Subscribe: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · YouTube · Amazon Music · iHeartRadio · Pandora · RSS
Episode Summary
You’re 110% in the business and burning out. You walk into your family’s house at whatever time and feel like an outsider in your own kitchen. The wealth circle has a foot in, a foot out. Financial plan yes, estate plan no. Your CPA does taxes. Your banker manages the line. Your spouse doesn’t have context for the decisions you’re trying to talk through. And the peer group you joined is full of other owners running the same fragmented mess. Dr. Stacy Feiner is a clinical psychologist who also held her Series 7 at Merrill Lynch, which means she’s been in your bedroom, your balance sheet, and your boardroom. We got into why owner-operators are triathletes across business, family, and wealth, why those three circles actually create seven groups with competing agendas, and the difference between therapy (protecting you from the fall) and coaching (helping you climb). She walked through her four-phase process, the three types of top performers, and the line that hit hardest for me: it’s not fear of the unknown. It’s fear of not knowing how.
Watch on YouTube
## Top 10 Takeaways- Therapy protects you from the fall. Coaching helps you climb. Know which one you actually need before you hire.
- You’re a triathlete across business, family, and wealth whether you accept it or not. The three circles aren’t optional.
- Most owners are 110% in the business, helpless in the family, ambivalent about the wealth circle.
- Three circles overlap into seven groups with competing agendas. If you don’t see them, they run rogue.
- Top performers come in three flavors: restless at the top, frustrated and stuck, or checked-out-and-unhappy.
- Every decision has emotion as its precursor. Ignore emotion and you’re deciding in the dark.
- It’s not fear of the unknown. It’s fear of not knowing how to handle what’s coming.
- Good coaching has four conditions: relationship, safety, authenticity, feedback loop. Anything less is just chatter.
- Visualize every obstacle before you start. The chutes-and-ladders mind sends you back to the start.
- Your half-baked ideas die without a non-anxious thinker on the bench to talk them through.
Sound Bites
“Therapy is about protecting you from the fall and coaching is about the climb.” (@TBD) — Dr. Stacy Feiner
“I’ve been in your bedroom, which might sound really creepy. But as a psychologist, I’m intimately involved in the privacy part of your life. And I’ve been in your wallet.” (@TBD) — Dr. Stacy Feiner
“Every decision, the precursor to every decision is emotion. If you have confidence about a decision, that’s an emotion. If you are doubtful about something, that’s an emotion. So if you are not understanding emotion and why you have an inclination towards something, you’re making decisions in the dark.” (@TBD) — Dr. Stacy Feiner
“It’s not so much the unknown, because it’s the not knowing. It’s not knowing how.” (@TBD) — Dr. Stacy Feiner
About This Episode
Dr. Stacy Feiner is a clinical psychologist and performance coach. She also held her Series 7 and worked at Merrill Lynch, which means she brings both the psychological and financial lens to owner-operators. She works with elite performers across the three circles of business, family, and wealth, and uses a four-phase process (conceptualize, strategize, facilitate, execute) to take owners from awareness to execution. This episode opened 2022 for the show and fits Ryan’s ongoing exploration of the human side of ownership: the blind spots, mental models, and emotional terrain owners navigate to actually run the seats they sit in.
Resources Mentioned
- staceyfeiner.com — Dr. Stacy’s website with content, LinkedIn, and contact info. — staceyfeiner.com
- Conversations With God — Book Ryan referenced for the concept of relativity (love vs. fear)
- Eckhart Tolle — Referenced for the protagonist analogy (you don’t expect the hero of a movie to have a pain-free life)
- Brené Brown — Referenced for “accept the suck” framing on growth
- Coach Tom Landry — Referenced for the line: “A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, who shows you what you don’t want to see, so you can be all that you can be.”
- Finish Big by Bo Burlingham — Ryan referenced for owners who knew what they wanted and got there happy
- Arkona Intentional Growth Digital Course — Ryan’s training on the five principles of growing a valuable business. — arkona.io
Connections
Phase + Module:
- Module 1 — Ownership Goals — The three priorities the owner is actually trying to win in (business, family, wealth)
- Module 7 — Leadership Team — The first team that has to receive the plan once the owner gets clear
Milestones:
- Milestone 1 — Time & Role Goals — The owner’s role across all three circles, not just the business
- Milestone 19 — Functional Leaders — The first team inside the business circle
- Milestone 20 — Leadership Roadmap — How leadership gets developed once the seats are named
Concepts referenced:
- The Owner-Operator Trap™ — Why owners default to 110% in the business circle
- iBD North Star™ — Vision that spans all three circles, not just the company
- Owner’s Scorecard™ — The constraints across business, family, and wealth that any operating decision rolls up to
- Independence by Design™ — The integrated approach to running the seats Stacy is describing