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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.
033_Why Most Experts Never Scale
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[00:00:00] The biggest obstacle to scaling your expertise isn't a lack of strategy or systems. It's the story you're telling yourself about what scaling means and whether you're allowed to want something bigger. Last week I shared some of the lessons I learned from the Science of Scaling New book by Benjamin Hardy and Blake Erickson and I talked about applying Hardy's framework to thought leadership.
[00:00:25] But there's a deeper issue we need to address while still connected to this book. And I think it's why so many brilliant experts with valuable knowledge never scale their impact at all. So today we're exploring the mindset barriers that keep thought leaders who want to position themselves as generous, transformational guides playing small. We're gonna talk about why traditional scaling advice feels fundamentally wrong to mission-driven experts and how that's actually pointing you toward the right approach.
[00:00:54] We'll talk about the hidden story. Most of us tell ourselves about humility that's actually preventing [00:01:00] us from serving more people. And we'll talk about how to distinguish between scaling for ego versus scaling for impact, and why that distinction changes everything about how you build your platform.
[00:01:12] This conversation is not about convincing you to build a business empire. It's about giving you permission to think as big about your impact as you do about your responsibility to serve with your ideas. So let's get started. The first principle I wanna talk about today, traditional scaling advice feels wrong because it is wrong for thought leaders.
[00:01:34] Most scaling advice comes from a fundamentally different paradigm than thought leadership. Traditional business scaling is about removing the founder from operations to create systems that run independently. But thought leadership, by definition, is about the unique perspective and wisdom that comes from a specific person.
[00:01:52] No wonder the advice feels wrong. It's asking you to scale away from the very thing that creates your value in the [00:02:00] science of scaling. Benjamin Hardy addresses this tension when he writes most of what people are doing is optimizing things that shouldn't exist. For thought leaders, this often means trying to optimize traditional business models that were never designed for expertise based work.
[00:02:17] I see this constantly. Brilliant experts get advice to create passive income through courses or build systems so your business runs without you and they feel resistant. That resistant isn't a character flat's wisdom. Their value is their presence, their discernment, their ability to meet people where they are.
[00:02:34] And here's what Hardy helped me understand. There is a difference between scaling away from your value and scaling toward it. When you scale toward your personal value, you're not trying to remove yourself from transformation. You're trying to create conditions where you can facilitate more transformation more effectively.
[00:02:55] Sometimes that might be through a course, but sometimes that might be through [00:03:00] bringing more of you to the transformations that you offer. I think about someone like Marshall Goldsmith who has scaled his executive coaching approach, not by removing himself from the equation, but by becoming more selective about who he works with and designing more intensive ways to create breakthrough results.
[00:03:16] He even started several years ago by bringing in other executive coaches to teach them his methodology and leave something behind, leave a legacy behind for the coaching industry that energized him so much. He's had an even broader, deeper impact through those coaches. He has trained, and that's turned into an entirely different thing that he's working on now called 100 coaches.
[00:03:39] But that has actually increased the impact that he's been able to make as he has leaned into transformation of a different kind, and it's scaled him in a different way and makes his personal involvement more valuable, not less. Or think about Brene Brown, whose platform has reached millions of people.
[00:03:57] But every piece of content, every [00:04:00] speaking engagement, every program is deeply connected to her research and her personal insights. She's not scaled away from her expertise. She's found ways to express it at a larger scale while maintaining boundaries and authenticity. She has a new book coming out soon, and we have not seen her do talk shows or podcasts as a guest or anything like that for a while.
[00:04:23] We're going to be seeing her doing that in the next couple of months as she moves towards this book launch that I believe is in September, but then she's gonna go back and start doing research again. It's not her connection to the research that has changed. She manages her scaling and her availability by how visible she is in public, and that allows her to scale toward her impact and toward her value.
[00:04:49] So Benjamin Hardy's framework does work for thought leaders in my mind when we apply it this way, because it's not about building systems that replace you, it's about building systems, creating boundaries. [00:05:00] Building ways to amplify your highest contribution. When he talks in the book about your frame, your impossible goal, that's the thing that forces clarity, and you can use that to force clarity about what unique transformation you want to create at scale.
