention there, I wasn't selling, I was skiing with people I'd want to ski with regardless.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is what this looks like when it's working. You're not out there hunting: you're at the concert, the horse races, the surf break, having real conversations with people who share your values, and some fraction of them turn out to be people who could hire you or send you someone who will.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>Let the outer rings feed the inner ones\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>The 5 and the 15 get most of the attention, and they should, because they shape you the most. But the outer rings, the 50 and the 150, are not decoration. They're your feeder pool. They're the people you see a few times a year, the ones you've had one good conversation with, the friends of friends who share your world.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You don't manage the outer rings the way you manage the inner ones, you just keep showing up in the places where those people already are, and you stay open. The Revelstoke trip is the whole system in one weekend: a handful of people from my inner rings, a wider group pulled from the 15 and 50, and a couple of strangers who, by the end, weren't strangers anymore. One of them moved inward over time and became a client.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is the rings working as designed: the inner ones hold your closest relationships, and the outer ones quietly refill them.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Protect the inner rings fiercely, and stay generous and available with the outer ones, because that's where next year's inner ring is currently sitting.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>What you get if you run this\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Do this consistently and the two lists that used to feel separate, the people in your calendar and the people who could hire you, quietly become one list. Your next good client is usually already somewhere in your rings, or one warm introduction away from them. The referrals start spinning out on their own, because people who genuinely like working with you can't help talking about you.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It also gets easier, which is the part nobody tells you. When business development is just spending time with people you'd choose anyway, you stop dreading it, because there's nothing left to dread. There's only the life you're already living, pointed on purpose at the right people.\u003Cbr>\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1015},[1016],{"sort":154,"content_link":1017},{"id":946,"uri":947,"url":948,"name":949,"slug":950,"fields":1018,"language":197,"content_type":1026,"published_at":968},{"bio":1019,"name":1020,"role":1021,"image":1022},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":953,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},{"id":235,"name":236,"text":949,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":241,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":1023,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[1024],{"sort":154,"asset":1025},{"id":960,"url":961,"name":962,"path":963,"size":964,"width":965,"height":965,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":966,"updated_at":966,"description":26},{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1030},[],{"id":1032,"published_at":1033,"slug":1034,"name":1035,"uri":1036,"url":1037,"language":10,"created_at":1038,"updated_at":1039,"author":1040,"content_type":1041,"seo":1042,"fields":1046,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01kz6dGT4m1WHXBJVKs1x60QGR","2026-08-04T12:57:00+00:00","how-to-build-an-eos-life-that-actually-lasts","How to build an EOS® life that actually lasts","blog/how-to-build-an-eos-life-that-actually-lasts","https://www.success.co/blog/how-to-build-an-eos-life-that-actually-lasts","2026-08-04T12:56:02+00:00","2026-09-16T13:11:19+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":1043,"description":1044,"robots":26,"canonical_url":1037,"open_graph":1045},"How to build an EOS® life that actually lasts — Success.co","Most Implementers walk away from a great career, build a practice, and quietly rebuild the exact treadmill they escaped. After fifteen years, here's the EOS® life Jim Coyle actually runs to stay effective and human, not the one on a slide.",{"title":1035,"description":1044,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":1037},{"image":1047,"title":1057,"author":1058,"schema":1060,"excerpt":1061,"summary":1062,"category":1064,"post_body":1072,"guest_author":1079,"sidebar_cta_text":1105,"sidebar_cta_title":1106,"sidebar_cta_button":1107},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":1048},[1049],{"sort":154,"asset":1050},{"id":1051,"url":1052,"name":1053,"path":1054,"size":1055,"width":161,"height":162,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":1056,"updated_at":1056,"description":26},"a_01kz5xP2B4PEs568M12Rfa8Aa4","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/Gemini_Generated_Image_hw4onshw4onshw4o.png","Gemini Generated Image Hw4Onshw4Onshw4O","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/Gemini_Generated_Image_hw4onshw4onshw4o.png","5.6 MB","2026-08-04T08:19:17+00:00",{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1035},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1059},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1044},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":1063},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Decide the number you don't want to go past. The ceiling isn't a wall to break, it's a line to stay under. His is 90 this year.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Take clarity breaks that match the season, not forever. The less you have figured out, the more of them you need.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Run a regular alignment check across friends, family, finances and spirituality: where am I misaligned, and who am I out of balance with.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Build a circle that tells you the truth, not an audience that admires you. Start with a coach you pay for.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Put your own mask on first and use your tools on yourself. Strivers are terrible at it, and it's the whole payoff.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1065},[1066],{"sort":154,"content_link":1067},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":1068,"language":197,"content_type":1071,"published_at":5},{"title":1069,"schema":1070},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1073},[1074],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":1075,"content_type":1078},{"text":1076},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":1077,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>I've been implementing EOS® for fifteen years. That's long enough to watch a lot of us walk away from a great business or a big career, step into building a practice, and then slowly rebuild the exact treadmill we thought we'd escaped.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I've done it myself and worked 120-hour weeks, several of them back to back, because I believed the answer to almost everything was to work harder.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The trap is that hard work feels like the answer right up until the moment it stops working. Hard workers are efficient, we get stuff done. But efficient and effective are not the same thing, and the longer I do this, the more I care about the second one. You can run yourself into the ground and serve no one: not your clients, not your family, not yourself.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>There's a book I've been reading, Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks, that put language to this for me. Early on, we run on one kind of intelligence, the fast, raw, problem-solving kind, and over time it fades. A different kind, closer to wisdom, grows in its place. If you don't make the jump from that first curve to the second one, Brooks argues, you end up miserable. Strivers have the hardest time making the jump, because the first curve is where we won, and letting go of it feels like giving something up rather than gaining something.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So this is the EOS® life I try to run, not the one on a slide. It's a set of practices for staying effective and staying human while you build a practice. None of it is finished, I don't have it all figured out. But this is the work I keep coming back to, and it is the work I wish someone had handed me a few hundred sessions sooner.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Decide the number you don't want to go past\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Every Implementer finds a session ceiling. The mistake almost all of us make is treating it like a wall to break through. It isn't a wall, it's a line to notice and stay under.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Finding your number has less to do with math and more to do with paying attention to when your work changes character. Watch for the moment you catch yourself running a session on autopilot, thinking about the revenue instead of the room. That is the signal, not the count on your calendar. Your number is the point where you can still walk in and transform something every single time, rather than just process another meeting and move on.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>For me that number came out lower than my ego wanted it to. A hundred and twenty-five and a half sessions was too many. I did a hundred last year, and I want to do ninety this year, because I cannot do rich work at a hundred and twenty-five.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That's me, it is not a rule for you.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That last part matters more than it looks. I talked to an Implementer recently who was thrilled to be hitting a hundred and forty-five sessions, and I meant it when I told him I was genuinely happy for him.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>And thank God that's not me.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Both of those things are true at once. His number is not wrong just because it isn't mine, and mine is not virtuous just because it's smaller. Your job is to find the number where you can still do the work well, name it honestly, and then protect it, even in the months when saying yes to more would be the easy thing.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Done badly, this step becomes a race. You treat the ceiling as a personal best to beat, you push past the point where you can be present, and you slide into the transactional grind without noticing.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The number is not a scoreboard. It's a boundary you set so the work stays worth doing.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Take clarity breaks that match the season\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>A clarity break is not a day off.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It is intentional, quiet thinking time, and for a striver it is the single most uncomfortable thing on the calendar. Sitting on my butt doesn't work for me, so I had to learn the hard way that quiet is not the same as idle, and that being still on purpose is a skill I did not have.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The thing almost nobody told me is that clarity breaks are built for seasons, not forever. For a long stretch, once a month was exactly right for me. It is not right for me now. In this season I need one about every other week. At one point it was every three weeks, which felt strange until I stopped judging it. The cadence isn't a discipline score you're supposed to hold steady for life. It follows where you are, and the rule of thumb I've landed on is simple: the less you have figured out, the more of them you need.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>When you sit down for one, resist the urge to solve anything in the first few minutes. Ask yourself a few plain questions instead:\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>What is my intentional clarity break time right now, and does this season call for more of them?\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Am I actually getting quiet, or just busy in a different chair?\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Do I need a coach right now?\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Do I need a group of people around me?\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>\n\n\u003Cp>Those questions do more work than any answer you'll force in the moment. You are not there to fix your practice, you are there to notice what this season is asking of you, and then to be honest about what you actually need to meet it. For a striver, the honest answer is often \"less doing,\" which is the one answer we are least equipped to sit with.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Run a regular alignment check\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Almost every bit of damage I've done, to myself and to the people around me, started as misalignment I didn't notice in time. That is the tricky part about being out of alignment. You rarely feel it while it's happening. You feel it later, once it has already cost you something.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So I walk through the parts of my life on purpose: my friends, my immediate family, my finances, my spirituality. I ask two plain questions of each one. Where am I misaligned? And who am I out of balance with?\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Naming it is most of the work: you are not trying to solve anything in that moment, and you are certainly not trying to fix another person.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You're trying to catch the drift while it's still small and cheap to correct, before it becomes the kind of gap that takes a year to close. The stakes climb as it goes, too. My kids are ten and twelve, and from friends a few years ahead of me I know the decisions only get bigger and scarier as kids get older. I would rather build the habit of checking my alignment now, while the misses are still small, than start it in the season when they aren't.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Build a circle that tells you the truth\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>This work is hard, and it is lonely. I ended up building my entire practice around the goal of not being alone in it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Start with a coach you pay for (I tell everyone this). There are plenty of people who will give you advice for free, but a coach you pay is someone whose actual job is to hear you out and then help you see the thing you can't see on your own. And coaches need coaches, too. I have one, and I lean on him precisely in the seasons when I'm least sure of myself.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Then surround yourself with people who will tell you the truth, not the polite version, the real one. The friends who will tell you when you're being a jerk, or that you've got something stuck in your teeth, and trust you to still be there tomorrow. I learned how much I needed those people the hard way. After I'd run a bar and restaurant in Chicago, I found myself genuinely lonely, and I built a group of Implementers for exactly that reason. I wanted to be in business for myself, but not by myself. When I needed to get clear recently, I didn't do it alone at a desk. I went on a retreat with a few Implementer friends and let them help me see straight.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Done badly, your circle is full of people who admire you and short on people who will challenge you. That feels good and teaches you nothing. If nobody around you is willing to tell you the uncomfortable thing, you don't have a circle. You have an audience.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Put your own mask on first, and use your tools on yourself\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Strivers are terrible at putting the oxygen mask on first. We throw down the busy badge, skip past the part where we take care of ourselves, and call it humility. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I've come to believe I can only be better to everyone around me if I get intentional about me first, and that the version of me who skips that step ends up shortchanging the very people I'm working so hard for.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Use the tools you already trust on your own life. I'm a hammer, so I see nails everywhere: I keep a business V/TO™, a family V/TO, and a personal V/TO, and I keep them near me where I'll actually look at them. A V/TO might not be your tool, and that is completely fine. The specific tool is not the point, the intentionality is. Get curious about your own life first, then get intentional about it. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>If you skip the curiosity and jump straight to building the plan, you'll just automate the same misalignment you already had.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>What goes wrong\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>The failure I see most often is the bored Implementer.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>A bored entrepreneur is dangerous: we do reckless things when we're bored, and we can be bad to the people around us without meaning to be. If you feel boredom creeping in, treat it as a sign you've stopped being present, not as a cue to add more volume to your calendar.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The second one is running last season's cadence into a season that has already changed. If your clarity breaks are still monthly out of pure habit while your life is in real transition, you will miss the drift until it is expensive to fix. Let the rhythm change when your circumstances do.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The third is skipping the quiet at exactly the moment you need it most. The striver instinct is to fill white space, not sit in it, which means we tend to abandon the thinking right when the thinking would matter most. The discomfort you feel in the quiet is not a reason to get up. It is usually a sign you're in the right place.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>And the last one is the hardest for people like us: trying to fix everything. I wanted to protect my son from anything that could happen, and I finally realized that trying to fix it was its own kind of misalignment. Sometimes the work is not doing, it’s letting the lesson land. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The payoff\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Run this, and the work gets richer, not smaller. I do fewer sessions than I used to, and I'm better in every single one of them, because there is finally someone home to do the work. I'm a better Implementer, and a better dad and a better husband, when I put the mask on first, and I'm measurably worse at all three when I don't.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I'm in one of those transitions myself right now. I freed up a big block of time this year, and striver that I am, I mostly don't know what to do with it yet. Some days I'm on the struggle bus about it, but I'm doing the work, and the work is the point.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You will not finish this. But you'll know you're doing the right work, and for a striver, that quiet certainty is the closest thing to peace that actually holds.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1080},[1081],{"sort":154,"content_link":1082},{"id":1083,"uri":1084,"url":1085,"name":1086,"slug":1087,"fields":1088,"language":197,"content_type":1103,"published_at":1104},"c_01KYS31Sc04DPFKCj75xRh5412","contributor/jim-coyle","https://www.success.co/contributor/jim-coyle","Jim Coyle","jim-coyle",{"bio":1089,"name":1091,"role":1092,"image":1093},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":1090,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>Jim Coyle has over 20 years of helping companies obtain the level of success they were built to achieve. Jim has owned and operated many of his own small to midsized business operations and realized that small businesses need their own set of solutions. With over 900 client sessions, Jim has achieved Expert designation and is one of a handful of Coaches for the EOS community of Implementers. He is just as excited about EOS as he was when he started all those years ago.\u003C/p>",{"id":235,"name":236,"text":1086,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":241,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":1094,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[1095],{"sort":154,"asset":1096},{"id":1097,"url":1098,"name":1099,"path":1100,"size":1101,"width":684,"height":684,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":1102,"updated_at":1102,"description":26},"a_01KYS336R0yA88741Xb8AMFT84","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1516334667159.jpeg","1516334667159","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1516334667159.jpeg","28.64 KB","2026-07-30T08:43:43+00:00",{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},"2026-07-30T08:43:47+00:00",{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1108},[],{"id":1110,"published_at":1111,"slug":1112,"name":1113,"uri":1114,"url":1115,"language":10,"created_at":1116,"updated_at":1039,"author":1117,"content_type":1118,"seo":1119,"fields":1123,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01kZ6d4tnyJHkqBYhGCG0K30pk","2026-08-04T12:55:00+00:00","why-some-ceilings-are-boundaries-not-targets","Why some ceilings are boundaries, not targets","blog/why-some-ceilings-are-boundaries-not-targets","https://www.success.co/blog/why-some-ceilings-are-boundaries-not-targets","2026-08-04T12:49:29+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":1120,"description":1121,"robots":26,"canonical_url":1115,"open_graph":1122},"Why some ceilings are boundaries, not targets — Success.co","What if the ceiling every Implementer is trying to break through is actually the one you're supposed to stop at? Jim Coyle hit his around 300 sessions in, and what he did next was the opposite of what a striver ever wants to hear.",{"title":1113,"description":1121,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":1115},{"image":1124,"title":1128,"author":1129,"schema":1131,"excerpt":1132,"summary":1133,"category":1135,"post_body":1143,"guest_author":1150,"sidebar_cta_text":1163,"sidebar_cta_title":1164,"sidebar_cta_button":1165},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":1125},[1126],{"sort":154,"asset":1127},{"id":1051,"url":1052,"name":1053,"path":1054,"size":1055,"width":161,"height":162,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":1056,"updated_at":1056,"description":26},{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1113},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1130},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1121},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":1134},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Jim Coyle has around 1,300 EOS® sessions behind him, and he's a self-described striver who once worked 120-hour weeks back to back.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>\n\n\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Around 300 to 400 sessions he went transactional: \"just another session, look at all this money I'm making.\"\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>His instinct was more, more sessions, more hours, without seeing that more was the problem. He'd confused efficient with effective.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Clients left. One told him his work was crap, and what stays with him is the promise he broke while being paid.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>The fix came from phone calls: CJ Dubé and every peer he respected had hit the exact same wall, which took the shame out of it.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>So he does less and loves clients on purpose. 100 sessions last year, 90 this year, fully present in the room.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1136},[1137],{"sort":154,"content_link":1138},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":1139,"language":197,"content_type":1142,"published_at":5},{"title":1140,"schema":1141},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1144},[1145],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":1146,"content_type":1149},{"text":1147},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":1148,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Just another session\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>I have around 1,300 sessions behind me now, and the stretch I think about most is not one I'm proud of. Somewhere around three or four hundred sessions in, I hit a wall I didn't have a name for yet: I was still doing the sessions, but stopped transforming lives and started running transactions.