NexusPoint Project Management L.L.C.

We help service-driven organisations strengthen leadership pipelines and improve operational consistency through Strategy Days, leadership development and practical coaching.

We partner with HR and L&D leaders across MENA and Asia, with deep experience in hospitality.

Focus areas:
✅ Leadership presence under pressure
✅ Delegation without losing control
✅ Accountability and feedback in multicultural teams
✅  Communication that builds trust and clarity

Learning is designed to fit busy operations: practical, applied and sustainable. We also facilitate Executive Team Strategy Days to agree must-win priorities, align leaders across functions and set a 90-day execution plan.

Co-Founder & Principal

Jeff Ross GmbH

Workshops and coaching for service-driven SMEs across Switzerland and Europe.

Our focus:
✅ ‘Starting up successfully’ workshops for aspiring wellness, beauty, spa and hospitality founders: clarify your offer, build a business plan and map your first 90 days.

✅ Leadership workshops and coaching for owners and founders
Designed for the scale-up stage: hiring first employees, onboarding a team and learning to lead.
Practical modules include:
• From founder to people leader
• Onboarding playbooks and first-90-days plans
• Delegation without losing control
• Feedback, accountability and simple performance rhythms
• Communication across levels and cultures

✅ Succession planning and mid-level development
Identify successors, prepare supervisors for promotion and stabilise day-to-day performance.

Our approach:
Short, practical sessions with follow-on coaching so progress sticks.
Our primary market is Switzerland and Europe. For MENA & Asia programmes, see NexusPoint (Dubai).

Owner

Tetr College of Business

Sharing leadership and team development insights with business students and early-career professionals preparing for entrepreneurship & management roles.

Ambassador & visiting Expert

Batgroup

Led the integration of a well-established service brand into a new group structure while maintaining client trust and team culture.

Key outcomes:
✅ Aligned legacy operations with new systems and metrics
✅ Guided branch leaders through structural and role changes
✅ Strengthened sales performance through clearer accountability

This experience deepened my ability to balance people, systems, and results during transition.

General Manager PFA (Putzfrauenagentur)

Finnish Chamber for Impact Partnerships (FC4IP)

Advised leadership teams in mission-driven organisations on leading growth without losing cultural alignment.

Facilitated strategic planning, leadership identity work, and cross-border collaboration.

Primary Consultant

InnoPark Suisse SA

Selected for a leadership development program focused on entrepreneurship and project execution in evolving markets.

Completed certifications and applied learning in:
✅ Project Management (IPMA Level D)
✅ Communication, agile leadership, and digital business models
✅ Clean tech market expansion strategy for EU entry

This experience broadened my strategic toolkit and strengthened my ability to coach across industries and roles.

Leadership & Career Development Program Participant

Apple

Led large, diverse teams in a high-performance, customer-focused environment.
Coached new managers through their leadership transitions and built teams grounded in trust and accountability.

Key achievements:
✅ Developed internal talent into senior leadership roles
✅ Maintained operational consistency through major transitions
✅ Built engaged, reliable teams under high pressure

Apple taught me how to build leadership capacity while delivering results — a lesson I now share with my clients.

Retail Leader

Swissôtel Hotels & Resorts

Directed resort and city operations with multinational teams, balancing owner expectations with service excellence.

Highlights:

✅ Built leadership depth within operational teams
✅ Improved team engagement and guest satisfaction
✅ Led organizational change with clarity and care

Hotel Manager & General Manager

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.

Held multiple management roles leading to opening Hotel Manager at a flagship St. Regis property.
Learned to lead through complexity, scale, and cultural diversity — the foundation of my current coaching approach.

Highlights:
✅ Opened a luxury resort in Bali and led full post-launch operations.
✅ Led the operational integration of a Le Royal Méridien property in the UAE after the brand's aquisition.
✅ Drove Six Sigma initiatives to improve service flow and guest satisfaction at 2 luxury properties in Spain.

Progressive Leadership Roles

Various Hospitality companies

Built hands-on leadership experience in luxury hospitality across, Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia.
Learned how service excellence and people development connect — a principle that drives all my coaching today.

Earlier roles

Change Leadership, General Manager PFA @ Batgroup & Member of the Board @ Putzfrauenagentur

Leadership isn’t about volume.
It’s about clarity, confidence and direction when the pressure is on.

I partner with HR leaders, GMs and Executive Teams across MENA & Asia to strengthen leadership capability from the ground up. My work sits where strategy, people and day-to-day execution meet in service-driven organisations.

Most performance issues in hospitality, retail and education aren’t about effort.
They come from three gaps:

❌ Leaders promoted before they’re ready to lead
❌ Executive Teams pulling in different directions
❌ No clear pipeline or succession to stabilise performance

So my work covers both sides of the leadership equation:

Strategy & alignment for senior teams
Facilitated Strategy Days that help GMs and Executive Teams:
✅ Agree a small set of must-win priorities
✅ Translate those into a 90-day execution plan
✅ Build the clarity and focus teams need to perform
✅ Name the leadership behaviours that sustain results

Leadership development for emerging & mid-level managers
Practical, human-centred programmes that build the skills to lead through others, communicate with clarity and coach across cultures.

Coaching & capability building
1:1 and group coaching, Train-the-Trainer, and tailored L&D that strengthen the pipeline and reduce turnover.

Across 25+ years with Apple Retail, Swissôtel, St. Regis and service organisations in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, one truth holds: engagement and commercial performance rise when leaders at every level know where they’re going and how to bring their people with them.

If you’re building your leadership pipeline or want stronger alignment at the top, I’m happy to explore how we can work together.

📞 Book a call: https://jeffross.as.me/

Jeff Ross

Top sellers stall when asked to lead.
Coach ICs now with lean prompts.

❌ Over-index on product expertise.
✅ Balance with coaching, listening, inclusive leadership.

❌ Feedback as annual event.
✅ Weekly 10–15 minute coaching conversations using SBI+.

❌ “Be more proactive.”
✅ Decision logs that capture judgment under pressure.

Fallout → Brilliant sellers, poor team leaders.
Fix → Clear thresholds: delegate during a peak, lead a small recovery.

Because inclusion drives voice, we hard-wire “invite the quieter voice” into stand-ups and handovers.
Outcome: candidates who already lift others.

To see the manager-as-coach prompts we use, message me and I’ll send the guide.

