By most objective measures, I’m successful.

Most people who know me, know our company, or look at what we’ve built would probably say we’ve arrived, quote-unquote.

But even typing that makes me want to immediately follow it with a joke, a qualifier, or a quick pivot into what I need to work on. I want to deflect any presumptions and avoid the perception of arrogance at all costs. 

That’s the Midwest in me. If you act too big for your britches, your friends and family will lovingly take the piss out of you until you remember you’re a regular person again.

That grounding is healthy. But sometimes I wonder if I’ve confused “staying grounded” with a quieter form of negative self-talk.

Because here’s what’s true.

We ended last year with record sales. We grew again. We did it profitably. Our team has long tenure. Our clients tend to stick with us for a long time. By the classic business scorecard, things are going really well.

And yet, I found myself fixating on one measure that didn’t land exactly where I wanted it.

Not because the year was bad. Not because the company is in trouble. But because I’m still wired to believe that if it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t count.

So, I keep moving the goalpost because I’m scared of getting comfortable.

And if the plan looks achievable, I assume I’m missing something.

Is it prudence or obsessive handwringing? 

This happened while I was working on targets and forecasts, year-end review mode. Planning for next year. Looking out toward where we want to be in the next 12-18 months. Allocating resources like a responsible adult.

Forecasts looked good. Targets looked good. Both were substantiated. Both were exciting. Both were, objectively, aggressive.

And my brain did this:

“If this lines up too cleanly… something’s wrong.”

Not “Great. Let’s execute.”

More like:

“Maybe the target is too low.” “Maybe I’m being soft.” “Maybe I’m missing a landmine.” “Maybe we should double it so it feels real.”

But it went beyond normal business prudence. It became almost pathological. Obsessive. I couldn’t let it go. I kept coming back to it—paralysis by analysis. It was distracting me from working on real things that could actually impact the business because I was trying to make the model work.

I mean, I do want it tested. Vetted. Bulletproof as possible.

But when I can’t let it go – when it’s introducing negativity and doubt in my subconscious, when I’m communicating that doubt to the team – we’re creating a negative self-fulfilling prophecy.

It was distraction. Obsession. Wildly unhealthy.

And then I stepped back, looked at the forecast again, and realized: this is actually good. And I’m manufacturing problems because of what a friend would call my own personal ‘head trash.’.

Scoreboards vs. Operating Systems

I’m what you’d call ‘goal oriented.’ I always have been – going back as far as I can remember. 

Entrepreneurs love scoreboards because they’re clean.

Revenue. Profit. Headcount. Market share. Client retention. Lead flow. Your “number.”

You hit one and immediately see the next. You reach a level and it reveals a new level you “should” be at.

It’s like walking into a gym. There’s always someone stronger. Better looking. Younger. Richer. Thinner waistline. Full head of hair.

Comparison is the thief of joy, sure. But it’s also sneakier than that.

Sometimes comparison isn’t even to other people. It’s to your own moving benchmark.

If my 25-year-old self saw my life today, he’d be impressed. He’d think I’d made it.

But at 55, you can look around and think, “Okay… what’s next?” 

I still feel like the scrappy kid from a blue collar background trying to prove I belong.

That’s not inherently bad. That’s ambition. That’s growth.

The trap is when the scoreboard becomes the only way you know how to measure whether you’re doing life correctly.

I’ve lived most of my adult life running on what I’d call productive scarcity. The belief that if I stop pushing, everything slips. It’s been a hell of a motivator. It’s also exhausting if you never turn it off.

And here’s what I’m realizing: sometimes my “humility” and self-deprecating humor, is just a mask for fear.

Fear that if I acknowledge success out loud, I’ll jinx it. Fear that if I let a win land, I’ll lose my edge. Fear that if I relax, I’ll wake up six months later and realize I took my eye off the ball.

That’s anxiety as fuel. It works. It’s effective. It’s always available.

It’s also expensive.

What Changed

I’ve had two or three conversations in the last year with peers I deeply respect—people who, by any empirical measure, would be considered hugely successful in life and business. 