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>From the outside, nothing looked wrong. I was busy, and the work kept coming. But somewhere in there my own attitude had curdled into something like, just another session, look at all this money I'm making. And underneath even that, I already knew the truth: it didn't matter. I could run the meeting and collect the fee, but if nobody's business or life was any different by the time I left the room, I hadn't really done the job.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The busy badge\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>I need to back up and tell you that I'm a striver, because it explains how I got there.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>For most of my life, the answer to almost every problem was to work harder, and I had the hours to prove I believed it. I've worked 120-hour weeks, several of them back to back. There aren't enough hours in a week to do that, and I found a way anyway.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I wore the busy badge like it was an achievement.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>But the busy badge was great when you were a kid earning them one at a time. A grown adult still collecting them is only proving how much they can carry, not how much good they can do. I say it to clients more bluntly than I'll write it here: wearing the busy badge today does not do one thing for anybody.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So when the work started to feel flat, I reached for the only tool I trusted: more, more sessions, more prep, more hours. It never once occurred to me that more was the thing making it worse. I had quietly confused being efficient with being effective.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I was efficient, getting an enormous amount done, but I just wasn't doing much good for anyone, and efficiency with nothing behind it is a very convincing way to fail.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>When the clients started leaving\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Then my clients started leaving, and a few of them were honest enough to tell me exactly why. One of them, near enough word for word, told me it was crap. And he was right!\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>When he'd signed on with me, I'd made him a promise, and somewhere in all that motion I'd stopped keeping it. That's the piece that still sits with me: not the revenue I lost when he walked, but the promise I broke while he was still paying me.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>And it wasn't only the clients. When I'm in that state, I'm not just a worse Implementer, I'm also a bad husband and a worse dad, to two kids I love pouring into. The busy badge does not stay politely at the office, it follows you home and makes you absent there too, and the people who get the emptiest version of you are usually the ones you took all those sessions for in the first place.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The calls that pulled me out\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Eventually I did the one thing that helped: I called CJ Dube’, who was my boss on the coaching team at the time, and I asked her straight out: what happened for you around three or four hundred sessions? She didn't flinch or dress it up, she'd hit the exact same wall.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It had gone transactional for her, too, and hearing her say it out loud took some of the shame out of it for me. That gave me the nerve to keep going, so I called others I deeply respected: Jill Young, Mike Abercrombie, John McMahon, Sarah Stern. Every single one of them had hit it. Sarah, as it happened, was hitting it right as we were talking, which made for a strange and honest conversation to be having together.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>By every logic it should have been a demoralizing week of phone calls: it was the opposite.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It was the most freeing run of conversations I'd had in years. I wasn't broken, and I wasn't secretly bad at the thing I'd built my life around. I had hit a ceiling that every Implementer hits eventually, and the moment I understood that, I got to decide what I was going to do about it instead of just drowning in it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>More than once I caught myself apologizing to the person on the other end of the line, and then admitting that mostly I was just relieved to be commiserating with someone who had been there too.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Loving them on purpose\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>What I decided caught me off guard, because for the first time the answer wasn't more. I doubled down on loving my clients.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The ones I could pour into, I poured into harder than I ever had. The ones I couldn't love well, I stopped forcing it, and instead tried to help them see that maybe I wasn't the right person for them.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I want to be careful here, because I didn't fire anybody: I don't like the way people in our world talk about firing clients, because you made them a promise when they signed, and I'm not willing to walk that back lightly.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>But I did stop performing care I didn't feel, because faking it is worse than useless. If you don't actually give a damn, no toolkit in the world will cover for you, and the client can always tell. The strange part is that the work got richer as I did less of it. Every client I kept, I could sink all the way into, and the care I hadn't been able to fake before started showing up on its own once there was finally room for it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Back in the room\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>And I got a little obsessive about being fully present in the room, because that turned out to be where the whole job actually lives.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>We have a toolkit that can genuinely change a business, but it only works if you dig in, and you cannot dig in when you're spread thin across a hundred and twenty-five sessions. I still watch the videos. I still dig into the craft between sessions, but none of that is the work. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The work is what happens once I'm in the chair with my full attention on the people in front of me. Not long ago I was facilitating a meeting and I stopped in the middle of it and told one of the guys, you have something else to say. He looked at me, caught a little off guard, and asked how I knew. I told him the truth.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I could just feel that he had something else to say. That feeling only exists when I'm all the way in the room. During the transactional years I felt nothing at all, because there was no one home to feel it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Ninety\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>I do fewer sessions now than I did at my busiest, on purpose. It turned out that a hundred and twenty-five and a half was too many for me, and yes, people always ask about the half, as if the final half session was the one that broke me. I did a hundred last year. I want to do ninety this year.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>And I prepare completely differently. An hour the night before a meeting, an hour the morning of, so that by the time I walk in, I can dig all the way down and genuinely be there for the people who trusted me with their business.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The client who told me my work was crap did me one of the bigger favors of my career. I just wasn't ready, back then, to hear it as one.\u003Cbr>\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1151},[1152],{"sort":154,"content_link":1153},{"id":1083,"uri":1084,"url":1085,"name":1086,"slug":1087,"fields":1154,"language":197,"content_type":1162,"published_at":1104},{"bio":1155,"name":1156,"role":1157,"image":1158},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":1090,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},{"id":235,"name":236,"text":1086,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":241,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":1159,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[1160],{"sort":154,"asset":1161},{"id":1097,"url":1098,"name":1099,"path":1100,"size":1101,"width":684,"height":684,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":1102,"updated_at":1102,"description":26},{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1166},[],{"id":1168,"published_at":1169,"slug":1170,"name":1171,"uri":1172,"url":1173,"language":10,"created_at":1174,"updated_at":762,"author":1175,"content_type":1176,"seo":1177,"fields":1181,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01KYm46ncg7eR6GA4HvCjvhh6g","2026-07-28T10:28:00+00:00","protect-annual-season-eos-implementer","How to protect your annual season as an EOS® Implementer","blog/protect-annual-season-eos-implementer","https://www.success.co/blog/protect-annual-season-eos-implementer","2026-07-28T10:26:52+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":1178,"description":1179,"robots":26,"canonical_url":1173,"open_graph":1180},"How to protect your annual season as an EOS® Implementer — Success.co","By the third client of the week I was lecturing instead of listening. Here is how to reshape an annual season, and what to say when you ask.",{"title":1171,"description":1179,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":1173},{"image":1182,"title":1192,"author":1193,"schema":1195,"excerpt":1196,"summary":1197,"category":1199,"post_body":1207,"guest_author":1214,"sidebar_cta_text":1241,"sidebar_cta_title":1242,"sidebar_cta_button":1243},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":1183},[1184],{"sort":154,"asset":1185},{"id":1186,"url":1187,"name":1188,"path":1189,"size":1190,"width":161,"height":162,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":1191,"updated_at":1191,"description":26},"a_01kyM35HsyCkmWw4Ss379N6T67","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/Gemini_Generated_Image_cobx83cobx83cobx.png","Gemini Generated Image Cobx83Cobx83Cobx","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/Gemini_Generated_Image_cobx83cobx83cobx.png","7.78 MB","2026-07-28T10:08:48+00:00",{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1171},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1194},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1179},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":1198},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Rip can name the exact point in an annual season where his work stopped being good: the third client of the week, when he wasn't attentive, was short tempered, and lectured instead of guiding.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>For years he treated that as a character problem. It was a scheduling one, and the fix starts with counting how many annuals cluster in any single week between November and February, done in summer before clients lock their calendars.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Most clients can move and don't know it, because EOS® runs on a quarterly rhythm that owes nothing to a fiscal year. Rip gives the exact words he used, including the line that makes a no cost them nothing.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Nobody pushed back. They shrugged and said they could do that, because they're anxious for him to be effective in a room they invited him into.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Blocking days deliberately, before the annuals go in, is the second half of the fix. What a heavy season costs the client isn't Rip's presence, it's his patience.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1200},[1201],{"sort":154,"content_link":1202},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":1203,"language":197,"content_type":1206,"published_at":5},{"title":1204,"schema":1205},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1208},[1209],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":1210,"content_type":1213},{"text":1211},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":1212,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>I can tell you the exact point in an annual season where I stopped doing good work: it was the third client of the week.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I was still walking into the room, still standing at the front, still running the agenda. But I was very ineffective by then, and I did not need anybody to tell me. I was not attentive to what they were saying, pretty short tempered, and tended to lecture in an obnoxious way.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>For a long time I treated that as a personal failing, something to fix with more resolve and better recovery. It was a scheduling problem the whole time.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>What follows is what I actually did about it, including the words I used with clients, because that is the part everybody asks me for and the part nobody wants to improvise.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Start with the arithmetic, not with your stamina\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>A two-day annual takes two full days of your best attention. Three in a week means six days of work, and the third one lands on Friday and Saturday, at the very end of everything you have.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I levelled off at 20 to 25 clients and stayed there for a number of years. That is a healthy practice. It is also the point at which the annual season stops being something you manage and becomes something that happens to you, because every client whose fiscal year matches the calendar wants their annual in the same eight weeks.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So before you do anything else, go and count.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Pull up the window from November through February and count how many annuals are sitting in it. Then look at how they cluster: what matters is not the total, it is how many land in any single week. If the answer is three, you already know how the third one is going to go, because it goes that way for everyone.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Do this in the summer. I was talking recently with an Implementer who is already thinking about the season coming this fall, and he knows he will be working many weeks, five days or six. He is doing the right thing by looking at it now, because by October the clients have their own calendars locked and you are negotiating against everybody else's quarter.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Work out which annuals can move\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Not every client can move, but most can, and they do not know it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The reason is simple and it is worth being precise about when you raise it. The way we teach EOS®, it is a quarterly rhythm. It does not have to be tied to a fiscal year or a calendar year: the 90-day pulse works from wherever you start it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Plenty of leadership teams have never questioned why their annual sits in January. It is there because that is when they happened to start, or because January feels like the beginning of things. When you ask, some of them will realise it themselves before you finish the sentence.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The exception is the team that is hardwired to the calendar year because it is also their fiscal year. I had one of those, and I did not push. That client is not the problem, but three of that client in the same week is the problem, and you only need a handful to move to fix it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Several of mine went to June, July, August and September. Those months are not better in themselves, they are just empty, which is the whole point.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>What to say, and why each part of it is there\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>This is the conversation people build up in their heads. I want to give you the shape of it, because when I finally had it, it was far more ordinary than I had expected.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Start by telling them the truth about your calendar.\u003C/strong> I said that if they kept their annual in the winter, I would be in a position where I would be working constantly with a whole series of clients, and I was really concerned I was not going to be as effective for them as I should be.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Notice what that does: it does not open with a request, it opens with a consequence that lands on them.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Then explain that this is not personal to them.\u003C/strong> I said I was approaching them and a number of other clients with the same question, and that matters more than it looks. It tells them they have not been singled out as the difficult client, and it signals that you are reorganising a season rather than solving one awkward booking.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Give them the permission that makes it possible.\u003C/strong> This is where you say that the way we teach EOS is in a quarterly rhythm, and it does not have to be tied to a fiscal year or a calendar year. Without that sentence, moving the annual feels to them like breaking the method. With it, it is just a date.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Make the ask, and make it plainly.\u003C/strong> “If you feel you can move yours, I would be grateful if you would, because I want to be effective for you and I don't want to be worn out. If you can't, I'm going to be seeking that from others.”\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Two things are working there. You have said out loud that you do not want to be worn out, which is a human statement and not a professional weakness. And you have given them a no that costs them nothing, because you have already told them you are asking other people. A request that is easy to decline is much easier to accept.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Finish with what exhaustion actually costs them.\u003C/strong> This is the part I would not skip: I told them that I have learned that if I get exhausted I am not effective, I am not hearing everything, and I tend to be more of a lecturer than a teacher and a guide and a coach, which is less effective for them.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is specific, and specificity is what makes it credible. Anyone can say they would be tired. Naming exactly which parts of your work degrade first tells them you have thought about their session and not just your schedule.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Why they say yes\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>I expected resistance, I did not get any. They shrugged their shoulders and said, we can do that. Sure. What difference does that make?\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The reason is something we lose sight of when we are worried about looking unprofessional.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>This is a trusted advisor relationship: they invited you into the room because they want you in the room. They genuinely want to learn from you, they want you to hold them accountable, and they want to get better at what they do. But they are anxious for you to be effective, and do not want to pay your fee and have you be only half engaged.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Once you see it that way, asking to move an annual stops being a favour you are requesting and becomes you protecting the thing they are paying for. The response I got was cooperative and supportive, and I think it was cooperative because the ask was obviously in their interest as well as mine.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Block the days before the clients get there\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Moving annuals thins the season. It does not empty it, and it should not. The second move is the one that keeps the thinner season from quietly refilling.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Even in the intense part of the year, at year end and early in the new year, I had to deliberately put several days in a row on my calendar where I was not going to work.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The word that matters there is deliberately. Not the days that happen to be left over, but days you place first, before anything else goes in.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Then you have to defend them, and defending them has a price. If holding those days meant pushing a client's annual from the second week of January to the fourth week of January, or into the first week of February, then that is what I did. That is an uncomfortable email to send, and it is the entire mechanism. Rest that only exists in the gaps is not protected, because a season like this does not leave gaps.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The part of the job that goes first\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>There is a reason I put \"I did not patiently reteach\" in that list of what happens to me by the third client, and it is worth pulling out, because it is the piece of the work most likely to disappear when you are running on empty.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>One thing we have learned, and Gino learned it long before the rest of us were ever considered as Implementers, is that if you really follow this particular set of management practices with consistency, and you use the tools consistently the way you are taught to use them, you will achieve better results.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>And yet it has been hard for clients over the years to do that: they get distracted, they wander off the page. And that is not because they are careless, but because a business generates enough noise to pull anyone off a discipline.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I was recently with a client I have had for seven years, and I had to reteach them, for the fifteenth time, how to run a Level 10 Meeting™. There was nothing new revealed to them going through the tool, they do know how to run a Level 10 Meeting. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>What they needed was to be reminded of the importance of sticking with the disciplines.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is the job. Not the first explanation, the fifteenth one, delivered with the same patience as the first.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Now think about what that requires of you, and what happens to it when you are on your sixth working day of the week. Patient reteaching is the highest-energy thing an Implementer does, and it is the thing that quietly converts into lecturing when you have nothing left. You will still cover the material. It will land as impatience rather than as guidance, and the client will hear that you think they should already know this, which is the precise opposite of what makes a reminder work.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So when I say a heavy season costs the client something, this is the specific thing it costs them. Not your presence, but your patience.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>What goes wrong\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Waiting until the season is already booked.\u003C/strong> By the time three annuals are sitting in one week, every fix is a rescheduling conversation instead of a planning one. Run the count in summer.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Asking for the move without naming the cost to them.\u003C/strong> If you only say that you will be tired, you have made it about you, and a client who likes you will still say yes but will not really understand why. Tell them what stops working in the room.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Dressing it up.\u003C/strong> I did not spin this or build a client-benefit story around it. I said what was true, which happened to also be the client's benefit. Anything more polished than that invites them to look for the real reason.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Treating the calendar block as a nice idea.\u003C/strong> If the days are not on the calendar before the annuals are, they will not exist. And if you will not move a session to protect them, they will not survive contact with December.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Assuming a no means the conversation failed.\u003C/strong> One of my clients could not move, and that was fine. You do not need everyone. You need enough of them that no week has a third client in it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Fixing the season and leaving the practice unchanged.\u003C/strong> If you are consistently at capacity, moving annuals buys you room but does not answer why every week is full. That is a different conversation, and it is worth having separately.