Helping hospitality and service brands align strategy, strengthen pipelines and deliver consistent performance | Strategy Days, L&D and coaching | MENA and Asia

Top sellers stall when asked to lead

Your manager gap began two promotions ago.
Build a leadership pipeline with this 90-day path.

❌ Cut layers, expect senior leaders to plug the gap.
✅ Grow capable first-line leaders who stabilise shifts.

❌ Promote on technical mastery alone.
✅ Promote on observed coaching, safety, and service recovery.

❌ Hope people “figure it out”.
✅ Give ICs a 90-day roadmap with on-shift experiments.

Fallout → Directionless teams, inconsistent standards, supervisor burnout.
Fix → Skill sprints: trust, influence, feedback, delegation, conflict, recovery.

Because development must fit rota reality, each rep is 2–15 minutes and logged. Managers coach, not carry.

Outcome: a bench of calm coordinators who can run briefings tomorrow.

If you want the playbook that underpins this, comment “Playbook” and I’ll send it.

Your 'missing managers' problem

If complaints spike, you’re too late.
Preload micro-leadership with this plan.

❌ Wait for complaints to spike, then book workshops.
✅ Build micro-leadership before the badge.

❌ Abstract competencies no one can see.
✅ Observable thresholds: run a 10-minute huddle, deliver SBI+ feedback.

❌ Annual talent reviews with thin evidence.
✅ Decision logs, peer feedback, capstone stories you can trust.

Fallout → Firefighting culture.
Fix → 70% on-the-job stretch with manager-as-coach prompts.

Because psychological safety predicts team effectiveness, we teach “Thank, Ask, Normalise” on live shifts.
Result: steadier service, earlier escalations, fewer near-misses.

If you’d like our L&D framework that powers this, send a note and we’ll walk you through it.

Stop training managers after the damage shows up

Strategy won’t save a shaky front line.
Six shift sprints make service dependable.

❌ Promotion-first, training-later creates “accidental managers”.
✅ Prepare high-potentials on shift before the title.

❌ One-off workshops.
✅ 70-20-10, with bite-size reps inside real service windows.

❌ Theory-first decks no one opens.
✅ Micro scripts, logs, and stand-ups people actually use.

Fallout → Missed standards, erratic guest recovery, churn.
Fix → Six 1–2 week sprints that build trust, coaching, delegation.

Because first-line leaders shape up to 70% of engagement, the cost of waiting is visible in your NPS and absence line.

Results you can expect: ready-now candidates who already run huddles, coach peers, and surface issues early.

If you’re building a 2025 pipeline in customer-centric operations, message me to discuss your sites’ needs.

JSESSIONID

li_at

Front-line managers have more impact than strategy has.

On paper, many service organisations look stable: good brand, decent demand, solid product.

Underneath, everything depends on a tiny group of managers holding the whole thing together.

When one leaves, the cost is bigger than a vacancy:
❌ Productivity dips while others “cover”
❌ Standards slip just enough for guests to feel it
❌ Confidence drops and people start looking elsewhere
❌ Recruitment turns reactive and costly
❌ Revenue opportunities are missed as priorities keep changing hands

That isn’t just a people risk. It’s a financial risk.
Gallup’s lesson is consistent: people don’t leave in the abstract. They leave environments where managers are overwhelmed and under-supported.

If you have no pipeline, then:
❌ Every promotion is a gamble
❌ Every resignation is a small crisis
❌ Every strategy is more fragile than it looks

Succession planning isn’t a corporate luxury.

It’s basic risk management for any hotel, school, clinic, or service business that runs on human performance.

Prepare people before you desperately need them.

Middle managers stuck between messages.
Give them crisp, consistent signals.

Executive teams in hotels and service businesses work hard.
The problem is not the effort you put in.
It is direction.

When the senior team is misaligned, you see it everywhere:
 ❌ Leaders pulling in different directions
 ❌ Conflicting signals about this quarter’s priorities
 ❌ Departments optimising for their own metrics
 ❌ Middle managers stuck between messages
 ❌ Frontline teams guessing where to put their energy

Engagement drops not because people don’t care, but because they stop trusting the signals.
 Then the financial impact lands fast:
 ❌ Turnover in key roles
 ❌ Slower response to market moves
 ❌ Lost revenue through inconsistency
 ❌ More firefighting, less improvement

Across hotels, retail, and services, one thing has been consistent:
 When the top team aligns on a handful of must-win priorities, everything beneath has a chance to stabilise.
 
Clarity at the top creates confidence in the middle.
 Confidence in the middle unlocks energy on the front line.
 That’s where guests, customers, students, and patients feel the difference.

Engagement is about seeing the direction clearly, and leaders walking it together.

If your top team’s priorities aren’t aligned, let’s pressure-test them together. Book a complimentary 30-minute call and I’ll outline a focused alignment sprint you can run immediately.

Those weekly updates feel busy, not better.
Swap noise for direction in one day.

Hospitality, retail, service teams: you’ll recognise this pattern.

❌ Operational updates, staffing gaps, guest feedback, budget variances, firefighting.
Important. Necessary.
But not the work that aligns a leadership team.

✅ The work that does:
What are the 3–5 priorities for the next 90 days?
Where are we misaligned without noticing?
What do our people need us to clarify?
Which capabilities are missing to execute consistently?

When leaders make room for this, everything steadies:
Engagement holds. Turnover eases.
Middle managers stop guessing.
The frontline gets a clearer signal.
Customer experience becomes consistent.
Financial performance gets less erratic.

Boundary → Because: alignment doesn’t happen between agenda items, it happens when leaders pause, sit together, and focus on direction, not just today’s noise.

The most underrated tool isn’t coaching or training.
It’s one uninterrupted day to think, decide, and commit together.

Give your team that day. Twice a year. Then hold the line.

Training often dies at the lunch rush.
Use on-shift cues that stick at peak.

❌ E-learning that dies at peak.
✅ Two-line prompts managers can use at 12:30.

❌ One-size modules.
✅ Sector examples: queue flow, top-10 stockouts, tour-bus arrivals.

❌ “Forever” changes.
✅ Bounded experiments: next 30 minutes, this service period.

Fallout → Skills don’t transfer to the floor.
Fix → On-shift practice with buddy circles and manager check-ins.

