121. The mindset shift that separates stalled founders from successful ones – David Neagle interview
Fear stops more startups than failure ever will. It quietly convinces brilliant, capable people that they aren’t ready. That they don’t have what it takes. That someone else should be leading this. And so, they stall out. They never launch. Or they launch and self-sabotage.
In a recent episode of Feel the Boot, I sat down with David Neagle — a globally recognized mindset coach and the founder of Life Is Now Inc. David’s coached thousands of entrepreneurs to overcome fear, step into their confidence, and build the kind of businesses most people only dream about.
Our conversation was a powerful reality check for founders who feel stuck — and a roadmap to help them move forward.
Why Founders Get Stuck Before They Even Start
Most would-be founders never take the first real step. They love the idea of starting a company. But the gap between wanting and doing is massive — and often fear-filled.
David points out that people often dream from where they are, not from where they want to be. If your current mindset is dominated by fear, self-doubt, or guilt, your vision is going to be warped by those emotions. You’ll see only the risks, not the possibilities.
We also talked about how the responsibilities of adult life, families, mortgages, and other people’s expectations, compound this hesitation. Founders ask, "What would I have to give up to go after what I want?" and then let that question shut them down instead of using it to build a plan.
The Three Kinds of Change (and Which One You Want)
David breaks down the three ways people change:
They never do.
They change after a crisis.
They decide to take control of their life and act.
That last one? It’s the rarest, but also the most powerful. It’s what founders must embrace if they want to succeed.
We live in a culture that romanticizes victimhood. David argues that many people grow up believing they have no control. The moment you realize you do, that your outcomes are created, not assigned, everything changes.
The Discipline That Drives Success
One of David’s most powerful points was that the foundation of success isn’t brilliance or luck. It’s discipline.
“Can I get myself to do what I said I was going to do?” he asked. That’s it. That’s the game. If you can do that consistently, everything else becomes possible. If you can’t, nothing else matters.
Founders often confuse being busy with being effective. They might chase surface wins — fundraising, press, product polish — without ever addressing the inner discipline it takes to stay on the hard path when things get real.
Wanting the Label vs. Loving the Work
This one hit me hard. David said that many founders think they want to be a CEO because it sounds prestigious. But when you dig deeper, it’s not the life they actually want.
“I tell people, you won't be coding. You won't be designing. You'll be managing. Constantly.”
If what makes you happy is writing code, managing people might feel like a cage, not a crown. Founders need to ask themselves, ‘ What would I do every day, even if I didn’t get paid?’ That’s the work you’re meant to build your business around.
David’s Story: From Forklift to Fortune
David shared his own origin story — a high school dropout working a warehouse job, angry and stuck. A moment of desperation led him to ask for help. The answer: Your attitude.
He changed three things:
Act like you love your work.
Do every job to the best of your ability.
Treat everyone with total respect.
Within 30 days, he tripled his income. That blew his mind. He didn’t have new skills or a new job, just a new mindset. The world responded.
That insight, that our perception shapes our opportunities, is rocket fuel for any founder. You can’t spot a million-dollar opportunity if your mindset is trapped in survival mode.
The Cliff Moment, and How to Jump
Every founder hits a moment where they have to decide: Do I jump?
David remembered speaking with family about whether to take a risky new job. Their advice? Play it safe. And that’s when he realized: I already know the answer. I’m just scared to act on it.
He jumped. It changed everything.
I shared that I used to flip a coin when I was stuck on a big decision. Not to let it decide, but to notice how I felt when it landed. If I wanted to re-flip, that was a signal that I already knew what I wanted.
The lesson? You often already have the answer. You just need to trust yourself enough to act on it.
Discipline Over Drama
David emphasized that staying the course takes daily recommitment. Most of us weren’t raised with the skills to do that. We were taught to fit in, play small, and keep other people comfortable.
Founders must unlearn those patterns. Fear and imposter syndrome thrive on a shaky sense of self. If you’re constantly adjusting who you are based on external feedback, you’re never building your core identity as a leader.
Authentic confidence comes from making — and keeping — promises to yourself. That builds the kind of inner trust that investors, co-founders, and employees can feel.
Authenticity Beats Authority
When you’re raising capital or recruiting top talent, you need to project certainty. But that doesn’t mean faking it.
