Nicole: Hey everyone, welcome to Lead Better with Nicole Harlow. Today the topic that we're going through is called the growth paradox. And it's really why you feel like you're always starting and never truly expanding. And this is going to be seen through the lens of a clinician CEO and a practice owner. I think that a lot of these are relevant for all business owners, really, all CEOs and founders. But I'm going to spin this because the type of person that I typically work with is a practitioner. I'm going to spin this more in the kind of like CEO clinicians, right?
Nicole: This is the first podcast of 2026, and I'm super excited. I've got a lot of great content that's coming out this year, specifically around growth and leadership and how and leading better, right? And so how to be a better leader, a better business owner, a better CEO, how to really step into that leadership role in your practice. And really how that combines, I think my main message for the year is the combination of leadership skills and how it dovetails with having great systems.
Nicole: And I'll say, and you'll probably hear me say this a lot this year, systems are something that I avoided for a really long time. So I'll start just before we dive into the science and the thinking around like the growth paradox and also starting and expanding and growth and how so many of us feel like we're stuck in shiny object syndrome. We feel like we never really push the needle forward or kick the ball forward. It feels like we're always like reinventing the wheel. Sorry, a lot of little cliches here.
Nicole: But everything in my nature goes against systems. Besides the fact that I'm a Taurus, so Earth sign, we tend to like systems. I think for the Taurus side of things, it's more around creating systems so we can work less. I am not naturally inclined to be a workaholic. I think I'm more on the hedonistic side of things, but hedonistic by that, I'm like, I like my time to myself. I like to do what I want to do. The stubbornness of creating systems really is around creating systems so that I don't have to work so much so I can actually play more or rest more or enjoy more.
Nicole: I think other maybe earth signs kind of create from a different perspective. But for me, that's really the systems or I don't, everything else that's in my whether it's astrology or human design or Myers-Briggs, whatever system, I take these all with a grain of salt, but I find them really helpful when I can't have a conversation around the science of like building systems and the strategy of building systems without taking a moment to say not all of us are naturally inclined to create systems.
Nicole: So two things I think that work against myself that you may resonate with, especially as a visionary CEO, is both come out of human design. So one of those is being a manifesting generator. So if you don't know your human design, it's a really cool. I recommend just hopping on. There's plenty of free websites out there where you can grab your chart and you can see what your strategy is because I think coming into this conversation equipped with the idea around what your strategy is, and also knowing some of your open and closed centers, for example, that's a really good starting place around how you build your business.
Nicole: And quite frankly, it comes up for almost every brand that I've worked with, every clinic owner that I work with. I can tell you their sign and their human design because it's so important for me to know that as I'm building a system with them. Because ultimately the systems are to help them grow and scale. And in the growing and scaling, have more of life that they want. That's different for every person. What one person wants out of their business growth and business success could be really different.
Nicole: Some people want to have a book deal and they want to speak up on stage and they want to be like that number one person in their field, right? So this is the go-to chronic fatigue person. This is the go-to perimenopause person. Some people are more like they want to work less. Some people want to have more time and location freedom. They want to take summers off, they want to be able to go to Europe, they want to be able to take a random Tuesday off and go get a massage or go to the spa. That's awesome.
Nicole: But some people are really committed to the clinical work that they do and they want the systems in place so that they can just focus on what they love doing. And for a lot of us, it's a hybrid of all of the three. Now, why is it important to know some of your human design? Why am I starting with that? Because I think it's a good relating point. So as a manifesting generator, we're actually designed. If you're an MG, we're designed to create new. We get the most flow and freedom and juice out of life and creating things that are new.
Nicole: This is why I found myself with three active companies right now, and a ton of other companies and ideas that are on the cutting room floor. In fact, that's how I pivoted years ago from being a health coach and running a clinic, the Center for Menstrual and Sexual Health, back in the day, and pivoted to branding because what I really loved was like not doing the same clinical things over and over again. My design was to help people and create have fresh new ideas. So I pivot into a career where every new client was a whole bunch of new ideas that I got to play with.
