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Own Your Impact equips experts and leaders to transform their expertise into meaningful influence. Host Macy Robison reveals how successful thought leaders use deliberate systems—not luck or volume—to amplify their authentic voice and create lasting impact. Through practical frameworks and strategic guidance, you'll discover how to build a self-reinforcing ecosystem of Core Resonance, structured Content, a Central Platform, strategic Connections, and intentional Commercialization. Whether you're just starting to share your expertise or scaling an existing platform, this podcast delivers the roadmap to turn your ideas into purpose-driven influence that resonates far beyond what you might imagine possible.
032_Simple Systems Scale
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[00:00:00] The most dangerous assumption in thought leadership isn't that you need to be perfect before you start. I think it's that scaling your impact requires you to remove yourself from the transformation you create. Recently, I read a book that has completely shifted the way I think about scaling a thought leadership business.
[00:00:20] It's brand new. It hit the New York Times last week. It's called The Science of Scaling by Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Blake Erickson. And while it's written for entrepreneurs in general, I think it contains profound insights for those of us building platforms around our expertise. So today I'm sharing what I learned about scaling thought leadership, specifically from this book.
[00:00:41] First, why traditional scaling advice often fails, mission-driven experts, and why this framework, Ben Hardy's framework actually works for people who want to stay connected to transformation. We're gonna talk about how impossible goals don't just drive business growth. They force the kind of strategic clarity that makes your [00:01:00] expertise more powerful, not more diluted.
[00:01:02] And finally, we're gonna talk about why simplifying. Your focus isn't about doing less. It's about eliminating everything that stops you from doing your best work at the highest level. This conversation we're having today is not about building a business empire. It's all about creating the conditions where your most meaningful work can reach the people who need it most.
[00:01:23] So let's dive in. First principle, the Scaling Framework. The Science of Scaling framework actually serves thought leaders better than traditional business advice. Most business scaling advice feels fundamentally wrong to thought leaders. It has for me over the years, and there's a good reason for that.
[00:01:43] Traditional scaling assumes your goal is to remove yourself from the equation, to build a faceless company, to build systems so efficient that the business runs without you. And while that's a nice goal for some, that's the exact opposite of what most of us want to do when we're building around our expertise. In the science of scaling.
[00:01:59] [00:02:00] Hardy talks about what he calls the scaling framework, and it's built on three components. Frame, floor and focus. Now, what I love about this model is it does not require you to disappear from your work if that's the way you want it to be. It does, however, require you to get crystal clear about work only you can do.
[00:02:19] So let's break this down. Frame. Your frame is your impossible goal and your timeline, not just big, impossible. Hardy argues that impossible goals serve as the most powerful filters for decision making because they force you to eliminate everything that won't actually get you there. You can use the goal and play around with the timeline to make sure that frame is really clear.
[00:02:46] Next is floor. Floor is what you eliminate the standard below, which you will not go. Hardy says that most people don't scale because they keep saying yes to things below their floor, and that creates complexity that can't scale. And [00:03:00] honestly, that was one of my biggest takeaways. I'll talk about that again.
[00:03:02] Complexity can't scale. Only simple things can scale. And then the third thing, your focus. Your focus is that simplified path and scalable model that emerges once you've clarified your frame and raised your floor. Now, this obviously is gonna work well for traditional businesses. There are tons of case studies and examples in the book, but here's why I think this framework also serves thought leaders as it relates to scaling, because it's not about building a system that replaces you, which is I think what we usually imagine when we think about scaling.
[00:03:36] To me, this is about building systems that amplify your highest contribution, which is what matters when it comes to building an expertise-based business. I recently worked with a client who was struggling with this tension. She'd built a very successful coaching practice doing in-person and zoom sessions.
[00:03:54] But was feeling really stuck because every piece of scaling advice she received [00:04:00] seemed to require her to either do more or completely step back from this transformational work. She really loved. I had just received a copy of Benjamin Hardy's book and had read the first couple of chapters, was inspired to share the framework with her, and she started applying it to her situation and it was really cool to see what happened.
