In this liberating episode, Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey, Owner of Nell3D, shares why stopping is not the same as quitting and how strategic subtraction creates more impact and fulfillment. If you feel stuck doing more and more yet still dissatisfied or exhausted, you won’t want to miss it.

You will discover:

- Why stopping is different from quitting and essential for high performers

- How to use the Stop-Drop-Roll process to subtract strategically

- What happens when you create space instead of always adding more

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stage 1 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz

Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey (aka Nell 3D) is a Subtraction Activist, Forbes Leadership contributor, and creator of the Lead in 3D framework. She helps ambitious, big-hearted leaders build success that feels as good as it looks, so they can have the impact they care most about. Her Systematic Subtraction method has served leaders at companies from Google to Bank of America and the National Park Service.

Want to learn more about Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey's work at Nell3D? Check out her website at https://www.nell3d.com/

Connect with Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey through her LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/nell3d/

Watch Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey's Tedx Subtract to Succeed: The Case for Doing Less at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzRp2sQQNGc

Get guest pass for FULL access to Subtract to Succeed at https://nell3d.substack.com/subscribe?coupon=376f87b3

Hello, hello, and welcome, welcome once again

to the Start, Scale, and Succeed podcast-the only podcast that

grows with you through all seven levels of your journey as a

founder. I'm your host Scott Ritzheimer, and this episode is

going to be for everyone. Not a lot of episodes are, and it's

not even just for founders because we all go through level

one. We all have that time when we're that dissatisfied leader,

frustrated with the world. And even if you've you're not there,

even if you've started your own, even if you're well into this

journey, one of the things that I found is that each of these

levels builds on the previous one. And so, regardless of what

level you're in now, there are a few key lessons from level one

that we do not want to leave behind, and I really believe

that this is one of them. And to sum it up, the the thing that I

would say is that stopping isn't quitting. Now I have no idea

what that means, not really, but I have someone who does, and I'm

very excited to explore this because here to explain the

difference between stopping and quitting is Nell 3D. Nell is a

subtraction activist, a Forbes leadership contributor, and

creator of the the Lead in 3D framework. She helps ambitious,

big-hearted leaders build success that feels as good as it

looks, so they can have the impact they care most about. Her

systematic subtraction method has served leaders at companies

from Google to Bank of America and the National Park Service,

and I'm so glad that she is here with us today. Now, I think this

is as I was kind of getting ready for this. I think one of

the more radical things that I've heard you say is that for

especially for those high achievers, one of the best

things that they can do is stop, which isn't necessarily to quit,

and and that's kind of a strange message for someone, especially

who's like totally dissatisfied in their job, who's ready to

quit, or or those high performers out there who like

they get done more than just about anyone else in the world,

but somehow it just doesn't feel like it's enough. What would you

say to someone like that listening today?

Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: Yeah. Oh, thank you so much. Scott,

such a good intro, and I totally agree with you. Maybe I'm a

little biased, but I totally agree that this is like a level

one for life survival skill, much less thriving skill, and if

you haven't picked it up, you got to pick up the stitch and

move forward. So I am totally on board and flattered that you see

that as well. So what I would say to that person is that

there's a few pieces to it, and so one, let's talk about that.

Stopping is not quitting is a title of a piece that I wrote a

while ago, and it is absolutely fundamental to my method of

systematic subtraction. And the the point is that in my life,

and the people I work with, and every entrepreneur I've ever

met, aspirational or current or past, and so your entire

audience, it is not about a job. It's about a mission, and that

is not necessarily like ending cancer or you know teaching

children in poor rural areas to read even though they're blind

or you know all of these things that may be very worthy missions

for one person or for 100 people or for 1000s, but not for all of

us, right? It might be a more efficient way to get your house

painted, or you know, a quicker, safer way to learn a language,

or you know, I don't know, whatever the things are that

people are doing in their companies. It's a passion. It's

a purpose, and so this is not about quitting that purpose,

right? I've been at this since I was 12. I had a super clear

sense of purpose at 12 years old for a story that is out there.