Because we measure behaviour, not attendance, leading indicators move first: briefings run, feedback given, conflicts de-escalated.

If you want a copy of the 90-day Emerging Leader Sprint, reply “90 days” and I’ll share it.

Training that survives the lunch rush

🇦🇪 On UAE National Day, we celebrate vision.
But it is our leaders who will decide whether we reach it.

The UAE Vision 2030 and the Fifty Economic Plan are bold:
a highly productive, talent-rich, service-driven economy that can compete with the best in the world.

That future runs through our workplaces - especially hospitality, retail, tourism and service businesses.

But the latest Gallup data for MENA tells a different story:
• Only 14% of employees are engaged
• 24% are actively disengaged
• 46% are looking for another job
• Daily stress is at 48% - among the highest globally

No country can deliver its full economic vision with a workforce that is exhausted and unstable.

And yet, this is not a vision problem.
It is a leadership problem - particularly in the middle management layer:

The managers who open and close the stores.
Who run the shifts.
Who approve the holidays.
Who coach (or do not coach) their people.
Who turn strategy slides into daily reality.

If that layer is overwhelmed, untrained or purely task-focused, we will not get the engagement, service quality and retention that Vision 2030 assumes.

The good news?
This is fixable - and the ROI is significant.

When we:

✅ Help strong individual contributors transition into people-centred leaders
✅ Build psychologically safe, engaged teams
✅ Create a feedback and learning culture instead of fear and firefighting

…everything else starts to move:
guest experience, team stability, internal promotion, and ultimately financial performance.

That is the Leadership Value Chain™ - and it is where I am focusing my work here in the UAE.

On this National Day, instead of more slogans, I invite you to a simple reflection:

👉 If you lead people in the UAE, what is one small behaviour you could strengthen in 2026 to make your team a place where talent wants to stay, grow and contribute?

Because every time a manager chooses to listen, coach, give fair feedback, or protect their people from unnecessary chaos, we take a small but real step towards the future this country is aiming for.

Here is to a vision that lives not just in strategy documents, but in the daily leadership our teams experience.

Happy UAE National Day 🇦🇪


Photo by Milan Kiro on pexels.

Your best future leads aren’t practicing.
Weekly pressure reps surface them fast.

❌ Talent spotting in annual reviews only.
✅ Weekly reps where ICs run moments that matter.

❌ “Shadow when it’s quiet.”
✅ Shadow at pressure points, harvest three copy-worthy behaviours.

❌ Vague “step up more”.
✅ Mini-campaigns with a metric, stakeholder map, and short retro.

Fallout → Quiet high-potentials stay unseen.
Fix → Simple artefacts that show the work and de-risk first promotions.

Because consistency beats heroics, we build habits: Focus 3, check-clarify-close, micro-recoveries with guests.
You’ll see who is already leading, not just hoping.

If you’re building a middle-management pipeline for 2026, DM me and let’s scope it for your context.

Leadership potential isn’t invisible, it’s unpractised

South Asia is 26% engaged, yet anger runs high.
People care, but many feel unheard.

Passion without psychological safety becomes burnout.
You won’t fix that with perks or posters.

EQ turns it around:
empathy → recognition that lands, not generic praise
self-awareness → fewer reactive decisions
coaching conversations → belonging over busywork

❌ “We’re engaged, so we’re fine.”
✅ “We’re engaged, so we must protect it.”

Boundary → Because: recognition is weekly and specific, because effort seen becomes effort repeated.

Make it practical: manager office hours, structured 1:1s, and a simple “recognise-then-redirect” script for tough moments.
Healthy engagement is the goal, not just high engagement.
It starts with emotionally intelligent managers who make safety a habit.

South Asia's Paradox

Promotions without support drain teams.
Start support before numbers slip.

We all know the pattern:
Strong individual contributor gets promoted.
Same expectations, bigger scope, little support.
They try to carry the team by working harder.
Communication wobbles.
The team quietly disengages.
Performance and guest experience follow.

On a spreadsheet, it looks like:
❌ Rising turnover and sick days
❌ Inconsistent guest/client feedback
❌ Lumpy sales and service metrics

In real life, it’s a human who was never taught how to:
✅ Have difficult conversations
✅ Give clear, fair feedback
✅ Delegate without guilt
✅ Set boundaries and protect their energy

Invest early, before they burn out or burn bridges.
The results are predictable:
✅ Teams stabilise
✅ Engagement stops swinging
✅ Financials get less lumpy and more reliable

Emerging leaders aren’t a “nice” group to develop.
They’re the infrastructure of future performance.

If this pattern is biting in your teams, book a complimentary 25-minute advisory call and we’ll map the first three fixes for your emerging leaders.

Where manager EQ is thin, engagement drops fastest.
We still promote for technical mastery, then hope for people skills.

When self-regulation is low, stress spikes; when empathy is missing, turnover follows.
Flattened layers haven’t helped. Many firms cut managers, then wonder why teams feel directionless.

Fallout → Fix: fewer managers → confusion and reactivity; equip remaining managers with EQ, coaching and feedback skills, then rebuild clarity.

Teach managers to:
give hard feedback without breaking trust
adapt tone across cultures and contexts
stay steady when pressure bites

❌ Treat EQ as “soft.”
✅ Treat EQ as the system upgrade that keeps teams steady.

Start inside, then roll out the skills.

The EQ gap that sinks engagement

The Gallup report has been stuck in my head for weeks.
We keep talking about engagement like it lives in HR.
It doesn’t.
It lives in the P&L.

In service businesses, low engagement shows up as:
❌ Turnover in the teams you can’t afford to lose
❌ Basics slipping, complaints rising
❌ Supervisors firefighting instead of coaching
❌ Sales and ops pulling against each other
❌ Mid-level leaders burning out quietly

None of that is “soft.”
All of it is expensive.

In hotels and other service organisations, you feel disengagement in:
❌ Overtime and replacement costs
❌ Guest scores and online reviews
❌ Missed up-/cross-sell and retention
❌ Managers checking out months before they resign

✅ Here’s the truth we skip: engagement is a leadership issue long before it’s an HR metric.

When leaders at every level know what matters, why it matters, and how to bring people along, engagement becomes a commercial advantage, not a slide in a report.

Treat it as a financial lever, not an annual survey.

Manager engagement just dropped to 27%.
Individual contributors stayed flat.

The people responsible for engaging others don't feel engaged themselves.