And what struck me was how they talked about their “success.” They didn’t credit goals or KPIs or relentless grinding. Oh I have those friends too, no doubt. But these friends described their mindset as something else entirely: an embedded belief system that drove everything they did. Principles they operated from. 

A way of being that produced results almost as a byproduct.

It was counterintuitive for me. It ran against how I’ve lived so far.

But it resonated as real.

And it made me realize: I’ve been focusing on the wrong thing.

The goal wasn’t the reason for doing something. The goal was just the articulation of what the principle would naturally produce.

I started asking myself: if someone I respect—someone who has grown their business in a way I respect and envy—if they would approach this with a different mindset, maybe I need to rethink my approach. Loosen the grip on the bat. Follow their lead.

And I’ve noticed something about people who are empirically more successful than me. The truly successful ones, the ones who build massive things and have real impact.

They’re not doing it because they’re terrified. 

They’re doing it because it’s fun.

They have goals, sure. But the goal isn’t the purpose. The goal is an articulation of the next stage.

They’re driven because they can’t help it. Because they’re wired to build, learn, create, serve, invent, lead, teach, or champion.

They run on principles. On an operating system.

And that operating system produces a scoreboard that most people would call success.

Not because they worship the scoreboard, but because they do the right things for long enough that the scoreboard can’t help but follow.

It’s an inversion of my normal mindset.

Age Leads to Wisdom?

I turned 55 recently. My business partner did too.

This isn’t our swan song. I’m not writing this from a rocking chair. But milestone numbers do make you reflect. You start asking different questions.

Not just:

“How do we grow?”

But:

“How do I want to feel while we grow?” “What am I optimizing for?” “What fuel am I running on?” “What is this all for?”

I’m still ambitious.

I still want growth. I still want impact. I still want to create jobs and build something we’re proud of.

I’m just trying to change the fuel.

Goals vs Principles

Here’s where I’m landing.

Goals are useful. I’m not going to pretend I don’t like them. I like numbers. I like targets. I like checking boxes. I like a clean dashboard. I like the satisfaction of a dogged pursuit of a goal.

But goals make a terrible operating system.

Because if you live by a scoreboard, it’s one-dimensional. It reduces the complexity of life into a few metrics, and then it trains you to treat everything else as optional.

Principles are different.

Principles tell you how to live while you pursue the goals.

They tell you what “good” looks like even when the number is down. They tell you what not to sacrifice to hit the number. They keep you from winning yourself into burnout.

And the irony is this.

If you build a life and a business around principles, you tend to end up with a better scoreboard anyway.

Not because you obsessed over it. Because you consistently did the right things for the right reasons long enough that the results compound.

That’s what I’m trying to internalize.

Principles create a trusted system for your life. Not so you stop caring, but so you stop panicking.

The Class Exercise I Still Think About

Years ago, in a Dale Carnegie sales class, the instructor had us write our “perfect day.”

I still revisit mine at least once a year. 

I look back at what I wrote 30 years ago and it’s almost freaky how much of it came true.

Not in a “manifestation” way. I’m not trying to sell you The Secret or the Law of Attraction. But hey – maybe that’s a thing, too.

More like: I painted a picture so clearly that it shaped a thousand small decisions I didn’t even notice I was making.

My perfect day (originally drafted 30 years ago)

I wake up early. Not because I have to, but because I want to. The light is coming through the windows of a beautiful home—one I couldn’t quite picture clearly at 25, but one that feels right. Calm. Grounded. A place that reflects the life I’ve built, not the life I’m performing for someone else.

My wife is next to me. My best friend. Someone who still loves me after seeing all of it—the ambition, the anxiety, the late nights, the doubt, the failures, the moments of weakness, the wins I celebrate too quietly and the losses I carry too long. She’s there. And that matters more than anything else on this list.

I get up and exercise. A run, usually. Something that clears my head and makes me feel awake, not just caffeinated. I come back, hop on my computer, check a few numbers to orient myself. Green lights all around. And then I move on. I don’t spiral. I don’t manufacture problems. I check, I orient, I move forward.