Nicole: So as a manifesting generator, that was like very satisfying. The work became very satisfying. And I love health and wellness, so I decided to stay within this niche and work with other health and wellness practitioners. So help them do what I stopped doing when I was pivoted away from the clinical side of things and moved into the branding, which then moved me into podcasting through Podcast Better, which then moved me into systems and leadership and automation, which is the Lead Better trajectory.
Nicole: So as a manifesting generator, I abhor systems or spent most of my life really railing against systems because I felt these systems were gonna hem me in. I felt like that wasn't, yeah, I felt like the systems were something that I kind of raged against, where I was like, that's this is gonna make me feel claustrophobic and it's gonna make me feel like I have to do the same things over and over again. And so I really, I think I have enough foresight to see that as a manifesting generator, I sabotaged myself and business over and over again.
Nicole: I would get to, it's really only been in the last six to nine months that through Lead Better and through some self-reflection finally and hard lessons, realized that I was always just starting things. I was always creating things new, I was always reinventing the wheel, I was always chasing dopamine around newness and shiny object. Let's try it this way, let's try it this way, let's do it this way. I never really gave things time to take root.
Nicole: And I say that as like feeling very happy that for a decade plus I've felt very successful in business, right? I feel, but I there was certain ceilings that every year I would just always make the same amount of money, I would always take work with the same number of clients. I didn't have anything that was scalable, I didn't have any monthly recurring revenue. So there was there was a feeling of I was trapped in a cycle of always reinventing the wheel, always having to go and fish for the new clients, and then also feeling very much like I had to do everything myself. So, you know, only I can do it, right?
Nicole: So if you're an MG or even a generator, you could probably relate to some of that, right? The not wanting to hand things over to somebody else, not wanting to stay still for long enough to actually create systems that you can leverage and not actually not trusting the systems because it feels like it's the system that comes up. And this actually comes up a lot for manifesting generators around choosing a niche or a field because it feels like there's no freedom in that. But I hope by the end of this I can convince you otherwise.
Nicole: If you have MG in your chart, your strategy is to create newness. And so what we can do with systems and why is super important here is because the more systems that you have, actually the more freedom that you do have. And I hope through my little podcast today, you'll get more of a kind of science perspective and a strategy perspective on that too. Because it takes me a long time to really appreciate that, and now I feel like I'm fully converted, and I see that through great systems, that's where you actually find, no matter what your strategy or human design is, that's where you find the freedom that you're looking for.
Nicole: So we're all looking for freedom in different ways. It could be financial freedom, location, the freedom to say and practice the way that you want, the freedom to just do the things that you love to do. All of that is baked into the systems. And there's one other thing that I want to point out just on the human design tip that I think is important, especially if you have it in your chart, and that is an open ego center. So I didn't know that I had this for a long time, and it made a ton of sense.
Nicole: Now, what happens when you have an open ego center is you don't have a consistent, so I have most of my centers are closed, which means when it's closed, you have consistent energy there. So like I can always rely on that center to have energy to use it. Whereas the open centers wax and wane, and I'm not a human design expert, so this is just my own interpretation of it. With the ego center, what it means is it's around willpower. And so I can easily overschedule myself. I can easily create systems that I'm not able to actually adhere to because every day that willpower is inconsistent.
Nicole: And so I can say that would be awesome to wake up at five in the morning every single day, but my energy is gonna wax and wane as the day, week, hour, minutes go. So that's not a part that I've always found consistent. And the reason why I say this is because if you do have that, systems are even more important, but it also needs to be created not so much when we're talking about client, deliverables, automations, things like that. Those are actually designed to help you. I'm saying this more on the side of committing to content creation or committing to X amount of clients or X amount of sales calls per week. We can create the best systems, but if you have a waxing and waning willpower, you might feel blocked at this part too.