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>What you get\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>You get a season you can run at full attention, which means the third client of the week gets the same Implementer as the first one.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You get days in the middle of the heaviest stretch of the year that are genuinely yours, because you put them there before anyone else could.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>And you get something less obvious. You have modelled, in front of a leadership team, the exact behaviour you spend every quarter asking them to adopt. You looked at your own capacity honestly, identified the issue, and solved it rather than putting duct tape over it for another year.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I did not enjoy discovering that the fix was this ordinary. I had spent a long time treating it as a question of character. It was a calendar.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1215},[1216],{"sort":154,"content_link":1217},{"id":1218,"uri":1219,"url":1220,"name":1221,"slug":1222,"fields":1223,"language":197,"content_type":1239,"published_at":1240},"c_01Kym32ZNt19Ez6P52p2wPgb71","contributor/rip-tilden","https://www.success.co/contributor/rip-tilden","Rip Tilden","rip-tilden",{"bio":1224,"name":1226,"role":1227,"image":1228},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":1225,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>Rip has taught more than 80 companies to implement the Entrepreneurial Operating System. His passion for learning and teaching extends to the boardroom and the classroom as well. He serves as Chairman of the Board of Andesa Services in Allentown, PA, and served for eight years as a Project Faculty Member at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. With his business partner, Tim Thomas, Rip is the Co-author of Leading on Purpose, Sage Advice and Practical Tools for Becoming the Complete Leader.  He is the proud father of three grown children, and he and his wife, Beth, love spending time with their ten grandchildren.\u003C/p>",{"id":235,"name":236,"text":1221,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":241,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":1229,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[1230],{"sort":154,"asset":1231},{"id":1232,"url":1233,"name":1234,"path":1235,"size":1236,"width":1237,"height":1237,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":1238,"updated_at":1238,"description":26},"a_01KYM34E18N9P7skX6Yc8xT7vY","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1516270773229.jpeg","1516270773229","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1516270773229.jpeg","8.61 KB","241","2026-07-28T10:08:11+00:00",{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},"2026-07-28T10:10:36+00:00",{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1244},[],{"id":1246,"published_at":1247,"slug":1248,"name":1249,"uri":1250,"url":1251,"language":10,"created_at":1252,"updated_at":762,"author":1253,"content_type":1254,"seo":1255,"fields":1259,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01Kym3wcQPY0Zs8ShTTXJDK1HQ","2026-07-28T10:26:00+00:00","seventeen-years-in-every-hard-call-i-have-made-was-about-a-person","Seventeen years in, every hard call I have made was about a person","blog/seventeen-years-in-every-hard-call-i-have-made-was-about-a-person","https://www.success.co/blog/seventeen-years-in-every-hard-call-i-have-made-was-about-a-person","2026-07-28T10:21:16+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":1256,"description":1257,"robots":26,"canonical_url":1251,"open_graph":1258},"Seventeen years in, every hard call I have made was about a person — Success.co","Seventeen years in, Rip Tilden has found that every hard decision is a people decision, including the ones about himself.",{"title":1249,"description":1257,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":1251},{"image":1260,"title":1264,"author":1265,"schema":1267,"excerpt":1268,"summary":1269,"category":1271,"post_body":1279,"guest_author":1286,"sidebar_cta_text":1299,"sidebar_cta_title":1300,"sidebar_cta_button":1301},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":1261},[1262],{"sort":154,"asset":1263},{"id":1186,"url":1187,"name":1188,"path":1189,"size":1190,"width":161,"height":162,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":1191,"updated_at":1191,"description":26},{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1249},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1266},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1257},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":1270},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Rip has found that clients ask for firm guidance directly, then freeze when the guidance turns out to be a people decision, often about someone who helped get them there.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>He is blunt about what sits underneath it: if you don't want to be in the room, they probably don't want you there either, and they can feel it anyway.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>He protected family time and vacations from day one, before there was any evidence the practice could support it, which is the habit most new Implementers drop in year one.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Two chains of clients, in wealth management and estate planning, arrived through referral rather than strategy. Doing great work was Rip's whole business development plan.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Rip's mother gave him the through line in seventh grade: people know. They can tell whether accountability comes from caring or from ego.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1272},[1273],{"sort":154,"content_link":1274},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":1275,"language":197,"content_type":1278,"published_at":5},{"title":1276,"schema":1277},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1280},[1281],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":1282,"content_type":1285},{"text":1283},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":1284,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>The thing that surprised me early on, and has kept surprising me for close to 900 sessions, is not something about the tools.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It is that a lot of my clients genuinely wanted firm guidance. They wanted to know how to implement EOS® more broadly, how to run their companies more effectively, how to get better results. They asked for it directly, and then they were petrified of making the tough decisions that would actually make it a reality.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Almost always, those decisions are people decisions. There are occasionally tough operating decisions, but the fact is, it is always all about the people.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I have watched capable leaders sit with that for quarters at a time. Not because they are weak, and not because they do not understand what needs to happen. They understand perfectly: it is a person, and the person is often someone who helped get them here.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I would like to tell you I watched all of this from a position of some detachment, but I did not. I have made these calls myself, in my own team and with clients, and knowing exactly what needed to happen has never once made one of them easy.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The ones on my own team\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>My business partner is Tim Thomas, who is also an EOS® Implementer. We have operated in parallel through the years we have been implementing EOS®, and we also have a separate leadership development practice together. We have never had a lot of employees, but we have had a few.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>In a couple of cases we had to make tough calls about administrative assistants who just were not working out.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Both of them had come to work for us out of relationships from the past, which is exactly the trap I watch clients fall into, and it was difficult for precisely the reason it is always difficult. The problem was never their character, it was the seat.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>We made the calls: we are in a better place for it, and we have other team members in those seats now who are great folks.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I do not tell that story to demonstrate resolve. I tell it because I sit in rooms every week asking leadership teams to do the same thing, and the honest position from which to ask is not from above it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The clients I should not have taken\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>The same pattern showed up on the client side, and there it was tangled up with money.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Like everybody else, I faced the challenge of getting utilisation early on. I needed clients so I could get paid, so I took some non-target market clients, like most of us do. I wanted session reps specifically, and I wanted the invoices to go out.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Gino said from day one not to waste your time on non-target market clients, because they consume your time and your energy, and while you are spending both, you are not out finding the clients who would actually energise you. I agreed with him for years before I acted like I did. It is easy to say, not so easy to do when you need to pay the bills.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It was not a pure journey for me until I was five or six years in. Then there was the one that could not be navigated.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I was at a QCE with Gino, early enough that there were maybe 75 Implementers in the room. I described a client of mine: he was a crazy maker, pretending to implement EOS® but not doing it, and on top of that he kept making unrealistic requests of me about things he hoped I could help him do in his business that had nothing to do with the work.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I laid it out and asked Gino what he would recommend. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cblockquote>\u003Cp>“Run”.\u003C/p>\u003C/blockquote>\n\n\u003Cp>He was right, and I actually I fired that client. Some situations really are that clear, and the reason we keep them complicated is that the clear answer costs us something.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The number is smaller than you would expect\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Across 90-plus clients, close to 100, I have had to fire client teams two or three times. Four or five over the whole span if I count generously.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is a very small number, and it is not because I am unusually good at qualifying people at the front door.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Most of the time, if I am being loyal to the way we teach EOS®, if I am being pure in teaching EOS® with my clients, the ones who really do not want to do it will self-select out. I do not have to fire them: the discipline of teaching the method properly is the screening mechanism. You filter through the work, week after week, and the people who do not want the accountability find their own way to the exit.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>And when it does come to a call, there is one thing I would say to anyone sitting on it, which has nothing to do with the client's behaviour. If you do not want to be in the room, there is a decent chance they do not want you in the room either, and they will get that vibe from you anyway.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is the part that took me longest to accept. A people decision is almost never a secret you are keeping. It is usually a conclusion two people have already reached separately and neither one has said out loud.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The one I decided on from the start\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>There is one of these I handled well from the beginning, and the reason is worth being precise about, because the credit is not where it first appears.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I had a corporate life before I became an Implementer in 2009 and, in that world you tend to establish a pattern of regular vacations. You carve out time that is set aside for family, for being together. That pattern was already wired into me by the time I started my practice.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>But having a pattern and keeping one are different things, and this is the part I would want any new Implementer to hear. Plenty of people come out of a corporate life with good habits and drop every one of them in the first year of building something of their own, because the pressure to be available makes the habit look like a luxury you have not earned yet.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I kept it up, and I kept it up deliberately. I made room for family gatherings and for travel with my wife right from the start, before there was any evidence the practice would support it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So I never spent my early years running continuously until I was going to drop. That was a decision, made early, at the point where it was least obviously affordable.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Annual season found the gap anyway, once I levelled off at 20 to 25 clients, and fixing it turned out to require exactly the same thing as every other decision in this article: saying an uncomfortable thing out loud to people who had every reason to hear it well. I have written separately about\u003Ca href=\"https://www.success.co/blog/protect-annual-season-eos-implementer\">\u003Cu>how to reshape an annual season and the words I used with clients\u003C/u>\u003C/a>, because that one is practical enough to deserve its own piece.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>But the underlying shape is identical: it was a people decision. It just happened to be about me.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>What all of it produced\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>I never would have predicted, when I started, that I would end up with a chain of clients in a couple of different industries.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I got a wealth management client early on. We clicked, and I worked with them for seven or eight years. Along the way they talked about EOS®, and about me as an Implementer, to other wealth management firms who were not direct competitors of theirs, either because they were somewhere else geographically or because they served a different target market. Those firms became clients. I still have several today.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Then it happened all over again in estate planning, an entirely different specialisation, for exactly the same reason.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Neither chain was a strategy. The single most important business development practice you can employ is doing great work, and I did not appreciate how literally true that is until I looked back and found that most of my practice had arrived through a door I never built.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Which brings me back to where this started, because the two things are the same thing.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>My mother gave me the best leadership lesson I ever got, and she gave it to me in seventh grade, when I was worried about what the other kids in middle school thought of me. She told me to relax, and said:\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cblockquote>\u003Cp>“People know.”\u003C/p>\u003C/blockquote>\n\n\u003Cp>I asked what she meant. She said, don't you know the kids in school who are the good guys and the ones who are the jerks? I said yes. She said, well, why wouldn't people know that about you? Just don't be a jerk, be a good guy.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The same thing is true in the workplace: people know if you are authentic, they know if you really care about them. When you are holding them accountable with tough love in a session, they know whether it is coming from a position of caring about them or whether it is a performance driven by ego. It is not difficult for them to perceive, and they may never say it out loud.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Which means the hard people calls and the referrals are not two separate parts of building a practice. Making the call you have been avoiding, in your own team or with a client or about your own calendar, is what genuine looks like from the outside. And people know.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Seventeen years, and I still have not had a hard decision that was really about the business.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1287},[1288],{"sort":154,"content_link":1289},{"id":1218,"uri":1219,"url":1220,"name":1221,"slug":1222,"fields":1290,"language":197,"content_type":1298,"published_at":1240},{"bio":1291,"name":1292,"role":1293,"image":1294},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":1225,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},{"id":235,"name":236,"text":1221,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":241,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":1295,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[1296],{"sort":154,"asset":1297},{"id":1232,"url":1233,"name":1234,"path":1235,"size":1236,"width":1237,"height":1237,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":1238,"updated_at":1238,"description":26},{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1302},[],{"id":1304,"published_at":1305,"slug":1306,"name":1307,"uri":1308,"url":1309,"language":10,"created_at":1310,"updated_at":484,"author":1311,"content_type":1312,"seo":1313,"fields":1317,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01ky4DmhNghFRtWM3f6z8C1MD9","2026-07-23T11:55:00+00:00","how-to-build-an-eos-implementer-practice-from-boot-camp-to-your-300th-session","How to build an EOS® Implementer practice from boot camp to your 300th session","blog/how-to-build-an-eos-implementer-practice-from-boot-camp-to-your-300th-session","https://www.success.co/blog/how-to-build-an-eos-implementer-practice-from-boot-camp-to-your-300th-session","2026-07-22T08:03:54+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":1314,"description":1315,"robots":26,"canonical_url":1309,"open_graph":1316},"How to build an EOS® Implementer practice from boot camp to your 300th session — Success.co","Ten years and thirteen hundred sessions in, Ted Bradshaw breaks down the framework that gets an EOS® Implementer practice off the ground, and what actually keeps it standing past session three hundred.",{"title":1307,"description":1315,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":1309},{"image":1318,"title":1328,"author":1329,"schema":1331,"excerpt":1332,"summary":1333,"category":1335,"post_body":1343,"guest_author":1350,"sidebar_cta_text":1376,"sidebar_cta_title":1377,"sidebar_cta_button":1378},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":1319},[1320],{"sort":154,"asset":1321},{"id":1322,"url":1323,"name":1324,"path":1325,"size":1326,"width":360,"height":361,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":1327,"updated_at":1327,"description":26},"a_01kY2268YCaNC85Vfb152XBdZj","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/generated-image-(14).png","Generated Image (14)","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/generated-image-(14).png","1.47 MB","2026-07-21T10:05:23+00:00",{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1307},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1330},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1315},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":1334},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Ten years and 1,300 sessions in, Ted Bradshaw sees one pattern: a practice holds together based on how much you commit to the work, not on how favourable your starting conditions were.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Reconnect with why you started. Of ~200 Implementers he's trained, he puts the purely money-motivated at around 10%. Money is a byproduct, not a foundation.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Expect the transition. Almost everyone entering boot camp is navigating a significant life change, and naming it makes the doubt something you can work with.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Put in the reps. You'll get the tag-team L10™ wrong even with clients signed, and there's no skipping to session fifty. When you're corrected, let it land instead of managing it.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Support is real, but ownership sits with you, not the framework. When the practice stalls, ask \"have I done what I was told works?\" first.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>A plateau at 300 sessions is a normal stage, not a ceiling. The doubt is evidence the work still matters to you.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1336},[1337],{"sort":154,"content_link":1338},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":1339,"language":197,"content_type":1342,"published_at":5},{"title":1340,"schema":1341},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1344},[1345],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":1346,"content_type":1349},{"text":1347},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":1348,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>Ten years in, thirteen hundred sessions in, and I still see the same pattern in every Implementer I train, whether they're prepping for boot camp or sitting somewhere past their three hundredth session wondering if the next one is going to be the one that breaks their confidence.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The conditions are never identical. The market, the timing, the person's background, whether EOS® is a known name in their territory or a complete unknown, all of that shifts from one Implementer to the next. What doesn't shift is this: the practice holds together or it doesn't based on how much a person commits to doing the actual work, not on how favorable their starting conditions were.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I train new Implementers heading into boot camp, roughly seven or eight years of doing that now, somewhere around two hundred of them. I was just back with a new cohort last week. And what follows is not a motivational pep talk, it's the framework I actually use with them and with myself, at every stage from the first phone call you're too scared to make to the doubt that creeps in a thousand sessions later.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Audit your starting conditions before you commit\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Before boot camp ever starts, there's a set of questions worth asking honestly, and I mean before you sign the check, not after. Do you have a great story? Do you have real passion for this work? Do you have a network? And the right network?. Those are the characteristics we look at coming in, and nobody walks in equally strong across all four.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>When I was heading toward my own boot camp, there was a program that existed before it called Basecamp, videos and Implementer guides that told you exactly what to do to get ready. I didn't wait to see if boot camp would fix my gaps for me. I did the prescribed work ahead of time, in a market where nobody had even heard of EOS®, and I walked in with thirteen clients already signed because I'd done that work rather than assumed the system would hand it to me.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Here's the actual step: before you commit, take honest stock of which of those four things you're missing, and go start building it now, not after boot camp confirms it for you. If you can't tell your own story in a way that lands, that's the gap. If the passion is really just curiosity, that's the gap. If you don't have the network, that's the gap. If you have a network but nobody in it looks like your target market, that's the gap . Name it in writing: you're going to need the answer within your first year regardless, so there's no advantage in waiting to find out.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Build the right network, not just a network\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Every new Implementer needs a network, after all we're in a people business. But there are two separate questions here, and most people only ask the first one. The first question is do you have a network at all? The second, and the one that actually matters, is whether it's the right network, meaning a network that overlaps with your actual target market.