[#011] My First Billion: Alignment Beats Effort

This week wasn’t loud.

It was clarifying.

Rewiring the Way I Think About Scale

I’ve still been reading How to Make a Few Billion Dollars by Brad Jacobs.

Early in the book, he talks about rearranging your brain, specifically how certain cognitive distortions quietly limit scale long before strategy ever does.

That landed for me.

Because most bottlenecks aren’t operational.
They’re psychological.

What you tolerate.
What you assume must involve you.
What you think “good leadership” looks like.

This week put a spotlight on that.

The All-Hands That Set the Tone

We kicked off the week with our all-hands meeting.

I opened with a quote from Jim Collins that’s been sitting with me ever since
I first read it:

Building a visionary company requires 1% vision and 99% alignment. When you have superb alignment, a visitor could drop in from outer space and infer your vision from the operations and activities of the company without ever reading it on paper or meeting a single senior executive.

That framed the entire conversation.

The goal of the call wasn’t motivation.
It was alignment.

What matters.
What doesn’t.
How we win together.

For a long time, I confused leadership with agreement.

I thought alignment meant everyone being comfortable and on the same page.

It doesn’t.

I walked the team through our 2026 North Star, clarified our offer ecosystem, and gave everyone one simple assignment:

Identify one to three goals they’ll own this year that directly support where we’re going.

That’s now what bonuses will be tied to.

For a long time, bonuses were either informal or nonexistent.
That was on me.

Alignment fixes that.

Quiet Progress Everywhere Else

The rest of the week followed that same pattern; less urgency, more structure.

→ Tightened our sales rhythm and weekly snapshot
→ Same-page calls with our Co-Founder at Strategic Scale Institute, Drae.
→ Synced with my partner Adrian on The Strategic Scale Summit (we’re nearly sold out)
→ Hosted another pop-up masterclass and moved more tickets
→ Coaching calls where real wins showed up quietly
→ Continued refining onboarding and internal systems
→ Synced with the team for next week’s Predictable Client Machine virtual bootcamp.

Nothing dramatic.
Just movement in the right direction.

A Small Leadership Moment That Matters

We were supposed to shoot podcast episodes this week.

Kev, who runs point on the show, wasn’t feeling great and said he’d push through anyway.

Old me would’ve let him.
This version didn’t.

I told him to rest. We’ll reschedule.
Nothing aligned needs to be forced.

That may seem like a small thing, but it’s the kind of decision that compounds culture.

Midweek Check-In

Wednesday stayed light, as usual.

I ran my Wednesday Protocol, a halftime review of the week, and spent time refining my personal brand strategy for 2026…

Syncing with our content and marketing leadership to make sure everything is aligned.

I also noticed something else this week.

Because of the somatic work I’ve been doing…

I’m far more aware of when my nervous system is reacting, especially around urgency, conflict, or perceived pressure.

That awareness alone has changed how I respond.

Inputs Matter More Than Ever

I’ve been intentional about staying off social.

No mindless scrolling.
No noise for the sake of staying “in the loop.”

More presence.
More IP work.
More family time.

Slow mornings.
Green smoothies with my son before school.
Quiet nights with my wife.
Deep work on an upcoming teaching series at church.

Those inputs shape everything else.

The Thread That Ties It Together

This week reinforced something simple:

Effort scales until it doesn’t.
Alignment scales much further.

When people know what matters, and what doesn’t, progress stops feeling chaotic.

That’s the work I’m committed to this year.

Marquel