Performance Drag™: Why Everything You've Tried Hasn't Worked and What Actually Does with Rochelle Carrington

0:01John Lee Dumas:Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today we'll be breaking down performance drag, why everything you've tried hasn't worked and what actually does. And to talk to these via bonds, I brought to Rochelle Carrington into EO Fire Studios. Rochelle is the founder of Emotional Blueprinting and creator of Performance Drag, a methodology that removes the nervous system resistance, silently capping business owners' revenue, leadership, and growth. And today we'll be talking about the performance drag 101, neuroscience and performance, why founders struggle more, and oh, so much more.

0:38John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Rochelle and our sponsors. Today's show is sponsored by strawberry.me. If you're feeling stuck or like you're ready to get to the next level in your career, then finding the right coach can help. Go to strawberry.me slash fire and get 50 % off your first coaching session. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com.

1:21John Lee Dumas:Highlevelfire.com. Rochelle, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hello, Fire Nation. So happy to be here. I love that question because most people think that success comes from more discipline, but most of the high performers and entrepreneurs that I know are already highly disciplined. So the real issue is what I call performance drag, which is accumulated emotional pressure that slows down someone's execution, their clarity and their decision making over time. And so you don't always need more discipline or more motivation or more strategy when things are not going the way that you want them to.

2:09Sometimes you frankly just need less drag.

2:11John Lee Dumas:Less drag, Fire Nation, which is why our focus today is on performance drag and why everything you've tried hasn't worked and what actually does. So performance drag 101, Rochelle, let's just kick it off by talking about what is performance drag and what are the key symptoms, specifically entrepreneurs should be on the lookout for? Absolutely. So performance drag is the hidden stress and pressure that quietly slows down how you think, how you decide, how you execute, and how you lead. You can think of it kind of like a bucket. So every stressful experience in your life adds water to your bucket, the lost deal, the mishire, the difficult conversation.

2:55And at first, you know, entrepreneurs and high performers compensate really well with that. But eventually that bucket gets too full and it starts to overflow. And that's when you start seeing the symptoms. Symptoms like slower decisions, procrastinating things that you used to just do very easily, feeling overwhelmed but not really understanding why, losing a bit of motivation, having lower patience with things, and most specifically knowing what to do but not doing it. And a lot of times people just think that they're burned out, but what's really happening is they're carrying performance drag, which is just too much unresolved pressure.

3:38John Lee Dumas:I want to talk about neuroscience and performance because I think it's really interesting how these two can actually be talked about together. So share some specifics on how neuroscience has changed the way that we understand specifically peak performance. Well, in the 1990s, a couple of neuroscientists, Antonio Damasio and Joseph Ledoux, did a number of different research projects, and they helped to prove something really important. And what that is, is that our initial belief, the thing that we have all been told about how we generate results, was actually untrue. So most of us have been taught that your results come from a thought and then you take an action or non-action and then you get a result.

4:24But what Damasio and Ledoux discovered is that everything starts with emotion. So you feel something, then you have a thought about 350 milliseconds later to make sense of that feeling, then you take an action and then you get a result. So that discovery has changed everything that we thought about performance because performance is not just mental. It's actually biological. And since your emotions are held in your nervous system, if it feels overloaded, your brain will shift into protection mode instead of growth mode. And that's why all of a sudden everything just seems so much harder than it was before.

5:08and that's when a lot of growth stops or slows down for people who have done incredibly well in the past and now it just seems so much more difficult and they can't understand why.

5:19John Lee Dumas:I mean, I know this is an audio only interview, but I'm literally raising my hand right now, Fire Nation, because listen, if you've been in this game long enough, and I've been doing this show personally for 14 plus years now, this is going to happen. And that's why conversations like I'm having with Rochelle right now are so critical, so important because listen, founders struggle more. I mean, it just seems like business owners are especially susceptible to this performance drag we're talking about. So what exactly is the reason for that? And what are some of the really common misdiagnosises that you see time and time again, Rochelle?

5:54So founders and entrepreneurs never fully shut off. If you think about it, you're at dinner, you're on vacation, you're lying in bed trying to go to sleep, but you're still mentally carrying all the things from the day from building the business, payroll, clients, team issues, the uncertainty about the future. And so what happens is that over time that compounds, entrepreneurs don't have time to resolve that emotional stress and then move on to the next thing because there's something coming up again and again and again, one after another, after another after another. And so that's why there's a compounding effect.

6:35And that's why they're so much more susceptible to performance drag. And for most high performers, they can function under pressure for a really long time. And that's why they usually misdiagnose the problem as burnout or lack of motivation or losing their edge, or maybe they've got ADD or something kind of around those lines.