David says authenticity often wins over authority. Investors and team members have a sixth sense for BS. If your conviction is real — if your passion is personal — they’ll feel it.
You don’t have to pretend to have all the answers. You just have to show that you believe in what you’re building and in your own ability to grow and figure things out.
“I believe in this completely. I don’t know exactly how we’ll get there. But I’m all in.” That’s more powerful than any polished pitch.
The Only Real Failure Is Quitting
David closed with a reminder that’s easy to forget in the trenches: Nothing is permanent unless you quit.
Failure, setbacks, pain, they’re all lessons. If you treat them as steps on the path rather than signs you’re on the wrong one, you’ll keep moving forward. And forward is all that matters.
He also warned founders not to chase money for its own sake. “The people who only chase the money often end up bitter, even if they’re rich.” True satisfaction comes from building something that matters to you.
You only get one life. Choose wisely what you’ll trade it for.
Ready to Make Your Quantum Leap?
David is giving away his Quantum Leap Blueprint, a free course that walks you through how to break through your current limits and create exponential growth in your business and life.
It’s packed with practical tools and mindset shifts that help founders get out of their own way and finally build the company they know they’re capable of.
If this post resonated with you, drop a comment and let me know what part hit hardest.
Meet other founders and get more insights like this in The Crossroads, our free community!
Until next time, Ciao!
-Lance
David’s Bio
David Neagle is a speaker, best-selling author, founder of the multimillion-dollar global
consulting company Life Is Now, Inc, and host of the Business Daily News ranked
podcast - The Successful Mind.
David’s quest is to teach people to think successfully so they can experience personal
freedom. Being in the personal and professional development industry for more than 20
years, David has worked alongside other well-known mentors like Bob Proctor and Tony
Robbins, and his clients include many well-known people, including New York Times #1
best-selling author Jen Sincero.
David has helped tens of thousands of students from across the globe, and is one of the
architects of the personal growth industry. Through David’s mentoring and podcast,
thousands of entrepreneurs, experts and self-employed professionals have gained the
confidence and found the right mindset needed to increase their revenue, turning their
endeavors into seven- and eight-figure ventures.
Forever an avid student, David’s core vision is to bring expanded awareness & higher
consciousness to as many people as possible, and to find greater ways of helping
leaders make a bigger impact, so they can lead their greatest possible lives and serve
the greatest number of people.
Interview Transcript
Lance Cottrell (00:00)
Imposter syndrome kills startups before they even begin. Founders get stuck in fear, doubt their worth before and never even launch their companies. And if that sounds familiar to you, I think this is going to be a great episode. In this episode of Feel the Boot, I'm joined by David Nagel, a globally recognized mindset expert, bestselling author and the founder of the multi-million dollar coaching company Life is Now Inc.
He's worked a lot on side legends like Bob Proctor and Tony Robbins and helped thousands of entrepreneurs break through their fear to build seven and eight figure businesses. Today, we're talking about how imposter syndrome sabotages founders and what you can do right now to step into a mindset of success. David, welcome to Feel the Boot.
David Neagle (00:43)
Thanks for having me. Pleasure to be here.
Lance Cottrell (00:45)
So we know that the vast majority of people who talk about founding a company and have that ambition and goal never even take the very first steps. What do you think is the main cause for that resistance and that gap?
David Neagle (01:00)
That's a really great question. I think the main cause is they don't know what they really want in life. I think they love the idea of starting a business, the freedom that it would give a person if they mastered the ⁓ different skills in that and they got the business going really well. Like who wouldn't want that, right? You've got more money, you have more time, more authority and autonomy over your own life. It's a wonderful idea. ⁓
But when a person actually sits down and says to themselves, what do I want? I don't think they answer the question from where they're going in life. They're answering it from where they are. There's a really interesting phenomenon that I've learned over the 30 years that I've been doing this, is that most people start to wake up a little bit later. Not so much necessarily in their 20s, but 30s and beyond. get...
take things a little bit more serious. what they've also realized, which I had also done myself, is that they had established some form of life. They have responsibilities. They have people in their life. Not everybody and everything in their life might be in harmony with the value system that they need in order to truly be successful. And they step back and they go, wow, could I actually do that? What would I have to change? How would this affect other people? And a lot of times they talk themselves out of it.
instead of really stepping into what they truly want for themselves.
