40 years of high stakes decisions. The one thing that never changed with Keith Blakely

In 1981, a 24-year-old walked into a boardroom, pregnant wife at home, 3 kids to support, a co-founder waiting on his call, months of work on the line. He walked out of that meeting with absolutely nothing. And it was the best decision he ever made. Welcome to the NeuroLeadership Edge. I'm Claire Hayek, NeuroLeadership expert, TEDx speaker, and founder of Mind Soul Purpose Team Building. I spent more than 20 years leading high-stakes projects and teams under pressure. And this podcast exists for one reason only, to give you the science, the stories, and the systems that let you lead at your best when the stakes are high. Highest. Today you are going to walk away with 3 things: why financial pressure is the fastest way to destroy strategic thinking, what calm authority actually looks like in a real moment of crisis, and how the people you build around you either hold the structure or pretty much crack it. My guest today— okay, one sec, pause, pause. My guest today is Keith Blakely. 4 decades of starting, scaling, running, and exiting technology-based businesses. Founder of the InVentures Group, a hybrid consulting, incubation, and investment firm based in Buffalo, New York, supporting companies across the world. 14 years as CEO of Encore Golf Technology, where he led the development of the world's only hollow metal core golf ball. Currently CEO of The Club by Pickle and Putt and Infinite Golf Technologies and board member at Sizzled Inc. Keith was also one of the senior leaders I interviewed during the research for my book, The Leadership Skill Nobody Taught You: Calm Under Fire in the Age of Disruption. That's actually coming out September 9th. This year, 2026. Yes, very soon. His experience and his insights live in those pages, and it was a pleasure interviewing him. I'm really proud to bring him here today so you can hear it directly from him. Keith, welcome to the NeuroLeadership Edge. How are you today?

I'm great, Claire. Thanks for having me. And by the way, my birthday is September 8th, so I'll expect A, uh, a cocktail shortly after.

Well, I'm gonna take note of that. That's amazing. So double celebration, right?

Technically.

That's great. Um, so Keith, I mean, I think I teased this, uh, enough, okay, when I introduced the, the episode.

Sure.

Um, you're 24 years old, you had a meeting with VCs, right? Um, And, um, I'm gonna stop right there. So why don't you tell us what was happening? What happened that day?

We'll start with just a little bit of background to what led to that day. I had started my career at a Fortune 200 company based in the Western New York region. Over that 4 years, I had been promoted successively to the point where I was principal engineer of this very large company. And one of the guys that worked for me was actually the chief scientist for the company, a PhD with degrees from MIT and Penn State. And at one point, we decided that it was time to break out on our own and start a business to try and explore some very high-risk, but what we thought could be very valuable new approaches to synthesizing some advanced materials. That was the foundation behind a business plan that I wound up writing for Advanced Refractory Technologies, or ART, as we called it. And after spending, as you pointed out, several months putting the business plan together, And having resigned from my job and the job security of this, this principal engineering position, I had organized a capital structure to launch the business that included all kinds of different elements, from SBA-guaranteed loans to local and regional economic development agency Low-cost, low-interest rate loans, but all of it hinged around a base level of equity funding.

Right.

So we had to bring in at the time what seemed to be a fair amount of money. In today's dollars, not so much, but it was, it was about $300,000 of equity capital. And through some associates in the region, I had been introduced to a venture capital firm. And had spent weeks meeting with them, walking them through the business plan, showing them what our thought was about the prospect for the company, so forth. And I was meeting with the 3 founders of this venture capital fund, right? So clearly felt I was in the room with the decision makers, right? And I'll never forget that after weeks of going back and forth on the terms of their equity investment and trying to protect as much as I could the equity interests of the 2 founders, myself and my colleague, we basically handshook a deal. And I say basically because we did exactly that. We were in the offices of the VC on a Thursday afternoon, I shook hands with all 3 of the founders, and at the end of that they said, well, look, we'll put the documentation together, but if you don't mind, we'd like you to come down to our offices on Saturday. We have our monthly executive committee meet. It's the 3 of us and 2 others.

Right.

Again, local businessmen who had— and bankers who, who had quite the reputation. And the explanation was they like to meet the people that they're investing in.

So walk me through. So you show up, you're there. What's happening? Who's there? How are they looking at you? You know what I mean? You're 24, ambitious, definitely knows what he wants, go-getter. What happened? Walk us like in that room within like 5, 10 minutes. What was happening?

So, you know, I'm, I'm there explaining to these other 2 gentlemen just exactly what the business plan called for, how much capital we needed, what we were going to do, how big a success this was going to be. You're making your pitch. Etc., etc.

Yeah.