Nicole: Okay, so I want to dive in. That was like my background. I posted on my Instagram today. It's January 7th, 2026, when I'm recording this. And I wanted to read this out loud because I think this is really like for me when I think about the growth paradox and really committing to just like simplifying and just working on one thing. So I've been working with ChatGPT as a little bit more of a business coach or a CEO coach, and it's been really helpful to just use the voice notes and talk through what I want to achieve for this year, what's been working well, what's not working well.
Nicole: And one of the things, so this is if you listen to some of the more recent podcast episodes here, so the last year, I've been building Lead Better, and it's been the hardest CEO year yet, by far. And I've been really deep in creation mode and making mode. Now it's time to, we're past launch mode or past beta testing. We're in and we're like live and we're ready to bring on more clients. We have a roster of clients already and have done for months, but now in Lead Better, this is a whole new ball game because I've never had monthly recurring revenue.
Nicole: And the strategy is around compounding, slow growth, not explosive growth, growth that feels sustainable. And one of the things I took a screenshot, so if you can see on my feed today, some screenshots of things that I thought were it was really great advice and things that are just going on my phone and I want to read every day. But I want to share some of these messages with you because I think they dovetail really beautifully with around the idea around growth and what you really need in terms of growing your business.
Nicole: So it says you're not meant to, as the CEO. So if you're a CEO clinician, these apply to you as well. So this isn't just me. You're not meant to carry the business emotionally, you're not meant to hold every possibility in your head, you're not meant to constantly recalibrate your worth based on results. Your CEO work this year is to become boringly stable in how you show up. I've never had that as a goal, ever any single year of business, right? It's always about creation, it's always about newness, right?
Nicole: But this the CEO work this year is to become boringly stable in how you show up. That stability creates trust, attracts the right clients, makes sales feel inevitable instead of effortful, and signals this company is safe to build on. I think that is really important. So I love, I just wanted to share that. And here's another thing that I thought was really it's called the CEO North Star. And so this is mine, but I want you to grab this and also maybe use this as your own North Star for this year.
Nicole: Oh, what chat said was I lead better or your business by being clear, calm, and consistent. My steadiness creates momentum, my presence creates trust, I don't rush what is meant to compound. So I think that's a good spirit to go into more of the lessons today. Take what you will from that, but I if you feel like you're always like working, launching, planning, but you're actually not expanding, you're probably stuck in this growth paradox.
Nicole: And many practitioners they feel stuck because they're stuck in this perpetual initiation. So what that's where I was for years, this feeling of I always need a new lead magnet, I always need a new webinar, I always need a new offer, constantly tweaking the offers, constantly tweaking the branding, constantly tweaking the messaging or the niche, right? Rather than I remember hearing years ago, like this advice around pick one thing, pick one program, pick one package, just focus on that until you hit a million dollars.
Nicole: And if that's advice that I feel like if you have these little pieces of advice in your entrepreneurial journey and your CEO journey that you're like, man, if I would have just followed that years ago, it could be totally different. But I also I truly believe that like things happen in the right time and they unfold when the lessons are need to unfold. But that's certainly advice that I could have had a more successful business had I just focused on that. But manifesting generator didn't like systems, so therefore I was always just going back to reinvent the wheel over and over again.
Nicole: And I think the core of the growth paradox really is that very energy that makes you visionary, it's the same energy that keeps you from compounding growth, right? So they can be diametrically opposed. Like this visionary energy is like not always like the doer. You're not always like the systems builder. And I think that's why with Lead Better, I one of my goals with the company is to be able to partner with visionary CEOs, clinician CEOs, and really be that the builder hands, right?
Nicole: And so plan out like what do we want the structure to be? What do we want the infrastructure and the systems to be? Not the, we're not necessarily meant to be the builders. We're meant to be the visionaries, right? We're meant to hold that. And what it looks like when you're always initiating things and you don't have that integration is you feel like you have the vision, but you're lacking the infrastructure, which is why almost every single one of the clinics and this clinician CEOs that I work with, they've got great practices. They're amazing at the clinical side.