Lance Cottrell (02:26)
So how do you recommend founders address that? How do they get out of that thought?
David Neagle (02:32)
Okay, another great question that's a little bit more complex. Traditionally, if we look historically at how people have changed their lives, most people don't change. Like if you just look at global population, most people will never change. There is a secondary group of people that change when everything hits the fan, so to speak. They get the diagnosis, they get sick, they have a near-death experience. That was my...
experience when I was 24 completely changed my mindset. And it's out of the fear or the awakening of that moment that they go, no, I am not going to live this. I'm not going to have this be the result of my life. And then the third, which I think is the least popular is the right word, is a person actually says, you know something, I want to design my own life and actually go out there and do it.
So that's coming strictly from a person saying, what do I truly want to do with my life? And having some awareness that they have control over creating it the way that they actually want to be able to do that. I mean, we live in a society today that just ramps up the idea of being a victim. They celebrate it. ⁓ They monetize it. They manipulate with it.
People are raised in it. And if you're raised in a victim mindset, you literally believe everything that's happening in your life is outside of your control. Until you have some experience where you go, wait a second, I actually have control over something. Do you start to explore if I have control over everything? And I think when a person starts to do that, they start to make changes. They start to do things differently. Like when people come to me,
They're either ready to do something or they're sticking their toe in the water, which is, that's not our ideal client, right? Because our job's not to get you off the couch, our job's to coach you and you have, already have the discipline and the want to, to step into like, okay, what skill do I need to learn? What awareness do I need to have? How can I actually get better? Those are the people that we look to work with. And they have magnificent results, those individuals. If they're not certain,
They don't because they've not yet developed discipline and consistency in their life. And I think that if you look at any success, the underlying foundation of it is can I get myself to do what I said I'm gonna do? If I can be consistent in that, there's no limit to what I can do. But if I can't, then I'm really in trouble.
Lance Cottrell (05:04)
Yeah, yeah, the ability to actually execute on those things, do the things that aren't necessarily the most fun. And speaking of which, one of the first things you talked about was sort of the importance of understanding where you want to be and what that outcome is going to be. And when I work with founders, I think it's interesting that often, you know, they want to be the CEO of the huge, successful company because that is a label that they've heard about.
But I think in many cases, it's not actually the life they want to have if they think about what it means. You you've got some amazing programmers, some amazing scientists, and they've invented something. And I'll talk to them and say, you realize if you're the huge CEO, you will never actually write a line of code or do any science again, right? You are all this other thing, managing, running the business. So how do you help people think through that sort of dichotomy of what they imagine they want or this label versus what they actually want?
David Neagle (05:58)
Well part of it you just said, it's by getting them to realize what is the actual reality of living the life under that presumptive identity, right? Whether they actually want to be a coder. So I ask people, what would you do, and I know that this sounds cliche, but if you take it serious it really isn't. What would you love to do that would make you happy every day? Where you can literally get out of bed and go, I absolutely love the work that I do. It challenges me, I can progress in it.
good at it, you know, it's I really enjoy it versus this is this is a label that I would like because I'm trying to cover ups from some low self-esteem issues and I would really like to be recognized for something in my life and also be in control of it and if I was at the head at the top of the class then nobody could take me down they couldn't say that you know like I'm at the top I'm the boss they can't do anything which is we both know that that's not that's not the reality
Because you're working for the people that you that you're employing so I mean really I Think I personally believe we're here for a purpose I think that the desire of our heart will lead us in that direction if we will follow it voice versus the voices in our heads and I think that we we have a really good inclination of what we do if we're led by What truly makes us happy not what makes us lazy or avoidant?
or binging Netflix for three days or whatever, in the work, in working, because we're made to work, what makes you happy in that field? And I think a person should be relentless in pursuing anything that they can to figure that out if they don't know.
Lance Cottrell (07:36)
I love that description. Yeah, it's been an interesting experience for me since I had the exit from my company and, you know, the need to work, the imperative to have that has really had me spending a lot of time thinking about what is it that I want to do? What drives me? What excites me? Where do I wish to invest that time? Which is why I spend my time creating content for founders and working and coaching with them, because that's what, you know, lights my fuse.