I go to a walk-in closet—something I definitely didn’t have at 25—and I have nice clothes. Not flashy. Not trying to prove anything. Just clothes that make me feel confident and ready to take on my day. Clothes that fit. Literally and figuratively.

I head down to the garage and get into my car. A really cool car I love. One that’s reliable. At least more reliable than the brown Pinto station wagon that smelled like gasoline I was driving around at the time. I appreciate the car, but I’m not the car. It’s just a thing I enjoy, not a thing that defines me.

I get to work when I want, where I want, with a team of really smart people I enjoy working with. People whose work has meaningful impact. I’m working one-on-one with people I respect. I’m excited by what we’re working on. The people are smart. They’re fun. They challenge me. They make the work better than I could make it alone.

The work is impactful. It helps real people. My mom and dad would be proud of the work we do—even if they don’t fully understand what it is. That matters to me. Not the revenue. Not the margins. The fact that it’s work worth doing.

I work with a team that owns the details and pulls me in where I actually add value. I’m not the bottleneck. I’m not the hero. I’m the person who shows up where it matters and trusts the team to do what they do best.

Mid-afternoon, I might break for lunch. Meet my wife for lunch. Then off to an afternoon meeting or a round of golf with business associates who are also really good friends. The lines blur in the best way. Work doesn’t feel separate from life. It’s integrated. It’s part of a life I actually want to live.

We finish the day, and then I clean up. We meet some friends or family for drinks and dinner. We plan out our next vacation or adventure. We talk about what’s next, not because we’re running from something, but because we’re running toward something together.

And then we retire to our beautiful home where… well, I’ll just leave the story there.

Now, I may have tweaked it a bit over the years. But it’s pretty much what it was when I drafted it for a night class decades ago.

When I read that now, it’s almost embarrassing how simple it is. There’s vanity there. There’s 1980s consumerism in there. I probably cribbed a lot of it from the Michael J. Fox move The Secret of My Success. But it’s honest for where I was at the time.

Still  – I can’t believe it –  it’s basically the life I’m living. I mean real damn close. I should have asked for a full head of thick, lustrous hair, but hindsight is 20/20.

Not perfectly. Not every day. Not without stress. But close enough that my younger self wouldn’t believe it.

But there are a few surprises in there too. I didn’t envision children. I was a 25-year-old guy at the time. Single. I knew I wanted love and family. But I just hadn’t considered it in the calculus of my life.

I mean, as a young guy, if you would have asked me I would have said, “Oh yeah, I want kids.” But it was more that I wanted a family unit that was healthy and fun and supportive. My roadmap intuited it. But if I’d said I wanted 2.5 children—well, that wouldn’t have been right. It would have been a statistical goal.

But it still happened for us. The woman I married had a daughter. A beautiful daughter that has enriched my life more than I could have ever anticipated. It was not only compatible with my “perfect day”; it amplified it on a logarithmic scale.

And here’s the part I didn’t forecast: the best things came from left field.

The depth of family. The relationships. The people. The moments that weren’t in the plan. The kind of richness you can’t put on a scoreboard.

My Operating Principles

I’m still working this out. These aren’t carved in stone. But here’s what I keep coming back to:

Build systems that don’t require my panic to function.

If the business only works when I’m anxious, I’ve built something fragile. Real resilience comes from processes, people, and clarity—not from my ability to stay in perpetual fight-or-flight mode. EOS helped with this. So did stepping back from Integrator role and letting the team own the process. The business should run because the system is sound, not because I’m sweating.

Lead from gratitude without ceding the future.

I can appreciate how far we’ve come and still want more. Those aren’t in conflict. Gratitude isn’t complacency. It’s acknowledging that we built something real, with real people, that does real work. That foundation lets us build bigger, not smaller. Scarcity says “if I celebrate, I’ll lose.” Abundance says “because we built well, we can build more.”

Champion people, not just manage them.

I don’t want to just develop talent or manage performance. I want to actively champion the people on our team—put resources behind them, clear obstacles, amplify what they’re building. Our Marketing, Sales, and Strategy teams all have leaders who have taken what we originally started and built on the foundation to make these functions better than anything my business partner or I could have done on our own. We hired really smart people and let them tell us what we should do—and every time we trust them to do so, the result is 10X better than if we would have tried to do it ourselves.