If people want to find it, they can. And so since then, I've

been pivoting and learning and reframing and starting projects

and ending projects and starting new ones to go better, faster,

more effectively, more balancedly toward that same

purpose, and that has required stopping a lot of things that

maybe once served that purpose or mission but don't anymore, or

maybe were an experiment and I thought they were going to get

me there very earnestly, and it was a reasonable thing to think.

But they didn't and don't, and so I stopped them. Right. So

that's kind of the high level. Is that helpful? Because I have

one more theoretical, but I want to start there and make sure

that that lands.

It is. I want to follow up on that because,

especially as it comes to this feeling of success, why do we

feel so much more successful when we start things than when

we stop them.

Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: Yeah, yeah. So that's neurological

largely, and it's about dopamine, which, by the way,

that that's the chemical that triggers with something new,

with you know a red alert saying that someone liked your post

with. $20 landing your account with $20,000 landing in your

account, right? At every level, that's a dopamine flash. Turns

out, it's a different chemical from liking something or being

rewarded by something, which is about kind of serotonin, that

like love, or even oxytocin, that connection side of the

chemical equation in our brains, and so the more, more, more

rapid fire dopamine is very addictive. And actually, through

kind of nerdy behavioral science stuff, we get addicted to the

event pattern, not even just the chemical. So it's very

insidious. And I like to remind people, the best engineers in

the world, the best behavioral scientists in the world,

trillions of dollars of advertising are out there

blasting you with that dopamine. So it's not like weak or silly

or immature or shameful to be so addicted to that, right? It's

it's literally our brains backed up by some serious capitalist

economics.

Wow, wow! So, give us just so that we're all

using the same terminology here. Help to distinguish for us the

difference between stopping and quitting. So, what would you say

is stopping, and what would you say is quitting?

Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: So, that's a great question. I don't

know that I've ever fleshed it out, so stay tuned for a post on

this coming soon, inspired by that question. I would say you

know stopping is an experiment. I'm very clear, you know it's

it's it's data collection. It's what we have to do before the

drop, the the climax of subtraction, which we'll get to

in a minute. But it's it's pausing. It's gathering data.

It's getting quiet so you can come inside and listen, but

there's nothing permanent about it, right? We don't stay in that

stop. It's a step in the three steps of stop, drop, and roll.

It's it's a moment. It's a second, maybe maybe it's a day,

maybe it's a week of reflection, right? We all need different

versions and different quantities of that stop in our

lives as we move through. Quitting is, I'm done. Right,

it's over. I'm not going back. If I quit smoking, hopefully,

although we know numbers show a different tale, I'm I'm never

going back to that. Is the intent to say I'm quitting, and

I think. There's. I'm trying to figure out if this is true or

not. We'll we'll revise it for the article. But for now, what I

want to say is, it's also. I'll leave it. It's just so

permanent, you know, and so there's a sense of

inflexibility. There is what I want to get at, and in this

world, if you haven't noticed, things are changing really fast.

And what has always been true is that we, as living beings and

living systems, are changing and evolving over the course of our

lives. Hopefully, right? Certainly, I know your listeners

are not static. They do not hope to be the same in six months or

six years that they are today. And so, when we quit things, I

think it's very actually limiting because of that kind of

sense of permanence. Whereas stop recognizes the reality that

things are going to change, and so we're just pausing to gather

that data, not like harsh, firm boundary ruling a thing out

forevermore.

Yeah, I love that because of the kind of

curiosity that that invokes. I think that's such a it's such an

easy thing to miss, and I understand, especially where we

conflate stopping and quitting, where we won't want to stop

because we're afraid of quitting, right? Like, and and

even if you separate those, there's still this fear that

comes alongside stopping. I don't know if it's fear of being

left behind or fear of being found out, but why, why, like

that moment right before you stop, where you almost have the

courage to do it? What, where does that fear come from? Why,

for high performers that are so driven, there's that dark side

of it that won't let them slow down. Sometimes, what is that?

Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: Yeah, yeah. So again, there's

neuroscience to it, which is loss aversion, right? And so we

are more scared to lose things that we have, no matter the

value they actually have to us anymore. So see again that

distinction between dopamine and serotonin, oxytocin, and then

there's a kind of behavioral, cultural part of it, right?

Which is that no one is recognized for the absence of an

action, especially if it is something that we used to do and

now it goes away. Like no one's like, I got promoted because I

stopped doing that monthly report. Go me, right? We're

promoted because we got a new client, because we started a new

data dashboard, because we. Added a language to our website,

right? Like the additions are what get rewarded, and so it's

one thing to not do something that already can feel a little

scary, like I should be or that person is or whatever, but to

stop doing something we have been doing is really scary.

Again, not irrational in a job market or an economy like we're

dealing with. Whether this is people who are still in deciding

to stop to quit a job or to stop part of it to make room for

entrepreneurship, or an entrepreneur thinking in that

way, and the final theory that I do want to drop in here is from

economics rather than psychology, which is the law of

diminishing returns, and so the idea here very quickly, people

might remember from like a high school economics class that if a

farmer wants to produce more apples, let's say they farm

apples and they want to farm more, they might say, okay, I'm

gonna. There's a new field across the street that's coming

on lease. I'll lease that new field. Okay, if the farmer

doesn't also get more apple trees and hire more people to

pick the apples, that farmer is actually not going to end up

with more apples. I think we can all see that. And so the idea

here is similar: that if we just do more and more and more at our

job or in sales, it eventually gets less effective, right? That

land is wasted money for that farmer unless they kind of round

out their investment of activities and do all of the

things it takes. And so it's very easy in this world because

of the factors I've talked about, kind of societally,

externally in our economy, and neurologically, and then

culturally in our companies, to just always do more. And sadly,

it stops getting as effective. And sadly, the only thing we

know or thing to do is to keep doing still more. And so now

we're not having more impact, and we're really exhausted.

Yeah. So by this point in the conversation,

we've kind of we've talked about stopping, which is probably

still terrifying. You know, I don't like it any more than

anybody else, but but but again, it's the permanence here that I

think is such a big point. Yeah, and and so we don't stop to

stop; we stop to what? What's the what's the role and goal of

stopping, and what comes next.

Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: Yeah, so I hope that I actually by the

end of this quick episode, and maybe people will re-listen, or

maybe they'll listen to my TED talk, which we'll share that

just dropped, is that that stopping will become less

terrifying. Sorry, these AirPods, like I don't know if

it's small ears or big ears or what the problem is, but they

don't fit well. Anyhow, we stop as the first step of basically a

scientific method that we're going to run for really

optimizing our impact in the world alongside our well-being,

alongside our joy and our relationships. So it's this

multi-dimensional, 3d, if you will, approach to true success

that's actually fulfilling, and so stop as you mentioned is the

first step, which really is about curiosity, right? It's

getting data to tee up this experiment, and so once we stop,

then we get to drop, and this is, I think, what makes it less

is that if you realize a few things people

realize they can't do anymore. Right, this is not working.

Whether that's in the company, whether that's in their own

company, whether that's post exit, something is not working.

Health breaks down, mood is breaking down, and I'm cranky

and annoying to the people I love most. Something is not

working, and so let's get curious and run an experiment.

And so, what's scary is your health really tanking. What's

scary is not being able to deliver on a customer promise or

getting fired because you're doing such a bad job. Stopping

to look around and gather some data to make a good strategic

experiment of which thing to let go of, I would suggest that

that's a calculated risk, which we know entrepreneurs are very

good at. Right? Science shows over and over. Entrepreneurs are

not massive risk takers; they're very strategic, calculated risk

takers. And so your audience should be receptive to this.

We've stopped, gathered some data, and now we have an

informed experiment of what to drop something in your life that

doesn't deserve the energy you're giving it that you are

going to try letting go of for some period of time-a week, a

month, a year, the foreseeable future. If you feel that

confident about it, 10 minutes if it feels really scary, right?

But that is kind of the actual subtraction. Is this step to the

drop?