Add Korn Ferry's insight: drastically larger teams, fewer resources.

❌ Squeezed between executives and frontline. Drowning in operational noise. Expected to absorb pressure and still show up strong. ✅ Aligned priorities. Protected time to think. A system that treats managers as the critical layer they are.

70% of team engagement traces back to the manager.
Yet managers often receive the least structured support.

When your pressure layer cracks, the cracks spread everywhere.

Curiosity outperforms command across every culture I’ve worked in.
This is human leadership, translated locally.

I hear it a lot: “Hierarchy here is different.”
True. Context always matters.

But the basics travel.
Mutual respect. Tolerance. Support. Collaboration.

❌ “Tough talk” as a badge of leadership.
Fallout: teams play hide-and-seek, learning stalls, risk rises.
✅ Curiosity with clarity.
Fix: issues surface early, standards hold, progress compounds.

I’ve led teams across Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
What changed: language, rituals, power distance.
What didn’t: people respond to being seen, heard and guided.

Boundary → Because: adapt delivery to the culture, because dignity and fairness are non-negotiable everywhere.

Leaders don’t have to choose between results and humanity.
Apply the same human principles, translate the wrapper, and performance follows.

Curiosity beats command every single time, anywhere.

Southeast Asia is 26% engaged, 8% actively disengaged.
Lowest global stress at 25%.

That doesn’t happen by luck.
Relationships precede results. Harmony, respect and recognition show up daily.

Add managerial clarity and you get trust that compounds:
clear expectations before tasks start
micro-feedback during the work
recognition tied to behaviours, not personalities

❌ Care without clarity drifts.
✅ Clarity without care hardens.
The win is care + clarity, every week.

Cultural agility in action means blending relational norms with modern performance systems.

Leaders elsewhere don’t need to copy culture; they can copy the cadence:
set expectations Monday, check progress midweek, recognise and reset Friday.
Borrow the rhythm. Improve your results.

Why South East Asia leads

Low engagement tracks messy first-line rhythm.
Lock a cadence with ready agendas and scripts.

❌ Inconsistent huddles, unclear roles, shifting priorities mid-shift.
✅ Standard stand-up agenda and visible task allocation.

❌ Silence around small errors.
✅ Normalise learning: one error shared, one fix each week.

❌ Escalate every friction.
✅ Peer scripts for simple performance and tone issues.

Fallout → Rumour, rework, repeat complaints.
Fix → Six sprints that turn “nice ICs” into dependable coordinators.

Because managers can’t design from scratch, we include templates, scripts, and a promotion-readiness rubric mapped to competencies.

If you want help to implement this across sites, let’s talk about your pipeline goals and constraints.

Low engagement tracks messy first-line rhythm

Not a talent crisis, but a connection crisis at work.
When managers disengage, teams follow.

The fix isn’t another dashboard.
It’s a leadership reset built on three habits:

1. Listen before you lead. Diagnose, then decide.
2. Clarify meaning before direction. Why anchors the what.
3. Recognise effort before judging outcomes. Fuel the behaviour you want.

Boundary → Because: no recognition inflation, just specific, timely acknowledgements tied to standards.

Managers sit at the crossroads of cultural, generational and digital shifts.
Equip them to hold both care and accountability.

Human-centred leadership isn’t a philosophy. It’s the engagement strategy for multicultural teams.

Re-humanising management

AI solves tasks. Leadership solves behaviour.
The two only work when the human is steady.

If a manager is already overwhelmed, reactive, or emotionally stretched, AI amplifies that. It doesn't fix it.

❌ Faster decisions made poorly. Clearer communication of confusion. Efficiency without judgment.
✅ Using AI to reflect before responding. Rehearsing difficult conversations. Creating clarity for teams.

AI won't replace managers.
But it will expose gaps in leadership behaviour faster than ever.

The organisations that win next year aren't the ones with the most AI tools.

They're the ones with stable, supported managers who know how to use them.

Strategy & Finance Executive | Scaling Impact-Driven Companies Beyond $10M | Strategic CFO | Certified Scaling Up Advisor

Scaling Founders Beyond $10M with Strategy, Financial Clarity, and Leadership Expansion

Most companies stall not because of lack of effort—
but because the founder has outgrown the systems, strategies, and financial models that once worked.

At Ascend Growth Ventures, we partner with CEOs of $3M–$10M companies to implement Scaling Up, strengthen financial infrastructure, and elevate leadership teams—building businesses that scale profitably and predictably, without burning out the founder.

By integrating Scaling Up, Exponential Organizations, and CFO-level financial insights, we deliver a complete, battle-tested system for sustainable, high-performance growth.

🔹 We Work With CEOs Who Want To:
✔️ Scale revenue and profits without chaos
✔️ Build self-managing leadership teams
✔️ Unlock hidden cash flow and improve financial decision-making
✔️ Sharpen their strategy for exponential growth
✔️ Prepare for capital raises, acquisitions, or exits

🔹 Our Core Focus Areas:
  * Strategic Scaling Up Implementation

  * Financial Strategy & Cash Optimization

  * Leadership Team Development

  * Systems for Predictable Growth

  * Valuation Prep and Exit Strategy

✅ Why Work With Me?
25+ years of experience scaling businesses from the inside out:
➡️ Regional CFO, GE Gas Power (LATAM, +1.5GW record year)
➡️ Strategic finance and underwriting leadership at GE Capital
➡️ Business/project development for 8-figure ventures
➡️ Trusted advisor to founders scaling past $10M and beyond

✅ Industries We Specialize In:
✔️ Clean Energy & Decarbonization
✔️ Industrial Goods & B2B Services
✔️ Impact-Driven Companies
✔️ Scaling Coaching & Consulting Firms

🧠 If You're Ready to Scale Intelligently and Sustainably

Let's have a strategic conversation about where you are—and where you can go.

Easiest way to work with me?

Book a private power hour call and let's create your vision.
https://calendly.com/cruzagamboa/90-min-power-hour

Cruz Gamboa

The market tells stories. Your financials & metrics tell truth.

In 2001, Amazon's stock cratered from $113 to $6.

Wall Street declared it dead.

Let's be clear: that had to be terrifying. Even for Bezos.

Watching 95% of your valuation evaporate. Hearing the whispers. Feeling the pressure from every direction.