Right? And I've got 3 other guys who have already heard the story, so I'm trying to keep it relatively tight. And they're listening and, and paying attention. And after I get done with my elevator speech, as they call it, They say, uh, this is great. We appreciate you coming down here. If you don't mind, would you just go out, sit in the lobby while we discuss this amongst ourselves? Fine.

Intimidating, but yes, go ahead. Yeah.

You also, you almost wonder why do they need to discuss it amongst themselves?

It probably was a power move, right? Yes.

So, so I go and sit in the lobby. Um, and they keep me sitting in the lobby for 45 minutes.

Of course.

And so with every passing minute, I'm wondering what is going on.

Yeah.

They call me back in and they say, look, we're very excited. We think this is going to be a great success. And we just have a few minor changes that we want to make. Well, the few minor changes were not minor at all. What they wanted to do was replace equity with debt. They wanted to remove some of the performance incentives that we had, the buyback provisions. a number of things that totally changed the nature of the deal. And frankly, in my mind, was going to queer all of the other arrangements for financing that were contingent upon this core element, which I tried to, you know, uh, explain. But unfortunately, these were people who I think felt they had all of the leverage, all of the power, and this was the deal that they were willing to make. Um, and I think they assumed that everyone else that was in the capital stack would simply go along with it.

Yeah.

But I knew that this was a problem, and I felt right away that this kind of maneuver was something that kind of forecasted future problems with this particular group.

Right.

It was not the way to start. A relationship in my mind. And so I really—

Let's pause there for a second. I do want to stress and remind the listeners right now that you were definitely under financial stress at that point. I mean, you, like I said in the intro, you know, your wife was pregnant. Again, if I'm not wrong, you had 3 kids at home and your wife was pregnant. Right? Yes. I mean, this— a lot is at stake here, and here's an opportunity that's not going your way, but it would in a way. They were going to give you the money under certain conditions. It's either that or nothing, right? Um, how were you— were you feeling that pressure?

I was definitely feeling the pressure, um, but I was also Feeling that the wrong decision was going to make this something that was completely different from what I had decided I wanted to do and the reason that I had left.

Right. Your vision of the whole thing was basically being compromised.

Yeah. I actually remember months before that, I had had dinner with a friend who had started a company himself. He was a professor at a local university. And he had started a business. And when my wife and I had dinner with him and told him what I was thinking of doing— this was before I had left my position— I said, what do you think about that? And he said, well, you know, in the United States, if you're willing to work, you don't starve. So I'd take the chance. You will always Rue not trying something. And so, so go for it. So I do think that, again, my sense at the time was that this was not going to be the kind of startup business that I wanted to create with these particular folks.

Right.

And I needed to say thanks, but no thanks. Only I did it perhaps in a way that kind of surprised even myself.

And tell us what you told them.

I basically looked at the chairman, um, who was not one of the founders, but he was the chairman of this executive committee, and I said, sir, the next time you're conducting a stickup, please put your gun on top of the table. And I stood up and I walked out. And I could hear them saying, wait, wait, wait, but I just kept going. Got in the car, drove home, finding my wife reading a book or something in the living room. And as I walked in, she said with a smile on her face, so how did it go? And of course, at that moment, I didn't really know what to say other than I should have gotten it all signed and in writing on Thursday, but I didn't, and that's on me. And I said, now I've got to find a plan B. And we did.

And what did your wife say?

Her first suggestion was that I contact the lawyer who had Help me write the business plan, not for any litigation purpose or anything like that, but simply to have a voice to hear the story, to talk to, and to understand what the options might be. And that was without a doubt the most sensible thing to do. And when I did, his first name was David. He said to me, he said, Keith, that's not how honorable people conduct themselves. Give me a couple of days and we'll find an alternative. And in point of fact, that was what happened. Within less than a week, he had identified and made an introduction to a local angel investor who basically, after hearing the story, said, I don't care what the terms are. I'll take exactly the terms that they turned down. And we moved forward on that basis.

That's amazing. And, and fast forward to the final success story of all this. So X amount of years later.

So what happened? Yeah. So what happened was I was able to call my colleague and Let him know that we had the funding, that we were able to start the business. That was May of 1981, late May of 1981. And over the subsequent 20 years, we built a company that was a leader in advanced materials for all kinds of applications— aerospace, defense, automotive, Electronic, energy, nuclear, etc., etc. And when we ultimately were acquired by a multi-billion-dollar company in 2001, 20 years almost to the day that we started, we had 3 international joint ventures, 3 U.S. manufacturing operations, 350 employees spread around the world. And I think we're regarded as one of the premier advanced ceramic businesses in the country at the time.

