- Not Stressed CEO
- Posts
- Half-In = All-Out
I was listening to the new episode of The Diary of a CEO podcast — the one with Emma Grede — and something she said just hit.
“If you want an extraordinary life, you need to take extraordinary action.”
Obvious? Yes. But still, so many people don’t get it.
Then I scrolled through the comments. I like to read them on social media — they’re a great way to step outside your own bubble and see how people really think.
The bottom one was my favorite, saying that two black people in conversation are coming from generation white wealth. I think that this is a good example of how people will find away to explain everything to themselves, even if it makes no sense - that’s exactly how they explained to themselves that hard work takes you nowhere.
People were losing their minds.
Calling this mindset toxic.
Saying hard work only benefits the CEO.
Claiming there’s no point in doing more because you won’t get rewarded anyway.
Seriously?
Who exactly is stopping you from becoming the CEO?
No one. That’s the hard truth.
Sure — life’s not fair. It never was. But it is a numbers game.
More reps in the gym? You get stronger.
More dates? More chances to meet the right person.
More hours learning? More skills, more confidence.
More effort at work? Better output, better odds.
Nothing is guaranteed — but doing more usually gets you further than doing less. That’s not toxic. That’s just... how things work.
I’ve worked with 200+ small businesses. I’ve heard every version of “this won’t work for us.”
“This isn’t how we do things in our industry.”
“This strategy isn’t right for our niche.”
Most of the time, that’s just fear in disguise.
Fear of changing.
Fear of going all in.
Fear of taking responsibility if it doesn’t work.
Most of us aren’t that special. We weren’t handed some magical advantage.
What we do have is a choice.
You either decide to go all in on making it work… or you stay stuck and blame the system.
That’s it.
Being truly committed — like actually committed — is already rare.
If you’ve got that, you’re already ahead of most.
If you don’t, don’t be surprised if things aren’t working.
People say “I’ll give it a try and see how it goes” like that’s a strategy.
It’s not. That’s you half-in. One foot out. Already bracing for failure.
Decide that this is the thing.
That you’ll make it work.
That you’ll learn whatever you need to learn.
That you’ll do the boring stuff, the awkward stuff, the “not cool on social media” stuff.
That’s what it takes.
And when you do that enough times?
That’s when things start to shift.
Want to stand out?
Do the work. Keep going. Don’t hide behind “strategy.”
You’ll be amazed at how far that alone can take you.