But here's what separated him from founders who fold in those moments, he kept coming back to his dashboard:

Customer acquisition costs...improving. 

Fulfillment efficiency...improving. 

Contribution margin per unit...improving. 

Defect rates...declining.

The stock price reflected fear. 

The operating metrics reflected reality.

Confidence isn't the absence of fear. It's choosing to trust what you can measure over what you can't control.

This is Financial Intelligence: knowing which numbers actually predict your future, especially when everything around you is screaming that you're losing.

Watch the video. Bezos is calm. 

Not because he wasn't scared, but because he had clarity.

He knew exactly what was true inside his business.

That's how you survive what looks like a reversal, and come out the other side stronger.

That's how $6 becomes $1.7 trillion.

So here's my question for you:

What would it be worth to have that kind of clarity the next time everything feels like it's falling apart?

To know—not hope, not guess—that you're on the right track?

That's the game worth playing.

Check out comments for details

#founder #growth #ceo #scalingup

Helping Founders Break the $10M Ceiling | Strategy, Cash Flow & Leadership Systems | Scaling CFO

At 40, he’d lost everything.
His company. His savings. His confidence.
Most people would’ve walked away.

But Aaron Krause wasn’t “most people.”

He went back to the garage.
Back to tiny problems no one cared about.
And from that… came a smiling sponge the world didn’t see coming.

Stores rejected him.
Investors laughed.
The idea sat on a shelf for years.

But he didn’t quit.
He took one uncomfortable shot: Shark Tank.

He walked in with a box of sponges.
He walked out with Lori Greiner.
$200,000 for 20%.
Momentum activated.

Then the episode aired…

Overnight demand.
Shelves cleared out.
Factories overloaded.
Scrub Daddy everywhere, from Walmart to Bed Bath & Beyond.

A simple sponge became a billion-dollar brand.
Not because it was cute.
Because he executed when life said “stop.”

Here’s the truth:

👉 He didn’t need a perfect plan: he needed one more attempt.
👉 He wasn’t chasing validation: he was chasing resilience.
👉 He proved the principle every founder forgets:
A small idea + relentless execution can beat a big idea that never ships.

Critics mocked the smile.
Then watched it become one of Shark Tank’s biggest wins ever.

The ones who win?
They push past rejection.
They build through uncertainty.
They keep going when almost everyone quits.

Because billion-dollar outcomes don’t happen in comfort, 
they happen right after the moment you think it’s over.

#resilience#scalingup#founderstory#entrepreneurship

𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗠𝗶𝗹𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝗵𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝘁𝗼 𝗠𝗶𝗹𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗠𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀.

Hamdi Ulukaya didn’t just build a yogurt brand, he redefined an industry.

No investors. No marketing budget. Just purpose, grit, and belief.

In 2005, he saw an ad.
An abandoned Kraft yogurt factory.

Everyone saw a money pit.
He saw possibility.

He didn’t have the money.
So he took a loan.

Bought the factory.
Kept 5 employees who believed when no one else did.

No income.
No sales.
No marketing.
Just faith, and a recipe from home.

Two years later, in 2007, Chobani was born.

No ads. Just bold packaging and pure taste.

Retailers hesitated.
But the people loved it.

Within 5 years, #1 yogurt in America.

Over $1B in sales.
The giants, Dannon, Yoplait, couldn’t catch up.

He stayed private.
Gave 10% of the company to his employees.

Hired refugees.
Put people before profit.

When asked why, he said:

👉 “Business is the strongest force for good, if it puts people first.”

From a shepherd in Turkey…
To a billionaire who still walks the factory floors.

Lesson?
You don’t need investors.
You need integrity.
You don’t need luck.
You need courage.

Because the dream still works, if you do.

Loved this story. Let me know your comments. 

What problem in your business keeps calling for your most creative energy?

#CEO  #FOUNDER #GROWTH #SCALINGUP

They emailed eBay 200 times.
eBay ignored every single one.
Most people would’ve given up.

But Marc, Oliver, and Alexander Samwer weren’t “most people.”

They cloned eBay.
Launched it in Germany.
Executed with speed and perfection.
Within months… eBay bought it back for $43 MILLION.

Then the brothers doubled down.
They built Rocket Internet, the company that turned cloning into a billion-dollar machine.

They copied.
They improved.
They scaled.
And they sold again, and again, and again.

Here’s the truth:

👉 They weren’t chasing approval, they were chasing execution at scale.
👉 They didn’t wait to be discovered, they created their own leverage.
👉 They mastered the one principle most founders overlook:
Doing it better beats doing it first.

Critics called them “copycats.”
But behind the noise, the Samwer brothers built an empire worth billions.

Most people stop when they hear “no.”
The one who succeed?
They push when it’s uncomfortable.
They build when others hesitate.
They turn rejection into momentum.

If you want outsized results, do what most won’t:
Step past comfort.
Step past doubt.
Step past fear.

Because the biggest payoffs live right beyond the point where almost everyone quits.

#scalingup #growth #ceo #bostonfounders

Two friends, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield.

One dropped out.
One got rejected from med school.
But both wanted to build something.

First idea: bagels.
Too expensive.
So they pivot to ice cream.

No experience. No investors.
Just a $5 correspondence course from Penn State.
$2.50 each.

They find an abandoned gas station in Vermont.
Borrow $12,000.
Do the renovation themselves.

Ben can’t even taste properly, a condition called anosmia.
So he focuses on texture.
Big chunks. Wild swirls. Bold flavours.

What others saw as a weakness became their edge.

Within months, lines formed outside the door.
Free Cone Day became a tradition.
Word spread fast.

Few years later, they launched Cherry Garcia.
The brand took off across the country.
Soon, Ben & Jerry’s was making over $500M a year.

All from $12,000 and a $5 course.

Lesson?
You don’t need the perfect start.
You need creativity, courage, and the guts to turn constraints into leverage.

#scalingup #ceo #founder #growth

𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘀.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁.

Steve Jobs said it best, the greatest people are self-managing.

They don’t need direction. They are the direction.

When you’re scaling, this is the difference between speed and stagnation.

You can’t build a $10M company micromanaging every move.
You build it by surrounding yourself with people who:

➡️ See the problem before you do.
➡️ Fix it without asking.
➡️ Then tell you how they made it better.

That’s who scales companies.
Not followers.
Not “yes” people.
Builders.