David Neagle (07:47)
Ahem.
That's amazing. Yeah, same with me, really. I I was a high school dropout. I had created a bunch of responsibility in my life that I couldn't live up to. I was failing miserably. We went bankrupt. We lost everything in my early 20s. And I had a near-death experience right before that. And I was like, I've got to figure out a way to get out of here. And I had a major meltdown one night at work. I was driving a forklift. I was in a trailer.
And I just said, God, you're, there's a God there, show me something, because I don't know what to do. I'm at my wit's end. And a voice in my head said, your attitude. And I started working on that. I figured out three things to change that night, actually. I said, I'm going to do this for a year and see what happens. 30 days later, I tripled my income. And I thought, what happened? What just happened? This was not supposed to happen. This is in the early 90s.
I went from 20,000 a year to 62,000 a year. We were on food stamps and off in a month and working our way towards buying our first home. And I said, I've got to figure out what I just did because I know that it wasn't luck, which is what everybody told me. You got lucky. Don't screw this up like you screwed everything else up. And I started studying. I turned my car. I had to drive 100 miles to work one way. So it was 200 mile trip every day.
I got, I started buying books on cassette, ⁓ biographies on cassette, know, seminars, everything. I had Tony Robbins personal power when it first came out. And I just began learning every day about me, right? I wanted to know more about me, what I had done. I met my mentor in 1996, who was Bob Proctor. He took me under his wing. I worked with him for seven years. We owned a company together, did a bunch of magnificent stuff. And then I went out on my own and
I never turned around from that point. mean, I just knew when everything started to change so fast and I figured I didn't know anything and it changed, what could I do if I did know something? So that's my story in a nutshell right there.
Lance Cottrell (10:06)
Nice. I love it. So what if you can share briefly, what were those three insights that you have?
David Neagle (10:12)
Yeah, great question. So what I did was I realized I had been hearing that, by the way, for my entire childhood. I was a terrible student. Every year I was held back in the fourth grade, I was just a terrible student. I was not interested. So I couldn't get myself to study and I was thinking to myself, who is somebody that I could relate to in some way?
to see like what's the difference. Like kind of compare myself to this person. Well, it just so happened that the guy that I worked for, the company that I worked for, was the largest food importer in the United States. And the gentleman that created it started it in his garage. So there was something about the idea that he started it in his garage. He didn't have a big education and he was able to do this that I was able to relate to him. And I said, what's the difference between him and me on a granular level? Well,
He must have loved what he did because look at what he created. I mean, it was an enormous operation. He must have done every job to the best of his ability. And I didn't, I worked to go home. I didn't, I was raised in a union environment in Chicago where you were taught from a little child, do not do more than you're paid for, right? You're just a number, they don't care about you. I have this very angry entitled attitude when I started to go to work in life. ⁓
and no self-discipline, ⁓ no work ethic. So then the third thing was treat everybody with total respect. And the reason for that was because this guy, he had one of the first partially automated warehouses in Chicago. And even though there were a lot of people that worked in that warehouse, a lot of it was automated, which was really new technology.
He would bring other CEOs to walk through the warehouse to show them on tours, right? And they were all in their suits and everything. And I would watch him. Like everybody knew he was the owner, right? That this guy was the owner. But he would never walk past an employee without patting you on the shoulder. How you doing? Are you having a good day? How's your family? You know, not a lot of time, but acknowledging everybody. And I didn't realize it at the time, but that caught my attention. And I said,
This guy is not what I heard successful people are. Successful people were jerks, they treated people badly, they had no respect for you, you're just a number as I said before. I'm like, that's not this guy. And I thought, he treats everybody with respect. Now, I will say, I was not raised to be disrespectful to people. Quite the opposite, actually. But my attitude had gotten so bad that I was...
I didn't know what to do with all the emotion and I was taking it out on people. I was not nice to people. I was rude. I was belligerent to people. I just wasn't nice. So I said, I'm going to act like I love what I do. I'm going to do every job to the best of my ability. And I didn't even know what that meant yet because nobody helped me develop that as a child. And I'm going to treat everybody with total respect. So I came to that decision that night in the while I was working the rest of that evening. I went home.