6:57John Lee Dumas:Can you give us some other like potential misdiagnoses that, you know, we should just be aware of? So if we're experiencing something and we're like, okay, this could be it, like we actually know. And then if someone's like, well, that's probably the reason, or this is probably the diagnosis, like it might not be that. Can you kind of talk about a few of those examples? Sure. Sometimes people think that they just need more accountability. They're not doing the things they know they should do, so they need accountability and they will hire a coach or try to find an accountability partner. Sometimes they think that it's just a mindset issue, that all they need to do is get more positive or reframe a problem.

7:37Sometimes they think that they just need a vacation. They need a break. I just need to go walk in the woods or I need to take a couple of days off. But the way you know that it's performance drag and it's not just that you needed a vacation is that when you come back from whatever that break is, the pressure, the stress and all of the symptoms are still there.

7:59John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, we're going to talk about the false fixes, the nervous system factor, life without drag, believe me, as possible, and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Today's show is sponsored by Strawberry Dot Me. I've interviewed nearly 5 ,000 successful entrepreneurs, and one thing they all have in common, they've enlisted mentors, coaches, and people along the way to help guide them. But where do you find the right coach or mentor? Great question. And that's where strawberry.me career coaching comes in. I speak from personal experience when I say that coaching and mentorship has helped me get to where I am today.

8:36John Lee Dumas:In fact, you might not even be listening to Entrepreneurs on Fire if it weren't for my very first coaching mentor, Jamie Masters. I knew that in order to produce the best podcast, I needed to find someone who was where I wanted to be. Here we are nearly 14 years later, and I'd say I made a fantastic investment. So if you're feeling stuck or like you're ready to get to the next level, then finding the right coach can help. Go to strawberry.me slash fire and get 50 % off your first coaching session. That's strawberry.me slash fire. Fire Nation, if you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure.

9:13John Lee Dumas:That is why High Level is Entrepreneur on Fire's featured partner. High Level gives you a website builder and hosting funnels and landing pages, email marketing, appointment scheduling, payment processing, course and membership hosting, and so much more. Everything you need to succeed all under one roof. No duct tape, no juggling five platforms, just one clean system for your business. and their award-winning 24-7 support has your back when you need it most. When you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you also get my exclusive bonus stack, a 30-day free trial, a private 15-minute call with me, JLD, access to my weekly live office hours, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something Execution Roadmap, and more.

9:56John Lee Dumas:Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Rosha, we're back. And as I kind of teased before the break, I want to talk about false fixes. What would you say are the most common solutions people think will work? And why do they fall apart? Well, they fall apart because most solutions are logical tools that are trying to solve an emotional issue. So things like productivity systems, mindset work, time management, like I mentioned before, accountability, really trying to just dial in more motivation. Those things can help temporarily, but you can't use a logical tool to solve an emotional issue.

10:43And that's why so many really smart entrepreneurs know exactly what to do, but they still struggle to execute because those are trying to solve a symptom and they're not solving the root cause, which is your nervous system and what's going on there.

10:58John Lee Dumas:Let's talk about maybe another common solution that people think will work. And maybe one of the ones that you mentioned, let's dive even deeper in on that. Because I think people really need to understand like why that doesn't work and why that falls short. I think most people go to mindset. And that's what I see online. And that's what I hear from a lot of people is that, you know, I just need to do journaling, or I need to do positive affirmations or I just need to believe more. And what we need to understand is that emotions and logic are two totally different things. So when you're working on mindset work, that is all logic driven.

11:37And the problem isn't logical. And your emotions will always override logic every single day. And we all have examples we can think of in our lives when that happens. When you say something to somebody in the moment, in the heat of the moment, you know, logically, if I say this, it's going to go very badly. The other person is going to get upset, but you do it anyway, because you are just so angry or frustrated at that particular moment. That's a great example of logic or emotions overriding logic. And so what people have been taught to do is use all of these conscious mind or logical tools. And that's why they get frustrated and think that there's really must be something wrong with them because mindset isn't working or time management isn't working or just trying to get more motivated isn't working.

12:32And the key thing is there is nothing wrong with you. You're not a problem. You don't need fixing. It's that your nervous system is just overridden with the stress. And all you need to do, if you go back to that bucket analogy, we just got to drain, pull the drain on the bucket, drain all that stuff out, you get a reset and you go back to doing everything easily or better than you did before.