If you have to keep pushing your team to move, 
you don’t have a scaling problem,
you have a people problem.

The truth?
The best teams don’t need managing.
They need mission.

Hire those who act like owners.
Give them the target.
Then get the hell out of their way.

That’s how you scale.
That’s how you win.

#scalingup #ceo #founder #growth

At 22, he was rejected by Toyota.
At 38, his factory was bombed. Twice.
Most people would’ve accepted defeat.

But Soichiro Honda wasn’t “most people.”

He went back to the workshop.
Back to broken engines and scraps no one wanted.
And from that… came a machine the world didn’t see coming.

Japan had no money.
Fuel was scarce.
Factories were rubble.

But he didn’t quit.
He bolted a tiny motor onto a bicycle 
not pretty, not perfect, but powerful enough to move people again.

Stores ignored it.
Critics dismissed it.
He kept building anyway.

Because he wasn’t chasing applause.
He was chasing motion.

Then came the breakthrough…

The Super Cub.
Light. Reliable. Unbreakable.
The bike that took Japan and then the world by storm.

A simple motorbike became a $100B legacy.
Not because it was glamorous.
Because he refused to stop when everything told him to.

Here’s the truth:

👉 He didn’t need perfect conditions: he needed one more rebuild.
👉 He wasn’t chasing status: he was chasing solutions.
👉 He proved what most innovators forget:
Small beginnings + relentless persistence beat rejection every time.

Toyota turned him down.
Life knocked him down.
But he got back up again and again until the world couldn’t ignore him.

The ones who win?
They rise after failure.
They create after chaos.
They build when everyone else quits.

Because billion-dollar stories don’t start with luck
they start with someone who refuses to give up.
#scalingup #founder #CEO #boston

He built a dating site that generated exactly zero activity.
No users. No traction. No revenue.

Most leaders call that a failed model.
I call it an early audit.

Three ex-PayPal employees launched “Tune In Hook Up,” expecting market fit.
What they got was silence.
Operational cost? Rising.
User acquisition? Non-existent.
ROI? Negative from day one.

But here’s what mattered:
They reviewed the data instead of reacting to the emotion.

They noticed users trying to upload videos
Not for dating, but for everyday moments.
Unintended behaviour, but real demand.

So they executed the smartest financial move any early-stage team can make:
A low-cost pivot.

Same infrastructure.
Same upload system.
Zero additional burn.
Just a shift in positioning:
Share any video.

And that decision changed their entire valuation trajectory.

Users scaled exponentially.
Cost per acquisition plummeted.
Engagement skyrocketed.
Suddenly, they weren’t running a dating site…
They were running the internet’s first true video platform.

By 2006, their risk profile had flipped
High growth. High virality.
And high legal exposure.

Enter Google.
They offered $1.65B in stock for a business that still had no established monetisation engine.
From a financial lens?
That’s called derisking the future.

Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim accepted.
Smart move.
They transferred operational liability…
And secured generational wealth.

Today, YouTube contributes over $40B in yearly ad revenue
and sits at a valuation north of $500B.

All from a product that started as a complete miss 
until the data told a different story.

Lesson:
You don’t scale perfection.
You scale what the market proves it wants.
Listen to the numbers, not the narratives.
And never underestimate the ROI of a well-timed pivot.

#CFOInsights #Leadership #Strategy #Scalingup

She sold her engagement ring for $10,000.
Ten years later, Vicky Tsai built a $500M skincare empire.

Most people call that crazy.
I call it commitment.

She walked away from a six-figure job…
Moved back into her childhood bedroom at 30…
Got rejected for 18 months straight…
And kept going anyway.

1,000 units.
Her last $5,000.
No safety net. No backup plan.

Month one? $2,000 in sales.
Most people quit here.
Vicky didn’t.

She packed every order by hand.
Wrote thank-you notes to strangers.
Built trust one customer at a time.

Then the internet found her.
Demand exploded.
Sephora called.
And the bedroom startup became one of the fastest-growing skincare brands in America.

In 2019, Unilever bought Tatcha for $500 million.
The $10,000 ring she sold?
It turned into 50,000x.

Lesson?
You don’t need permission.
You need conviction.
And the courage to burn Plan B. 

#ceo #founder #growth #scalingup

He got fired.
The company he built said, “We don’t need you anymore.”
Everyone forgot him.

But Steve Jobs didn’t stop.

He poured tens of millions into a failing company called Pixar.
Everyone thought he was crazy.
Most would have quit.

12 years later… that gamble sold for $7.4 BILLION.

Here’s the thing:

👉 He wasn’t chasing money. He was chasing vision.
👉 He embraced risk when others ran from it.
👉 He bet on what he believed in, even when the world said no.

Most people quit right before the payoff.
The real winners? They push through when it’s hardest.
They see opportunity where others see failure.

If you want massive results, you need to do what most won’t.
Step past comfort. Step past doubt. Step past fear.

Because the biggest payoffs live just beyond the point where almost everyone quits.

#scalingup  #growth #ceo

Steve Jobs

He built pole barns to pay for college.

Decades later, John Menard Jr. built Menards, an $18B home improvement empire.

Most people call that luck.

I call it financial discipline.

He opened a small lumber yard in 1964…

Kept prices rock-bottom by building his own factories…

And built every store with cash, not debt.

No investors. No loans. No noise.

While others chased speed and Wall Street, John chose control.

He knew his margins by product line. He tracked cash flow like a pilot tracks altitude. He made the numbers his single source of truth.

Store by store. State by state. Slow, steady, unstoppable.

When 2008 hit, he didn't scramble; he expanded.

Today?

340+ Menards stores. $13B+ revenue. 3rd third-largest home-improvement chain in America. Still 100% private.

The lesson?

You don't need to grow fast. You need to grow right.

That means: 
→ Knowing your profit margins by service line 
→ Tracking cash flow weekly, not just at tax time 
→ Building systems so the business works, not just you

Financial clarity isn't about being a "numbers person."
It's about building simple, repeatable habits that let you scale with confidence.

Have the courage to own every decision, starting with your numbers.
#founder #growth #businessmindset #financialclarity #scalingup

Most people think success comes from working harder, dreaming bigger, or thinking smarter.

Here's the truth: none of that matters if you don't act.

In one simple test, a $50 bill was up for grabs. 

Everyone wanted it. 
Everyone talked about it. 
Everyone wished they had it…

Except Debbie.

