Alex Hormozi is teaching a lot of people how to make money.
He’s brilliant. Strategic. Ruthless with execution.
One of the best on the planet at what he does.
But here’s the question I’ve been sitting with:
How many people are built like him… to actually do it his way?
How many have the same nervous system patterning?
The same tolerance for stress?
The same relationship to pressure, pace, and productivity?
Out of the millions who follow his content, how many actually make it?
Likely less than 1%.
And the rest?
The 99%?
They burn out.
Ping-pong between dopamine and doubt.
And wonder why they’re working harder but feeling worse.
Not because they’re lazy.
Not because they’re weak.
But because they’re trying to scale without rebuilding the inner foundation that makes sustainable growth possible.
So they end up stuck in a loop – chasing freedom, feeling compressed.
Scaling, but not expanding.
And this post?
Is for those people.
The ones who’ve achieved a little, maybe a lot…
But know deep down that how they’re doing it isn’t going to carry them into the next chapter.
Let’s get honest about what’s really happening under the hood.
And why most scaling advice doesn’t work if your nervous system isn’t built like a Navy SEAL’s.
The Myth of “Once I Hit $X…”
There’s a story I’ve heard dozens of times.
I’ve told it myself, too.
It goes something like this:
“Once I hit $20k months, I’ll finally feel spacious.”
“Once I hit $100k, then I’ll relax. I’ll unplug. I’ll take care of myself.”
This story is convincing because it seems logical.
Hit the goal, earn the relief.
But the nervous system doesn’t work that way.
You don’t suddenly feel safe just because your Stripe account shows a new milestone.
If the process of building the business was driven by tension, control, or pressure…
That internal state doesn’t vanish just because a number changed.
In fact, once the number is hit, most people don’t relax.
They double down.
The capacity they’ve built isn’t for ease… it’s for effort.
They’ve trained their system to feel useful, valuable, even loved… through doing.
So when the goal is reached?
The nervous system quietly says,
“Okay… what now? What’s next? Don’t slow down.”
This is why it’s so rare to meet an entrepreneur who’s created external success and internal spaciousness.
Because most are still operating with the same patterns that got them “here”…
Even though they no longer serve where they’re going.
And this is where we start telling ourselves stories like:
“I can’t slow down right now.”
“I just need to make it through this launch.”
“Next quarter, I’ll reset.”
But we forget that the patterns we practice now become the default settings for how our business runs.
And you don’t build peace by practicing pressure.
And here’s what most don’t realize:
The pressure that got them to $30k/month…
Is the same pressure that keeps them stuck there.
It creates the illusion of momentum.
Like things are scaling.
But if you pause long enough to feel?
You’ll notice… you don’t feel any more free.
There’s more revenue, sure.
But there’s also more noise. More weight. More urgency.
And that’s the loop that quietly caps growth.
You’re “scaling,” but not sustainably.
You’re moving, but not expanding.
Eventually, the system hits a ceiling.
Not because of a lack of strategy…
But because the nervous system never learned how to grow without gripping.
So you try to compensate.
Maybe you finally take that long-overdue vacation.
You schedule rest.
You unplug.
But you get there… and something feels off.
You can’t slow down.
You feel restless. Irritated. Half-present.
You start checking email “just for a second.”
By the time it’s over, you’re more exhausted than when you left.
You don’t feel restored… you feel disoriented.
Because it wasn’t rest.
It was a band-aid.
You brought the urgency with you.
If you don’t shift the internal patterning, no amount of external space will feel safe to relax into.
That’s the truth that most avoid… until it becomes unavoidable.
The Invisible Cost of Growth at All Costs
Most people don’t notice it at first.
The slow tightening.
The breath that gets shorter.
The space that shrinks between “something’s off” and “just push through it.”
Because from the outside, it looks like things are going well.
Revenue’s up.
Clients are in.
The calendar is full.
But the experience on the inside?
It’s different.
That full calendar doesn’t feel like freedom.
The growth doesn’t feel light.
And the success? It doesn’t feel how you thought it would.
It can look like momentum.
It can even look like scaling.
But what you’re actually experiencing… is compression.
The more you achieve, the more there is to hold.
And unless you’ve built a nervous system that can hold it without gripping, your only available tool becomes effort.
That’s when growth becomes expensive.
Not financially – energetically.
Your attention narrows.
Creativity flattens.
You start solving problems reactively, not intuitively.
And because you’ve been here before, you default to what’s worked.
You find a new strategy.
Buy another program.
Rebuild the funnel.
Join another mastermind.
But you’re not actually solving the real problem.
You’re just trying to outrun the weight of how you’ve been operating.
And the longer you stay in that loop, the more you normalize the cost:
- Skipped workouts.