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>If you don't have that network yet, and plenty of great Implementers start without one, there's exactly one way to get it: build it. Nobody hands it to you, and you proactively go find it through whatever channel fits how you work: LinkedIn, referral relationships, industry groups, wherever your target market actually spends time. This is hard, unglamorous work, and there's no way around doing it yourself.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>People often build a broad network of anyone willing to connect, feel good about the growing number, and never check whether any of those connections actually sit inside their target market. A big network that isn't the right network will not produce clients. Before you count your connections as progress, ask specifically whether they're people who could plausibly become your buyer or introduce you to one.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Reconnect with your reason before you pick up the phone\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>This business is relational, and we do genuinely profound work with genuine impact on the people we sit across from. That matters practically, not just philosophically, because you cannot fast-track relationship trust. There's no shortcut that gets you there faster than actually building it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>When things get hard, and they will, human nature pulls you inward. The discipline is pulling yourself back outward instead, and specifically back to the reason you started. If the honest answer was \"this looked like a better way to make money than my day job,\" that's a rough foundation, because plenty of other paths make money too.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The money is real, it's a genuine byproduct of doing this well, but it sits well down the list of reasons that actually sustain you through the hard stretches. When you lose sight of why you started, you start losing the parts of yourself that make the relational connection possible in the first place, which is the entire engine of this business.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>In the two hundred or so Implementers I've trained, I'd put the number who make it through core value screening purely money-motivated at around ten percent, and most of those don't make it to boot camp at all. The other ninety percent came in because they genuinely wanted to help, with the income as the byproduct.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>If you're in a low moment right now, doubting whether to make the next call, this is the actual diagnostic question: what was the pull that got you here in the first place, and is it still true.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Expect the transition, and use it instead of hiding from it\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Here's something I now open every boot camp with, because I believe it's true for essentially everyone who sits in that room: they're in the middle of some significant transition in their life. A failed business, getting let go after twenty five years somewhere, a big monetary exit that left them wondering what's next…\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Whatever the specific shape, there's almost always a real transition underneath the decision to become an Implementer, and that transition carries real weight into the work.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I didn't always name this out loud to new cohorts. Now I do, right at the start, and it changes the room every time: people realize they're not the only one carrying that weight. It becomes a shared starting point instead of something everyone's privately managing alone.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Use this yourself, whatever stage you're at. If you're doubting your decision, or doubting your next session, or doubting the next year of your practice, it's worth asking honestly whether that doubt is about the work itself or about the transition you were already navigating when you signed up. Naming it doesn't make the doubt disappear, but it does make it something you can actually work with instead of something that quietly erodes your confidence from underneath.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Put in the reps, every single time\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Everything above gets you into the practice, none of it gets you good at running it. The same rigor, discipline, and commitment that built your practice has to go into running a great session, and there's genuinely no shortcut through this part either.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You will run your tag-team ninety minute L10™ practice in boot camp and get something wrong, even with real clients already lined up. That's not a sign you're not cut out for this, it's the actual process. Somewhere around your fiftieth session, things that felt entirely new will start to feel familiar. Before that number, expect to be surprised, repeatedly, by things you thought you already understood on paper. There's no way to skip forward to the fiftieth session. You have to run the first forty nine.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>This applies at every level of the work, not just the L10™. Focus Days, quarterlies, annuals, the judgment call of when it's time to graduate a client rather than keep them, all of it gets built through repetition, not through reading about it correctly beforehand. When you get corrected, whether by a trainer in boot camp or by a client's reaction in year six, let it land instead of managing it. Arguing with accurate feedback just slows down how fast you improve.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>What actually goes wrong at each stage\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>A few patterns I see repeatedly, worth naming directly.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>People wait for the franchise to take care of them: our agreement went from a single page to roughly a hundred and sixty over the years, and somewhere in that growth, I think some people absorbed the message that the system would handle more of the work than it actually does.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It won't.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>There's support at every step, resources, calls, guides for what's worked a thousand times before, but ownership of the outcome sits with you, not the framework.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>People look outward for something different before they've actually done what's prescribed. If your practice isn't growing the way you want, the honest first question isn't \"what's broken about this system?\" It's \"have I actually done what I was told works?\" Most of the time, the gap is there before you need to look anywhere else.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>People treat the three hundred session mark, or any later plateau, as a red flag rather than a normal stage. A thousand-session Implementer questioning their next client is not fundamentally different from someone questioning their hundredth session. It's a different environment, different experience, different expectations, but the underlying work required from the individual hasn't changed.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>If you're past three hundred sessions and doubting the next one, that doubt is not evidence you've hit a ceiling. It's evidence you're still doing work that matters enough to you to doubt.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>What you get if you actually run this\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>None of this makes the work easy. It was never going to be easy, and if you're doing it for a reason deeper than the paycheck, you already know that. What it does is make the hard parts survivable and repeatable instead of destabilizing.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You audit your gaps honestly instead of hoping they resolve themselves. You build a network aligned to your actual market instead of a large one that produces nothing. You keep the real reason you started close enough to reach for it when the work gets heavy. You expect the transition weight instead of being blindsided by it. You put in the reps without expecting to skip to session fifty. And when the doubt shows back up, whether at session ten or session thirteen hundred, you recognize it for what it actually is: the same job, wearing different conditions, still waiting on the same commitment from you that got you through the first one.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Chr>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cem>This article is based on Episode 5 of the newly launched Practice Builder Podcast, featuring Expert Implementer Ted Bradshaw  in conversation with Chris Beer. You can listen to the full episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, or watch the full conversation on YouTube.\u003C/em>\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1351},[1352],{"sort":154,"content_link":1353},{"id":1354,"uri":1355,"url":1356,"name":1357,"slug":1358,"fields":1359,"language":197,"content_type":1374,"published_at":1375},"c_01kY22dye02ke6bP6EDp863TDG","contributor/ted-bradshaw","https://www.success.co/contributor/ted-bradshaw","Ted Bradshaw","ted-bradshaw",{"bio":1360,"name":1362,"role":1363,"image":1364},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":1361,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>Ted Bradshaw served as an executive with Xerox and IBM, then left the Fortune 500 world to explore the thrills of entrepreneurship. What he found was a long string of success that looked great on the surface. But underneath it all, he felt anxious, exhausted, and stressed, chasing money wherever it led and wondering why he never felt fulfilled.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Along his journey, Ted gained valuable insight into how a person can achieve fulfillment in all aspects of life and he shares those insights with his best-selling book, \u003Cem>Stop Chasing Squirrels, \u003C/em>and now has brought them into a transformational program here: \u003Cem>The Driven to Guided Beta Program\u003C/em>.\u003C/p>",{"id":235,"name":236,"text":1357,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":241,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":1365,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[1366],{"sort":154,"asset":1367},{"id":1368,"url":1369,"name":1370,"path":1371,"size":1372,"width":684,"height":684,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":1373,"updated_at":1373,"description":26},"a_01KY22fdA18EFS78xKmmwwEfAM","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1646495668891-(1).jpeg","1646495668891 (1)","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1646495668891-(1).jpeg","19.96 KB","2026-07-21T10:10:22+00:00",{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},"2026-07-21T10:10:28+00:00",{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1379},[],{"id":1381,"published_at":1305,"slug":1382,"name":1383,"uri":1384,"url":1385,"language":10,"created_at":1386,"updated_at":484,"author":1387,"content_type":1388,"seo":1389,"fields":1393,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01ky4DkHbpSvA83n8kaA3c2d10","thirteen-clients-couldnt-teach-me-how-to-run-the-room","Thirteen clients couldn't teach me how to run the room","blog/thirteen-clients-couldnt-teach-me-how-to-run-the-room","https://www.success.co/blog/thirteen-clients-couldnt-teach-me-how-to-run-the-room","2026-07-22T08:03:21+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":1390,"description":1391,"robots":26,"canonical_url":1385,"open_graph":1392},"Thirteen clients couldn't teach me how to run the room — Success.co","Ted Bradshaw walked into his own EOS® boot camp with thirteen clients already signed, in a market that had never heard of EOS®, and still got the tag-team L10™ practice wrong, but the correction that followed taught him more than the pipeline ever did.",{"title":1383,"description":1391,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":1385},{"image":1394,"title":1398,"author":1399,"schema":1401,"excerpt":1402,"summary":1403,"category":1405,"post_body":1413,"guest_author":1420,"sidebar_cta_text":1433,"sidebar_cta_title":1434,"sidebar_cta_button":1435},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":1395},[1396],{"sort":154,"asset":1397},{"id":1322,"url":1323,"name":1324,"path":1325,"size":1326,"width":360,"height":361,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":1327,"updated_at":1327,"description":26},{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1383},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1400},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1391},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":1404},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Ted Bradshaw started boot camp in a market where no one had heard of EOS®, so he had to prove the market existed before he could prove himself in it.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Working from Basecamp (now the Academy), he trusted the prescription and did exactly what it told him, one step at a time, with no local community and no warm introductions to lean on.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>He walked in with thirteen clients already signed, and assumed a solved pipeline meant he was mostly ready.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>He got \"the 90\" wrong anyway, conflating his Issues List with something it wasn't, and couldn't quietly undo it mid-exercise.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>His trainer Paton named the mistake directly, and rather than arguing or blaming nerves, he let the correction land.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Building a pipeline and running a room turned out to be two entirely different competencies, and proving one told him almost nothing about the other.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Two hundred Implementers trained and 1,300 sessions later, he says the same thing still separates people: trusting the process enough to make mistakes in it, and taking the correction instead of managing it.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1406},[1407],{"sort":154,"content_link":1408},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":1409,"language":197,"content_type":1412,"published_at":5},{"title":1410,"schema":1411},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1414},[1415],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":1416,"content_type":1419},{"text":1417},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":1418,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>I signed up for boot camp in a market where nobody had heard of EOS®. Not \"heard of it and wasn't sure,\" genuinely never heard of it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>There was no easy nod of recognition when I brought it up in conversation, no shortcut past the \"what exactly is this\" question. Every geography since has had it easier in one specific way: the name itself does some of the work now. Mine didn't. I had to prove the market before I could prove myself in it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Before I ever sat in a boot camp seat, there was a program called Basecamp. It's had two names since (it's the Academy now, third iteration), but back then it was Basecamp: videos Gino recorded himself, a stack of Implementer guides, and a prescription for what to do next if you wanted to walk into boot camp with something real already built. I didn't know if any of it would work. I decided to trust it anyway and do exactly what it told me to do, one step at a time, without much evidence beyond the fact that it had worked for the people who came before me.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>There was no community holding my hand through that part either. I wasn't trading notes with other Implementers in my area, because there weren't any. I wasn't fielding warm introductions from people who already understood what EOS® was, because nobody in my market did. It was closer to cold conversations, one at a time, explaining a framework from scratch to people who had no reference point for it and no reason yet to trust me with it. Basecamp told me what to do. It didn't make the doing any less solitary.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>By the time boot camp actually started, I had thirteen clients lined up. Thirteen real companies who had agreed to let me run their EOS® practice before I had run a single official session.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That's not a brag. It's the setup for how humbling the next part was.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Getting the 90 wrong anyway\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Thirteen clients should have made me feel ready. It didn't, not entirely, and boot camp has a way of finding exactly the gap you didn't know you had.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>There's a tag-team exercise where new Implementers practice running an L10™ with each other. Ninety minutes, live, in front of your peers and your trainer.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I still call it \"the 90,\" and everyone who has been through it knows exactly what those two words mean. You know the agenda, you've watched it modeled, you've read the guide: none of that fully prepares you for running it yourself with the clock actually moving.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I got it wrong.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Not because I didn't know the sequence, I actually conflated my Issues List with something it wasn't. And once you're thirty minutes into a live ninety-minute exercise, there is no quiet way to undo that. You just keep going and hope it resolves itself before the clock runs out. It didn't.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That's the part I didn't expect walking in with thirteen signed clients in my back pocket. I had assumed that having the pipeline solved meant I was mostly there. Boot camp has a specific way of showing you that building a pipeline and running a room are two entirely different competencies, and having proven one tells you almost nothing about the other.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The correction\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Paton was running my boot camp, and he was quick to tell me exactly what I'd done. Not unkind about it, but direct: here's what happened in that room, here's what that actually was, versus what you thought it was.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>There's a particular kind of exposed feeling in having thirteen real clients waiting for you on the other side of boot camp, and realizing in that room that you have real work still to do before you're the Implementer those thirteen companies think they hired. I had proven I could build. I had not yet proven I could run the session itself, and the gap between those two things was suddenly very visible, to me and to everyone watching.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I could have argued with the feedback, found a reason it wasn't quite fair, chalked it up to nerves. I didn't. I let it land, because arguing with correct feedback doesn't make you less wrong, it just makes you slower to fix it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The lesson that never left\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>I've trained something like two hundred Implementers since that boot camp, and I've been back with new cohorts as recently as last week. What I keep noticing, cohort after cohort, has nothing to do with content. Everybody gets the same guides, the same videos, the same prescription I got from Basecamp. What actually separates people isn't what they walked in knowing. It's whether they trust the process enough to throw themselves into it, mistakes included, and whether they take the correction when it comes instead of managing it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That's the same thing that got thirteen clients through my own boot camp week and out the other side intact. Not that I had it figured out going in, I didn't. It's that I'd done the preparation I was given, and when I got the 90 wrong in front of everyone, I let Paton's correction land instead of protecting myself from it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Ten years and thirteen hundred sessions later, that's still the whole job, just applied to different things at this stage instead of the tag-team exercise. The conditions keep changing. The room is never quite the same twice. What Peyton corrected in me during a ninety minute practice round is not so different from what shows up in a real session a decade in, just wearing a different costume. Do the work you're given before you're told to do it. Take the correction when it comes, however it arrives. Then go run the next one.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Chr>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cem>This article is based on Episode 5 of the newly launched Practice Builder Podcast, featuring Expert Implementer Ted Bradshaw  in conversation with Chris Beer. You can listen to the full episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, or watch the full conversation on YouTube.\u003C/em>\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1421},[1422],{"sort":154,"content_link":1423},{"id":1354,"uri":1355,"url":1356,"name":1357,"slug":1358,"fields":1424,"language":197,"content_type":1432,"published_at":1375},{"bio":1425,"name":1426,"role":1427,"image":1428},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":1361,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},{"id":235,"name":236,"text":1357,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":241,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":1429,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[1430],{"sort":154,"asset":1431},{"id":1368,"url":1369,"name":1370,"path":1371,"size":1372,"width":684,"height":684,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":1373,"updated_at":1373,"description":26},{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1436},[],{"id":1438,"published_at":1439,"slug":1440,"name":1441,"uri":1442,"url":1443,"language":10,"created_at":1444,"updated_at":1039,"author":1445,"content_type":1446,"seo":1447,"fields":1451,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01Kxr0M2Rs6xrgHQceE62vgjs2","2026-07-17T12:27:00+00:00","people-has-always-been-my-thing-building-a-practice-taught-me-the-rest-copy","Grit gets you started, but systems are what keep you going.","blog/people-has-always-been-my-thing-building-a-practice-taught-me-the-rest-copy","https://www.success.co/blog/people-has-always-been-my-thing-building-a-practice-taught-me-the-rest-copy","2026-07-17T12:25:34+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":1448,"description":1449,"robots":26,"canonical_url":1443,"open_graph":1450},"Grit gets you started, but systems are what keep you going. — Success.co","CJ's honest answer to running a practice this size: grit gets you started, but systems are what keep you going.",{"title":1441,"description":1449,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":1443},{"image":1452,"title":1462,"author":1463,"schema":1465,"excerpt":1466,"summary":1467,"category":1469,"post_body":1477,"guest_author":1484,"sidebar_cta_text":1512,"sidebar_cta_title":1513,"sidebar_cta_button":1514},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":1453},[1454],{"sort":154,"asset":1455},{"id":1456,"url":1457,"name":1458,"path":1459,"size":1460,"width":360,"height":361,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":1461,"updated_at":1461,"description":26},"a_01kwXsk2NgkF74Mg1An0erm2b2","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/generated-image-(13).png","Generated Image (13)","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/generated-image-(13).png","1.65 MB","2026-07-07T08:02:26+00:00",{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1441},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1464},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1449},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":1468},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>CJ runs on a strict priority hierarchy: existing clients first, prospects and referrals second, everything else after, backed by a 24-hour email rule.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>The 4-2-1 system only works because the priorities underneath it are already clear, and she picks activities she'll actually show up for.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Before hiring, she does the math: a session room assistant cost less than the ~250 hours a year it saved, so the decision made itself.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>CJ uses Delegate and Elevate™ as a diagnostic tool, not a one-time values exercise, especially on visionaries quietly hitting a wall.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>The trap is the \"good at but don't like\" bucket, where ~95% of leaders park their time because it's comfortable enough to keep doing.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>When a client melts down mid-quarter, don't just let them vent, hand them a tangible next step, or you're just adding another layer of duct tape.