[00:04:19] Her impossible goal wasn't to build a business that ran without her. It was to help more people with her specific expertise while increasing the depth of transformation she could create without spending more time working. That frame, it seemed impossible. More people helped deeper transformation, less time face-to-face with people, but that frame immediately clarified the floor.
[00:04:45] She realized that one-on-one delivery model was keeping her from the scale of impact she really wanted. And that impossible goal forced a question of what if I could create deeper transformation in a more leveraged way? [00:05:00] So she started designing something different, played around with the timeline. Kept shifting and changing things and tweaking things until she compressed the timeline to a point where she had designed something that felt perfect.
[00:05:15] And within a couple of weeks she had designed an assessment. She has launched a cohort that is starting soon and has created a certification that is going to allow her to scale her work beyond herself. It's selling really quickly and I'm so excited to see what this is going to make possible not only for her, but the people who she is going to be able to equip with the transformation that she is so brilliant at producing for people.
[00:05:45] And so she didn't remove what she's great at. The magic is still there. And she's actually going to be more present with the people who are coming to train with her. And because she's amplifying her impact through other people getting [00:06:00] certified, she's gonna be able to serve more people and be able to not spend a whole bunch of time sitting in front of a camera all day.
[00:06:08] It's really, really cool to see how walking through this process completely shifted what she thought about what scaling means. So the takeaway for me is that. This framework, Benjamin Hardy's framework doesn't ask you to scale away from your expertise. I think, , because of the way it's structured, it gives you the chance to scale toward eliminating everything that dilutes your distinctive value.
[00:06:32] Principle number two, impossible goals for strategic clarity that makes your expertise even more powerful. So one of the really kind of counterintuitive insights in this book is that impossible goals aren't just motivational, they're strategic. One of the things Ben says in the book is, for a goal to be effective, it needs to be a hot knife cleanly cutting through not only your fears and faulty assumptions, but it also should rip your entire business to shreds, [00:07:00] leaving only the most relevant and scalable signal.
[00:07:03] Now we talk a lot around here about signals cutting through the noise. And to me when I read that, I was like, absolutely, if we can get everything else that doesn't matter, to strip away, and all that's left is the signal. That is what's going to become our version of what we talk about here, that core resonance, that singer's form, that is what is going to make our unique voice heard.
[00:07:29] Impossible goals serve as filters, which I think we inherently all know, but it's so fascinating to see it in practice. When you set a goal that is so big, it becomes impossible, even if you use it as a thought exercise.
[00:07:43] Everything you're currently doing becomes obviously irrelevant to reaching it almost every single thing. And this forces what he calls strategic focus, which is the elimination of good opportunities in service of great ones. Now I have been. Going through this since [00:08:00] finishing the book, , earlier today actually.
[00:08:03] , I've been looking at my own business. I am trying to make sure I am following my own system, trying to be a trustworthy guide, taking my own medicine, walking my own talk, and as I've been building the podcast and running workshops, doing one-on-one work, trying to figure out what is gonna fit me best as it relates to my own commercialization strategy.
[00:08:25] I realized I was still optimizing some things that I probably shouldn't be that probably didn't need to be part of my business model. So when I , took a step back, imagined the impossible goal of helping thousands of experts build resonant thought leadership. Within three years. Most of what I was doing, most of what I've been thinking about doing suddenly look like noise.
[00:08:47] The floor became crystal clear. I needed to eliminate everything that wasn't directly building toward the transformational impact. I'm hoping to accomplish that through the things I'm teaching More of you listening [00:09:00] will be able to build the type of resonant expertise, thought leadership, magnetic businesses that can allow you to serve others in a way that you would like to.
[00:09:11] So for you, that doesn't mean abandoning the diverse expertise that got you where you are. It means choosing which expertise to lead with and organize everything around that core ' cause. That's what allows you to break through in addition to your core resonance. It reinforces it.
[00:09:28] In the book, Benjamin Hardy shares a story about an artist named April who was offering all these different photography formats and packages, and her revenue was really stuck 'cause she couldn't differentiate herself and she loved doing these commissioned pieces.
