You want more.
Not survival. Not stability. More… More revenue. More margin. More lifestyle. More options. More life.
You’ve done the work to prove your model. You’ve built a reputation. You’ve grown a team. You’ve made good money. Now, you’re hungry for the next level. You don’t want to maintain. You want to multiply.
That’s when you call me.
I speak to dozens of business owners every single week. Not just any owners; smart, gritty, successful entrepreneurs who have clawed their way into the six- and seven-figure range. They call me because they want to scale. They’ve seen the testimonials. Maybe they’ve heard one of my live, energetic keynotes where I walk through how I built and sold a firm with an eight-figure valuation in under four years. Their message is almost always the same:
“Dude, how in the world did you do that? And can you help me do it too?”
The short answer? Yes, I can help.
The honest answer? You’re probably not ready.
Because here’s the one reality almost no one wants to talk about when it comes to scaling:
Scaling sucks cash.
Not just a little bit. Not just “tighten the budget” type of cash. I mean full-on bloodletting. Cash hemorrhaging. The kind of investment that makes you question everything. If you’re serious about decentralizing yourself from the business and building a machine that can grow without you, it’s going to be the most expensive decision you make.
And the only way through is belief.
The Mindset Trap Most Owners Never Escape
Here’s what I see over and over again:
A business owner calls. They’ve been grinding for years. They’ve finally gotten the income they wanted, maybe $300K, $500K, even $1M+ in personal comp. They’ve got a team. They’ve got a reputation. They’ve arrived.
But something’s broken. They’re exhausted. They’re stuck. They’re the bottleneck.
And they know it.
They crave something more: more money, more time, more freedom. Not just income, impact. Not just running a business, living like the owner they dreamed of becoming.
So they say the magic word: “scale.”
But here’s the problem. Scaling isn’t adding a few more clients. It’s not just hiring an admin or automating a few processes. Real scaling means you’re going to have to fundamentally restructure how your business runs, how your people think, how your systems operate, and most importantly, how you operate.
And that’s where most business owners hit the wall.
Because restructuring costs money. Delegation costs money. Systems cost money. Coaching costs money. Not just money you spend, but money you don’t take home. For the first time in years, your cushy lifestyle is at risk.
It feels like going backwards. And that feeling? It wrecks people.
It taps the same emotions they had back in the early startup days, the fear, the financial stress, the doubt, the arguments with their spouse about whether this is going to work. The pressure of payroll. The uncertainty of ROI. The reality that they’re not just risking capital anymore, they’re risking comfort.
But comfort is the enemy of growth.
The Illusion of Arrival
There’s a funny thing that happens when you reach a certain level of success. You start to think you’ve made it. That you’re above the startup scrappiness. That you should be able to optimize instead of overhaul.
But scaling isn’t optimization. It’s transformation.
And transformation is messy, slow, expensive, and uncomfortable.
When I scaled my firm to an eight-figure valuation in under 49 months, I took a six-figure pay cut. On purpose. I sold a half-a-million-dollar home and moved into a double-wide mobile home. I pulled money from my IRAs. I borrowed from a home equity line of credit. We drove cars held together with duct tape. I paid myself $60,000 a year and lived on beans and rice. Not figuratively. Literally.
I did unbelievable things to fund the dream. Was it worth it? Absolutely!! Because the dream was worth it.
Why Most Will Never Scale
What’s interesting about building businesses is this: many companies plateau far before their potential because of one of two things, an unwillingness to scale or a complete ignorance of what it truly takes.
For example:
-
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 70 percent of small businesses never grow beyond 10 employees.
-
Research from Gallup shows that only 14 percent of business owners strongly agree that they are satisfied with the amount of time they have to do what they want each day.
-
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 4 percent of businesses ever reach 5 million dollars in annual revenue, despite far more having the capability if scaled properly.
The reality? Most never scale. Why?
Because they don’t count the cost. They don’t realize the emotional reset it takes. They hit the wall. They see their lifestyle threatened. They get scared. What they really want is a shortcut.
Scaling isn’t a growth hack. It’s not a new marketing funnel. It’s not a new hire. It’s a full-life transformation. It’s a mental shift. It’s a surrender.
You either believe the reward is worth it, or you don’t.
So What Do You Do?
I’ve had the privilege of working with and observing business owners who didn’t just scale, they achieved real freedom. Time freedom. Financial freedom. Peace.
They spend time with their families without checking Slack every ten minutes. They go on the exotic trips, invest in causes that matter, and live with energy and intention. They’re not always on. They’re not drowning in to-dos. They live the life they once dreamed of.
And it’s interesting. They all followed the same path. It’s like a rite of passage. There is no shortcut. No alternate route. No loophole.
Whatever your wildest dreams are, they live on the other side of resistance.
And the resistance you haven’t hit yet, that’s what collapses most people.
But your desire to reach that dream, it is 100 percent valid. You don’t want to live in regret. You know you have it in you. And now, you know it’s going to require action.
Action that pushes into fear.
Action that challenges comfort.
Action that doesn’t blink.
So what’s the rite of passage?
-
Get specific.
Know exactly what you want. Hyper-clear. Define it. Sense it. Smell it. Taste it. Envision the life you want to wake up to. For me, it was DecaMillionaire status by age 40. I obsessed over that vision. What’s yours? -
Do the math.
Count the cost. Not just money, energy, time, stress, lifestyle sacrifices. As Scripture says, “Which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it?” (Luke 14:28) If you wouldn’t build a house without a budget, why would you scale a business without a plan? -
Commit to the process.
Burn the boats. Put yourself in a position where you can’t retreat. That’s when your focus sharpens. That’s when your leadership evolves. This is war-time CEO mode, and the battlefield is your belief. -
Get a guide.
The most successful people, every single one, have had coaches, mentors, or advisors. They didn’t go it alone. They paid big money, because they understood something most don’t. Money is infinite. Time is not. The real cost isn’t the check you write. It’s the delay when you don’t.
People who scale understand that money is a tool. And they deploy it boldly to buy their freedom.
Are You Really Ready?
Let’s bring it back.
You say you want freedom.
You say you’re tired of being the bottleneck.
You say you want to scale.
You say you want more time, more margin, more wealth, more influence.
You say you want to:
You want to actually live the life you imagined when you started this business.
Scaling sucks cash.
But the payoff? Freedom. Legacy. Real ownership.
If you’re ready to have a real conversation about whether your firm is ready to scale, let’s talk. I work with successful business owners every day who are wrestling with the same resistance.
You don’t have to wonder. You just have to decide.
