Ep 662 | When Growth Becomes a Trap

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off Podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Just the other day, we ran an episode about the power of one more, the, the concept that Ed Mylett and many others have popularized. And how we need to get that one more rep in, or one more call, or take that one more step, or make, you know, that one more, or say that one more I love you, whatever it may be, just pushing beyond. But I want to qualify some of that here today because I, I want to make sure that we are not growing in such a way that it becomes a trap. What do I mean when I say that? We live in this world obsessed with more, more followers, more revenue, more growth, more everything. And in business, growth has become the holy word, in my opinion. I mean, growth's always been important in business, but I feel like we talk about it nonstop. And in life, more has almost become a default setting. But here's the truth, and I think this is a little bit different in defining the word more in comparison to what we did just the other day. And if you haven't listened to that episode, go back a few episodes and, and take a listen. You'll know what I'm talking about. Here's the truth. I'm talking about the unbridled pursuit of more. The unbridled pursuit of more. The pursuit without boundaries or without purpose or without reflection. That sort of pursuit almost always ends up costing something you can't replace. I've seen it in companies, I've seen it in relationships, and truth be told, I've seen it in myself from time to time. If you're not careful, it will sneak up on you too. It'll be disguised as ambition, but it could quietly be eroding your peace. Let's talk about the, the personal side of this more trap a little bit and just again further define what what I mean by more. Think about the entrepreneur who finally builds a thriving business, and then he or she immediately moves the goalposts. The million turns into 5 million, and then the 5 becomes 10, and then it's, we need to scale nationally. In other words, the chase becomes endless. And I know people who have the houses and the cars and the investment portfolio, but they're emotionally bankrupt. Their kids barely know them. Their health is, is on the edge. And, and, and the worst part, I think they don't even enjoy playing, playing the game anymore. They're not even chasing growth. They're just running from what I guess I'd call stillness. I, I think I've been there from time to time. I've had seasons where I hit maybe a major milestone and you know, maybe it was like a record sales month, or we did a new deal or got something done we didn't think was going to get done, or even, you know, got some accolade or whatever. And instead of celebrating, I immediately thought, okay, what's next? I think that's when you realize the addiction isn't necessarily to achievement, it's the progress for sake of progress. Again, I want to say that one more time. I think that's when you realize you're not focused necessarily on achievement, it's just to create some progress for the sake of progress. And to go back to something I said just earlier, um, I'm talking about the unbridled pursuit of more that doesn't have boundaries and more importantly, purpose, or doesn't have any sort of reflection. It loses its meaning. It's like you're, you're on a treadmill and you can't step off. You're moving fast, but you're not necessarily going anywhere meaningful. That's the difference between saying, hey, do one more, one more rep, or one more conversation, one more call. If you— you've got to do it with meaning, you've got to have purpose. But if you don't have that, you're going to feel like you're not going anywhere meaningful. On the business side, I think growth can turn rather toxic. You see this in, in, in a lot of different businesses, uh, One I think about right now, WeWork. Maybe you remember WeWork. That company was valued at $47 billion, almost $50 billion at its peak. But its growth and its CEO were completely detached from profitability and from culture and from reality. The obsession with scaling faster than anyone else blinded that company and its leadership to the fundamentals. Uber did this early in its early days too. It burned billions of dollars for dominance. It nearly imploded under the weight of just this internal chaos. Facebook pushed to move fast and break things until it realized what it was breaking were, were people's trust and its pri— and their privacy. Even small to mid-sized companies fall into the same trap. Where they're growing so aggressively they forget why they even started. They chase these vanity metrics or trophies, or they add headcount too fast, and they ignore their culture, or they scale a bad process instead of fixing it. It's not growth that kills, it's this undisciplined growth, this unbridled pursuit of more. Author Patrick Lencioni, who's one of my favorites, he once said, success is not about getting bigger, It's about getting better. But in the race for more, too many leaders stop asking, "Should we?" and they only ask things like, "Can we?" There are consequences to this unchecked growth. When you pursue more without purpose, without focus, when it goes unchecked, there's lots of things that could happen. You could lose your joy. Work becomes a grind, not a craft. It becomes a grind. You can lose focus because you start doing everything and you're doing none of it well. You could easily lose relationships because the people around you start to feel unseen when you chase that next summit of yours. And arguably, maybe the worst thing, you could lose identity. In other words, you forget who you were before the scoreboard became the only thing that mattered. In, in nature, growth without pruning actually becomes disease. Trees that never shed limbs or leaves, they eventually will collapse under their own weight. I think the same thing applies to us. So how do we avoid the growth trap? Given all that we're talking about here? How do you stay ambitious? Because I mean, that's what we do here at No Days Off, right? How do you stay ambitious, but without being consumed by this, this chase for more without purpose? Well, number one, I think you got to redefine enough. What do I mean when I say that? What's, what's your envisioned future? What's your dream scenario? What's enough revenue or enough freedom, time, or impact, or recognition? Because if you can't define enough, you're probably never gonna stop chasing more. Enough, just for discussion, I just wanna make it clear, when I say enough, I'm not talking about be complacent. I'm just looking for some clarity. So, if you wanna avoid the growth trap, number 1, understand What enough looks like, and to me that means where am I truly wanting to go? What is truly my envisioned future? Number 2, I think you've got to set rhythms, not sprints. Growth should feel more like a heartbeat, you know, steady, rhythmic, sustainable. It shouldn't feel like a panic attack. So build seasons of sprinting and seasons of recovery into your life and into your business. Number 3, no surprise here. If you want to avoid the growth trap, reconnect growth to purpose. Ask the question, why do I want to grow? And if your answer is tied to ego or comparison or fear, it's probably a red flag. Healthy growth, in my opinion, serves something bigger. It serves your customers or your employees or your mission or your family. So reconnect to that purpose. Number 4, audit the cost of all of this regularly. Every month, or maybe every quarter, ask, hey, what's this next level going to cost me? And if that price is your health or your relationships or your peace of mind, maybe it's not paying for— or at the very least, maybe it deserves a second look around the systems and the people that, that you have around you to go accomplish whatever that that purpose or mission happens to be. And then lastly, one thing you could consider to avoid the growth trap: celebrate maintenance. I know that sounds kind of funny, but create a culture that celebrates acceleration, right? Not stability. But real mastery, um, it oftentimes looks like consistency. The culture of the world again celebrates this acceleration. Or the culture of at least American business celebrates acceleration. It doesn't tend to celebrate stability, but real mastery will look more like consistency, doing the right things, doing it the right way, doing it over a long time. So in my opinion, maintenance isn't about mediocrity. Again, this isn't about complacency. It's just about business maturity. Ambition. Ambition is a really, really amazing thing. It's beautiful. Growth is definitely necessary, but I do think both need boundaries. And when I say boundaries, I think about, you know, having some checked ambition, making sure you're aligned, making sure you're operating with purpose, making sure you operate with pause. Because if you don't, if you operate without alignment and without purpose and without pause, it becomes self-destruction. Self-destruction that's maybe disguised or dressed as progress. The question in my mind isn't how much more can I do? I think the question is how much of what actually matters am I willing to protect? So, so chase growth, do one more, but prune along the way. Expand, absolutely expand, but stay grounded. And never forget that sometimes the most radical form of progress is actually knowing when to stop. That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.