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Episode Summary
You’re in the peer group. Three CEOs just announced another month of crushing growth. You haven’t slept right in two weeks, cash is tight, the senior hire isn’t working out, and when it’s your turn you nod and say “good month.” That’s the trap Sue Hawkes wrote her book about, and the one she lived herself: businesses unraveling, parents dying, house in foreclosure, and a calendar full of people paying her to teach the discipline her own life was lacking. I had Sue on because the imposter syndrome research is brutal (75-80% of high-performing leaders feel like frauds, and the more successful you get the worse it lands), and almost nobody in the rooms I sit in is willing to be the first one to say it out loud. We got into why peer learning collapses into chest-beating when nobody goes first, why discipline and focus actually create freedom, why your business is the other lover your spouse already knows about, and the practice she built (one 30-minute block a week, no more) that finally turned the corner. If you’ve been faking it longer than you want to admit, this one’s for you.
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## Top 10 Takeaways- If everyone in your peer group is crushing it every month, somebody is lying. Probably more than one somebody.
- Imposter syndrome scales with success. The bar moves up faster than you can hit it.
- The same strength that built your business is the dam holding everything else back. Letting go feels like flooding.
- Your peer group should be the place you can say what you can’t say anywhere else, not a chest-beating contest.
- Once the secret’s out, it has no more mystique. The protection was the prison.
- You need one truth-teller who isn’t your spouse and isn’t your best friend.
- Lower the bar before you raise it. Thirty minutes a week beats a perfect routine you’ll abandon by Friday.
- Discipline and focus create freedom. Yes and no are the only real boundaries you have.
- Your business is the other lover you don’t tell your spouse about. Your spouse already knows.
- If you stopped running it tomorrow and someone asked what you do, you’d panic. That’s the work.
Sound Bites
“We just constantly thought we were alone, and if we would have just been vulnerable and asked certain people in the right context for a little bit of help, they would have totally reached out and helped us if we would have known who to ask and in what kind of context.” (@00:02:13) — Ryan Tansom
“If you’re just walking in and going ‘we’re amazing every month,’ you’re a liar. And that’s where I just look up and when my groups get there, I’m often the one going, wow, everybody is awesome this month. We are either in a great groove, or we’re not seeing what’s gonna hit us in the face in a very short period of time.” (@00:22:35) — Sue Hawkes
“Once it’s out, it has no more mystique. It doesn’t sound that interesting. It doesn’t have you. You have it.” (@00:29:11) — Sue Hawkes
“For most entrepreneurs, their business is their lover. It’s the other one they don’t tell their spouse about. And their spouse is keenly aware.” (@00:40:10) — Sue Hawkes
“Discipline and focus create freedom. And I think for most owners like myself, we tend to push against structure because it’s like, ah, it sounds like limitation. Instead of, no, there’s some boundaries, and that’s all yes and no are. Our boundaries.” (@00:36:56) — Sue Hawkes
About This Episode
Sue Hawkes is a Certified EOS Implementer, certified business coach, WPO chapter chair, and award-winning seminar leader with over 25 years working with thousands of entrepreneurs and leadership teams. She is the author of Chasing Perfection: Shatter the Illusion; Minimize Self-Doubt and Maximize Success, written after years of watching successful CEOs (and herself) cycle through imposter syndrome at higher and higher altitudes. Her firm YESS! works with multi-million-dollar companies on leadership team development. She brings the combined lens of an EOS Implementer and a coach who has been on the receiving end of her own collapse.
Resources Mentioned
- Chasing Perfection by Sue Hawkes — Sue’s book on imposter syndrome and vulnerability for leaders. — suehawkes.com
- YESS! — Sue’s coaching and EOS implementation firm. — sayyess.com
- Essentialism by Greg McKeown — Referenced on saying no and the discipline of focus.
- Profit First by Mike Michalowicz — Referenced on cash flow reality for owners at every revenue level.
- Brené Brown — Referenced for normalizing vulnerability research in business.
Connections
Phase + Module:
- Module 1 — Ownership Goals — Identity work: who are you outside the business, and what do you actually want
- Module 7 — Leadership Team — Peer learning, vulnerability, and the leaders you confide in
- Module 9 — Operator Transition — The founder identity question that surfaces when you start letting go
Milestones:
- Milestone 1 — Time & Role Goals — What you want your week and your role to look like
- Milestone 25 — Operator Transition Plan — The practical side of the identity transition Sue describes
Concepts referenced:
- The Owner-Operator Trap™ — Founder syndrome and the affirmation that comes from being needed
- 168-hour constraint — Building a life worth living outside the business
- Independence by Design™ — The integration of business and life Sue and I both keep circling back to
Related episodes:
- Ep. 156 — Jack Stack - The Great Game of Business — The previous episode on owners not knowing what they want and businesses suffering for it