13:01John Lee Dumas:Let's talk about the nervous system factor. I mean, how does the nervous system act as a gatekeeper to a founder's skills, to their decisions, to like their just overall performance? Well, this one's really interesting because the nervous system, when it feels safe, it's got two things that it's looking for. Are you safe or are you threatened? And your nervous system is just there to keep you alive. And so it's always looking for any sort of threat. Now, when the nervous system feels safe, the gates stay open. And that's when you're creative, and you're clear in your thinking, and you feel confident, and you communicate well, and you execute really well.

13:46But what happens is when stress and pressure start to accumulate, and now your nervous system goes, oh, no, there's a threat, the gate starts to come down. And what happens is all the skill that you have, you no longer have access to it. Another way to think about it is the deer in the headlight syndrome, you know, where someone surprises you with a question or something like that. And all of a sudden you can't think of a response because in the moment you got surprised again, an example of emotion overriding logic. And so when your body is under threat or your nervous system is under threat, the gates come down, your skill is there, but you cannot access.

14:31And that's why really intelligent, capable people start to overthink, they hesitate, they procrastinate, or avoid decisions that normally they could handle very easily.

14:42John Lee Dumas:I want to talk about life without drag, because Rochelle, you know, it's possible. I know it's possible. I want Fire Nation to know that it's actually possible. So what actually changes in revenue, in decision-making, in leadership, when performance drag is removed? The easy question is everything. But more specifically, the biggest shift is really speed. And so we see leaders go from delaying hiring decisions for months to making them in days. We see people that have been avoiding difficult conversations to handling them without the stress and pressure associated with that. We've seen people take weeks to launch something, and they get it out the door fast and really cleanly.

15:29On the revenue front, we see people increase revenue. We had one client increase 23 % in four months just because his follow-up speed improved and all of his delays in execution went away. We've had people double their business revenue in a year. We've seen people expand into Mexico and China. We had a client who'd been trying to do that for two years, and it just kept stalling out and stalling out. And once we worked with him and removed the performance drag, he got that done within six months. That was a huge boon to his business. So businesses move at the speed of decisions, and when the performance drag is removed, that momentum comes back.

16:12John Lee Dumas:I want a closing value bomb because we talked about so many important things. Of course, life without drag, the nervous system factor, false fixes, why founders just struggle more, neuroscience and performance. What's the one thing that we can do today? Like I love that example you gave of that individual who was able to finally break through. So what can Fination do today to start moving in that direction, to start eliminating performance drag and of course, the overall goal of unlocking our true potential? Well, what you can do today is stop living in two time zones. So a lot of entrepreneurs are physically in the present, but they're emotionally living in the future.

16:53And we know that when you live in multiple time zones, you get jet lag. In terms of entrepreneurs, that is anxiety or stress about the next quarter or tomorrow's meeting or what is going to happen in the future with your business. And the problem is that when you're feeling that way and you're emotionally experiencing stress from the future, your nervous system reacts to that like it's real. And so a simple tool would be to, before any important task that you need to execute on, just ask yourself, what emotion would help me perform best right now? Remembering that it's your emotion that is going to get you the result.

17:38So maybe you need to feel confidence or maybe you need to feel calm or maybe you just need to feel focused or maybe you need to feel abundant. So all you have to do, close your eyes for a moment. Remember a specific moment in your past where you felt that emotion relive that moment because your body and your nervous system will begin re-experiencing it. You will feel confidence if you remember a time when you felt incredibly confident. Then you just open your eyes and take the action. And now you're going into that task from a totally different emotional state. So instead of stress or anxiety about the phone call you got to make, now you feel confident.

18:20You take the action because emotion drives performance far more than most people realize.

18:27John Lee Dumas:Rochelle, if Fire Nation is listening and they're like, I'm digging this content. I want to learn more. I want to connect with Rochelle. What is your call to action for our listeners today? Go to emotionalbp.com. We have a performance drag scorecard on there. It's free. It will take you about one minute and it will tell you instantly whether you have performance drag, what the level is and what you can do about it. And that's the best way to figure out and to really diagnose what's going on. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you've been hanging out with RC and JLD today.

19:05John Lee Dumas:So keep up the heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Type Rochelle, R-O-C-H-E-L-L-E in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up. Rochelle, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge, value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side. Absolutely. Thank you. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Rochelle for sponsoring today's episode and Fire Nation, are you an entrepreneur on fire who's looking to share your amazing message with the world? If yes, we are now accepting applications for EO Fire.

19:38John Lee Dumas:So to learn more about becoming a guest, visit EOFire.com slash guest and I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Today's show is sponsored by strawberry.me. If you're feeling stuck or like you're ready to get to the next level in your career, then finding the right coach can help. Go to strawberry.me slash fire and get 50 % off your first coaching session. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support.

20:14John Lee Dumas:Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com. Thank you.