She stood up. She walked forward. She took it.

That's it. 

That's the difference between winners and everyone else.

While everyone else burns time and money chasing online strategies that become less effective every day…

The smartest entrepreneurs thriving in 2025 are walking away from their screens and adding an extra 7-figures through live events.

Real humans. In-person communities. High-profit partnerships.

The ultimate advantage in the age of AI isn't replacing humanity with efficiency; it's experiences that are deep, connective, transformative, and profitable.

Getting face-to-face with your ideal clients AND peers is the most consistent solution to the Trust Recession.

I'll be at Event Profit Engine in Austin (December 10-12)...and I still have 4 discounted tickets.

If you're ready to get clarity on the financial blind spots keeping you from scaling, this is your moment.

Don't sit in the room wishing. 

Be Debbie.

P.S. Stop waiting for perfect timing. The money, the deal, the break… it's waiting for the first person who moves. Will it be you? DM me AUSTIN for ticket details.
#scalingup #CEO #founder #growth

Passion isn’t happiness.
It’s pain.
It’s grinding when no one is watching.
It’s suffering through every mistake, every rejection, every late night, just to build something nobody thought was possible.

Jensen Huang didn’t follow the market.
He didn’t wait for AI to be big.
He invested 10,000 engineer-years ahead of demand.
He pivoted Nvidia from graphics chips to AI dominance.
That’s vision. That’s first-principles thinking. That’s suffering smarter than everyone else.

Breakthroughs aren’t born in comfort zones.
They’re born when you refuse to quit, when you embrace the grind, and when you’re willing to suffer today for what the world will celebrate tomorrow.

Extraordinary isn’t given.
It’s earned.
Through struggle.
Through relentless work.
Through being willing to do what everyone else won’t.

If you want to be great, get comfortable being uncomfortable.

#scalingup #growth #ceo #founder

He was dropped at an orphanage at seven.
No food. No money. No choice.

By 14, he was on a factory floor, making metal frames.
One wrong move crushed part of his finger. Permanent injury.

Most people would quit. Most people would settle.
He didn’t.

He watched. He learned.
Every machine. Every process. Every decision.
Night classes. Every penny saved. Knowledge accumulation.

At 26, he opened a tiny eyewear shop in the Italian Alps.
Nothing fancy. No connections. Just him, a few employees, and an obsession with understanding the craft end-to-end.

Most competitors sold parts. He had a different idea: make complete frames. Control the product. Own the market.

By the 1980s, he was making designer frames for fashion houses.
By 1995, he bought LensCrafters—suddenly he controlled both the product and the retail.

Then came Ray-Ban.
Everyone said he overpaid $640 million for a dying brand.
He didn’t see risk. He saw opportunity.

Ray-Ban wasn’t just glasses anymore.
Movies. Celebrities. Fashion statements.
Value multiplied. Brand exploded.

He kept buying. Oakley. Sunglass Hut. Prada. Versace. Chanel. Pearle Vision.
Vertical integration? Check. Market dominance? Check. Monopoly? Almost.

When he died in 2022, Leonardo Del Vecchio had $25.8 billion.
One orphan. One factory worker. One relentless learner.

Lesson:
You don’t need luck. You need mastery, observation, and relentless execution.
Start small. Learn everything. Then own the ecosystem.

#ceo #scalingup #growth #founder

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Most founders don't fail because of competition.
 They fail because of the blind spots they never see coming.

Cash looks fine… until it doesn't. Revenue grows… but profit disappears. You hire fast… and spend months fixing mistakes. You work harder… but scale refuses to unlock.

I spent 20+ years at GE Capital navigating these exact challenges at a corporate level.

Closing an $800M+ power plant deal? That taught me cash flow precision. Managing international transactions? That revealed the profit leaks most miss. Building high-performance teams? That showed me the cost of hiring fast vs. hiring right.

Those frameworks didn't just help me lead deals—they gave me the blueprint for scalable growth.

Now I help founders apply these same battle-tested systems to their businesses.

The 7 blind spots in this carousel? They're the ones holding 90% of founders back from predictable, profitable scale.

If you want to go deeper… Download my free ebook in the comments. 

Fix the blind spots. Scale with clarity. Build a business that runs like a pro—because you learned from one.
#scalingup #founder #ceo #growth

7 Blind Spots

𝗛𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮.
𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿.

Most founders know Pinterest.

Almost no one knows Paul Sciarra, the guy who paid early salaries out of his own pocket, skipped taking income, and carried the company when no one else believed.

He wasn’t a “supporter.”
He was the architecture.

And then the quiet part of startup life happened.
Not a blow-up.
Not a fight.
Just… inches.

One meeting he wasn’t invited to.
One decision he didn’t have visibility into.
One board conversation that happened without him.

By the time Pinterest crossed millions of users and raised over $100M…
Paul was out.

He walked away with ~$15M.
Not nothing.
But painful when your original idea becomes a $25B enterprise.

This isn’t a story about betrayal.
It’s a story about leadership, governance, and identity.

𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗱𝗮𝘆.
They lose it when:
 • they stop owning the financial strategy
 • they delegate governance without understanding it
 • they avoid hard conversations
 • they let investors define the path
 • they disconnect from the role of architect

You can build something extraordinary…
and still get written out of your own success if you don’t stay in the seat you were meant to own.

𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 $𝟯𝗠–$𝟭𝟬𝗠 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻.
The product works.
The company has traction.
Teams are growing.

 But governance, capital strategy, and leadership identity aren’t keeping pace.
That’s the real risk.

𝗟𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻:
Your idea can change the world,  but only if you stay in the role of architect as it scales.

Own your equity.
Protect your seat.
Upgrade your thinking.
Build with intention.
The threat isn’t being pushed out.
The threat is drifting out of your power.

𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻:
 Are you building like the founder…
 or leading like the architect?

#ceo #founder #scalingup #growth

Mastermind Scaling Dinner 

This past Wednesday night in Boston, twelve leaders got uncomfortably honest about their real constraints.

No pitch decks. No surface-level networking. 

Just the Hero's Journey framework and one question: 

"What's actually stopping you from scaling?"

Three principles guided the conversation:

🪞 Your Business is a Mirror 

The bottleneck in your business is a reflection of a constraint in your leadership. 

Stop fixing symptoms. Fix the leader, and the business scales.

