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Business, Bourbon & Cigars
The One Decision That Quietly Costs You More Than Any Bad Investment
00:18:11
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Here's something nobody in the business world wants to say out loud. You can build a successful company and still be the biggest thing holding it back. Not your team, not the market, not the economy. You and I know this because it's happened to me. And the hardest part wasn't the realization itself. It was that everything on the outside still looked like it was working. Revenue was coming in, the team showing up, the clients are getting results. And from the outside, things look like they were on track. But there was a ceiling. And no matter how hard I pushed, I kept hitting it. Let me ask you, I want you to sit with this question for a second. When is the last time that someone in your life genuinely challenged how you think, not agreed with you, not validated your plan, actually push back and made you reconsider something that you were certain about? Think about that for a second. If you're struggling to come up with an answer, this episode is for you. Today I'm going to walk you through something that took me years to figure out. And honestly, it cost me more time and momentum than I like admitting. I'm going to show you why the environment you operate in determines the ceiling you operate under, why effort on its own eventually stops being the answer, and why the most successful shift I ever made had nothing to do with strategy, tactics or working longer hours, wasn't about the grind. By the end of this conversation, you're going to see your business and maybe your life through a different lens. And I think for a lot of you, you know that shift is going to be uncomfortable. And I mean that in the best possible way. Welcome to business. Bourbon and Cigars. I'm Scott Joseph. I spent more than three decades building and scaling companies. I've acquired dealerships. I've navigated full restructures. I've sat across from leaders who are running billion dollar organizations, and I've sat across from entrepreneurs who were just getting started, maybe just hit that first million. And somewhere along the way, after a lot of friction, a lot of breakthroughs, and a lot of honest conversations that I really didn't know I needed, I built something called Me Plus Ultra. It's a mastermind group designed for the kind of leaders who are tired of pretending they have everything figured out. But I'm not going to lead with that today. I'm going to lead with the part of the story I used to be most reluctant to tell. Because that's where the real lesson actually lives. Here's how today goes. First, I'm going to take you back to a Specific night early in my career that changed the direction of everything. A night where I finally stopped pretending. Then I'm going to walk you through what happened after that. It was a decision I made that most people in my position would not have made and why it was the most important one I ever made. And then finally, I'm going to bring it around to what this has to do with you. Because the pattern I fell into is not unique to me. I've watched it play out in hundreds of leaders across every industry that you can think of. So let's dive in. When I started J L Marketing, I operated on one belief, one. And it drove everything. If I work hard enough, I can figure anything out. And for a long time that was true. The company grew. We built a national presence, serving at that time automotive dealerships across the country. Strong sales team, operations team that genuinely cared. Revenue was coming in, clients trusting us, producing great results. Every piece of evidence I had told me that that formula was working. So I kept running it. Same habit, same instincts, same exact approach. The problem is that the habits that build a company are not the same habits that scale one. I couldn't see that yet. So I kept going, you know, and the business kept running. But something underneath had started to strain in ways that I wasn't looking at, honestly. We didn't have documented processes. You know, workloads weren't balanced the way they needed to be. Too much knowledge lived inside a few people's heads, right? Which meant that the same handful of employees were carrying the weight. And that was never sustainable. And because I believe deep down that it was all on my shoulders, I became the biggest bottleneck in the company. Every decision flowed to me, every fire landed in my inbox. Every problem needed my approval before anything could move. Then came the night where everything really came into focus for me. You know, I'm sitting at my computer, it's late, I'm exhausted in a way that kind of gets. We've been there right past tired. You know that feeling where you're just, you're not frustrated anymore, just kind of numb to it. And there I was. Emails are coming in one after another, all of them asking me to solve something. And a serious one comes through from operations. We had five marketing campaigns scheduled over the next week that still needed on site representatives. We were out of people. There was no backup, no redundancy, nowhere to go. And everyone was waiting on me. And I sat there, you know, staring at the screen. Two straight years of grinding harder while sales really just plateaued. And in that moment, something in me just stopped. It wasn't the workload that got to me. It was the realization that nothing was going to change unless I changed. You know, the business had taken on a life I had built for it, and I had no idea how to get out of my own way. And then there was the part that I really didn't want to say out loud. I wasn't even sure I deserved the success that I already had. I remember I turned to my wife and I said, I don't