[00:09:46] It was oil painted photography, and. She was charging $8,000 to do these custom pieces of art. She raised her floor and set a goal of averaging 15,000 per [00:10:00] commission instead of 8,000, and that forced her to focus on that one approach. Business started to grow within a couple of months. 50% of her revenue came from this single offering, and she found what?
[00:10:13] Benjamin Hardy calls the crux, the core constraint that once you solve, it unlocks everything else. And sometimes that takes some testing and some figuring out, but a lot of it comes from that thought exercise of saying, here's my frame. Here's my floor and raising that floor.
[00:10:30] Impossible goals. Don't scatter your expertise. They force you to organize around the single most powerful application that can actually reach the scale of impact you want to create. A lot of this starts with desire and then I feel like this scaling framework just gives you the focus. So that brings me to the third thing I want to talk about.
[00:10:48] Simplifying. Your focus is actually what creates exponential impact. And we want exponential impact. We don't want linear growth. So Benjamin Hardy makes a [00:11:00] distinction that completely reframed how I think about building these platforms.
[00:11:06] This is the thing that I have come back to again and again and again in the book. Benjamin writes, you cannot scale a complex system. Complex systems, have many competing priorities and agendas, and countless constraints are bottlenecks to solve.
[00:11:21] I don't think we set out to create a complex system, but if we're not mindful and watchful, we accidentally create complex systems because we're trying to serve everyone and address every aspect of our expertise. But the research in this book shows that simple systems scale exponentially and complex systems stagnate.
[00:11:41] So for as thought leaders, for us, this means something specific. The power of your platform comes from the depth of your focus, not from the breadth of your offerings. In the book, I was absolutely delighted to read one of my favorite stories that I've known over the years of Lewis Howes. I was a strategist at Brand [00:12:00] Builders Group with Rory Vaden and AJ Vaden, and this story about Lewis is actually how their company began.
[00:12:09] Louis was looking at his company, felt like there was a lot of possibility, but nothing was really happening as far as the growth of his personal brand. He called Rory and AJ flew to Nashville and when they started writing down all of the different income streams that Lewis had, they had, he had 17 different income streams and really was drowning in spite of appearing successful from the outside.
[00:12:35] So Rory took a step back, looked at all these big pieces of post-it paper, those big flip charts that were all over the walls and said, what if you just focused on scaling your podcast? That looks like the thing that has the most possibility and opportunity. What if you just did that? And they took a look at it?
[00:12:56] They looked at the numbers. Louis is really great at cultivating an [00:13:00] audience and they had some opportunities with ads and affiliates to, to monetize that lane. And Louis eliminated everything, everything else to focus on that platform. His podcast went from 30 million downloads to 500 million downloads in just two years.
[00:13:16] And that has completely exploded the growth of everything else he's created from then. So this simple focus is not about limiting your income, it's about recognizing that one thing done exceptionally creates more impact and revenue than many things done adequately.
[00:13:34] So how do we know? How do we know where to draw that line? This is where that floor principle comes in. The discipline of saying no to everything that falls below a certain standard. For thought leaders, that might mean eliminating offerings that work, but don't serve your impossible goal.
[00:13:53] This is the way Ben puts it in the book. Until the floor truly becomes the floor, you won't scale. This [00:14:00] means potentially being willing , to disappoint some people in service of serving others extraordinarily well.
[00:14:06] So my takeaway is the most sustainable scaling comes from being the definitive expert in one area instead of a generalist across many. We talk about this a lot. We say, you know, niche down serve one audience. And that's fine to say, but in this frame, you can see the possibility that exists when you decide to use your frame as the opportunity to focus on what matters, to realize that complexity doesn't scale.
[00:14:37] And if you enjoy being all things to all people, that's great, but if you have big goals to make a big impact and want to amplify that as far as you can, a simple focus system is gonna create compound impact. But a complex system often creates compound problems. It's harder to maintain, it's harder to focus [00:15:00] the bigger and the more complex something gets.