[00:05:15] Then when you raise your frame with your raising your floor, that eliminates everything that dilutes your distinctive value. The focus that you then have as a result, creates simplified pathways for your expertise to reach more people without losing that depth. So here's my takeaway on this, on this principle.
[00:05:35] If scaling advice feels wrong to you as an expert, you can trust that instinct. You don't need to scale away from your expertise. You need to scale toward it by eliminating everything that keeps you from your zone of genius, from that essence that makes you, you. Now here's the second principle I wanted to talk about today about humility and how I think sometimes that is actually pride in disguise.[00:06:00]
[00:06:00] 'cause this is a story I hear constantly from brilliant experts. It sounds something like this, well, I don't wanna seem like I'm promoting myself, or it doesn't feel humble to want people to notice my work, or I just wanna help people. I don't need recognition.
[00:06:15] This sounds virtuous, but I have always believed that sometimes what we call humility is actually pride disguised as virtue and Hardy brings us up in the book. He introduces a concept from Dan Sullivan about two types of people, needers and wanters. Needers are always competing for scarce resources.
[00:06:34] Caught up in justifying everything they do, trapped in asking permission to be more wanters, create abundance by understanding that their desires create new possibilities for everyone. And as this relates to scaling, here's the hard truth. When you diminish your desire to scale your impact, because it doesn't feel humble, you're not being selfless.
[00:06:54] I think you're being a little bit selfish. You're prioritizing your comfort with staying small. [00:07:00] Over your call and responsibility to serve more people. I worked with a client recently who had this exact struggle. She had developed a profoundly helpful methodology for helping leaders navigate difficult transitions, but she kept shrinking her vision because it didn't feel right to want too much.
[00:07:18] When we dug into this, what emerged was her resistance was around. It wasn't around humility at all, actually. It was around fear. Fear of being seen as too self-promotional. Fear of what people would think of her fear of failing at a larger scale, fear of being judged for wanting more. But here's what shifted everything for her.
[00:07:35] We took a step back and we were able to reframe scaling from wanting more for herself instead to stewarding her gifts more effectively. Here's what I believe about humility. True humility is not about making yourself smaller. True humility is about recognizing where your gifts come from and choosing to use them on purpose.
[00:07:55] It's about saying, I didn't give myself these abilities, but I am responsible for using them to [00:08:00] serve as many people as possible. Hardy writes, and he's talking about something that Dan Sullivan teaches here as well. The reason you want something is simply because you want it. No justification is needed. And for thought leaders, I think this is revolutionary because it gives us permission to want impact.
[00:08:17] Without apologizing for the desire, your desire to reach more people, to have your ideas influence more lives, to build a platform that extends your expertise so that you can help as many people as possible. That's not ego, that's calling the world needs what you know and hiding it under false humility doesn't serve anyone.
[00:08:37] What you call humility might actually be fear dressed up as virtue. True humility is stewarding your gifts purposefully, which sometimes means wanting more impact, not less, especially if it's from an authentic, non performative place. Here's the third thing I wanna talk about. You can scale your impact without scaling away from [00:09:00] people.
[00:09:01] Another fear that I hear from experts is that scaling means becoming. Less connected to the people that they really wanted to help the people they serve. That bigger impact requires becoming more corporate, more distant, more systematic. Benjamin Hardy's framework completely reframes this, I believe, by focusing on what he calls the crux, the core constraint, that once that gets solved, once that gets taken care of, it unlocks everything else.
[00:09:27] And I think for most thought leaders, the crux isn't how to remove themselves from their work. It's how to do more of their best work with the right people. The concept in the book that I repeat over and over again is this, you can't scale complexity. You can't scale a complex system, but you absolutely can scale a simple focused one.
[00:09:50] The key is eliminating everything that pulls you away from your zone of genius, so you can spend more time there, not less. And that is something we can absolutely do in thought [00:10:00] leadership. I actually see this playing out beautifully with some of the most successful, well-known thought leaders. They've scaled not by stepping back from transformation, but by becoming more selective about who they work with and more intentional about how they create change and what kinds of tools they provide for people who are just starting out on this journey.