Nicole: Every single one has a messy, at least one messy closet system. It's like the ones, oh, don't go in there. Why? Oh, because we like put this on a sticky note and we throw this over on the side. It's I see this going with almost every single client, right? Is just going through and like they've got some closet somewhere that they're just like, man, don't go in there because the systems are messy, right?
Nicole: And so they always feel, I think what this kind of looks like in practice is like your clinic has like new offers constantly, maybe even like once a quarter, or even a couple times a year of these new offers. Hey, we're gonna try this, we're gonna try this deal, we're gonna try this special, but none are really optimized. Or you're starting ads, but you're not really collecting the data, right? And so it's like you're just like throwing the spaghetti at the wall without really having good systems in place to track the metrics, things like that.
Nicole: You probably pivot a lot throughout the year in terms of your marketing. So we're gonna try this, we're gonna get on Instagram, we're gonna get on LinkedIn, we're gonna try ads. For example, you're just like going back and forth. You may find you've got like half-built funnels, you got half-built programs, you got a half-built CRM. And then that's even your team in some ways can feel half-built or half-baked because there's just not the infrastructure that's set up to really support the growth.
Nicole: The other thing you might feel if you're in this growth paradox is you feel busy all the time, but you don't feel stable and you don't feel scalable. You feel like you're just like spinning your wheel. So if you're like nodding your head to a bunch of those, you're probably where I've been for years, where I was for years before really investing and investing my trust and my nervous system trust into building systems.
Nicole: One of the things that I was feeling into recently is this feeling around your nervous system. We're not designed to be, as CEO's clinician CEOs, we're not designed to be the shock absorber for the business. We're not like we're not the emotional shock absorber, the like one that's just like everything it trickles down and it all just like dumps on you, right? If you feel like you're absorbing the pressure in the business, like you're not supposed to absorb that pressure, the systems of the business are supposed to absorb that. So that for me was a powerful reframe and one that I take into conversations with new clients.
Nicole: So there's a little bit of neuroscience. I'm not gonna go too geeky into the science of like why it feels good to always be creating, but it doesn't feel as good to create, like to grow things, to create systems. One is that novelty equals dopamine. So that's just straight up, right? We get dopamine hits from starting things generally, not from finishing them. Sometimes you can actually get a drop in dopamine after you finish something. Ask anybody who's launched a big product. I think Andrew Huberman talks about this a lot around launching a book or launching some kind of big project that sometimes people feel like a dip afterwards.
Nicole: So you get the dopamine in the starting, right? It's why we all love what's the notebook, the new notebook for 2026 that's gonna like change your life always. It's not by finishing that notebook, right? So your brain gets like a dopamine hit from new ideas, new platforms, new certifications. This is the shiny object syndrome, right? It's like that's a real thing. But dopamine actually drops during your repetition, your refinement, your optimization.
Nicole: And so we need to create systems that kind of shoulder that load of the things that need to be repeated, the things that need to be optimized, so you can stay in a little bit more of those new ideas. You can give yourself some freedom to actually be in your zone of genius, so to speak. So what we do is we unconsciously chase new to feel momentum, even though we know that it slows growth, right? Or maybe we don't know that it slows growth. Maybe we're just always chasing that next big thing.
Nicole: So I want to talk a little bit about why I think goals keep you stuck. This is a quote from or like a paraphrasing from Layla Hormozi, who I do love on YouTube. She talks a lot about systems and goals. And one thing that she said, so I want to make sure that I give her props for it, and I'm sure this isn't her quote, but this is just where I heard it first, is that you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.
Nicole: And I want to take that and let it be a mantra for this year in my own CEO journey, in my own CEO growth, but also a mantra for Lead Better for working with clients is that you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. Because there is a difference between goals and systems. Goals are emotionally driven, systems are execution driven. Goals feel good today, systems pay off later.
Nicole: So, why does this matter for a CEO, practitioner? Because wanting predictable patient flow does not equal having it. I'm gonna say that again. Wanting predictable patient flow does not equal having it because desire doesn't scale. Motivation is unreliable and infrastructure is dependable.