I got up the next morning and I thought to myself, I don't feel any different than I did yesterday morning. Like I hate what I do, like all the same emotions. Like I've got to figure out a way to be able to maintain this every day because I'm making a commitment to do this. I want to get out of this situation. So I figured out how to do that. And I just started doing it from day one and everything began to change immediately. And what I learned from it,
It took me a few years to actually understand this. And this is what really just messed with my head in a good way. Because it changed so fast. What changing my attitude did was it changed my perception of life. And when my perception started to change, I could see opportunities that I didn't see before. So people think, ⁓ I'm smart enough to notice if there was an opportunity that would triple my income. It has nothing to do with intelligence. It has to do with perception.
And there was a guy that used to show up at our warehouse twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. His name was Drew Batty. He lived in Whiting, Indiana, and he drove a mobile fuel truck. So was called on-site fueling. They fueled construction companies out in the field and emergency generators and hospitals and trucking companies.
And I knew the guy for two years because I was in charge of telling him what refrigerated trailers to fill with diesel fuel and what tractor trucks to fill with diesel fuel that were going to go out on the road the next, you know, the next two days. So I got, you know, we would joke around with each other or whatever. Well, he knew because I told him that I had gotten a license to drive a truck and I wanted to get off the dock. But back in those days, I don't know if it's still the same today, it may be.
In order to get a job with a trucking company that actually paid you a really great wage, you had to have five years experience driving, but people wouldn't hire you unless you had the five years experience to drive. Like it was a real catch-22. You had to work in real terrible situations or go on the road for years, and I didn't want to do that because I had a family, I had two kids, so I was trying to find something that would allow me to do it. Well, after two years, the same week that I changed this
this my attitude, he said to me, he goes, did you ever find anything driving? And I said, no, I said, but I wish I could. He goes, why don't you come to work for us? And I laughed at him. I was the epitome of arrogant and pompous, right? I was a complete ass, if I can say that. I really was. And I was judging this man from very superficial things.
And here's what they were. Number one, I thought, my God, what a horrible job this guy has. He delivers diesel fuel and gasoline. That's a bomb on wheels. He always smells of fuel because it splashes on him or whatever while he's doing it. He's outside in the weather, least not that I wasn't. I mean, I'm on a dock, an open dock. So if it's Chicago, it's 20 below in the wintertime with four feet of snow. In the summer, it's 98 in humid mosquitoes.
pouring rain in the spring and the fall, like everything. And I'm laughing at this guy, right? Like literally laughing at this guy, like, ha ha ha ha, you know, what do you really have here? So I started going through all of these things and I said, Drew, I said, first of all, I'm like, man, take no offense, but I mean, that seems like the most dangerous job in the world. go, has anybody ever died doing that? He goes, yeah, we had a guy die last year.
He was he flipped a truck on I-65 in Indiana and he burned to death and I'm like you gotta be like I see I'm like why would I do this? It's not making a good case. So I go through all of this stuff He goes look he goes something happened. Nobody knows what happened He goes, but people don't typically die doing this job because it's not as dangerous as you think and then I started going through all these things and he was refuting them left and right and that last thing I said to him was
Lance Cottrell (16:47)
It's not making a good case.
David Neagle (17:05)
Besides all of that, how much could you possibly be making? Like I was so stupid that I thought this guy made less money than I did when I wasn't making much. And he said, well, last year I made 50. And I went, get out of here. There's no way. He said, well, I'm coming next Tuesday. I'll bring you copy of my pay stub. And he did. And sure enough, the last year he had made 50,000. And I said,
What's the downside? He said the downside is that it's a union company. He said, and you're going to be at the bottom of the seniority list so you could get laid off in the winter months because we lose all our construction when the ground freezes. I said, well, how long is that? He said it could be three months, could be seven months, depends on the weather. And that was just like torture, thinking about that. And I went home and I talked to my wife and I thought about it and I said, you know something? I know I can do what I'm currently doing, but this is a chance.
This is a chance that maybe this will work. And I quit and I went to work for that company and it took a period of one month and I was making the equivalent of $62,500 in a month. And it actually was a benefit that I was at the bottom of the seniority because I got the most overtime, I got the jobs that other guys didn't want. So I had my pick of as many hours as I wanted to work to earn what I did and I was like a kid in a candy store.