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1470},[1471],{"sort":154,"content_link":1472},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":1473,"language":197,"content_type":1476,"published_at":5},{"title":1474,"schema":1475},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1478},[1479],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":1480,"content_type":1483},{"text":1481},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":1482,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>How do I run a practice of this size without losing my mind? The honest answer is that grit gets you started, but systems are what keep you going.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>When you are managing a high volume of clients, you cannot rely on spontaneous energy. You need a framework that runs predictably every single day. This is how I actually run my practice, not the highlight reel version.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The four, two, one system starts with knowing your priorities\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>I talk about the four, two, one system a lot, but the numbers themselves are not the point.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The system only works because I have already done the harder work of knowing what my priorities actually are, so I am not guessing which activities deserve my time.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>In my practice, that starts with a strict hierarchy. Existing clients come first, always. Anything that affects someone I already serve jumps the line. Prospects and referrals come second, because a sense of urgency matters and I want to help fellow implementers close the loop when they send someone my way. Everything else follows after that.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I also run a 24-hour rule on email. Every message gets some form of response within a day, even if it is just Jill letting someone know I am in session and will follow up in the morning. That rule only works because the priorities underneath it are already clear. Without that order, you are just reacting to whatever feels loudest that day.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Once you know your priorities, four, two, one stops being abstract. If you do not like keynote speaking, do not force it. Do the networking or the one-on-ones that you will actually show up for consistently. The activities matter less than the fact that you picked them on purpose and you are not skipping them the moment they feel slow.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Do the math before you hire\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>When I was deciding whether to bring on a session room assistant, I did not go with a gut feeling. I ran the numbers. I calculated what the role would cost against the roughly 250 hours a year it would save me, and once I saw it on paper, it was a simple decision.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is the test I would give anyone weighing a hire they are on the fence about. Do not ask whether you feel ready. Put an actual number on the hours it frees up and compare it to the cost. Most of the time, the math makes the decision for you.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Use delegate and elevate as a diagnostic tool\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Here is where I think a lot of implementers get delegate and elevate wrong. They treat it like a values exercise, something you fill out once and file away. I use it as a diagnostic tool, and I use it hardest on visionaries who are quietly hitting a wall\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I had a client whose construction business doubled in a year. The stress points were showing up everywhere because he was sitting in the visionary seat and the integrator seat at the same time, and on top of that, he was still the key salesperson. He was owning four seats, and he was having a complete mid-quarter meltdown.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The exercise is simple to describe and hard to do honestly. Build the full list of everything you do, daily, weekly, and monthly. Then sort it into four buckets: what you are great at and love doing, what you are good at and like doing, what you are good at but do not like doing, and what you are neither good at nor like doing.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That third bucket, good at but do not like, is where almost everyone gets stuck. It is roughly 95 percent of where most leaders spend their time, because it is comfortable enough to keep doing and just uncomfortable enough that they never fully admit it is draining them.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The work is getting someone out of that bucket and up into the first two quadrants. For my client, that meant being honest that he did not need to be closing every deal himself, and asking the harder question underneath it: does this business need an integrator, even if it takes two quarters to find and onboard one?\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Sometimes the answer is yes, and you build the plan around that timeline instead of pretending it can happen overnight.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Stop just listening to people vent\u003C/strong>\u003Cbr>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>This is the part I feel strongest about. When a client calls you mid-quarter in a full meltdown, back in the same patterns they swore they had fixed, the instinct is to just listen. Let them get it out. That feels like support.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Sometimes it is just a vent, and that is fine. But if that is all you ever do, you are not actually helping them change anything. We teach teams to be open, honest, and vulnerable every quarter because repetition is the mother of learning. It takes the brain seven times to hear it for the first time before it lands. So when someone is stuck, my job is not to sit there and nod along. It is to hand them a tangible action they can take immediately.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Skip that step enough times and all you are doing is putting duct tape on the same problem, quarter after quarter. Eventually that duct tape is two inches thick, and nobody can cut through it, including you.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The tools exist so you do not have to reinvent the response every time someone is struggling. Use them. That is the whole job.\u003Cbr>\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1485},[1486],{"sort":154,"content_link":1487},{"id":1488,"uri":1489,"url":1490,"name":1491,"slug":1492,"fields":1493,"language":197,"content_type":1510,"published_at":1511},"c_01KWxSeHsH6c1aj9xQwTZm7dc5","contributor/cj-dube","https://www.success.co/contributor/cj-dube","CJ Dube'","cj-dube",{"bio":1494,"name":1496,"role":1497,"image":1499},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":1495,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>For more than 15 years, CJ has been a driving force within the EOS Worldwide community, serving in several key roles including Coach, Head Coach, Global Community Leader, and member of the EOS Worldwide Leadership Team. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Her unwavering commitment to the EOS community and to the success of entrepreneurial businesses around the world continues to inspire leaders to reach their full potential. With more over 1,800 EOS sessions facilitated, she’s guided leadership teams through the painful but powerful process of turning “happy accident” cultures into intentional ones.\u003C/p>",{"id":235,"name":236,"text":1491,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":1498,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},"Expert EOS Implementer®",{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":1500,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[1501],{"sort":154,"asset":1502},{"id":1503,"url":1504,"name":1505,"path":1506,"size":1507,"width":1508,"height":1508,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":1509,"updated_at":1509,"description":26},"a_01KwXsFyqz94x47EW5mZY6xHx1","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1516338078131.jpeg","1516338078131","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1516338078131.jpeg","19.55 KB","327","2026-07-07T08:00:43+00:00",{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},"2026-07-07T08:01:00+00:00",{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1515},[],{"id":1517,"published_at":1439,"slug":1518,"name":1519,"uri":1520,"url":1521,"language":10,"created_at":1522,"updated_at":1039,"author":1523,"content_type":1524,"seo":1525,"fields":1529,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01kxr0Av8z14x2pex4wx40m40d","people-has-always-been-my-thing-building-a-practice-taught-me-the-rest","People has always been my thing, building a practice taught me the rest.","blog/people-has-always-been-my-thing-building-a-practice-taught-me-the-rest","https://www.success.co/blog/people-has-always-been-my-thing-building-a-practice-taught-me-the-rest","2026-07-17T12:20:31+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":1526,"description":1527,"robots":26,"canonical_url":1521,"open_graph":1528},"People has always been my thing, building a practice taught me the rest. — Success.co","People was always CJ Dube's thing, but building the practice taught her the discipline to manage herself.",{"title":1519,"description":1527,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":1521},{"image":1530,"title":1534,"author":1535,"schema":1537,"excerpt":1538,"summary":1539,"category":1541,"post_body":1549,"guest_author":1556,"sidebar_cta_text":1569,"sidebar_cta_title":1570,"sidebar_cta_button":1571},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":1531},[1532],{"sort":154,"asset":1533},{"id":1456,"url":1457,"name":1458,"path":1459,"size":1460,"width":360,"height":361,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":1461,"updated_at":1461,"description":26},{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1519},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1536},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1527},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":1540},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>17 years in and 2,200+ sessions, but CJ's practice nearly collapsed early on, down to her last 100 dollars with seven kids in college.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>After 25 years managing people, going independent still meant CJ starting over from scratch.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>The turning point was personal: CJ was teaching organizational health while running her own life into the ground.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>She rebuilt around family, cutting travel down to just Minnesota and Arizona.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>CJ turned the tools on her own business, an Accountability Chart™, a trusted core team, clear priorities.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Her advice to the next generation: go pen to paper, convert back to the tools, and do the activities, there's no magic wand.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1542},[1543],{"sort":154,"content_link":1544},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":1545,"language":197,"content_type":1548,"published_at":5},{"title":1546,"schema":1547},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1550},[1551],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":1552,"content_type":1555},{"text":1553},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":1554,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>When people look at my practice today, running into my 17th year with more than 2,200 sessions under my belt, they see the numbers and the longevity.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cbr>They see the multi-city footprint and the long-term client relationships. But what they don't see is how close it all came to collapsing before it even really started. Mastery isn't something you inherit; it is something you survive. I wanted to share this story because the path to building something meaningful is rarely smooth, and it always demands more of you than you expect.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Long before I ever heard of the entrepreneurial operating system®, managing people was my default setting. When I was just 20 years old, I was working as a restaurant manager for Radisson, leading a staff of 40 waitresses.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That kicked off a 25-year career in the people business, eventually managing five corporate placement divisions in downtown Minneapolis and handling high-stakes corporate sales for enterprise accounts like Target, Best Buy, and Cargill. I was entirely comfortable in big rooms with big expectations.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Reading people and building teams had never been the hard part for me. Building an independent practice, however, was harder than any of that.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The hardest first year\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>In that first year, I was stuck in neutral because I was dabbling. I was half-committed, keeping one foot in my old corporate world while trying to wrap my head around a completely new one from scratch.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Learning someone else's content and shifting my focus from Fortune 500 procurement teams to individual, gritty business owners required starting over in ways I never anticipated at that stage of my career. I was wandering until Don Tinney gave me the literal kick in the ass I needed, pushing me to stop hesitating and get all in.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>But drawing a line in the sand didn't make the road any smoother.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Within twelve months of launching, the floor dropped out from under me. I checked my bank account to find I was down to my last 100 dollars, all while trying to support seven children who were still in college. When the ground shifts that violently, fear is the first thing that takes over. I operated from a place of pure, fear-based survival for a long time after that. In those moments, you either find your grit or you don’t make it. My instinct has always been to fight, so I fought.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>One hundred dollars and a Delta commute\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>To get the practice off the ground and keep things moving, I went wherever the work was. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>My world became a blur of the East Coast, the West Coast, the Central Zone, and Arizona. I used to joke that Delta Air Lines was my daily commute, but the reality behind the joke was brutal.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>There was a long stretch where I would rent a hotel room for just two hours between flights, not to sleep, but simply to lie down and try to stop feeling sick enough to stand on a stage or walk into a session room.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I was flying across the country teaching organizational health to leadership teams while completely running my own life into the ground. It was a massive blind spot, the exact same trap that Tzvi Schwartz and I have compared notes on since. It took an outside perspective to force me to stop and ask a fundamental question: what did I actually want my life to look like, not just my business? You have to make sure your own oxygen mask is on first.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You have to be healthy yourself, mentally, physically, and spiritually, before you can genuinely teach health to anyone else.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Turning the tools on myself\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>With that realization, I began to deliberately graduate the clients who were furthest away, one by one.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Today, I don't do planes, trains, and automobiles anymore. My practice runs strictly out of Minnesota and Arizona, the only two places where my family lives. I found my personal balance, and today I share that local footprint with two partners across three session rooms.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Building that practice required the exact same structural discipline I preach to my clients. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Within the first two years, I looked in the mirror and built an accountability chart for my own business. I started by hiring Jill, and we spent years defining exactly what that support needed to look like. Later, when I considered adding a session room assistant, the choice wasn't based on a gut feeling; it came down to simple math. I calculated the cost of the role against the 250 hours a year it would save me, and the data made it a no-brainer.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Today, that team is the backbone of everything I do: Jill has been my integrator for 15 years, acting as my bridge to my CPA firm, my professional obligations, and my personal life. She manages the chaos, and frankly, she’s much nicer than I am. Kylie handles our session room operations across our offices, owning everything from room readiness to the client lunches and the overall experience. And Sam, my marketing person who manages my LinkedIn and connections, happens to be my daughter, who also supports two other implementers alongside me.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I lead this team the same way I coach executives to lead theirs.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I am not a micromanager. I set crystal clear expectations, establish firm priorities, and trust my people to own their seats without me hovering over them. We run on a strict 24-hour email rule to maintain momentum, and our priorities are absolute: existing clients are always number one, prospects and sales referrals are number two, and everything else follows.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I expect my team to own managing up as much as I manage down. If they need me, I will be there in two seconds, but they have to manage themselves first.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Unfiltered truths for the next generation\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>When I look at the newer generation of implementers, I see an incredibly vibrant, abundance-minded community that genuinely supports one another. But achieving true mastery means facing some unfiltered truths, and if you put a hot mic in front of me, there are a few things we need to talk about doing better.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>First, we have to ditch the technology in the session room.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Gino Wickman taught us a specific discipline for a reason: pen to paper. I do not allow AI note-takers, I do not allow recording, and I do not use powerpoints. To be completely present and engaged with the leadership team in front of you, you have to get out of your head and into your heart. Spend the hours whiteboarding, writing, and building the muscle memory so you never look like a robot reading from a manual.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Second, we have to stop relying on duct tape. When a client calls you mid-quarter in a total meltdown because their business has doubled and the visionary is stuck wearing four different seats, don't just sit on the phone and let them vent all day.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Convert back to the tools. Push them to run a delegate and elevate exercise and give them a tangible, actionable next step. If you don't, you are just layering duct tape over a structural problem until it is two inches thick and impossible to cut.\u003Cbr>\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Finally, you have to accept that there is no magic wand. No one is going to hand you a shortcut or fill your pipeline for you. If your practice is struggling, look at your raw data and your scorecard. The four, two, one system works. If you don't like public speaking, do networking or one-on-ones, but do the activities.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I didn't reach 2,200 sessions by waiting for perfect conditions or hoping for an easy path. I got here by moving, adjusting, and completely rebuilding my own practice more than once when it stopped working for my life. The journey to mastery never actually ends.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>People has always been my thing, but building this practice taught me the ultimate lesson: that includes having the discipline to manage myself.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1557},[1558],{"sort":154,"content_link":1559},{"id":1488,"uri":1489,"url":1490,"name":1491,"slug":1492,"fields":1560,"language":197,"content_type":1568,"published_at":1511},{"bio":1561,"name":1562,"role":1563,"image":1564},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":1495,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},{"id":235,"name":236,"text":1491,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":1498,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":1565,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[1566],{"sort":154,"asset":1567},{"id":1503,"url":1504,"name":1505,"path":1506,"size":1507,"width":1508,"height":1508,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":1509,"updated_at":1509,"description":26},{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1572},[],{"id":1574,"published_at":1575,"slug":1576,"name":1577,"uri":1578,"url":1579,"language":10,"created_at":1580,"updated_at":1581,"author":1582,"content_type":1583,"seo":1584,"fields":1588,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01KwBNJk5Xh6v6Cz2zveqXpdVN","2026-07-17T08:13:00+00:00","the-five-things-that-made-my-practice-predictable","The five things that made my practice predictable","blog/the-five-things-that-made-my-practice-predictable","https://www.success.co/blog/the-five-things-that-made-my-practice-predictable","2026-06-30T07:05:56+00:00","2026-09-16T13:11:20+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":1585,"description":1586,"robots":26,"canonical_url":1579,"open_graph":1587},"The five things that made my practice predictable — Success.co","After thirteen years and nearly twelve hundred sessions, Jeanet Wade shares the five habits that keep her practice predictable, her clients getting results, and herself from burning out.",{"title":1577,"description":1586,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":1579},{"image":1589,"title":1599,"author":1600,"schema":1602,"excerpt":1603,"summary":1604,"category":1606,"post_body":1614,"guest_author":1621,"sidebar_cta_text":1647,"sidebar_cta_title":1648,"sidebar_cta_button":1649},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":1590},[1591],{"sort":154,"asset":1592},{"id":1593,"url":1594,"name":1595,"path":1596,"size":1597,"width":161,"height":162,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":1598,"updated_at":1598,"description":26},"a_01KvQq0698S8as2gPsYwCp1wCq","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/Gemini_Generated_Image_84jlqv84jlqv84jl.png","Gemini Generated Image 84Jlqv84Jlqv84Jl","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/Gemini_Generated_Image_84jlqv84jlqv84jl.png","6.81 MB","2026-06-22T13:06:01+00:00",{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1577},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1601},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1586},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":1605},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>In this blog post, Jeanet Wade talks about the five hard-to-keep habits that have kept her practice predictable across thirteen years and nearly twelve hundred sessions.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>She explains why she delivers the EOS process pure even when a team begs to skip to the fun stuff, and how flipping the order early on cost her clients.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>She shares why she caps her roster between eighteen and twenty-two and refers the overflow, instead of letting a scarcity mindset push her into burnout.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>She makes the case for entering the danger on the very first call, leading with the hard truth so the right clients lean in and the wrong ones walk.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>She talks about beating the 300-session wall by going deeper rather than wider, and why getting good at feedback yourself comes before asking clients to do the same.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1607},[1608],{"sort":154,"content_link":1609},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":1610,"language":197,"content_type":1613,"published_at":5},{"title":1611,"schema":1612},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1615},[1616],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":1617,"content_type":1620},{"text":1618},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":1619,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>Most implementers struggle with the same things in their first few years. Not because they're bad at the work, but because being a good coach runs straight into being a good entrepreneur, and those two instincts fight each other constantly.