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Most business owners are stuck in one of two painful loops. Either you give up on an idea way too fast because it feels uncomfortable… or you cling to something long past its expiration date because you’ve invested time, money, or identity into it. Both feel logical in the moment, and both quietly stall your growth.

In this episode of The Real Truth About Business, Michelle breaks down these two opposite but equally damaging mistakes and shows you how to spot which one you’re making. She explains why emotion driven decisions create confusion, how to use data without overcomplicating it, and how to step into CEO thinking so you can decide when to stay the course and when to let go. This is about discernment, not hustle.

Whether you’re a coach, consultant, OBM, VA, designer, copywriter, or ADHD entrepreneur, this episode will help you stop second guessing yourself and start making cleaner, more confident decisions in your business.

You’ll learn:

1. How to tell if you’re giving up on an offer or strategy too soon
2. When holding on too long is costing you time, money, and momentum
3. Why emotion based decisions feel right but lead to stuck cycles
4. How to define what “working” actually means before pulling the plug
5. How to evaluate ideas through a CEO lens instead of discomfort

This is the real truth about business growth, especially for neurodivergent service providers who crave clarity, structure, and results without falling for every trend online.

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Here's your Next Steps:

1. Take the "Where's the Gap in Your Business Strategy" Quiz
2. Connect with Michelle on LinkedIn, Instagram, Threads or Facebook
3. Visit my website to learn more and apply for the Focused Visionary Accelerator
4. Sign up for my newsletter - Sunday Morning Brew - delivered every Sunday at 6 am

About the Host:

Michelle DeNio is a business strategist and growth advisor for service-based entrepreneurs, especially neurodivergent and ADHD business owners. Creator of the Focused Visionary Accelerator and host of The Real Truth About Business podcast, she helps clients simplify, focus, and grow sustainably. With 15+ years in business operations, she’s known for turning big ideas into simple, profitable action plans.

There are two mistakes that I see business owners make over and over again.

And what's wild with these mistakes is that they're complete and polar opposites.

One, some people give up too soon on an idea, an offer, etc.

Or the other is that I see people hold on to something far too long.

Right.

And both of them feel extremely logical in the moment.

Right.

Like, it feels like the right decision.

But both of them are usually driven, driven by emotion and not facts, and they can quietly kill your momentum.

So today I want to talk about both of them and how you can kind of catch yourself if you see yourself kind of in either one of these situations.

Okay, so that's what we're talking about today.

It's.

I'm excited about it because I have been seeing this actually so much in recent conversations in communities and the people that I'm talking to, sometimes even myself included.

Right.

And so I'm excited to dive in.

So if you're ready, let's do it.

Okay.

And real quick, you know, as a reminder, before we dive in, if you are not on the Sunday morning Brew list and you are not getting your CEO power move of the week, you are missing out.

And you need to pause this.

Pause this episode, click the link in the show notes, and go get your booty on the Sunday morning Brew newsletter list.

Okay.

And I also have a fun freebie coming.

Well, there's a whole library of freebies.

There's 52 weeks of freebies included in that Sunday morning brew.

Okay.

Anyways, all right, let's talk about the two kind of mistakes, right?

Like, number one, giving up too soon.

I've talked about this multiple times on the podcast.

It comes up all the time.

Because this is the one that I see that is a little bit more common.

Right?

Is this like, we promote something for a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of times.

Not even for, like.

And in a full couple of weeks, not even sometimes for a full month.

Right.

And we decide, you know what?

It's not working.

It's not working.

I talked about it, and it didn't work.

Okay.

Maybe it's that you're posting kind of inconsistently.

And it's.

I've been posting on X, Y, Z, social.

I'm not getting any engagement, and it's not working.

And so you jump ship.

It could be even just rebranding yourself.

It could be repositioning.

It could be pivoting right before you had time for anything to land.

And I know that it feels like we're putting all of this Time and energy into something.

I know that it feels like, oh my gosh, I've talked about this all the time or I've con promoted this said thing multiple times and I'm not getting anywhere, right?

But the reality is, is that most people aren't seeing it, right?

Most people are not reading every single one of your emails.

They're not watching every single one of your posts.

They're not following you consistently, right?

Like they're just busy.

They're doing the same damn thing, right?

Business owners, they're posting their own things, they're talking to their own people, right?

So they're in this same situation and they're just not seeing all of your things.

And yet.

So we immediately assume, like, it's not working, I'm going to pull the plug.

And then we switch and then we make another change.

And we make another change, we change the positioning, we change our messaging.

Oh, this messaging isn't resonating.

Well, how do you know, right?

Like, have you had any specific conversations with somebody that they said?

Like, if you said that, that wouldn't really resonate with me, right?

Like if you don't know these things, right?

These are all very much driven by emotion and that's fairly natural, right?

Like we're human beings, of course we're driven by emotion, of course we get in our heads, right?

But where are the facts?