So good, it's so good. And then, for the sake

of time, the the last element of this process is what.

Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: The role, and this is like the

juice. Like this is where I see people get over all that fear

and be like, "Oh my God, this abstraction stuff is magic, and

how I want to live my life. And I don't know it. It's not

natural. I'm still going to work. It's still a daily

practice because new stuff is always coming in. So we're

always going to have to keep subtracting. You're you're never

going to get to like peak subtraction maxing or something.

That's not the thing. It is a continual lens. Roll is where we

notice the ripples of the drop. We notice what we now have time

and energy for, and that might be simply white space, so that

we're not racing late, driving dangerously to our next

appointment, or snapping at our sweet, sweet five-year-old in

the back seat who's just asking a curious question, but

interrupting our podcast and feels really annoying and maybe

worth a snap, right? So slowly as we let go of things and

either leave white space in which we can daydream, in which

we can rest, in which our brains can kind of process what we've

been learning, or in which we can do a higher value activity,

we intentionally watch the ripples for ourselves. Our work

gets better. Our work gets sharper. We get more creative.

We're more patient with those people we love. We're less

resentful of those people we love, and that is the reward.

That becomes a form of dopamine of this ding ripple when we do

something good, or the second order roll when we see someone

else do something good. We see a direct report or a contractor

say, "I've been doing this report every week. I'm realizing

that it's an exact duplicate of the AI notes from our Zoom

meetings, and I'm thinking that instead I could go through the

AI notes and schedule the follow-ups in our calendar, and

that that would be a better use of my time. And you, the

entrepreneur, think, Hallelujah! This human who's taking my $28

an hour as a contractor just leveled up and freed up time and

freed up money. What a great ripple of my subtraction setting

this model, yeah. So these are the roles. This is where the

magic of subtraction happens that actually allows us to do

less and have more impact, which is ultimately my promise with

this.

Brilliant, brilliant. I love it and could

talk about it for a very long time. But there is a question

that I want to ask you, and that is one that asks all my guests.

It's this: What is the biggest secret that you wish wasn't a

secret at all? What's that one thing you wish every founder,

pre-founder, employee, or anyone listening today knew?

Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: Doing more is actually dangerous, and

even doing more of good things, even more meditation, even more

customer discovery, even more cold plunging. This can all

actually be physically dangerous. I've got the receipts

on that. I know it might sound like hyperbole, but I'm just

gonna dangle that as a teaser and invite you over to my TED

talk, where you can hear the very real story of actual

physical danger to myself and other people. And readers may or

listeners may have their own versions that they can already

see and hear because it's a human experience. But I had a

big one. I share it very willingly because I want people

to learn that secret.

Yeah, well, for anyone watching or

listening, they're going to want to get a hold of that. So we've

got the TED Talk. We'll put that in the show notes for everybody.

If someone's there and they're saying, "Hey, I'd love to have

you come walk alongside me or help out more, or just they want

to learn more about what it is that you do. Where can they find

you? Where can they find out more about your work?

Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: Subtract to succeed is my subtraction lab

on Substack. It's a lot of subs, and you can subscribe. But I'm

going to send you a free guest pass for 90 days so that you

have full access. There's a 12 video short mini course. There's

two different 100 day practices that you can play with, as well

as regular writing. I write an essay each Monday, kind of

playing with this idea of subtraction, and do an interview

most Wednesdays, or record something myself to give you a

real time live interactive version of that. So come hang

out at Subtract to Succeed, and that guest pass is in the

listener notes here for you to take advantage of.

Excellent, excellent. Well, now thank you

so much for being here. What a fun, fascinating conversation!

Cannot wait to to explore it further. So yeah, thank you.

Really appreciate your time. And for those of you watching and

listening, you know your time and attention mean the. To us, I

hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did,

and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.

Nell Derick Debevoise Dewey: Cheers, Scott. Thanks.

Hey, everyone. Scott Ritzheimer here. Thank you

so much for listening to the Start Scale and Succeed podcast.

I hope this episode gave you exactly what you need for the

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