One decision.

One decision.

One decision basically created ripple, that ripple effect into that big success. And I wanted to pause here and make a point out of this. And this is why we're, you know, we're having even this conversation is that when What you described, Keith, is exactly what calm authority looks like. And in that boardroom, your nervous system was reading real danger. It was a real threat. You had obligations. You had a pregnant wife, obligations to your partner, a vision that is completely being destroyed right in front of you.

Mm-hmm.

And you don't have that luxury Really, in theory, you don't have that luxury to say no, right? Because sometimes when we— when your nervous system is under pressure, our focus narrows to what do I need to do to keep— to stay alive here, to save the day. But you were able to, because you had calm authority at that, you know, were able to stay calm under this very high-pressure, high-stakes situation. And not say, I'll think about it. You knew you had made your decision. You had enough of a pause, enough. You created enough of that space to be able to sit with it within seconds and know with focus alignment that I'm walking away from something huge here, but I'm not going to compromise on it. And that is that. And I'm walking away. That is a huge decision done by somebody young like that. I mean, you were definitely in the right— you were able to switch from your survival instinct back into your prefrontal cortex, your brain CEO, and make aligned decisions that respect and focus on, what are we trying to do here? What are my values and what's my vision? And is this coherent? With this offer, despite all the pressure sitting right outside of you.

Well, that's right. And, and it also highlights something that I know that you've discussed in conversations with me previously, and that's the importance of the people that are around you.

Absolutely.

And in this case, it was the people that wanted to be around me. But which I viewed as people who were interested more in hijacking the opportunity as opposed to partnering. And those aren't the kinds of people that will help you in the future when there is a stressful situation. In fact, clearly they will take advantage of it to suit their own needs and not necessarily the needs of the organization or the employees that you're responsible to.

Yeah, absolutely. Now, you have spent 4 decades inside early-stage companies. Sometimes you were the founder, sometimes you're supporting founders through InVentures Group. If you look at that, if we just kind of look across all of that, where do you see pressure affecting leadership performance most consistently?

The interesting thing is, of course, I have been in the startup world more than, uh, I'll say in mature business settings. Although the mature business settings have come basically from companies that I've started and grown to a certain size. But when you're in the startup mode, cash is king.

Mm-hmm.

And as a result, the greatest threat to survival is Making sure that you have enough capital to make payroll, to pay the rent, to acquire the, uh, the supplies that you need, or whatever it is. And unfortunately, startups suffer from, you know, a real challenge in terms of attracting capital.

Right.

Because they don't have a track record to point to and say, oh, we know we can pay you back, or we know it's going to be a good investment, so forth and so on. And so really, it is the single most stressful element of starting a business and getting it to the point where it is, for all intents and purposes, able to sustain itself based on more objective, calm decisions. So those are the pressures that we typically see forcing founders into bad decisions or bad choices. And there are all kinds of things that can happen. They can elect to license a technology to someone that they really wouldn't want to be a competitor, but there's an offer for capital that helps them at least keep the lights turned on.

Right.

Or it may be hiring someone that promises to bring capital in alongside their services and tells you how much they're going to be able to help you grow. But they're the wrong fit and they wound up, you know, being more problematic and less valuable to the company than if you'd avoided taking their capital in. All kinds of things like that that I've seen transpire in a number of the companies that we've assisted.

Yeah. I mean, the cost is, it is really huge. We're not having this conversation. This is why I bring this up and I bring successful people like you, Keith, that come and talk about this. This is real. This is not theory in a little book.

Right.

This is happening probably right now in your organization. Pressure is costing you something right now. And you probably have no idea. Seeing it after sometimes is a bit too late and the cost has just been compounded. When we talk about this and we bring this forward is to be able to stop and look at this and say, How are we doing? What are our blind spots? Have we made decisions under pressure that are actually misaligned? And actually, I can see one or two. How much did that cost us again? Did we ever stop and think about this? Did we put a number on this? And unfortunately, this is not showing up in your financial statements.

Well, you raise a couple of good points here, one of which is that Again, for a lot of startups, they look at the, we'll say, the bookkeeping, the accounting, the financial function as being kind of secondary because it's not resulting in sales, it's not resulting in patents, it's not resulting in the things that they're focused on, which is the innovation and the growth.

Right.

But it turns out to be one of the most critical things to making informed decisions, even though, again, most financial accounting people will tend to be very conservative in their thinking, and justifiably so. In many ways, they're like attorneys that will tell you all of the things that are bad that can happen from a contract, as opposed to what you want to focus on, which is all the good stuff.