Nicole: So a little bit more science here, just a little bit, not too much, but some things that are important to know, or especially as a clinician CEO, are that decision fatigue drains your prefrontal cortex. Every decision you don't systematize taxes your nervous system. So this is where I was saying around like being the CEO and inadvertently being the shock absorber for the business is that your nervous system is the one that really gets taxed.
Nicole: So if you don't have good systems in place, every decision that you make is like a little in ADHD language and neurodivergence, they talk about spoons. How many spoons do you have in every day, right? We all have different quantities of spoons for the day. So what I try to do with creating systems for our clients is to minimize the amount of decisions that need to be made on any given day. So really the day could be you both in your personal life, in your CEO life, in your clinic clinical life, or with your team. It can be a bunch of systems that are strung together, right?
Nicole: So I think more decisions that you have to make equals more resistance, equals more avoidance. And it's why some of us, and probably a lot of us, get burnt out from our businesses because we start with all of that like gung-ho energy. We have all that energy to create and the newness and the dopamine. And then what happens is people have to rely on us to really be the decision makers for almost everything. And that can be really taxing.
Nicole: So I want to go through the part that I feel like most people skip when they're doing this kind of growth work is they get there's some fear, right? And so the fear might be like fear of commitment. So this looks like, what if this, oh what if I choose wrong? What if I make the wrong choice? What if I pick the wrong niche? What if I pick the wrong platform? What if Instagram's not it? What if I should have been on TikTok all this time? So there's this like fear of like commitment.
Nicole: And if you have some things in your astrology or your human design that makes you a little bit more commitment phobic, this is even gonna double down on it. You could have fear of success, right? What if this works and I lose control? What if this works and we scale so big? What if more money, more problems kind of thing, right? And so there's maybe a lack of trust and the feeling of fear of success.
Nicole: There could be also a fear of being seen clearly. I see this in a lot of clinician CEOs that I work with, this kind of fear around like when you actually are able to grow and scale, commit to more of the deep work, it makes you visible and accountable. And some of us can go and skirt in the background and be like, I don't really want to be accountable here. And so what happens is that starting things actually winds up feeling safer.
Nicole: And this is true not only in entrepreneurship and CEO ship. This is true just in creating new habits, right? It's hard to like really master something. It's easy to just pick up a new habit and start on day one, right? And so when you're starting, it keeps your identity flexible, right? It feels I can pivot if I want to over here, right? But it sometimes can feel like systems lock you into more responsibility, which I don't think is true.
Nicole: And there's also this feeling of like when you expand, it requires holding more. So do we feel like our nervous systems are tuned enough, big enough? Do we feel like our cup is big enough, our container is big enough to hold more patients, to hold more money, to hold more leadership, to hold more team? So that can feel overwhelming too. And so we resist the deeper work of building systems as some bit of self-sabotage. I see it as self-sabotage so that we don't actually grow the business rather than trusting that you haven't really trained, you just it's a training muscle. Like you haven't trained yourself for scale yet.
Nicole: That's why I'm leaning into my ChatGPT CEO coach and screenshotting what I shared in those the carousels today around this is about slow growth and compounding. Because even though I want it, I think I want it, I think I want, let's have a let's have six figures of revenue every month. Yeah, that's one of my goals by the end of the year. I'd love to be there. But I don't want to be there this month. Or I've learned that I don't want to be there this month because my capacity hasn't been trained yet for that. So I don't know what that feels like.
Nicole: So part of this is building systems that allow things to scale in a compounding way that scale in an intelligent way that's also like respectful of what is your capacity actually, because our capacities are muscles that can grow, right? And we can, the capacity doesn't mean that you would always have a full schedule and then it just keeps getting more full and it keeps getting more full. What I see as the CEO shift, the mindset that you need to really take on, I think, in 2026 for scalable growth that feels sustainable and really moving into that CEO leadership.