With that, like I'll work 24 hours a day if you let me, with how much you guys are paying me, dug myself out of our situation in 12 months, bought our first home, and I just started studying. In seven years, I went from driving a truck in that company to the top of management, and I was in charge of expanding that company across the country when I decided to step out on my own and start my own business. And I never went back to school for one second.
Lance Cottrell (18:46)
I love it. And that moment of fear is an interesting one where you're looking at that cliff and trying to decide whether to jump off and take that risk. And you go home, talk to your family because it's not just your risk, it's everyone's risk. So how do you talk to people about thinking through that? I I remember when I started my company and I went through exactly that kind of conversation with my wife about this is what's at stake. Here's how we're approaching it.
But it seems like that's a paralyzing moment for a lot of people.
David Neagle (19:18)
Very much so, very, very much so. what I did, which was both a good thing and a bad thing, was I called somebody in my family and asked them what they thought. ⁓ It was an uncle that I had who was in the trucking industry. And I asked him, I said, you were this company? He says, yeah. He goes, actually, sometimes they come in here and fill our trucks on occasion. And I said, well, I've got an opportunity to go. I told him the whole story, not the...
changing my attitude, but the opportunity part. And he said to me, how much overtime do you get where you are now? And I said, I get all that they can give me, all that they can legally give me. He said, well, I've always felt you should stay where the overtime was. And when he said that to me, I felt my heart sink. So I knew that I wanted him to take the chance. And he didn't tell me that. He told me to play it safe. And in that moment, I thought,
I am the provider of my family. I have to lead somehow. I have to take this chance, like it is for the betterment, because I knew that I could go back and work on any dock in Chicago. had the limited skill to be able to do that, even though it didn't pay anything. this was an opportunity. I had no education. I was high school dropout. Here's an opportunity for me to make a lot of money, a really good middle class income.
and get my family out of this situation. And I said, I talked with my wife about it. She said, I'm gonna leave the decision up to you. She said, it's scary. She said, but I could work if we have to, like we'll figure out a way. And I said, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do it. But there were two people that I talked to, both of them told me, don't do it. They said, play it safe.
Lance Cottrell (20:56)
Interesting.
Yeah, I there are a lot of people who will try to give you that kind of advice and knowing that you have a plan B that you can't always go back. I remember a friend of mine always said that they're always hiring people to scrape up roadkill and that pays this much and that's my worst case fallback. And it was also for I will never take a job that is worse than that. Right. Because that's always sitting out there. But it's funny when you ask someone for advice and they give you the answer that you know is wrong and not what you want to hear.
David Neagle (21:17)
Right.
Lance Cottrell (21:25)
That could be clarifying. I used to actually keep a coin in my pocket that I would flip when I needed to make hard decisions because I discovered that either it would reinforce what I wanted or it would go against what my core understanding was and I would reject the flip. So it was not guiding my fate, but it was a sort of forcing function to get you off the fence and make a decision have to happen.
David Neagle (21:46)
Yeah.
That's brilliant. I love that. I've actually done that way back in the day and then picked it up and flipped it again because I didn't like the answer.
Lance Cottrell (21:55)
You
And that tells you everything. Like as soon as you pick it up to flip it again, you're like, okay, I actually know the answer to this. I'm just having a hard time accepting that is the correct direction to go.
David Neagle (21:59)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think, I gotta tell you, I do think in the beginning, the scariest part for me was could I get myself to continue to do what I said I was gonna do? Because I didn't trust myself. I had never been able to do that my whole life because I hated everything about school, most of it, like 99%. And I didn't know if I could. And I had to recommit every day. I had to dig in every day. I had no personal or professional development skills.
whatsoever. That I learned along the way, but that was part of my dedication to myself to figure out how to make this. I was like, why can other people do this and I can't? And I learned so much in that journey. It just, changed my whole life.
Lance Cottrell (22:47)
So do you think that sort of ties into the whole the problem of imposter syndrome that people don't believe that they will be able to stick with it or ⁓ have sort of those doubts overwhelm them when in fact they really they could, you know, they've done it before they could do it again.