[00:15:02] Here's the fourth principle. I want to go into , using time as a tool, and I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but using time as a tool can force breakthrough pathways instead of that linear progress. One of my favorite pieces of this is when Benjamin Hardy talks about using time as a tool, instead of setting goals that are comfortable timelines, like we're gonna do this in 10 years.
[00:15:23] He advocates for deadlines that are so aggressive, they seem impossible. He is not trying to stress people out. He's not making them take a blood oath to live up to this deadline. He is trying to make them think more innovatively to use it as a thought exercise to see what might be possible.
[00:15:41] He writes, the purpose of having an impossible goal and deadline isn't to stress yourself out. The purpose is to filter out the false requirements you've placed on yourself and isolate what strategy expert Dr. Richard Ult calls the crux for thought leaders. I think this concept is super liberating because it addresses something.
[00:15:58] We rarely discuss [00:16:00] how much time we waste on activities that feel important, but don't actually build our platform or serve our audience because we think we should do them. We've talked about this before. We see things that other people are doing and we think, oh, I should do that too. Should you, and using time as as that tool to set goals, man, you can eliminate a whole bunch of things that don't matter as it relates to the goals that you have for yourself.
[00:16:27] Because when you compress those timelines dramatically, you're forced to identify that crux. That core constraint unlocks everything else. You can't optimize secondary things when you only have 18 months to achieve what you thought would take five years. Benjamin's done this himself a few years ago, like two years ago.
[00:16:44] As soon as two years ago, I think he was building his YouTube channel. He was doing all these different activities and one of his mentors said to him. You know, you're good at all these things, but you're the best at writing your books. Change the world. You really should [00:17:00] spend time doing that. And that's really what started him down this path of writing this book and getting all these ideas out there in the first place was realizing that, man, I'm diluting my own focus.
[00:17:11] YouTube channels are great, but my goal is different and this does not support that goal, and you just eliminated it. He shares an example of a man named, , Richard Bryan, who had an 11 year plan to sell his investment portfolio, to write a book, to be a full-time coach. And Benjamin challenged Richard, well, what if you could achieve it in three years?
[00:17:34] And he was kind of shocked and taken aback and came back and said, well, if it's in three years instead of 11, I would do this, this, and this. And Benjamin said, not to stress you out, but could you do it in one. Just as a thought exercise. Could you do it in one year? Could you do all of these things in one year?
[00:17:53] And when he took a step back, Richard realized most of the requirements that he had for this 11 year timeline were [00:18:00] just preferences that were delaying his real goals. He. Called and talked to his wife, and within a couple of months of committing to this compressed timeline, he sold half of his real estate portfolio and already started on his coaching business.
[00:18:12] That aggressive timeline forced him to eliminate false requirements and focus on the actual pathway to his desired outcome. 'cause when you really want something, the paths that don't matter disappear.
[00:18:24] I've started to apply this to my own business. Recently, I've been thinking about launching a higher level intensive program. Maybe next year, maybe the year after. I asked myself, what if I had to test this concept in 90 days? And it forced some immediate clarity about what was actually required versus what I was assuming was necessary.
[00:18:41] It was really fascinating to see what happened. And that impossible timeline eliminated months of preparation that was actually procrastination. And now I can focus on the core elements. It will actually determine whether this program can work the way I think it could.
[00:18:56] So the aggressive timelines don't create more pressure. They [00:19:00] eliminate false requirements. They force you to focus on core elements that actually drive results. Because linear timelines, oh, I have, um, what's my 10 year goal, my five year goal, they often justify linear progress. When breakthrough progress is actually possible if you want it.
[00:19:16] So when we look at Benjamin Hardy's framework through the lens of building resonant thought leadership, something really powerful emerges for me. Scaling is not about removing yourself from transformation. It's about creating the conditions where your highest contribution can reach the people who need it most.