Yeah, at the end of the day, The founder, co-founder, or the board, or the executive team need to make those decisions. Even if you're getting that advice and you're not able to make the decision from a calm state, from an aligned, focused, completely respectful towards your values and the vision of the company, Right. then no advisor can save you. The point I'm trying to make is that it really is important for each leader to work on him or herself. You need to be ready. Even you could be advised with tremendous people that are so talented. But if you don't have that center focused and you're not in your right set of brain, you know, because there's certain things you don't compromise on and you're not willing to compromise on. And values definitely can save the day. Now we're running out of time. Very quick question before we jump into the rapid fire. You've survived a $100 million IPO that pretty much froze mid-deal in 2007 with Bear Stearns when they collapsed, right? Now, if you were to share one thing quickly of what did that experience really teach you?

Well, there actually, the one thing it taught me, and it was something that we knew, um, I'll say from previous experience is that you have to be highly respectful of the importance of timing. Um, had we started our process a week earlier, we would have been able to raise $100 million.

Right.

And I would not have been, uh, following the path that ultimately I followed. But as a result of that unsuccessful IPO attempt, we wound up finding some alternatives to monetize and build businesses from if you will, the ashes that that created.

Right.

But the reason I bring up the timing issue is that delaying for analysis and study is absolutely a smart thing, but it can be taken too long and can hurt some businesses rather dramatically. The difference between success and failure can be a matter of just days, weeks, or months. And so I always focus on making sure that the risk that we're talking about taking in any decision is one that is rational, but it isn't overanalyzed to the point where we lose time and we open the door for competitors to do what we were thinking of doing first. Right.

So timing is definitely key in that case.

Absolutely.

All right, moving to the rapid fire. Here's one for you. What do you wish more leaders understood when leading through complexity or change? And quite honestly, my book talks about how do you stay calm under fire in this, in the age of disruption? This is now. So what would be that advice you would have for leaders?

I think one of the most important things is to develop a degree of confidence and self-assuredness and rely on that because no matter what age you are at, Or the age of your advisors. You're really betting on yourself and your own decision-making capability. And that's not to say you don't listen to other people or analyze and take in as much information as you can. But at the end of the day, you're doing this. You are a founder, you are a leader, you are a CEO. You need to have enough confidence in your own ability to assess all of the data points that you've been exposed to both historically and in the moment and make a decision and stick with that. It may not be the right decision in hindsight, but you have to be calm enough to say, this is what I believe. This is what we're going to do. We're going to try this. We're going to stick with this. We're going to see this through to the end and then be satisfied with whatever the outcome is— success, failure, or something in between.

I think from your story and the stories you've shared so far on this episode, I think you, you definitely proven that there's always a gift from any, anything that happens.

Absolutely.

There's always a way to find, there's always something. And even if it looks like a failure, sometimes looking back and going, wow, this really happened for me to learn this because that's how I was able to succeed after it. Don't hate anything going on because you don't know, you don't have that perspective yet. And you have to trust the process. So definitely wise words there, Keith. I just want to jump quickly here to wrap up. As we already mentioned earlier, I'm writing a book. It's called The Leadership Skill Nobody Taught You: Calm Under Fire in the Age of Disruption. And it's coming out September 9th, 2026, the day after Keith's birthday. I am building a small curated group of leaders who will read the manuscript before it launches. You're going to get free access to it. And a chance to give your feedback if you choose to. If that is you, I would love for you to scan the QR code and/or visit clairehayek.com/book for more information. Don't forget to subscribe to the NeuroLeadership Edge. We have serious conversations here. We bring the caliber of guests that you deserve to have on this amazing podcast. And I've been blessed to have and meet just like you, Keith. And if you're not following and subscribing, then you're not supporting in a way.

That's right.

that's it. Because once you follow and subscribe, it brings the rating up, and I'm able to attract that caliber of senior leaders just like Keith. Um, if you want any information on the podcast, you can go to clairehayek.com/podcast. Now, Keith, any last words before we wrap up?

I don't think so. I think, you know, you've, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head, which is that calm under fire is critically important to the success of startup companies and startup founders. And hopefully, this will help them understand that even in very stressful situations, making good decisions is always the right move.

Absolutely. Thank you so much again, Keith, for agreeing to come on the show. Thank you for your insights that will be in the book. I am really excited about this. I believe you're going to be in chapter 8. 6 and 9. Haven't finalized that yet, but just teasing it out there. And I promise you have— you'll have your copy, maybe not on your birthday, but we'll see. I'll do my best. And it will definitely be signed. Thanks again for being so generous with your time. Everybody else, thanks for joining in. Hopefully this was useful to you. Lead boldly, stay human, and turn every challenge into a gift. And see you all next week.