David Neagle (23:03)
Right, yeah I do think so. think the major problem is that traditionally we're raised incorrectly. We're raised by people that don't know how to raise people. It goes back multiple generations. We're taught to be responsible for how other people feel, so we never develop a really solid sense of self. We're always adjusting based on the feedback that we're getting from the person sitting across from us. That when you do that to a child in a very young age, you create an insecure kid, they get into school,
They're constantly trying to fit into a peer group. Instead of saying, here's what I really want, it's like what peer group will accept me? And then that's usually a terrible situation. It goes into their adult life. And before ⁓ a teenager or young adult even knows who they are, they're put in a situation where they now have to fend for themselves. They very often get married at the first person that says, love you. It's something like that. And now they're creating this
thing of their life without really knowing who they are. And it's either you're going to continue down this road of this false self that I call it, because it's not real. It is here's the beliefs, the values that your parents gave you. And if those don't lead you to the best part of yourself, they're taking you away from it. There's no middle ground. And for most people, it takes them away from it. So it's a real conundrum that we have.
in society. Like there's no qualification to be a parent, you know. So without any individual saying, you know something, there were a lot of holes in my childhood. I would really like to learn how to be a much better parent, which most people don't do, at least not in the beginning. They just pass along whatever dysfunction was given to them.
Lance Cottrell (24:46)
Yeah, absolutely. So I want to pivot a little bit here. ⁓ I think one of the problems with imposter syndrome is that sort of confidence and be an authoritative positioning is critical to founders. And when they're going out and they're trying to bring in co-founders or bring in investors, that they need to be able to project a sort of unwavering belief in this vision that they have and the direction that they're trying to go.
but inside they're often torn up by imposter syndrome, which undercuts the strength of that message. And then, of course, you also don't want to be getting into a Dunning-Kruger effect where you're actually completely off base in the sense of authority you have. So what's your guidance for how people can get around that and be authentically authoritative about what they're doing?
David Neagle (25:33)
I think to be authentically authoritative, it's like they say in sales, be a product of your product. If it is something that you truly want, it's really connected to you emotionally, I think that you will speak from a place of authority and authenticity. Sometimes authenticity is better than authority. If people, investors and stuff, if they see that you really believe in what you're doing, they'll say this ...
kid will grow or this person will grow as they go with it because the most important thing is that they believe in their dream or their idea, their business, whatever it is they're doing. Not everybody will, but a lot of people will do that. They want to see that somebody's connected to it passionately. I think that's the first part. And whereas a lot of people try to buy into something that's like the next big thing and they're just not convincing.
If they're sitting in an investment round or ⁓ if they're looking at hiring or they're trying to get really great a playing team to come work for them, they're just not convincing. ⁓ people do not want to invest their time, and life when somebody is not solid. Like I'm solid, this is what it is. I mean, if I say to somebody, you know something, I believe in this 100%, I have no idea how we're going to get there.
I don't know how we're going to do it, but I'm committed with it to every fiber of my being. That's a sales pitch, right? Versus trying to give you all the flash and bulbs about something when you can tell the person's not connected to it. The next bright, shiny thing that comes down the road, they're liable to jump on if this isn't working. And then I've wasted my time working for you or investing for you or even trusting you because you can't trust yourself.
Lance Cottrell (27:18)
Yeah, I like what you're saying about authenticity because most people have pretty well developed BS detectors and you kind of know it when you see it and it feels like this flim flam man coming in and trying to sell you this. Whereas you're right, that clear articulation of belief and vision and intent is stronger and certainly with startups, most of them are going to pivot. So the exact details of what your plan is and precisely what you're going to do actually don't matter that much because you're almost certainly going to be doing something else.
David Neagle (27:24)
Yeah.
Lance Cottrell (27:47)
But the person at the helm and the key team, that's the thing that's going to be staying the course that you need to be betting.
David Neagle (27:52)
Absolutely, I totally agree with that.
Lance Cottrell (27:53)
So do you have any other advice on sort of how to keep going and maintain that momentum? Because I think that is a real concern for a lot of people, that they've got this early burst of energy and excitement about what they're doing, but inevitably there are periods of adversity and this founder's journey almost always severe adversity where it's going to be a struggle to keep going, but only through surviving those phases can you hit that successful outcome. So how do you help people navigate that?