care what it cost. I need help. I cannot keep doing this. That was the moment. Not a revelation, not a breakthrough, just a quiet, honest admission that I had taken the company as far as I could on my own and that staying the same was no longer a neutral choice. It was going to cost me everything that I had built. It wasn't long after that night, you know, I made a decision that most people in my position would have rationalized themselves out of. I registered for. I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember registered for a Tony Robbins Business Mastery event. It was up in Chicago. Now, I want to be clear about why I didn't go for the motivation. I didn't go to feel fired up. I went because I had hit a wall I didn't know how to climb, and I needed to be surrounded by people who were further along than I was. That distinction that matters because there's a difference between going somewhere to feel inspired and going somewhere to be challenged. I can remember Chicago was the first time in my professional life I was in a room full of entrepreneurs who had already solved the problems I was drowning in. And they didn't care about my highlight reel. They didn't care what I had built. Their only focus was what I was trying to build next, you know, and why I wasn't thinking bigger. During the breakout sessions, I opened up. You know, I'm talking. Really opened up. Not the polished version of the story, the actual version. The process gaps, the bottlenecks, the inefficiencies, the lack of clarity that was holding everybody back. And instead of nodding politely, these people dug in. They asked real questions. They challenged the assumptions that I had been living with for years. They shared how they navigate the same situations. And they helped me map out a plan that made more sense than anything that I had come up with on my own. I remember when I got home, I moved immediately. I hired our first VP of operations, Jose Zabaneh, and he made an impact from day one. He documented every process. He introduced Kaizen. He built the foundation for scalable growth. Within a year, the entire company felt lighter, more efficient, more aligned. Chicago didn't just give me strategies. It showed me what happens when you get in the right room. That was the realization I carried with me for the next decade and a half. Not a strategy, not a framework, an environment. The problem wasn't the business. The problem was the rooms I was staying in. Fast forward, years later, you know, the company had grown. We scaled and I went through multiple dealership acquisitions. Life looked really successful by every external measure. Then Covid hits, you know, my close friend Sandy Cerami. He and I started watching, you know, what was happening to people around us. Business owners with multi state operations, each with different restrictions. All these rules kept, you know, always constantly changing. Nobody knew what the right move was. The anxiety they felt was real. And we made a decision. We weren't going to sit on the sideline, you know, we organized weekly zoom calls. We opened these up to anyone who needed support. We brought in lawyers, HR professionals, CPAs, sales experts, marketers, Whoever could bring clarity to people who were trying to make impossible decisions under pressure. No fees, no funnels, no strategy behind it. Just help. Something unexpected happened in those calls. The clarity people were getting wasn't just coming from the experts that we brought in. It was coming from each other. From leaders sitting in the same room, even virtually willing to be honest about what they were actually dealing with. And San I started hosting our own weekly sessions. You know, just the two of us. No agenda, just two friends. I remember just solving problems over a bourbon and cigar. And eventually we brought in my business partner, J and L. Jamil Zabaneh. Then conversations got even better and we opened up one seat per week for another one of our leaders that were on the zoom calls to join us. And we started calling it the fourth box. There was no cost to this. No pitch, no hidden motive. Just real problem solving with people who needed direction. People loved it. Not because the advice was always groundbreaking, because those calls gave people something most leaders almost never get. A Place to talk honestly and be fully understood. No, that's when we kind of made the decision we wanted to take it further. There was no brand yet, no event name, no agenda. The idea was simple. Get a handful of people together and create more of the same energy that had been so valuable when everyone was navigating uncertainty. I remember 13 leaders showed up. This was in person, first in person thing we had done. It wasn't a conference, it wasn't a production. It was a room full of people who were ready for Real conversations, not the polished versions they were used to offering the rest of the world. The moment we sat down, I could tell most of them were carrying more strain than they were letting on. And across the two days, the conversations went exactly where they needed to go. People opened up and I started asking sharper questions, pushed each other in ways that rarely happen in any typical business setting. Ideas, you know, had felt stuck, finally moved and relationships formed faster than I had ever seen. By the time the retreat ended, people were already asking when the next one was going to happen. And that was the moment. That was the moment it became undeniable. This wasn't a one time experience. This was the beginning of something that needed to be built with intention.
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Right now, you're juggling every decision, putting
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out fires and trying to grow your business on your own.
