You ever have that moment where you’re doing your thing – coaching, consulting, whatever – and you just feel kinda… dead inside about it?
Like you’re going through the motions, but you’re not actually there.
Yeah, I get it.
I’ve had many seasons in my life where I knew that there was something fresh I needed to create, but I had a lot of resistance around doing it.
So this week I talked to Ryan Levesque on the Expert Edge.
Guy built a $100 million business from scratch. Then he literally torched it because he was feeling the same thing.
Get this – he’d built something massive.
A real company, with real success. But then he starts noticing something.
He’d completely lost touch with his message and with his audience.
Every email going out with his name on it – he didn’t write, someone else did. Or AI did.
So he writes this email called “An Embarrassing Confession” telling everyone the truth.
And that one email changed his entire business.
Here’s what stuck with me from talking to him:
People don’t want more stuff…They want REAL.
Neuroscience shows us two chemicals to be acutely aware of as marketers.
Dopamine is the notification ping. The thing that makes you scroll forever #insta.
Oxytocin is like… connection. Trust. Love. It’s what we’re actually hungry for and not getting.
The last season was about dopamine.
This season is about oxytocin.
And here’s the wild part – you can actually trigger oxytocin through real storytelling. Through actually being authentic.
Your people are literally starving for what you can give them if you just have the guts to be real about it.
He said something so profound “The best stuff in life doesn’t scale.”
Think about it. A sunset with someone you actually love. Coffee with a good friend. Your kid running up and giving you a hug.
None of that scales. And that’s exactly why it matters.
So what if the way to win isn’t scaling everything? What if it’s doing the things that literally can’t be scaled? The stuff your competition won’t touch because it takes too much time?
Responding personally to every review. A handwritten note. A quick video when someone joins your program.
That’s your real advantage.
Real talk though – you might be phoning it in and not even know it.
Most coaches get into this because they struggled with something. So they build a whole thing around it. They teach it. They deliver it. Over and over.
Then one day you wake up and you’re like… I actually don’t care about this anymore.
That’s not you being a failure. That’s you evolving.
The question is: are you gonna notice it and change? Or just keep delivering something that bores you to death?
Because people know. They can feel the difference between someone who’s real and someone who’s just cashing checks.
Watch on YouTube: The Expert Edge
Listen: Episode 345 | Establishing your Category of One w/ Ryan Levesque
In a world where everything’s turning fake, real is literally the only thing that’s left.
Colin
P.S. Ryan said something I loved – “The fifth grader thinks the sixth grader is a genius.” You don’t have to be perfect at something to teach it. Just be one step ahead. Teach what you’re learning right now.
P.P.S. If your business isn’t lighting you up anymore, that’s not a bad thing. That’s feedback. Let’s talk. Book a time.