David Neagle (28:21)
So a couple of things. Number one, I'm a stickler with make sure you're doing the thing that you want to do. Don't just do it for money. Make sure it's what you want to do. Now if you're doing that, of course we're all going to go through growth periods, we're going to go through ups and downs, we're going to have good days and bad days, things are going to go wrong. But if you will not judge yourself and view everything as a lesson and realize that there is no mistake
error or lesson without a solution on the other side. If you come from that, that's an absolute universal principle. So nothing's permanent unless you quit, But everything that goes wrong is showing you the next place to grow. It's like a key. It's almost like a lot of the games that we have. It's the hero's journey type of a thing, right? It is causing you to grow into the person that is more efficient, more effective.
in what it is that you want to do. So if you view it from that standpoint and you accept the challenge and you're honest with yourself, right? Don't run from your emotions but look at them. What am I afraid of? Why am I afraid? What is this telling me about myself? How can I grow here? You're going to make it. I believe everybody can be successful. The only way a person can fail is if they quit.
Lance Cottrell (29:37)
I think that's really profound saying that it's really important that you be doing this for reasons beyond just making money. I mean, when I talk to founders and they say, I want to do this because I want to become rich, there are much easier and higher percentage ways of becoming rich if that's the only outcome that you're going for. You know, this is long hours and hard work. And in fact, you you're talking about the learning I think is so key that as an investor,
David Neagle (29:52)
Yes.
Lance Cottrell (30:03)
I know that a founder who's failed several times is more likely to succeed than one who's out on their first outing. Someone was asking me in a workshop I was just doing recently whether the fact that they had failed as a founder in the past was some skeleton that they needed to be careful about and would be held against them and just trying to convince them, no, this is gold experience that you have and most successful founders have been through that a couple of times.
David Neagle (30:28)
Yeah, and the other thing that I think about that is that
And this is really fascinating. ⁓ As a person, I've met so many people that did it just for the money, and then it sucked away their whole life. they might be billionaires, but they're bitter as hell about what they did, because they didn't do what they wanted to do. And they get to the point where they realize that the money wasn't everything to begin with. They've traded a life for a false sense of security.
Because we all know money, doesn't matter where you put money, it could disappear tomorrow. That's a reality. I know people have, they like to think that there's a safe place to put it, but there is no safe place. The only safety, the only certainty is in your ability to generate it. If you understand that skill, you can do it over and over again. You really can live in your own economy. But I believe that the key, here, let me just share this.
Every other form of life in nature doesn't question what it is or why it's here. It just does what it's supposed to do every day. I don't believe human beings are any different. I just think that we've been taught to look in the wrong place. We're raised with the idea of doing something that's going to give you security and certainty in life instead of going into your own heart and saying, what am I really here to do? What is it I'm going to trade my life for? I only get one life. What am I going to trade it for? I think that's the answer.
Lance Cottrell (31:56)
That's a really powerful point. I think that's actually a great point to sort of end on. I know that you've offered to give the ⁓ quantum leap blueprint to our viewers. So could you maybe talk a little bit about what that is?
David Neagle (32:08)
Yes, it's a short, very concise course on how to take a person from where they are to make a quantum leap in their business. And they can do it in their life too. It's not just for business. It's designed for business people. But the idea is to break through whatever thinking is keeping you stuck right now, whether it's imposter syndrome or you've had a big setback or you ran out of money or somebody stole money from you or you're just not making the progress that you want. How do you mentally work through that so that you can apply?
and literally apply it, it's not just thinking, literally apply it to your business so that you can make a big jump from where you are to where it is that you want to be. The reason so much of what I do is focused on that first part is because that's how I got introduced to this industry. I made a quantum leap without knowing what I was doing. it's fun, number one, it's fun, but it's really great to watch people do something like turn their annual income into a monthly income.
when they've been stuck for so long. We teach them mindset, we teach them skill set, we teach them how to scale, we teach them how to sell, all that stuff. anybody can do, they can make a quantum leap no matter where they are, they're already prepared to make one, they just don't know how. And that's what that course teaches them how to do. And it's completely free.
Lance Cottrell (33:23)
Fantastic. I really appreciate that. I'll put a link down to that course in the description of this episode. And thank you very much for sharing it. And thank you for sharing all of this wisdom. think this has been a fantastic conversation.
David Neagle (33:33)
Thank you, it's been a real pleasure and honor to be here.