[00:10:19] So Pat Lencioni, his platform, has reached millions through books, through his assessments, through his consulting. But if you work with his organization, with the table group, you get more personalized attention, not less. They've been able to scale the resources that they have, and that makes it possible for them to allow deeper, more sustained client relationships once you're ready to work with them.
[00:10:42] Benjamin Hardy talks about this as creating conditions, so the thing you're optimizing for becomes effortless for thought leaders. This means creating conditions where you can do more meaningful work with people who are more ready for transformation. My client I mentioned last week discovered [00:11:00] this exact thing by moving from individual sessions to an intensive group model.
[00:11:04] She didn't become less connected to her clients. She actually became more effective at creating transformation. The group dynamic amplified her individual guidance. It didn't replace it. She's scaling impact by doing more of what she does best with people who are more committed to the process. That's strategic stewardship.
[00:11:23] So here's the thing to remember, the takeaway. Scaling doesn't have to mean becoming less connected to people when it's done thoughtfully. It can mean creating conditions where you can facilitate deeper transformation with people who are more ready for change. Okay, principle number four. Your impossible goal should scare you and inspire you simultaneously.
[00:11:47] This framing of an impossible goal is a big concept in the book, and Benjamin Hardy emphasizes that impossible goals aren't just bigger versions of realistic goals. They're qualitatively different. They force [00:12:00] what he calls breakthrough pathways instead of linear improvement. For thought leaders, this distinction is crucial because it addresses something we rarely discuss.
[00:12:10] The difference between scaling for ego versus scaling for impact. When your goal is just bigger numbers, more followers, more revenue, more speaking gigs, you often end up optimizing for what Benjamin Hardy calls things that shouldn't even exist. You start chasing metrics that don't actually serve your mission, but when your impossible goal is about transformation at scale, reaching the people who most need your specific expertise, creating change that outlasts your career, solving problems that matter deeply to you, everything shifts.
[00:12:43] Hardy writes For a goal to be effective, it needs to be a hot knife cutting cleanly through not only your fears and faulty assumptions, but it should also rip your entire business to shreds, leaving only the most relevant and scalable signal. I feel like I'm [00:13:00] in the middle of experiencing this firsthand as I've gotten honest about some of my goals and have tried to zero in on an impossible goal.
[00:13:08] Instead of just wanting to have a successful consulting practice, I'm looking at something a lot bigger. Something along the lines of helping thousands of experts build thought leadership that feels authentic and creates lasting transformation for themselves and others. Thinking about the, the huge scope of that is walking me through this process of eliminating things that are not directly serving that mission.
[00:13:36] And, and having that as an impossible goal has revealed some activities I was spending energy on that felt important, but weren't building toward this transformation I'm looking to create at scale. [00:14:00] So if I were to do this for myself, what if I could help a thousand people who are
[00:14:39] what if I could help a thousand experts and thought leaders achieve an authentic, tick growing thought leadership business within a year, a thousand people within a year. That sounds crazy, but that kind of goal, forces a lot of clarity around who you serve, what change you create, and how [00:15:00] to organize everything around that core mission.
[00:15:02] That's not my final goal yet, but I'm working on it. That kind of goal doesn't just inspire bigger action. It forces strategic elimination of everything that doesn't serve your highest contribution. It should feel both terrifying and deeply aligned with your purpose at the same time.
[00:15:21] One of my favorite stories in the book is a story that, that Benjamin tells about a guy named Richard. Richard had written down what he wanted his life to look like by his 65th birthday, which was 11 years away. He wanted to sell off his real estate investment portfolio. He wanted to have more time to travel and be with his wife.
[00:15:37] He wanted to be a New York Times bestselling author and a full-time business coach. Richard was part of this group that Benjamin was leading, and Benjamin said, okay, take that goal. What if you only had three years to do it? Compress the timeline. And Richard said, no way. Couldn't do it. And Ben said, look, I'm not telling you you have to do this in three years.
[00:15:54] I'm asking you to ponder how you would solve this if you did commit to do it in three years. Use time as a tool, [00:16:00] not as a reality. You've got this big, impossible goal, feels impossible. Let's make it more impossible. By using time as a tool. And as Richard kept processing, he realized actually there are some things that I could sell.