Make decisions from abundance, not scarcity.

The numbers are real. The team is strong. The client relationships are solid. When I make decisions from “what if everything falls apart,” I make defensive decisions. When I make decisions from “we’ve built something durable,” I make smarter ones. This doesn’t mean reckless. It means confident. There’s a difference between prudent risk management and operating like the sky is always falling.

Pursue impact, not just metrics.

Revenue matters. Profit matters. But if we genuinely help B2B industrial companies transform how they think about marketing and growth, the metrics follow. The scorecard is an output, not the purpose. When we focus on doing work that actually moves the needle for clients—work that changes trajectories, not just checks boxes—we build the kind of reputation and relationships that compound. The number comes from doing the right thing consistently, not from staring at the number.

Protect space for life outside the scoreboard.

The Dale Carnegie exercise taught me this years ago, and I keep forgetting it. The best parts of life—the depth of relationships, the unexpected moments, the things that make it all worthwhile—they don’t show up on a dashboard. They show up when you create space for them. Early morning runs. Lunch with my wife. Golf with friends. Travel that isn’t a business trip. These aren’t rewards for hitting targets. They’re part of what makes a life worth building a business around.

Stay humble, but not small.

This is the Midwest tension I’m trying to resolve. Staying grounded doesn’t mean pretending we haven’t built something significant. It doesn’t mean apologizing for success or hedging every win. Humility is being honest about what we’ve built, who helped us build it, and how much luck and timing played a role. Smallness is refusing to acknowledge it at all because you’re afraid someone will think you’re bragging. I’m trying to live in the first one, not the second.

The Evidence

These aren’t the kind of principles that fit on a motivational poster. They’re messy. They’re in progress. Some days I live them. Some days I forget them entirely and revert to anxiety as fuel.

January 1st – New Year’s Day. For me, it’s probably my least favorite day of the year. The holidays are done. We’ve eaten and drunk our way through the last four to six weeks. We wrapped the last year and now—we NEED to get going on the next year.

January 1st is a weird limbo day. No one is working. We’re taking a day off when, frankly, I’m done relaxing—and I’m super anxious to get the ball rolling and start working our plan. It’s a slow start when we’ve got a TON to do. And that anxiousness just leaves me fretting because we can’t act yet because I still have to go through the motions of being on holiday.

When I just want us to get started and get ahead of them.

Truthfully, this anxiety is with me every day. I’m not past it. But I’m aware of it. And I’m consciously moving my thoughts in ways that recognize and navigate around those thoughts to a more healthy place.

But here’s what I know: the business is doing better since I started trying.

Not because I stopped caring about the scoreboard.

Because I stopped letting the scoreboard be the only thing that tells me if I’m doing it right.

By elevating above the day-to-day—by handing the Integrator role to Cortney who’s just wired to do it better than I ever could, by letting our leaders actually lead—I’m actively engaging,

attracting, and bringing new opportunities to the company that are much higher leverage than if I was worrying too much about the details.

By elevating, it’s allowed me to be a better resource for the team. To back them up beyond being another set of hands to lift the load.

I want to be the guy in the trenches willing to lift the load of a team that’s working their tail off. But it’s more important for me to survey the field and strategically figure out how to navigate the next steps in the theater of war.

They have their job to do. I have mine. Be okay with that.

The Real Flex

I want to lead with gratitude and appreciation for how far we’ve come, without ceding the future to complacency.

And I want to stop living like the universe is waiting to punish me for admitting things are going well.

Maybe the real flex at 55 isn’t bigger goals.

Maybe it’s being able to say, plainly and without apology:

We’re doing well. I’m grateful. I’m still hungry. And I don’t need anxiety to prove it.

If any of this resonates, you’re not alone. You’re probably just successful enough to realize the scoreboard isn’t the point, and driven enough to keep chasing it anyway.

The trick is making sure the chase is coming from the right place.