So this is what, before you give up too soon, right, I want you to really ask yourself, like, have I given this enough time?

And what I mean by that is, like, really look at how long have you been promoting said offer?

I was talking with a client today and she wanted to promote a birthday offer.

And I told her, I was like, okay, but if you're going to promote this birthday offer, it needs a start date and it needs an end date and it needs to be talked about like every single day, right?

Because it's a very limited time offer and you can't just talk about it one time, you can't just talk about it two times because you have a very short Runway and people need to hear it.

They are not going to see it every single day.

So you need to really in like, literally before we even started, she was ready to give up.

And like, this is natural because she just doesn't love promotion, she doesn't love sales.

And I get all of that.

But it's like, that's what I'm talking about.

Like, if you want to run a special, then you need to be talking about it every single day.

So you can't tell me that something didn't work or that you didn't get any results from it if you promoted it twice in two weeks.

Right.

That's what I mean by looking at the facts.

How many times did you really talk about something?

How many conversations did you have with people where your messaging maybe didn't land?

How many times did you show up to a networking event before you decided it didn't work?

And again, what was your action that you took on the, on the back end of that networking event?

Right?

Like all of these things of really looking at like, did you actually give it enough time?

Number one and was it executed consistently?

Number two and then really also looking at like, what does it mean to say it's working?

Right?

Like, I think that is something that is so often missed too is like, it's easy to say something isn't working.

But what is the definition of working?

Did you ever truly sit down and define what working is or what working means in this particular situation?

If you never really gave it a true definition, how do you know whether it's working or not?

So it really comes down to being very clear and understanding.

Do you have the data or are you tracking your activity and your actions and the results enough to know that it's not working before you give up?

Okay, so that's that side of things.

Now let's flip the switch here a little bit and talking about holding on for too long.

And this can be holding onto an offer for too long.

This could be holding onto a certain strategy for too long.

That's the one I'm seeing, right?

Like a lot of people holding on to a strategy that, you know, supposedly should work, it's working for everybody else, but it's not necessarily working for them.

And so you're holding on or you're making these small tweaks, changing, like shifting this one thing, maybe thinking, oh, okay, networking is not working for me, but if I join this networking group, it will.

Even though all my business comes through referral, I'm going to keep networking or this social media platform is not working for me, so let me join a new social media platform form, right?

Or so it's like, it could just be that you're like holding on to a strategy for too long instead of actually questioning whether or not like, is this the right fit for me?

Right?

Because I see this happening all the time too.

Of people get stuck in these loops of doing and doing and doing and doing without ever really looking at like, but what are the results of the doing right and so if you're not actually getting results and it's not necessarily working, why are you continuing to hold on to that strategy or to that offer?

Right.

Like, I had an offer that just didn't sell.

I mean, for a while there, like, it did not sell.

I tried for six straight months, like, I'm talking, promoted it multiple times a day, multiple weeks, six straight months in a row, had multiple direct DM conversations I put in the work, and it just didn't sell.

So I could continue to hang on to it and say, like, no, I'm going to hang on to this because this is what I want.

Or I could look at the data and go, okay, what tweaks do I actually need to make in order for this thing to sell?

Right.

And that's the thing is some people get so emotionally attached to all the work that they've done or the communities that they've put so much time into.

This is a big one.

I see a lot of people hanging out in communities that don't necessarily get them where they want to go.

But you like the people or you've met a lot of friends, right?

And so that's what I mean by, like, hanging on for too long.

Of, again, there's an emotional attachment there that's saying, like, yeah, but this, if I just try it this one way or, but this is what I want to do, right?

The emotional attachment, 90% of the time is what making you feel comfortable.

It's where you want to hang out, it's what you enjoy doing, but it's not necessarily what's bringing the results.

And so we hang on to it from an emotional standpoint without looking at the facts to go, should I continue holding on to this?

Right.

Is this really the direction that I need and want to go?

And there's a lot of grief that comes along with letting go.

There's a lot of disappointment.

There's a lot of fear of the feelings of failure.

Again, emotions.

And the emotions are real.

There's also costs into it.

This was a while back, but I had a client who was continually trying to work with a software that no matter what, she could not make it work.

She couldn't make it work.

She was putting tons and tons of money into this CRM.

She was constantly, like, she was always trying to find, like a workaround and she was hanging on to it because she had spent so much money to get it set up, and she felt so bad that she had spent so much money getting it set up, but it was never going to work.

For her.

And so we had to really look at that and go, okay, but how much money are you spending?

How much time are you spending trying to find all of these workarounds to hang on to this thing that really just needs to be let go of?

Right.

And so I understand that there's like, this fear.

We don't want to admit that, like, we put time, energy and money into something and it didn't work.

And so we keep holding on to it because it's like, well, maybe if I try it this one more way, it will work.

Or maybe if I just put a little bit more effort into it.

Or we make up all these, like, stories in our head about what we've done wrong.