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>We people-please when we should push, we say yes when we should refer and we tinker with a proven system because we think we know better.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>After thirteen years and nearly twelve hundred sessions, here's what I actually do to keep my practice predictable, my clients getting results, and myself from burning out. None of them complicated, all of them hard to stick to.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>1. Deliver the process pure, even when they beg you not to\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Here's what happens on a Focus Day: you hit the Accountability Chart, things get uncomfortable, and the team starts to squirm.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>They fight and sometimes even cry. And then someone says:\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\"Can we just work on the vision first? The fun stuff?\"\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That's the moment that decides whether you're a coach or a people-pleaser.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>When you rearrange the order to make people comfortable, you're not helping them, you're avoiding the hard part because it's hard for you too. And a system delivered out of order doesn't work: results don't come, and the client quits.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I learned this the expensive way as I flipped the process three or four times early on, and I lost every one of those clients.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So deliver it pure and uncompromised first. Once that foundation is locked in, they can add whatever flavor they want on top. You don't get to skip the hard part because someone finds it unpleasant.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>The rule:\u003C/strong> Deliver what they need before what they want, every time.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>2. Cap your client count before it caps you\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>True entrepreneurs have a driven gene: we don't know how to stop, and after the brutal grind of the first two years, that drive turns into a problem.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The scarcity mindset kicks in.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>You can't say no and take every client who comes your way, but suddenly you're at thirty-plus accounts, running on bare tires, heading straight for burnout.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Twenty is the sweet spot and it's designed that way for a reason. Once you cross twenty-six, you've gone too far. I usually hub between eighteen and twenty-two, and I protect that number like my practice depends on it, because it does.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The trick isn't to slow down business development (I've never come off the throttle on biz dev). The trick is to keep the engine running and refer the overflow to people you trust, set a goal every year for how many referrals you want to give, and build a network of right-person, right-seat implementers you can hand business to with confidence.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>The rule:\u003C/strong> Stay between eighteen and twenty-two, refer the rest.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>3. Enter the danger before they hire you\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>You can't afford to waste your capacity on clients who look like a fit but aren't ready to do the work. So you screen, and you start screening on the very first call.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Don't pitch, don't sell, don't sugarcoat.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Every other consultant they've talked to has promised them the world, but you're going to do the opposite: you're going to tell them the truth, right out of the gate. When a team tries to hand you the job of selling their own leadership on the decision, hand it back. That's their work to do, not yours.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That's what entering the danger does. It filters out the people who can't handle directness, and it pulls in the ones who've been craving someone willing to tell them the truth. The clients who told other implementers they couldn't afford it will turn around and pay me double, because I'm not selling them anything, I'm just being honest.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>The rule:\u003C/strong> Lead with the hard truth and the right clients lean in. The wrong ones walk, and that's a win.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>4. Break the 300-session wall with curiosity, not autopilot\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Every implementer hits an invisible wall around three hundred sessions: the excitement fades, the tools start to feel routine, and you catch yourself thinking, \"Another quarterly, here we go.\" That autopilot is a quiet practice-killer.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Don't check out, don't look for shiny shortcuts, don't go wider.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The way through is to treat your craft like an Olympic athlete treats their sport. Go all in on the depth, the psychology, and the micro-nuances right in front of you.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Go back to the source material, and watch how other top operators phrase a single question, pull that thread, take what works.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The tools don't change, but your ability to see what's happening underneath them does. You stop hearing a repetitive grind and start instantly seeing how three different tools overlay on a single problem, you navigate to a different outcome faster, and the value skyrockets.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>The rule:\u003C/strong> When the work starts feeling repetitive, go deeper, never wider.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>5. Get good at feedback before you ask clients to\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>You can't model raw, open, honest communication for a leadership team if you can't handle it yourself. The community is our internal safe zone, our dojo, but right now there is a general sensitivity happening inside it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Newer implementers get highly defensive when an OG steps onto Slack or a webinar and gives a short, direct answer. They ask us to soften our tone and treat short messages as if we are being mean or trying to penalize them. But a blunt answer isn't cruelty, shaming, or policing.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Don't take it personally, don't over-analyze the text: when a feedback loop stings, pause and see if there is a thread of truth you can take in. If context is disappearing in the chat, pick up the phone, go verbal, and speak eye-to-eye or voice-to-voice so you don't run off the rails.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>If you cannot give and receive hard feedback inside our own safe zone, you will never possess the courage to enter the danger, ask the right question at the right moment, and model that exact vulnerability in a high-stakes session room.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>The rule:\u003C/strong> Take the feedback, find the truth, and build the muscle you'll need in the room.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1622},[1623],{"sort":154,"content_link":1624},{"id":1625,"uri":1626,"url":1627,"name":1628,"slug":1629,"fields":1630,"language":197,"content_type":1645,"published_at":1646},"c_01kVFeaC9XRb7Z5tb5YWcnSM44","contributor/jeanet-wade","https://www.success.co/contributor/jeanet-wade","Jeanet Wade","jeanet-wade",{"bio":1631,"name":1633,"role":1634,"image":1635},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":1632,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>As one of the first 50 EOS Implementers worldwide, Jeanet is known for putting together the right mix of strategic, practical and tactical knowledge to guide entrepreneurial businesses toward organizational effectiveness.\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>She has served on leadership teams at start-ups, small family-owned businesses, and large corporations, and is the best-selling author of The Human Team®. Throughout her 25+ year career as a leader, facilitator, consultant and coach, Jeanet has focused on helping the companies she serves reach their goals by aligning vision with action, building healthy teams, and harnessing the power of human energy.\u003C/p>",{"id":235,"name":236,"text":1628,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":241,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":1636,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[1637],{"sort":154,"asset":1638},{"id":1639,"url":1640,"name":1641,"path":1642,"size":1643,"width":411,"height":411,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":1644,"updated_at":1644,"description":26},"a_01kvFec66RZ5vMK3S9F73Xe4M2","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1773332240792.jpeg","1773332240792","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1773332240792.jpeg","97.38 KB","2026-06-19T08:01:22+00:00",{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},"2026-06-19T08:01:37+00:00",{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1650},[],{"id":1652,"published_at":1575,"slug":1653,"name":1654,"uri":1655,"url":1656,"language":10,"created_at":1657,"updated_at":1581,"author":1658,"content_type":1659,"seo":1660,"fields":1664,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01kwbn3749dMCGCRA2534tF6C1","what-1-200-sessions-taught-me-about-giving-clients-what-they-need","What 1,200 sessions taught me about giving clients what they need","blog/what-1-200-sessions-taught-me-about-giving-clients-what-they-need","https://www.success.co/blog/what-1-200-sessions-taught-me-about-giving-clients-what-they-need","2026-06-30T06:57:32+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":1661,"description":1662,"robots":26,"canonical_url":1656,"open_graph":1663},"What 1,200 sessions taught me about giving clients what they need — Success.co","In this post, Jeanet Wade shares how customizing EOS to keep clients happy cost her their trust, and what changed when she finally stopped.",{"title":1654,"description":1662,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":1656},{"image":1665,"title":1669,"author":1670,"schema":1672,"excerpt":1673,"summary":1674,"category":1676,"post_body":1684,"guest_author":1691,"sidebar_cta_text":1704,"sidebar_cta_title":1705,"sidebar_cta_button":1706},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":1666},[1667],{"sort":154,"asset":1668},{"id":1593,"url":1594,"name":1595,"path":1596,"size":1597,"width":161,"height":162,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":1598,"updated_at":1598,"description":26},{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1654},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1671},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1662},{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":1675},"\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>In this blog post, Jeanet Wade talks about the warning Gino Wickman gave her on day one: that she would deviate from the EOS process, just like everyone does.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>She shares how she customized the system three or four times to please clients or avoid friction, and how each time the client ended up quitting.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>She explains why bending the process isn't flexibility but people-pleasing, and why it quietly undermines the results clients are paying for.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>She reframes process purity not as dogma but as respect for what actually transforms a business.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>She reflects on what changed once she stopped deviating, and how her retention, referrals, and income grew because of the rigor.\u003C/p>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1677},[1678],{"sort":154,"content_link":1679},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":1680,"language":197,"content_type":1683,"published_at":5},{"title":1681,"schema":1682},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1685},[1686],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":1687,"content_type":1690},{"text":1688},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":1689,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>I've spent more than thirteen years in this system, and if there is one thing I've learned about human nature, it's that we have an incredibly hard time listening to proven advice. It's a lot like parenting; we desperately try to tell the younger generation not to repeat our dumb mistakes, but everyone seems determined to do it anyway. We all secretly believe we're going to be the unique ones to figure it out on our own.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Looking back, I think you actually have to go through your own pain to learn the lessons faster. I know I certainly did.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The room that overlooked a parking lot\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>When I think about my early days, I remember sitting in a modest session room up in Livonia, Michigan, that overlooked a parking lot near a Holiday Inn. I was in the first fifty implementers, and our boot camps were led directly by Gino Wickman and Don Tinney. Back then, we didn't get any of the fancy pre-boot camp dinners or accoutrements. We were pioneers and entrepreneurs, and the room was packed with high Kolbe Quick Starts.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I am a nine Quick Start out of ten, with a career background as a marketing strategist and innovator, and Gino looked right at me and predicted exactly how I would mess things up.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>He knew that because of my past consulting habits, I wasn't going to follow the rigid process. He told me I would try to rearrange the order, put vision first and traction second, and only work on the tools that felt fun and engaging. He told me to go play and prove him wrong.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Sure enough, on my very second client, I completely flipped it. They asked to work on their strategy first instead of tackling the Accountability Chart, and because that chart can be a terrifying, high-pain experience where people fight and cry, I chose to be a people-pleaser. I wanted them to like me, and I wanted to do the fun stuff that fueled my own soul, so I gave them what they wanted instead of what they needed.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That client fell right on their face and quit.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I didn't even learn my lesson the first time. I made that exact mistake three or four times before the pain finally sank in. Every time I tinkered with the system, I ended up doing a massive disservice to my clients. I was losing accounts because they weren't getting results.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That failure was the ultimate turning point that brought me back to what we now call purity: delivering the process in its clearest, most foundational form. I realized my job is to give clients clear, clean water. Once they have that stable foundation, they can customize it and add whatever flavor they want, but the core water must remain pure.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>When I stopped experimenting and stuck to the proven process, an incredible abundance opened up, and my client retention skyrocketed.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The \"convince the boss\" trap\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Lately, standing in that sense of abundance has completely changed how I handle new partnerships. Not long ago, I was having a conversation with two people who were the succession plan for an organization. They were desperate to bring in our system, but they looked at me and said:\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\"You're going to have to convince the owner that this is for us and that we need to do this.\"\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Years ago, my inner people-pleaser might have jumped through those hurdles, providing endless testimonials, stats, and pitches to make the sale. But this time, I just looked at them and said:\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\"I'm not gonna convince him. It's your job to convince him if you're the succession plan and he's counting on you to lead this business in the future.\"\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I told them that the owner either trusts them to make this decision or he doesn't. One of the guys went, \"Ooh, that hurts.\" But I wasn't trying to be cruel; I was just being direct. That particular owner personality set is completely unconvincible by an outsider anyway.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>They went back, had that tough internal talk with him, and when we finally sat down for our meeting, they introduced it by saying, \"We've already decided we're doing this, we just want him to hear it.\" We booked the day and moved forward.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Going straight for the truth and entering the danger right out of the gate is incredibly refreshing for people. They are used to consultants who sugarcoat everything and presentation-heavy marketing firms promising the world. Sometimes I tell people bluntly, \"I don't think you're ready for this, or I'm not your person because my intensity will be too much for you.\"\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Paradoxically, because I'm completely willing to walk away and give them raw reality rather than a sales pitch, clients who have told other implementers they can't afford the fees will turn around and pay double to work with me.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Overcoming the hump and entering the matrix\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Getting to this point required me to overcome my own entrepreneurial traps. When the business finally started working for me after those early struggles, it became intoxicating. I got addicted to the adrenaline rush of business development, and a lingering scarcity mindset made it impossible to say no. I ended up driving the car way too fast, pushing my workload up past thirty clients and hitting massive burnout.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I had to learn Dan Sullivan's concept of entrepreneurial time management to block out genuine free space and learn to refer business away to hit my true sweet spot of eighteen to twenty-two clients.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Protecting those boundaries gave me the mental capacity to break through the notorious three-hundred-session hump. Every practitioner hits that wall where they think, \"Here we go, another quarterly,\" and the work starts to feel repetitive. But pushing past that ceiling made me realize just how much deep science and psychology is built into these simple tools.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I started studying the source materials like an Olympic athlete preparing for a sport, hunting for tiny phrasing nuances and facilitation skills I had missed.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Now that I am close to twelve hundred sessions in, I feel like I've finally entered the matrix flow: the ones and zeros where everything moves effortlessly. When a leadership team is talking, my brain doesn't go on autopilot. Instead, I can instantly see how multiple tools overlay, catch the subtle nuances they are missing, and navigate them to a high-value outcome much faster.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>A plea to the community\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>This journey has also changed how I view our internal community. There can be a lot of sensitivity between the newer generation of operators and the older pioneers, but my passionate plea to anyone building a practice is to completely embrace raw, unfiltered feedback loops.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>If we answer shortly on digital channels, it isn't out of cruelty; it's because we love this community and want to keep people from putting their hands on a hot burner. The same courage it takes to receive that feedback is the courage you'll need to model for the companies you serve.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>True mastery isn't reaching session 1,200, it's being willing to fail enough times to trust something bigger than yourself.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The one thing\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>The system works because it works. Not because it's perfect, not because it's the only way, but because hundreds of companies have walked it, failed at it, succeeded at it, and proven over and over that when you stop rearranging the furniture, that's when transformation happens.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Your clients don't need a consultant who makes them feel good, they need a coach who gives them what they actually need. And sometimes, that looks like telling them no or walking away. That looks like entering the danger with them, not around it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>If I could go back and tell my twenty-five-year-old self one thing, it would be this: Trust the process more than you trust yourself. Not because you're not good enough, but because you're good enough to deliver something proven instead of something original.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The abundance comes after, not before.\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1692},[1693],{"sort":154,"content_link":1694},{"id":1625,"uri":1626,"url":1627,"name":1628,"slug":1629,"fields":1695,"language":197,"content_type":1703,"published_at":1646},{"bio":1696,"name":1697,"role":1698,"image":1699},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":1632,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},{"id":235,"name":236,"text":1628,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":241,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":1700,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[1701],{"sort":154,"asset":1702},{"id":1639,"url":1640,"name":1641,"path":1642,"size":1643,"width":411,"height":411,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":1644,"updated_at":1644,"description":26},{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1707},[],{"id":1709,"published_at":1710,"slug":1711,"name":1712,"uri":1713,"url":1714,"language":10,"created_at":1715,"updated_at":1039,"author":1716,"content_type":1717,"seo":1718,"fields":1722,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01kv8gPHpE2jMqad63f5Jp50s6","2026-06-17T12:44:00+00:00","how-i-stopped-working-six-jobs-in-my-own-practice","How I stopped working six jobs in my own practice","blog/how-i-stopped-working-six-jobs-in-my-own-practice","https://www.success.co/blog/how-i-stopped-working-six-jobs-in-my-own-practice","2026-06-16T15:27:17+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":1719,"description":1720,"robots":26,"canonical_url":1714,"open_graph":1721},"How I stopped working six jobs in my own practice — Success.co","How Tzvi Schwartz discovered he was doing six jobs at once, and the Accountability Chart framework that freed him from the trap.",{"title":1712,"description":1720,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":1714},{"image":1723,"title":1733,"author":1734,"schema":1736,"excerpt":1737,"summary":1739,"category":1741,"post_body":1749,"guest_author":1756,"sidebar_cta_text":1783,"sidebar_cta_title":1784,"sidebar_cta_button":1785},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":1724},[1725],{"sort":154,"asset":1726},{"id":1727,"url":1728,"name":1729,"path":1730,"size":1731,"width":360,"height":361,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":1732,"updated_at":1732,"description":26},"a_01kv8gcvTC21c7WKq35Jgtx639","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/generated-image-(9).png","Generated Image (9)","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/generated-image-(9).png","1.41 MB","2026-06-16T15:22:00+00:00",{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1712},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1735},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1738},"Tzvi Schwartz thought his exhaustion came from being too busy. But when he drew his Accountability Chart for his own practice, he realized he was sitting in five or six seats at once, working six different jobs. Here's how he fixed it.",{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":1740},"\u003Cp>Tzvi reveals how he was unknowingly doing six jobs simultaneously in his own practice. He walks through drawing his Accountability Chart and putting his name in every box to see the structural problem clearly. He also shares how he used Delegate and Elevate on himself, ran the dollar math on his hourly worth, and systematically hired people to fill each seat.