- Shortened breath.
- Shallow sleep.
- Constant reactivity.
- Pounding energy drinks or lining up the second (or third) coffee just to keep going.
The business might keep growing on paper…
But you’re still operating from the same limited state.
And that limitation?
It becomes your cap.
Because even if your systems are scalable,
Your state isn’t.
Two Things Most Entrepreneurs Never Realize
1. Your business is built around how you operate.
2. When you change how you operate, your business must change how it operates.
Your business reflects you. Your pace, your beliefs, your tolerance for stillness.
Change you, and the business has to reorganize around that.
And this transition?
It’s where most people panic.
Because it feels like going backward.
But what’s actually happening is the beginning of a new way of building.
One rooted in capacity. Not compulsion.
The Trap of Nervous System Loyalty
The nervous system isn’t loyal to your goals.
It’s loyal to what’s familiar.
If pressure is familiar, you’ll recreate it, no matter how successful you get.
And the moment you try to break that loop by doing less?
It feels like loss.
Like betrayal.
Not just of your business…
But of your family.
Because when you slow down, it can feel like you’re putting them at risk.
Like you’re pulling away from the very thing that provides.
But trying to hold it all from a place of depletion doesn’t protect them.
It just slowly takes you away from them.
Presence. Joy. Energy.
That’s the actual loss.
Why Pulling Back Can Be Your Power Move
Slowing down isn’t the opposite of growth.
It’s the precursor to it.
You’re not retreating.
You’re making room.
Room for creativity. For nervous system recalibration. For more intelligent movement.
From that place, strategy becomes clean.
Ideas become clear.
Execution becomes effortless.
And scaling finally feels like expansion.
The Client Who Sabotaged Success
He had everything: record months, great margins, strong traction.
So we started creating space.
Then… the panic set in.
He filled the space.
Launched new stuff.
Ramped up the pace.
Revenue rose.
Margins held… then dipped.
Fatigue spiked.
Family time vanished.
Injuries followed.
He thought it was normal.
But he wasn’t scaling.
He was spiraling.
The Spiral: Up, Around, or Down
You’re always on a spiral. The question is, which direction?
- Up > expansion through alignment.
- Around > repeating patterns that look like progress.
- Down > silent burnout.
You can’t force your way up.
You build it by becoming someone new, internally.
Soft Truths Hardly Anyone Will Tell You
Truth #1: If your system doesn’t feel safe, you’ll always sabotage success.
You can have the best strategy in the world…
But if your nervous system is conditioned to equate “growth” with “pressure”?
You’ll either avoid it…
Or overdo it.
Either way, you’ll create burnout dressed up as ambition.
Truth #2: Your business can only grow as far as you can stay regulated.
Regulated doesn’t mean “calm all the time.”
It means resourced.
Able to hold complexity without collapsing.
Able to feel discomfort without reaching for control.
Able to create from wholeness, not panic.
Most people scale their systems.
But forget to scale their state.
That’s where things break down. Quietly, then loudly.
Truth #3: You don’t need more information. You need a new relationship with yourself.
Chances are, you’ve consumed enough content to build three businesses.
But the missing piece isn’t knowledge.
It’s embodiment.
Can you slow down without guilt?
Can you rest without justifying it?
Can you let things be good – without trying to one-up yourself the next day?
That’s the shift.
Not in what you know.
But in who you’re being.
Truth #4: Mindset work isn’t enough, it can actually make things worse.
Mindset feels powerful in the short term.
New beliefs.
New affirmations.
New mental frameworks to “think different.”
But here’s the problem:
If your nervous system isn’t on board, no belief will stick.
Your body will override your best intentions.
It’s like trying to reprogram a computer by yelling affirmations at the monitor.
You might feel better for a while…
But the loop always returns.
Because mindset work often happens on top of a dysregulated system.
Which means it’s not actually integration…
It’s just intellectual bypass.
This doesn’t mean mindset is bad.
It means it’s incomplete.
You can’t think your way to safety.
You have to feel your way there.
How to Begin the Inner Shift
- Step one: Don’t rush. Create safety, not schedules.
- Step two: Discomfort ≠ danger. Slowing down = repair.
- Step three: Find guidance that holds both your ambition and your embodiment.
The Next Version of You Won’t Emerge by Force
You don’t need more grit.
You need more capacity.
The next level of you won’t come from pressure.
It’ll come from presence.
And if this resonated?
I’m creating a program specifically for entrepreneurs ready to scale from truth, not tension.
👉 Shoot me an email at mike@bledsoe.life and let me know you’re interested.
No pitch. Just a real conversation about what’s next, if you’re ready to stop gripping, and start growing from something deeper.