And really, sometimes it's just that, like, it's not a good fit for you.

That strategy is not working, that software is not working, that community is not working.

Right?

And so it's okay, Right?

It's just the thing about it is, is that more effort doesn't fix a Ms.

Aligned strategy.

And I want you to hear that, okay?

More effort doesn't fix a misaligned strategy.

You can pour your heart and soul into it, but if this strategy is misaligned for you and where you're trying to go, all the effort in the world isn't going to change that.

Okay?

So if the data has been consistent for several months, like months, I'm talking three, four, six months, and nothing is moving, like, you need to have a really good hard conversation with yourself and say, like, why am I holding on to this?

And what, what's stopping me from letting it go?

Okay?

Because that stopping from letting go is actually blocking what could open up a door for the results that you're desiring, but you're just too afraid to let something go.

Okay, and so there's like, this middle ground, right?

That's what I'm saying.

Like, this is so counterintuitive because it's like, wait, Michelle, you just told me that I'm giving up too soon, but then in the next breath you're telling me that, like, I'm holding on for too long, right?

And so this is where that, like, CEO lens you've got to step into and own that and really look at it with the facts and really look at and understand, okay?

Am I wanting to give up on this too soon?

And why, like, really looking at, like, how long have I actually executed on this?

How many times have I done the thing, right?

And, like, really looking at, does this thing really just need more time and maybe a Slightly cleaner execution strategy or then also looking at something and going, know I have data that supports, I have plenty of data that's telling me this isn't working, right?

Like this is not working and you need to make a decision to let it go or make a change, right?

And sometimes that can be very difficult.

And this is why I always say like I love to be the eyes to see the things in your business that you can't see clearly.

Because sometimes we're too attached to these things, we're too close to it, we're too emotionally attached and it's very, very difficult for us to see and make those decisions.

And so again, this is where a second set of eyes can really be helpful.

But really the question here for you is to ask yourself like, are you reacting to data and facts or are you reacting to a place of discomfort?

Right?

Because one data is going to an educated like fact based decision and the other one is a very emotional decision.

Before you do one or the other, either give up too soon or let something go, ask yourself like, what data do I actually have here?

What data am I missing and how can I get it?

What would a neutral third party conclude with this information?

Right?

Like what would a second set of eyes do with this information?

And also another good lens to look at this through is like if you were advising a client on this, what would you tell them to do?

Again, putting yourself in the role of being your own best client, what would you tell them to do?

This is that kind of shift from being the freelancer, the operator, the doer, the web designer, whatever your identity is into that CEO thinking without like really, really, you know, going to a place of like only stepping in and like feeling like you need to hire a full on CEO, right?

Like this is just like taking one hat off, putting another hat on and really looking at your, your business through the lens of what a CEO would look at.

Okay?

So again I just want you to like really understand and remember and I'm just going to wrap this up is that like most businesses are not struggling or failing.

I don't even like that word because I don't, I don't believe that businesses are failing.

It's just, it's not bad ideas.

It's that they're making decisions that are either made too early or making decisions too late or making decisions from fact or emotion and not facts.

Okay?

So it's really just about looking and making better decision.

Okay?

So and if you don't have the facts and you don't have a Way to track the facts.

Like, that's your first step.

That's an easy first step, is to really just.

Even if it's pen and paper, sometimes that's what I need to do.

Like, I'm not big on tracking things like data analytics.

You know what I mean?

Like, I don't get into big data analytics and all that.

Like, sometimes I literally, like, get a piece of paper and a pen, I go through my calendar, I look at all my conversations that I've had, I go through my emails, and I write notes, and that's how I make decisions.

So whatever that looks like for you, don't think it needs to be some big fancy spreadsheet that's giving you this information.

Okay.

Sometimes it's literally just going through your calendar and really looking or going back through your socials.

Okay.

So, you know, if this is resonating for you and you're hearing this and you're thinking, like, this is me, I'm either holding on to something too long, I give up on other things too quickly.

Like, this is the work that I do, both inside the Missing Piece Intensives and Inside the Group program, the Focus Visionary Accelerator.

This is the conversation we're having on all the time inside of the group.

Okay?

So if this is resonating, like, click the link in the show Notes to book a strategy call.

Let's.

It's free.

It's completely free.

Let's talk about it.

Like, bring this question to me and let's talk about it.

And then we'll look at and decide, like, maybe an intensive or the Focus Visionary Accelerator may or may not be a good fit.

But again, like, the support itself and having the second set of eyes can help you to see and shift into that CEO thinking.

Right.

Remember, this is my job.

My job is to help you be the CEO.

And sometimes it's my job to kind of step into that CEO seat for people that have a hard time with that.

Right?

That's my role.

Okay?

So if this is resonating with you, click the link in the show notes, book the call.

It's completely free.

No obligation.

You know that.

All right.

But really sit with this one.

Okay?

I love you, I believe in you, and I will talk to you soon.