\u003C/p>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1742},[1743],{"sort":154,"content_link":1744},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":1745,"language":197,"content_type":1748,"published_at":5},{"title":1746,"schema":1747},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1750},[1751],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":1752,"content_type":1755},{"text":1753},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":1754,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>For years, I blamed my constant exhaustion on my schedule.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I told myself I was just too busy, that I had too many clients, or that this relentless grind was simply the price you pay to build a successful practice. But the truth wasn't about my workload: it was purely structural, and I couldn't see it until I finally forced myself to map it out.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Today, my practice runs on a much more streamlined system, but getting here required a complete operational overhaul. I had to learn how to step back, look at my firm as an actual enterprise, and systematically pull myself out of the daily trap of running six different jobs at the same time. This is the exact framework that allowed me to restructure my practice, clear out the noise, and finally reclaim my freedom.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Drawing your own Accountability Chart\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>The actual turning point happened a couple of years ago when we were in Vegas for our community anniversary milestone right after Covid. An amazing coach named Barry Barrett noticed how busy, tired, and completely all over the place I was. He challenged me to do something simple but incredibly eye-opening: draw the Accountability Chart specifically for my own practice.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Not for a client, but for me.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>He told me to build it completely function-first, mapping out the core seats the business actually needs to run: a Visionary, an Integrator, a salesperson for business development, an EOS coach for sessions, and a finance person. Once the structure was there, he told me to put real names in the boxes.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That is when it slapped me in the face. My name was written in five or six different seats.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I wasn't just a coach, I was working six different jobs simultaneously.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It became glaringly obvious that my exhaustion wasn't because business was good; it was because I had never separated the functions of the enterprise from myself. If you are feeling stretched thin, this is exactly where the work has to begin. You have to draw the picture, put real names in the seats, and count how many times you show up.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Taking a clarity break to work the issues\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>Seeing the diagram on paper isn't the same as changing your reality. To actually work through the structural mess, I forced myself to wake up at 6:00 AM on a Friday morning, grabbed a coffee, and sat outside to take a proper (Gino-style clarity break).\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I wrote out my internal issues list and looked hard at every single seat on that chart. I started applying the Delegate and Elevate tool to my own practice with the exact same rigor I would expect from a client.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The execution is only useful if you are completely honest. I had to face the fact that my assistant at the time wasn't doing a very good job, and I had to sort through what was draining me versus what was genuinely mine to keep.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That honesty is the whole point of the break. You're not just creating a standard to-do list; you're deciding what should leave your plate entirely so you can give yourself space to grow.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>For me, the hardest part of letting go wasn't finding people to help: it was giving myself internal permission to spend the money.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>When I finally decided to hire an external accounting firm to take over my books, it cost a thousand dollars a month, twelve grand a year. My brother-in-law, who happens to be my accountant, told me I was completely stupid to spend that money on something I could easily do myself to keep that cash in my pocket.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>But the math is what settles the debate. I leaned on what Gino taught about doing the math on your hourly worth. When you evaluate your time against your primary implementer rate, any administrative or bookkeeping task carrying a lower dollar value is automatically costing you more to do yourself, not less.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Once I looked at my seats through the lens of what my time was actually worth, the financial choice made itself. Outsourcing the finance box was actually cheaper than trying to save the money, and it completely removed the massive headaches it was causing me.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Filling the seats one at a time\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>With the structure clear and the math done, I started filling the seats one by one. I turned to Assist Pro to bring in a high-performing assistant who could take over two of my administrative boxes, which immediately freed me up to focus on my core operation and grow as a coach. Then I handed the books over to that external accounting firm and stopped touching them.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I didn't do all of this overnight, and to be completely honest, I'm still on the journey. Letting go of control is a continuous internal battle because my perfectionism keeps whispering that if I handle it myself, it will sound better and come out better. But every seat I hand off properly gives me back the time and energy for the work that actually needs me in it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Starting with the chart\u003C/strong>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cp>If I could share one core piece of advice with an implementer who feels like they are drowning in their own practice, it is to stop trying to outwork a structural problem. Draw your Accountability Chart, put your name in every box where it belongs right now, and count the seats. Then take that Clarity Break, run the dollar math, and start handing off one function at a time.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>We have to accept that we aren't trying to build a flawless, utopian machine. A perfect one hundred percent doesn't exist in our metrics. The real goal is mastery, and mastery means you will continually hit brand-new ceilings that ask you to look inward, delegate, and let go all over again. But the very first ceiling, for most of us, is the simplest one to fix once you finally dare to draw the picture: you are simply sitting in too many seats.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Chr>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cem>This article is based on Episode 2 of the newly launched Practice Builder Podcast, featuring Expert Implementer Tzvi Schwartz in conversation with Chris Beer. You can listen to the full episode on\u003C/em>\u003Cem>Spotify and\u003C/em>\u003Cem>Apple Podcasts, or watch the full conversation on YouTube.\u003C/em>\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1757},[1758],{"sort":154,"content_link":1759},{"id":1760,"uri":1761,"url":1762,"name":1763,"slug":1764,"fields":1765,"language":197,"content_type":1781,"published_at":1782},"c_01kv8Gk1swP2SdxgN5Djw0CxAB","contributor/tzvi-schwartz","https://www.success.co/contributor/tzvi-schwartz","Tzvi Schwartz","tzvi-schwartz",{"bio":1766,"name":1768,"role":1769,"image":1771},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":1767,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>Most business owners don't realize their systems are broken until growth forces the issue. Tzvi Schwartz learned it firsthand: building his electrical contracting company to over 100 employees across 16 years, and feeling every growing pain that stalls so many businesses. After selling it, he discovered EOS, the system that later helped the next company grow 400% in just four years. Now serving as an EOS Implementer and keynote speaker, he's on a mission to help other business owners run a better business and live a better life.\u003C/p>",{"id":235,"name":236,"text":1763,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":1770,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},"Certified EOS Implementer",{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":1772,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[1773],{"sort":154,"asset":1774},{"id":1775,"url":1776,"name":1777,"path":1778,"size":1779,"width":684,"height":684,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":1780,"updated_at":1780,"description":26},"a_01kv8GN5VyX0Dg89w0kapTNtEt","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1652951720691-(1).jpeg","1652951720691 (1)","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/1652951720691-(1).jpeg","25.92 KB","2026-06-16T15:26:32+00:00",{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},"2026-06-16T15:26:40+00:00",{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1786},[],{"id":1788,"published_at":1710,"slug":1789,"name":1790,"uri":1791,"url":1792,"language":10,"created_at":1793,"updated_at":484,"author":1794,"content_type":1795,"seo":1796,"fields":1800,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01kv8G8kH3XDZPRXm7KdwG9M68","what-i-learned-about-the-eos-life-i-wasnt-living","What I learned about the EOS life I wasn't living","blog/what-i-learned-about-the-eos-life-i-wasnt-living","https://www.success.co/blog/what-i-learned-about-the-eos-life-i-wasnt-living","2026-06-16T15:19:40+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":1797,"description":1798,"robots":26,"canonical_url":1792,"open_graph":1799},"What I learned about the EOS life I wasn't living — Success.co","How Tzvi Schwartz reclaimed his EOS life by doing internal work, screening for right-fit clients, and learning to let go, and why addition by subtraction works.",{"title":1790,"description":1798,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":1792},{"image":1801,"title":1805,"author":1806,"schema":1808,"excerpt":1809,"summary":1811,"category":1813,"post_body":1821,"guest_author":1828,"sidebar_cta_text":1841,"sidebar_cta_title":1842,"sidebar_cta_button":1843},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":1802},[1803],{"sort":154,"asset":1804},{"id":1727,"url":1728,"name":1729,"path":1730,"size":1731,"width":360,"height":361,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":1732,"updated_at":1732,"description":26},{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1790},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1807},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1810},"\"Nobody gets burnt out from always loving what they do,\" Tzvi Schwartz realized. His burnout came from working with clients he didn't align with. Once he stopped people-pleasing and started screening for real fit, his energy transformed, and so did everything else.",{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":1812},"\u003Cp>Tzvi Schwartz talks about giving himself permission to be human and imperfect. He discusses the real source of burnout: working with misaligned clients. He shares the importance of looking inward instead of outward for solutions. He also mentions the five-minute reset and how letting go creates a positive cascade in every area of life.\u003C/p>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1814},[1815],{"sort":154,"content_link":1816},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":1817,"language":197,"content_type":1820,"published_at":5},{"title":1818,"schema":1819},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1822},[1823],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":1824,"content_type":1827},{"text":1825},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":1826,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>I've spent the last few years doing some deep internal work to turn around my business and finally reclaim my EOS life.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>For a long time, everything looked great from the outside: I had right-fit clients, and I always pushed myself to deliver excellent service consistently. But when I looked honestly at my actual version of the EOS life, specifically my time for other passions and making time for myself, things were completely off-kilter.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>If I'm being completely honest, my score for taking care of myself used to sit at a dismal 3 or 4. I wasn't giving myself time to go to the gym, take walks, or just decompress from the high-energy work we do.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I always naively thought that if I just kept altruistically serving everyone else and showing up for everybody else, it would all just figure itself out one day. It doesn't.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Turning those scores around and finding my footing required a complete shift in how I run my practice and how I show up as a person.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Looking back, that progress didn't come from trying to outwork the chaos. Instead, it came from a series of distinct shifts: learning to accept my own human imperfections, ruthlessly cutting out the hidden drains on my energy, and finally learning to stop looking for answers on the outside.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>This is the honest, internal work it took to finally let go of the vine and make that turnaround real.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The permission to be human\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Not long ago, I was sitting with someone who told me they were generally averse to coaching. Even though I happen to be their EOS Implementer, they were speaking specifically about one-on-one coaching, explaining that they need a coach who has done it all and understands it all so they can learn directly from that person's experience.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>They challenged me with a specific example, pointing out that if you go to a doctor who is very overweight, but he's telling you how to be healthy, you naturally wonder why you should listen to him.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>For a long time, that kind of logic made sense to me, and it made me feel like I had to be flawless to help anyone.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>But as I thought about it more, I realized it's not a hundred percent accurate. Just because the doctor doesn't necessarily follow his own advice, it doesn't mean the advice he's giving you is wrong. To the contrary, he still knows exactly what is right; he's just as human as you are, and he's struggling through his own journey to get it done.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That conversation gave me permission to finally forgive myself for not running my own life and business to the absolute highest degree of perfection. I'm just as human as my clients, and it's okay if we aren't perfect at all of this.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It doesn't mean you aren't a good coach or that you are doing something wrong; it simply means you're on a journey just like everyone else.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Turning off the energy drain\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>For a long time, I blamed my exhaustion on my schedule, assuming I was just too busy or had too many clients. The real breakthrough happened a few years ago when I was participating in the entry-level signature program at Strategic Coach.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>During a break, we paired up for five minutes to go over our struggles and listen to one another. The person I sat with, who wasn't an implementer, completely reframed my situation.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>He told me that nobody gets burnt out from always loving what they do. He guessed that my burnout wasn't about the volume of work, but because I didn't actually love all the clients I was working with, and that I was engaging with people I didn't align with.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>He was exactly right.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The truth is, I had a subconscious people-pleaser attitude and a nervous tick in my head about covering my expenses and maintaining my lifestyle. I was taking on business ventures and clients where there wasn't a 100% alignment because I was afraid of losing the client and losing the money.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Because I was too focused on holding onto the client rather than actually helping them, I wasn't asking the right questions or showing up as the best coach I could be. That bad energy just fed more bad energy, making coaching harder and ultimately causing me to lose those clients anyway after a few sessions.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Once I saw the real source of the drain, I started actively screening clients.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I used to be a dismal 3 on the column of \"working with people you love.\" But I started asking upfront why I was taking a client, recognizing when they weren't ready, and admitting when an engagement was going to be absolute murder.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I've managed to bring that score up to a 7, which is huge progress for me.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The streetlight and the internal work\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>When things were at their worst, my instinct was always to look for quick fixes on the outside. I blamed the business, or the economy, thinking that if I just outworked the problems, did more business development, and chased more clients, it would all fix itself.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>But the real issue was inside of me: it was my belief system about abundance and what I needed to let go of.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It reminds me of a story Wayne Dyer tells about a person who drops their car keys inside their pitch-black living room.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Because they can't see anything, they look out the window and notice the streetlights are still on. So, they go outside to search for their keys on the sidewalk underneath the streetlight because the light is so much better out there. When a neighbor stops to help and asks where exactly they dropped them, the person says they dropped them inside the living room.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The neighbor asks what they are doing outside, and they say, \"Well, the light is so much better out here.\"\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It sounds completely ridiculous, but that's exactly what we do. The hard work is looking inward versus looking outward, and realizing that what we thought was true is no longer true.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The five-minute reset and the cascade\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>That inward work is a constant journey, because my perfectionism tells me that if I do it, it will sound better and come out better.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>My coach, Mike Kotsis, has been brilliant in helping me take those stubborn beliefs out of my head, separate myself from them, and stop trying to force life to happen. He taught me to simply let the dust settle by stopping for five minutes, taking a few deep breaths, and letting everything rest without any complex or mystical meditative style.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>When you calm that frantic voice telling you that you must work harder, do more business development, or chase more clients, you suddenly realize that your compulsion to outwork problems was completely counterproductive and didn't make sense.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The moment I gave myself permission to do less in the evenings or on weekends and shed the internal guilt, my entire energy transformed.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Because I showed up differently, my relationships naturally began to flourish on their own without forcing any artificial processes. My relationship with my wife became significantly greater simply because I was taking better care of myself and projecting a completely different energy.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>This positive transformation quickly became a continuous cycle.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Because things at home were thriving, I showed up with far better energy as a coach in the session room, which made my client relationships deeply fruitful, which in turn naturally attracted premium, right-fit clients to my practice.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It is the ultimate reality of addition by subtraction; the more you let go, the higher you elevate and the more you get.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I am still human, I am still on the journey, and I still struggle with letting go of certain operational elements in my practice. I easily could have benefited from these concepts ten or fifteen years ago, but I am incredibly grateful to be embracing them now.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>In this business, hitting a perfect one hundred percent is complete utopia, and our goal is not a flawless fantasy but true mastery. Every single stage of growth means hitting a brand-new ceiling that requires looking inward and learning to let go all over again.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Mastery is never about reaching a static final destination; it is the rewarding, lifelong journey of learning and understanding yourself a little better every single day.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Chr>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cem>This article is based on Episode 2 of the newly launched Practice Builder Podcast, featuring Expert Implementer Tzvi Schwartz in conversation with Chris Beer. You can listen to the full episode on\u003C/em>\u003Cem>Spotify and\u003C/em>\u003Cem>Apple Podcasts, or watch the full conversation on YouTube.\u003C/em>\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1829},[1830],{"sort":154,"content_link":1831},{"id":1760,"uri":1761,"url":1762,"name":1763,"slug":1764,"fields":1832,"language":197,"content_type":1840,"published_at":1782},{"bio":1833,"name":1834,"role":1835,"image":1836},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":1767,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},{"id":235,"name":236,"text":1763,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":1770,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":1837,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[1838],{"sort":154,"asset":1839},{"id":1775,"url":1776,"name":1777,"path":1778,"size":1779,"width":684,"height":684,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":1780,"updated_at":1780,"description":26},{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1844},[],{"id":1846,"published_at":1847,"slug":1848,"name":1849,"uri":1850,"url":1851,"language":10,"created_at":1852,"updated_at":842,"author":1853,"content_type":1854,"seo":1855,"fields":1859,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01kV5MJXN8TXX4Qs021qMKn23R","2026-06-15T12:41:00+00:00","the-biz-dev-system-that-works-even-if-youre-low-follow-through","The biz dev system that works even if you're low follow-through","blog/the-biz-dev-system-that-works-even-if-youre-low-follow-through","https://www.success.co/blog/the-biz-dev-system-that-works-even-if-youre-low-follow-through","2026-06-15T12:37:29+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":1856,"description":1857,"robots":26,"canonical_url":1851,"open_graph":1858},"The biz dev system that works even if you're low follow-through — Success.co","Dan Wallace's 5-conversation framework for business development that works even if you hate sales. Build a pipeline without burning out.",{"title":1849,"description":1857,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":1851},{"image":1860,"title":1870,"author":1871,"schema":1873,"excerpt":1874,"summary":1876,"category":1878,"post_body":1886,"guest_author":1893,"sidebar_cta_text":1919,"sidebar_cta_title":1920,"sidebar_cta_button":1921},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":1861},[1862],{"sort":154,"asset":1863},{"id":1864,"url":1865,"name":1866,"path":1867,"size":1868,"width":360,"height":361,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":1869,"updated_at":1869,"description":26},"a_01kV5mfwdKpGj8Pn9cZ530Pq5F","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/TPB---Ep-1-(1).png","T P B Ep 1 (1)","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/TPB---Ep-1-(1).png","1.62 MB","2026-06-15T12:35:50+00:00",{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1849},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1872},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1875},"Business development isn't about having a hunter mentality or military discipline. Dan Wallace built a system around his actual weaknesses, and it works.",{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":1877},"\u003Cp>Dan Wallace isn't a natural pipeline manager, his Kolbe profile shows low follow-through. After his third rebuild, he stopped trying to force a personality transplant and built a biz dev system designed around his actual wiring. \u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The framework: eat the frog at 8 AM with daily calls, keep conversations value-first (not pitches), ask for \"three clients\" (concrete, not aggressive), log everything in HubSpot to lose nothing, anchor weekly accountability with a coach, focus ruthlessly on connectors not broad networking, and ask clients for intros when the value is fresh. Result: a quiet, sustainable pipeline without burning out.