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Every day feels like a grind. And no matter how hard you push, the breakthrough you've been chasing seems like it's just out of reach.
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You don't have the right perspective or
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maybe the network to see the opportunities waiting for you. The Business Bourbon and Cigars Leadership Retreat is your chance to change that. Imagine being in a room with entrepreneurs who have already overcome the challenges you're facing. Leaders who have scaled, innovated and found the clarity you're searching for. Through our Mastermind style sessions, you're going to gain actionable strategies and the opportunity to connect with active Me plus Ultra members. These aren't just networking contacts. They are entrepreneurs who think strategically, spot opportunity quickly and complain. Provide insights that accelerate your growth. This experience allows you to see firsthand how high level leaders solve problems, create momentum and unlock opportunities. So you can leave the retreat not just with a plan, but with a network that expands your possibilities faster than
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you ever thought possible. The first five people to apply at
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me+ultra.com BBC50 is going to receive 50% off their ticket.
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Don't wait.
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Secure your spot now and step into a space where real business breakthroughs happen.
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All right, so I've walked you through that story, right? I want to give you the actual lesson here because there's something specific I want you to take out of this. For most of my early career, I operated on a very simple belief. Effort is the differentiator. Work hard enough, stay focused enough, out grind everyone else and the results will follow. And that belief isn't wrong. At least in the early stages, it's probably exactly right. But here's what nobody tells you. The habits that build the company are not the same habits that scale it. And the moment you hit that wall. The moment effort stops moving the needle, most leaders do the one thing that makes it worse. They push harder. More hours, more pressure, more personal involvement. I know because I did it for two straight years and the business barely moved. They talk about frustrating. You know, the real problem wasn't effort. The real problem was the environment I was operating in. I want to explain that. So here's what I mean. My entire world was one industry. Every conversation I had was with people who thought about business the same way I did. The trade shows I went to, the people I talked to, the ideas that circulated. All of it reinforced the same thinking, the same assumptions, the same ceiling. And because I was surrounded by people at my level or below, I stopped being challenged. I stopped being pushed. I got very good at meeting expectations that no longer stretched me. That is not a comfort zone that you can see from the inside. It feels like stability. It feels like expertise. And it is. Until it isn't. The room you're in right now is either expanding your thinking or it's capping it. There is no neutral. So here's what I want you to think about. Who around you is actually further along than you. Not just successful, but further along. You know, maybe they're running something bigger. Making decisions you haven't had, you know, to make yet. Thinking at a level that makes you uncomfortable. If that list is short or empty, that's the answer to why growth feels harder than it should. The second thing that I want you to think about is this. When is the last time that you did something that felt genuinely risky? I'm talking in terms of how you were perceived. Something that required you to admit out loud that you didn't have the answer. That's not weakness. That's the beginning of every real breakthrough I've ever seen a leader make. The night I told my wife that I needed help was not the moment things got worse. It was the moment the real work started. And then finally, the most valuable rooms, they're not the ones that validate you, the most valuable rooms. They're the ones where people are far enough ahead that they see your blind
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spots before you do.
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Where the questions people ask are sharper than the ones you're asking yourself. Where showing up with a half formed idea means someone's going to poke holes in it. And that's considered a good thing. Those rooms exist, but they don't show up on their own. You have to decide to get in them. I'll leave you with this. When I finally walked into a room full of people who were further along than I was. I'm talking specifically about that one. In Chicago, at the Business Mastery Event, I didn't walk out with a strategy document. I walked out with a completely different picture of what was possible. Not because someone handed me the answer, because the environment called me to a higher standard. And here's the thing about standards. They're contagious. Get around people operating at a higher standard long enough and it stops feeling optional to raise your own. You don't outgrow a ceiling by working harder inside it. You outgrow it by changing the room. If this conversation resonated, if something I said today made you think about the environment you're operating in differently, I want to hear from you. Tell me what hit. Tell me what you're sitting with. And if you're the kind of leader who's ready to stop being the smartest person in your own room and start putting yourself around people who challenge how you think. That's exactly what we're building inside Me Plus Ultra and at every business Bourbon and Cigars leadership retreat. The information it's at me+ultra.com. take a look, and if it feels like the right fit, apply. I'm Scott Joseph. This is Business Bourbon and Cigars. I'll see you at the next one. Cheers, everyone.