Nicole: Number one is you stop being the machine, right? So this is more like a transition, right? So right now you may be the machine, like the machine that does everything. And then you transition into building the machine, which could be your team. That could also be working with someone like myself as like a growth architect and Lead Better and creating those scalable systems and automations. And then your role transitions over time, it doesn't have to be overnight, into more like you're doing the oversight.
Nicole: You're just making sure that everything is like functioning properly, right? You're doing some oversight, you're doing refinements, right? You're sitting down with your team, like, how can we do things better? You're like operating, you're doing your clinical work. So you're like, and maybe you're out of clinical work and so you're doing thought leadership, you're like writing books and recording podcasts and YouTube videos and creating content and building relationships, which is also a big part of being in the CEO role.
Nicole: Is even stepping out of clinical work into more of the thought leadership space or maybe into a training space. So you're like elevated out into less of a practitioner role and more of a thought leadership role. And your other, I think your role as a CEO is capacity holding, right? And so, like doing the work that you need to do to make sure that you can grow your capacity in a way that feels soft and sustainable.
Nicole: So another couple little reframes here as I get, get ready to wrap this up. Number one is boring systems create extraordinary freedom. And that's really one of my North stars for this year is be boring, not in my content creation, but be boring in how I show up, right? And have the steadiness that I need to create my own personal freedom and my business freedom. Consistency builds self-trust and it also builds trust with your audience.
Nicole: So if you are a clinician CEO, I'm gonna invite you, just like I'm doing, to have a moment in the week where you show up for your audience. So that could be an Instagram live like I'm doing here, a podcast. That could be writing to your mailing list, that could be how you show up on social media, webinars, things like that. That's all great. Number three is that self-trust creates expansion capacity.
Nicole: So the more that we trust ourselves and we more that we trust our container, the more that we're able to create in that container, and that means systems. This is not about saying that you take on more patients, you take on more sales calls or any of that stuff. That means you have the self-trust to know that you can build systems. I think to wrap it up is this feeling of like expansion isn't created by our motivation, by our willpower. It's not even created by our desire to be visionary or to create new things, right?
Nicole: That energy can wax and wane. And so if it's built off of, if your business is built off of your own motivation, your intrinsic motivation to show up, I don't think it's gonna grow very far or fast or expand in the way that you would like to without burning out. It needs to be created by systems that your nervous system can sustain. So I think that the leadership, nervous system piece, and also the systems, they really go hand in hand.
Nicole: So I want to just invite you, if you've stayed with me this whole time, thank you so much. I want to do more deep dives like this, where we really just pick a topic and then just go deep on it and have a little bit of science, maybe a little bit of spirit and astrology and human design and mindset, and then also translate it to being that like awesome leader, CEO, clinician that you're meant to be.
Nicole: Every single person that I've worked with over the history of my career has needed something slightly different because we're all unique. Our blueprint is unique. So you've built a business with your own unique blueprint, and that's why it's important for me to say we don't just create things that are cookie cutter, we don't create systems that are cookie cutter. Each person I sit with and I say, okay, what who are you? What are your goals? How do we help get you there? And create the systems that we need to support you.
Nicole: So if that sounds good, if that sounds like something you want to explore in the show notes, or if you're watching this on Instagram over in my bio, you can check out Lead Better and it's leadbetterhq.com. So that is our systems architecture and our CRM platform. It connects with many of the EHRs that are out there. So we built a proprietary bridge between our CRM and EHRs that really help create the conversation between like your Practice Better and your CRM, like your marketing side and your EHR.
Nicole: These are historically two platforms that have not spoken to each other. So just one thing that we did this year was to create that bridge, but it's just one piece of the work that we do. So if you want to learn more about that, leadbetterhq.com or hop down to the show notes or over to my link in bio, and then you can learn more and even hop on a call with me to discuss your practice and what your best growth strategy is.
Nicole: All right, have a great day. No matter when you're listening to this, it could be on January 7th, or it could be any other time of the year. I hope you're having a great day, and I will see you on the next episode. Bye.