[00:16:14] There are some things that I could actually streamline and maybe we could do this in three years. I could reinvest this here, this there, and I could actually start being a full-time author and a coach. So came back and reported this to Ben, and Ben said, what would it mean if you could do this in one year?
[00:16:30] It's not about whether it's possible. It's not about the what's impossible. Does shrinking the timeline change anything about the priority or process? I've thought about that a lot because the right impossible goal doesn't just inspire bigger action. It forces strategic elimination about everything that doesn't serve your highest contribution.
[00:16:49] And as I'm looking at what my impossible goals might be, that is really making me think, and it's giving me the clarity that I need to [00:17:00] feel both deeply aligned and slightly terrified at the same time, which is right on the edge of my comfort zone. So use this as a tool for your own growth.
[00:17:11] What if you could take this impossible goal, do it in a little less time so that you are moving toward those breakthrough pathways instead of just being satisfied to make linear improvement?
[00:17:22] Now, when we look at scaling through the lens of the resident thought leadership system, I often see that internal obstacles are more significant than the external strategies. Most experts that don't need better tactics for building their platform, they need to give themselves permission to want what they want, and they need to give themselves and find some clarity about what true stewardship of their gifts actually looks like.
[00:17:45] I think the frameworks in science of scaling give permission to do that because you're able to reframe scaling from building a business that runs without you. Two, creating the conditions where your highest contribution can reach the people who need it most. And I think this [00:18:00] reframe affects every component of your thought leadership development.
[00:18:03] Your core resonance becomes much more powerful when you stop apologizing for your expertise and start stewarding it purposefully. Your content gains authority when it comes from confidence in your unique value, rather than hiding behind false humility, connection strategies become more effective when you're clear about the transformation you want to create at scale.
[00:18:21] Your central platform gains coherence when it's organized around serving your impossible goal instead of just looking professional and polished, and commercialization becomes more sustainable when it's built on the value you create rather than the time you spend. The leaders who create lasting impact aren't those who play small to stay comfortable.
[00:18:38] They're the ones who get honest about their calling. They set goals that require them to grow, and then they build systems that support their highest contribution in the most simple, elegant way they can. Here's what I would love to have you do this week. I want you to examine the stories you're telling yourself about scaling and impact through some honest reflection.
[00:18:55] Take 20 minutes with the journal and explore these questions. First, what about your [00:19:00] permission you're giving yourself? Where are you telling yourself that wanting bigger impact isn't humble or appropriate? What would it look like to reframe those desires as stewardship rather than ego? Now let's talk about fear versus wisdom.
[00:19:11] When you think about scaling your expertise, what feels wrong? Is it wi, is that wisdom pointing you toward a different approach, or is it fear just up as a virtue? Now, impossible goals. I want you to think this about impossible goals. If you had to help 10 times more people with your specific expertise within three years, what would that look like?
[00:19:32] Not just bigger numbers, but what specific transformation would you create and for whom? And then constraints. What's the one thing if you solved it, would unlock your ability to create impact at the scale you actually want? Is it mindset? Is it delivery? Is it something else? As you're answering some of these questions, and I'll put these in the show notes, pay attention to where you feel resistance.
[00:19:54] Often that resistance reveals either a limiting story that needs to be examined, or wisdom about what [00:20:00] kind of scaling actually aligns with your values. My goal here isn't to convince yourself to want something you don't want. It's to get honest about what you do want and stop apologizing for it.
[00:20:15] If these two episodes on scaling resonated with you and you're ready to get serious about building thought leadership that honors your authentic expertise while creating meaningful impact, I would love for you to take the archetype quiz@macyrobison.com slash quiz and then join me for one of my free workshops where we explore how to build from those natural expressive strengths.
[00:20:36] You can find those upcoming workshops@macyrobison.com slash workshop. Remember, your expertise exists for a reason. Your desire for impact is valid, and the world needs what only you can provide. Benjamin Hardy and Blake Erickson's framework give us a more strategic way to make sure it reaches the people who need it most.
[00:20:59] I Macy [00:21:00] Robison, and this is Own Your Impact.