🐉 Constraints are Your Greatest Leverage

 Your biggest constraint is not a problem—it's the dragon guarding your next treasure. 

The right constraint, once identified and solved, unlocks massive, non-linear growth.

⚖️ Not All Success Has the Same Price

 You can build a company that breaks you, or one that fulfills you. 

Alignment + Clarity = Sustainable Success.

🎯 What showed up:

Estate planning. Cybersecurity. Medical devices. Food distribution. Banking. Fractional sales leadership. IT services. M&A law. Green infrastructure. Urban revitalization. Job search acceleration.

Different industries. Same truth: Every business grows until it hits a constraint, then grows no further.

The magic wasn't in solving everything in one night. 

It was in naming the real constraint out loud - not the sanitized version we tell at networking events, but the 2am version that keeps us up.

Some constraints were about capital. Others about people, partnerships, or positioning. A few were about letting go of what got them here to embrace what gets them there.

🤝 The vulnerability created immediate value: Real partnerships forming. 

Actual introductions being made. Problems being reframed. Resources being shared.

Thank you to Adrian Mendoza and the Mendoza Ventures team for hosting us.

And to everyone who showed up: Marco A. Schiavo , Geoffry Gilton, Joshua Sigsworth, PT, DPT, Dominic Endicott, Jacques Cohen, Maud Dentico, Vasant Narayan, Raffi Yardemian, CSL, Paul Smith, Alex Khalarian, and Sam "Butch" Nigro.

This is what happens when you build community around truth instead of transactions.

The Mastermind dinner happens monthly ( but we are taking a break in December). If you're a founder or executive in Boston or Greater Boston working on something real and willing to get honest about your constraints, let's talk.

We are going to start hosting Metro West dinners as well. More to come.

P.S. - Curious about finding the constraint for your business? Drop a comment or DM.

Most founders don’t fail because they’re lazy.
They fail because their goals are small.

Small goals keep you grinding.
Big goals force you to rebuild the system.

When you raise the target to 10x, everything changes:
your strategy, your thinking, your standards, your circle.

You stop playing in the crowded middle
and start operating where very few people dare to go.

10x isn’t harder.

It’s cleaner. 
It’s clearer. 
It’s smarter.

Stop playing safe. Start playing big.

I learned this lesson the hard way.

I wanted to grow my LinkedIn presence to 100K in a year.
I had 2k followers. 

A few people said that it would take years and that I was unrealistic.

Maybe they would have been right - if I'd believed them

I tried anyway. 
I took a course to learn from others who were ahead of me.
I showed up here every day.
Continuously improved my content (and my mindset)
Hired people to help me.

Did I accomplish my goal?
NO. 

I am still at 72k followers today, a year into that challenge.
But I am still grateful for the results. 

Can you imagine what would have happened if I had played small?
I may be at 15K followers at best. 

And that's the whole point. 

Even if you miss the 10X mark, it beats linear thinking. 

This same principle is why I help founders identify the 7 financial blind spots killing their scale - because small thinking about money keeps you grinding, while 10x financial clarity forces you to rebuild the system.

Want to apply 10x thinking to your finances? 

I've identified the 7 blind spots most founders miss. 

Download the guide; link is in the comments. 

#founder #ceo #growth #scalingup

10X Thinking = 10 X Results

He bought a bankrupt textile factory for $15 million.
Forty years later, Bernard Arnault built a $500B luxury empire.

Most people call that impossible.
I call it vision.

He didn’t invent anything.
He didn’t design a product.
He didn’t chase trends.
He just saw what others couldn’t.

Buried inside that dying company was a forgotten gem: Christian Dior.
Everyone overlooked it.
Arnault didn’t.

He sold everything except Dior.
Bet the house on one iconic brand.
And rebuilt from zero.

Then he made an even crazier move
He went after LVMH.
Louis Vuitton. Moët. Hennessy.
The crown jewels of French luxury.

The elite hated it.
The media mocked it.
It was the most hostile takeover France had ever seen.
Arnault didn’t blink.

He bought the shares quietly.
Took control boldly.
And turned LVMH into a global machine.

One acquisition at a time.
Fendi. Tiffany. Givenchy. Sephora.
Dozens of brands reborn under one ruthless strategy:

Let creators dream.
But keep the business razor sharp.

While tech giants chased disruption…
Arnault chased timelessness.

While others discounted…
He raised value.

In 2023, he became the richest man on Earth.
Quiet. Precise. Unshakeable.
He outplayed every tech titan without writing a single line of code.

Lesson?
You don’t need to invent.
You need to see the hidden gem
And have the courage to bet everything on it.

#entrepreneur #growth #businessstrategy #founder #scalingup

He started with $5,000 and a pizza shop paycheck.
Nobody cared. Nobody believed.

Most people would’ve stayed broke.

Dan Gilbert didn’t.

He looked at a broken mortgage industry slow, complex, full of middlemen and said: “There’s a better way.”

He worked 18 hours a day. Seven days a week.
He studied every inefficiency.
He simplified the impossible.
He moved online when the internet was “just a fad.”
He ignored the naysayers.

It all started with Rock Financial. 
And eventually
Rock Financial became Quicken Loans.
Applications went from weeks to minutes.
Rates went from hidden to transparent.
Customers went from frustrated to obsessed.

Then he didn’t stop.
He bought the Cleveland Cavaliers, poured money into the city, and turned it upside down.
Downtown boomed. 
The team won a championship. 
The city transformed.

Here’s the lesson most people miss:

👉 You don’t need a perfect idea.
👉 You don’t need permission.
👉 You need to see broken systems, fix them better, and move faster than everyone else.
👉 And then, reinvest the wins into something that actually matters.

From pizza shifts to $28.5B, Gilbert’s story isn’t luck.
It’s obsession, timing, and execution.

Most people quit at “too hard.”
The few who succeed? 
They see the gap, go first, and keep building while others sleep.

If you want outsized results, do what most won’t:
Step past the “impossible.”
Step past the doubters.
Step past comfort.

Because fortune isn’t at the starting line, it’s at the point where everyone else stops.

#growth #scalingup #entrepreneurship #CEO #execution

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The Battle

Jeff Ross

Cruz Gamboa

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The Battle

Jeff Ross

Cruz Gamboa

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Jeff Ross's LinkedIn Performance

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