Stress to Success: The Unpopular Move Is Doing Less

The Maverick Paradox is Judith Germain's show on maverick leadership, where every guest is asked to challenge the usual thinking. I came on to talk about going from stress to success. My take runs against the common advice. Growth, for me, meant doing less, not more.

The stress had a cause

I ran a Google Ads agency for 13 years, and for a long time I chased volume. More clients, more hours, more everything. It led to a near-burnout and a downsizing. The stress was not random. It came from a business built to demand all of me. The turning point was admitting the model itself was the problem, not my effort.

The maverick move is focus

So I cut clients instead of adding them. I raised prices instead of discounting. I said no more often. A premium problem can carry a premium price, and once I believed that, the whole business got lighter. The unpopular truth is that leadership is often about what you remove. Focus is the move most people are afraid to make. I talk more about the marketing and authority side of this on the InnovaBuzz podcast and the Sage Thought Leadership podcast.