[00:19:32] Lemme say that again. It's not about removing yourself from the transformation, which is I think what we think about scaling. I'm going to set up an automatic funnel and lie on the beach somewhere, and then I will have scaled my business. I don't think that's what it means. I think it's about creating the conditions where your highest contribution can reach the people who need it most, the most effectively.
[00:19:54] This integration creates cascading effects throughout your platform. Your core resonance becomes way more [00:20:00] powerful when you eliminate any noise that conflicts with your natural genius. Your content gains distinctive power when it comes from your single most important expertise, rather than you trying to cover every single thing you know, your connection strategies become way more effective when they're designed around your specific area of authority, because there are only so many people who can help you
[00:20:20] get done what you need to get done. Benjamin calls them super who's, and that's a really interesting concept as well, who, not how, , from his book with. , Dan Sullivan in this book, science of Scaling, he calls them super who's very valuable and connecting to them. They're the ones who can really amplify what you're doing and get you to where you want to be.
[00:20:42] Your central platform gains a ton of coherence when it's organized around one primary transformation you create and your commercialization becomes more sustainable when it's built on deep expertise instead of broad offerings. Leaders who maintain both impact and fulfillment over decades are not the ones who try to serve [00:21:00] everyone.
[00:21:00] They're the ones who identify their unique contribution, build everything around that core, and then scale that focused expertise to reach more of the right people. Benjamin Hardy's framework, I feel like gives us permission to be focused rather than scattered deep, rather than broad and strategically selective rather than reactive to every opportunity.
[00:21:20] So try this on. I would love to have you try this on this week and see if this is an idea that fits and helps you get closer to where you want to be.
[00:21:28] Take 30 minutes with a journal and, think through these questions. So think about the frame. If you had to achieve 10 times more impact with your expertise within the next three years. What would that look like? Not just , help more people, but what transformation would you create?
[00:21:43] And for how many people? It doesn't have to be millions, but think of a number that feels like a stretch, and then your floor looking at everything you currently do, all your offerings, your content creation, your speaking topics, your networking activities. What would you have to eliminate if you were really [00:22:00] serious about that impossible goal?
[00:22:02] What are you currently optimizing that probably shouldn't even exist? And then your focus. If you could be only known for one specific expertise, one particular transformation that you create, what would it be and what would it look like to organize everything else around that specific single focus? And if you had to achieve that impossible goal in 18 months instead of 10 years, what false requirements would you have to eliminate and what would you have to start doing right now?
[00:22:31] Look for patterns in your responses. I'm not holding you to this as a decision, a final decision, but I want you to try this idea on because often the things that we think are impossible are only impossible if we maintain our current complex systems and our scattered focus. I'm not trying to get you to stress yourself out. I'm trying to help all of us be more honest about what really drives impact that we can own versus what just keeps us busy. I really loved this book. So next week we're [00:23:00] gonna dive into the second part of what I learned about the science of scaling from reading this book, and we're gonna talk about why most experts never actually scale and how to fix it.
[00:23:10] There are mindset barriers that come up when. We try to think about getting bigger and taking up more space, and those mindset barriers keep generous, guides playing small, and I don't think we can afford to play small right now. We're gonna talk about why traditional scaling advice feels so wrong to us as mission-driven experts, and we're gonna talk about how to give yourself permission to think bigger about your impact without losing your soul in the process.
[00:23:39] Now if this episode resonated with you and you're ready to dive deeper into building your resident thought leadership platform, because getting that focus on who you are is going to simplify and clarify things to make it possible to exercise some of these scaling frameworks. I'd love for you to take the archetype [00:24:00] quiz@macyrobinson.com slash quiz.
[00:24:01] That archetype quiz will help you discover your natural way you express your ideas and the way you are most wired to guide transformation in others. Then I'd love for you to join me at one of my free workshops where we explore how to build thought leadership that feels like you. You can find those workshops@macyrobinson.com slash workshop.
[00:24:23] But remember, your expertise matters, your voice matters, and the transformation you can help others create matters. Benjamin Hardy and Blake Erickson's frameworks in this book simply give us a more strategic way to ensure it reaches the people who need it the very most.
[00:24:47] I.