\u003C/p>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1879},[1880],{"sort":154,"content_link":1881},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":1882,"language":197,"content_type":1885,"published_at":5},{"title":1883,"schema":1884},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1887},[1888],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":1889,"content_type":1892},{"text":1890},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":1891,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>I'm the first to admit I'm not a natural-born hunter.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Most business development advice is built on a massive lie: it assumes you automatically enjoy the thrill of the chase, and that you possess some innate, military discipline to manage a pipeline without anyone holding your feet to the fire.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I carry what Kolbe calls a \"low follow-through\" profile: which isn’t about dropping the ball, it’s about how I relate to systems. I'm not naturally wired for rigid pipeline discipline, or the relentless, methodical follow-up the sales gurus say is mandatory.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>For years, I bypassed the spreadsheets and ran my entire practice straight out of my own head. And to my credit, it worked beautifully, right up until the moment it completely fell apart.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It was only after rebuilding my roster from scratch for the third time that I finally stopped trying to force a personality transplant. Instead of burning out trying to become someone I wasn't, I built a system designed to wrap around my actual weaknesses. One that took the dread out of business development and turned it into a quiet, sustainable routine that keeps my pipeline full without taking over my life.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Here's exactly how I did it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Eating the frog at 8:00 AM\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>The turning point came at a Quarterly Collaborative Exchange in late 2015. My practice had slowed to nine clients, and I found myself talking through my struggles with fellow Implementer Rip Tilden. He pulled up a quote that completely reframed my mornings:\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cem>\"If you know sometime during your day you're going to have to eat a frog, eat the frog immediately, because it'll make the rest of your day better.\"\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>For me, that daily frog was business development. The exact task I would push to the afternoon, then to tomorrow, then to the following week.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So I built a non-negotiable morning sequence for every day I wasn't booked for a session. At 7:30 AM, I'd open my contacts and spend 15 to 20 minutes scrolling to note down names of people I simply hadn't spoken with in a while. At 8:00 AM sharp, I started dialing. No texts. No emails. Just phone calls, until 10:00 AM, about as much as I could physically and mentally take.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Conversations that focus on value first\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>The calls weren't pitches, but genuine, personal check-ins: how are you doing, what's new, what's working well in your business and your life.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>And I always closed by asking if there was anything they needed right now that I might be able to help with. Whether that meant a strategic introduction, or a quick call: my focus was entirely on giving.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>What was in my mind throughout that process? I want to plant in people's minds the notion that a conversation with Dan equals getting value. That somehow, I'm someone who makes them think: \"I'm glad he called me.\"\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Inevitably, the other person would flip it around and ask what was happening in my world. My answer never varied:\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cem>\"Right now I'm looking to add three clients to my practice. If you know anybody who might benefit from what I do, this would be a really great time for me to talk to them.\"\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I always said three, even if I was trying to add twenty. That specific, small number gives your network a concrete, manageable visual. It's easy to scan your mental rolodex for one or two owners who are hitting a ceiling. It's nearly impossible when someone casually mentions they're looking to scale aggressively.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Transitioning to the five-conversation framework\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>As my practice evolved, I eventually swapped the rigid two-hour morning block for a commitment to five good quality conversations a day on the days I wasn't in a session.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>These had to be meaningful, real-time interactions: a current client, a prospect, or a referral source. While some Implementers handle these during their daily commute, I found I needed dedicated blocks of time.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I found that if I maintain that cadence of just being out in the world, somehow things just show up in my inbox.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Logging everything to lose nothing\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>For the first few years, I managed my entire pipeline in my head. I was generally good at remembering details, but once I committed to HubSpot, it completely transformed my tracking discipline.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The instant I learned about a potential opportunity (even a half-remembered reference to a company passed along by a contact) it immediately went onto my digital deal board.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>When I became disciplined about getting it into the CRM immediately, all of a sudden nothing fell through the cracks. It's in the CRM, and there's always a task on the task list associated with it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>My very first pipeline stage was titled \"Pre-VTH\", internal code for \u003Cem>heard about\u003C/em>: not a warm lead or a qualified prospect, just a placeholder confirming that an opportunity existed somewhere out in the world.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The weekly accountability engine\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Software alone wouldn't solve my execution problems, and I knew it. So my partners and I hired a sales administrator to own the CRM data entry. We brought in a sales coach, Brian McDonald, and scheduled a rigid weekly business development call.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Every week, I'd sit down with Brian, my assistant Fabi, and our sales administrator Casey. We'd review my completed tasks from the prior week, audit the entire deal board, and define the specific next required action for each opportunity.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That meeting generated a weekly work order of roughly eight to fourteen tasks. To execute them, Fabi scheduled a concentrated two-hour block of business development time in my calendar. I'd sit down without distractions, and work through the list.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I kept an open email draft during the sprint. As I completed each item, I noted the outcome next to the deal name whether I'd left a voicemail, had a conversation, or needed a new follow-up step.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Once the two hours were up, I addressed the email to Casey, copied Fabi, and hit send. The administrators handled all the database updates, and that single email became the direct input for the following week's call.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Ruthlessly filtering for connectors\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Another shift I made during my final rebuild was moving away from broad, non-selective networking.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Early in my career, I attended countless events, helped everyone I met, and generated dozens of casual introductions. My network grew exponentially in breadth but it yielded zero actual business owners.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I was spending all my time meeting other people's needs and getting gratification from it. But not getting business.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>So I stopped attending generic networking events and became highly explicit about my ideal target profile. I focused my energy exclusively on finding real connectors: the elite five or six individuals in a community who have a proven, active track record of making revenue-producing introductions.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>Seizing the moment inside the session room\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>The final piece of my framework is the simplest: directly asking clients for introductions.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>At the end of a successful session, when the value of the work is completely fresh in the room, I introduce a simple, conversational reminder:\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cem>\"I'm looking to add a couple of clients. My best clients come from my best clients. You know what the work is like and how the relationship works, so you're in the best position to know if this would be great for somebody. If you know anyone who'd enjoy learning about EOS, I would love to meet them.\"\u003C/em>\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It's an open invitation. And it works because even the most natural givers get caught up in a busy world, they just appreciate the reminder.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Chr>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cem>This article is based on Episode 1 of the newly launched Practice Builder Podcast, featuring Expert Implementer Dan Wallace in conversation with Chris Beer. You can listen to the full episode on \u003C/em>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://open.spotify.com/episode/11ufrZK1ZON5UP8vflQoIC?si=2w7IWy1aQhOyXb6Mi_WFjA\">\u003Cem>Spotify\u003C/em>\u003C/a>\u003Cem> and \u003C/em>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ill-keep-this-in-mind-dan-wallace-on-the-networking/id1896807447?i=1000769381392\">\u003Cem>Apple Podcasts\u003C/em>\u003C/a>\u003Cem>, or watch the full conversation on YouTube.\u003C/em>\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1894},[1895],{"sort":154,"content_link":1896},{"id":1897,"uri":1898,"url":1899,"name":1900,"slug":1901,"fields":1902,"language":197,"content_type":1917,"published_at":1918},"c_01KV8Ez5WyAQBTJny7EA777f0Z","contributor/dan-wallace","https://www.success.co/contributor/dan-wallace","Dan Wallace","dan-wallace",{"bio":1903,"name":1905,"role":1906,"image":1907},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":1904,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>In 2010, a friend introduced Dan to EOS® and he immediately understood why and what to do about it.  He got trained on EOS implementation immediately, making him one of the first 20 EOS Implementers worldwide, and became an EOS Implementer in 2012. Based in the Chicago area, Dan is a graduate of Whitman College and holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School.  When he is not working with clients, you may find him sailing, skiing, playing guitar or missing a 3-foot putt.\u003C/p>",{"id":235,"name":236,"text":1900,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":401,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":1908,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[1909],{"sort":154,"asset":1910},{"id":1911,"url":1912,"name":1913,"path":1914,"size":1915,"width":684,"height":684,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":1916,"updated_at":1916,"description":26},"a_01Ktv9Tj9WnQb4AsbhR62nm753","https://assets.contento.io/assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/Dan-Wallace---Expert-EOS-Implementer.jpeg","Dan Wallace Expert E O S Implementer","assets/s_01JHqYGK1Z5qEM20Fh1g2FtV71/Dan-Wallace---Expert-EOS-Implementer.jpeg","27.45 KB","2026-06-11T12:17:01+00:00",{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},"2026-06-16T14:57:00+00:00",{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1922},[],{"id":1924,"published_at":1925,"slug":1926,"name":1927,"uri":1928,"url":1929,"language":10,"created_at":1930,"updated_at":842,"author":1931,"content_type":1932,"seo":1933,"fields":1938,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01Kv5m2qBKG2kRm0n19PQX9RjC","2026-06-15T12:37:00+00:00","why-hitting-escape-velocity-might-be-the-most-dangerous-moment-in-your-practice","Why hitting \"escape velocity\" might be the most dangerous moment in your practice","blog/why-hitting-escape-velocity-might-be-the-most-dangerous-moment-in-your-practice","https://www.success.co/blog/why-hitting-escape-velocity-might-be-the-most-dangerous-moment-in-your-practice","2026-06-15T12:28:39+00:00",{"id":134,"name":135,"email":136,"profile_photo_url":137},{"id":139,"name":140,"handle":141,"object_type":22},{"title":1934,"description":1935,"robots":26,"canonical_url":1929,"open_graph":1936},"It might be the most dangerous moment in your practice — Success.co","Dan Wallace on why EOS practices crash when they succeed: the psychological traps keeping you stuck in boom-and-bust cycles. Learn the permanent fix.",{"title":1937,"description":1935,"image_secure_url":28,"image_width":26,"image_height":26,"image_alt":26,"url":1929},"It might be the most dangerous moment in your practice",{"image":1939,"title":1943,"author":1944,"schema":1946,"excerpt":1947,"summary":1949,"category":1951,"post_body":1959,"guest_author":1966,"sidebar_cta_text":1979,"sidebar_cta_title":1980,"sidebar_cta_button":1981},{"id":148,"name":149,"handle":150,"help_text":26,"type":151,"assets":1940},[1941],{"sort":154,"asset":1942},{"id":1864,"url":1865,"name":1866,"path":1867,"size":1868,"width":360,"height":361,"is_image":163,"extension":362,"mime_type":363,"created_at":1869,"updated_at":1869,"description":26},{"id":168,"name":32,"handle":33,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1927},{"id":170,"name":171,"handle":172,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1945},[],{"id":176,"name":37,"handle":38,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":178,"name":179,"handle":180,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":1948},"\"The most dangerous moment for a practice isn't when you're starving for business. It's the exact moment you think you've finally made it.\"",{"id":182,"name":183,"handle":184,"help_text":26,"type":185,"text":1950},"\u003Cp>Dan Wallace reveals the boom-and-bust cycle that catches most EOS Implementer practices: you grow to escape velocity (around 10 clients), plateau, hit 15-17, then watch clients graduate en masse. The culprits? Two psychological traps: a scarcity mindset that kills networking when you're busy, and over-obligation around referrals. The fix: business development is permanent infrastructure, not a temporary phase. Keep the cadence going, help-first always, and learn to pass referrals to other qualified Implementers guilt-free.\u003C/p>",{"id":188,"name":189,"handle":190,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1952},[1953],{"sort":154,"content_link":1954},{"id":4,"uri":8,"url":9,"name":7,"slug":6,"fields":1955,"language":197,"content_type":1958,"published_at":5},{"title":1956,"schema":1957},{"id":31,"name":32,"text":7,"type":34,"handle":33,"help_text":26},{"id":36,"name":37,"text":26,"type":34,"handle":38,"help_text":39},{"id":19,"name":20,"handle":21,"object_type":22},{"id":200,"name":201,"handle":202,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1960},[1961],{"name":57,"sort":154,"fields":1962,"content_type":1965},{"text":1963},{"id":208,"name":209,"text":1964,"type":185,"handle":34,"help_text":26},"\u003Cp>Every founder has a number tucked away in the back of their mind: a specific milestone where the background hum of uncertainty is supposed to finally give way to breathing room.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>For me, that number was 10.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I figured that once I had ten clients on the books, my practice would achieve a sort of natural escape velocity, transitioning from a grueling daily hustle into a predictable machine sustained by momentum and referrals.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I was half right.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The momentum did carry me, all the way to a peak of 17 clients. But nobody warns you about the cliff on the other side of that peak. Despite 16 years in this work and plenty of success inside the session room, I've had to stare at an empty calendar and rebuild my entire roster from scratch three different times.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It turns out the most dangerous moment for a practice isn't when you're starving for business. It's the exact moment you think you've finally made it.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The plateaus nobody warns you about\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Growth in an Implementer practice rarely follows a smooth, predictable line. Early on, I noticed a repeatable pattern that mirrors the very concept of hitting the ceiling.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Landing your first client is notoriously difficult. But once you clear that hurdle, the next two tend to follow quickly. With three clients on board, the practice feels secure, and then you hit a plateau.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>It takes a long time to break through that number three. And when you finally do, things often jump rapidly to seven or eight. That's where you hit another ceiling.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>I used to describe 10 as escape velocity: the point where you have enough business going, you're making enough money, and the thing finally feels sustainable. Like it's just going to become a growth-and-maintenance situation from here.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Once I reached that point, the momentum carried me all the way to around 17 clients. The practice felt comfortable. I assumed referrals would naturally keep my pipeline full.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>What I hadn't accounted for was the natural lifecycle of a healthy business relationship.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>At the end of one particular year, five, six, seven clients called me back-to-back. They told me they were ready to graduate. That their next session would be their last.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Overnight, my roster went from 17 down to 10.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>When I think back to how that felt: pretty bad, actually. Pretty bad.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The complacency loop and \"head trash\"\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>I dug back in, kept doing what I was doing, and built things back up into the high teens for a second time. But because my business development process still wasn't efficient, the effort left me tired.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Seeing my practice full again, I took my foot off the gas. Lightning wouldn't strike twice, right? Five or six years in, I looked around and found myself back down to nine clients.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Rebuilding for the third time forced me to look honestly at the two psychological traps driving this boom-and-bust cycle.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The first was a subtle scarcity mindset. When your practice starts feeling pretty full, you begin to fear getting referrals you don't have capacity to take. So you subconsciously pull back from networking, precisely when you should be maintaining your discipline.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The second was what I can only call my own \"head trash\" around referral obligation. I viewed every introduction as a personal commitment: if someone referred an opportunity to me, I felt I had to take it. That fear of over-committing was quietly killing my pipeline.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>The breakthrough came when I realized I could accept a referral with genuine gratitude, and pass the actual client opportunity to another qualified Implementer who had the space.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>\"I could refer that opportunity to somebody else and tell whoever referred it to me: hey, thanks a lot. That was great. I'm actually full right now. But I referred it to somebody who's going to take great care of them.\" And everybody turns out to be fine with that.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>That was my own head trash, 100%.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The permanent infrastructure\u003C/strong>\u003C/h2>\n\n\u003Cp>Sixteen years and three rebuilds later, my core takeaway is simple: business development is not a temporary phase you leave behind once you get busy. The cadence itself is what keeps the practice stable in the first place.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>Never take your foot off the gas, no matter how busy you are. Keep making the calls. Keep doing the talks. Whatever works for you.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Cp>And always do it from a standpoint of genuine help. Help first, help second, help third.\u003C/p>\n\n\u003Chr>\n\n\u003Cp>\u003Cem>This article is based on Episode 1 of the newly launched Practice Builder Podcast, featuring Expert Implementer Dan Wallace in conversation with Chris Beer. You can listen to the full episode on \u003C/em>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://open.spotify.com/episode/11ufrZK1ZON5UP8vflQoIC?si=2w7IWy1aQhOyXb6Mi_WFjA\">\u003Cem>Spotify\u003C/em>\u003C/a>\u003Cem> and \u003C/em>\u003Ca target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ill-keep-this-in-mind-dan-wallace-on-the-networking/id1896807447?i=1000769381392\">\u003Cem>Apple Podcasts\u003C/em>\u003C/a>\u003Cem>, or watch the full conversation on YouTube.\u003C/em>\u003C/p>",{"id":212,"name":213,"handle":214,"object_type":215},{"id":217,"name":218,"handle":219,"help_text":26,"type":173,"content_links":1967},[1968],{"sort":154,"content_link":1969},{"id":1897,"uri":1898,"url":1899,"name":1900,"slug":1901,"fields":1970,"language":197,"content_type":1978,"published_at":1918},{"bio":1971,"name":1972,"role":1973,"image":1974},{"id":230,"name":231,"text":1904,"type":185,"handle":233,"help_text":26},{"id":235,"name":236,"text":1900,"type":34,"handle":237,"help_text":26},{"id":239,"name":240,"text":401,"type":34,"handle":242,"help_text":26},{"id":244,"name":149,"type":151,"assets":1975,"handle":150,"help_text":26},[1976],{"sort":154,"asset":1977},{"id":1911,"url":1912,"name":1913,"path":1914,"size":1915,"width":684,"height":684,"is_image":163,"extension":164,"mime_type":165,"created_at":1916,"updated_at":1916,"description":26},{"id":256,"name":257,"handle":258,"object_type":22},{"id":261,"name":262,"handle":263,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":265,"name":266,"handle":267,"help_text":26,"type":34,"text":26},{"id":269,"name":270,"handle":271,"help_text":26,"type":203,"blocks":1982},[],{"id":1984,"published_at":1985,"slug":1986,"name":1987,"uri":26,"url":26,"language":10,"created_at":1988,"updated_at":1989,"author":1990,"content_type":1991,"seo":1996,"fields":2001,"alternate_languages":26},"c_01JJ4YgYsqdWehV9ffXzv4qR7W","2025-01-21T17:33:00+00:00","footer-nav","Footer 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