Overthinking business decisions drains your energy and stalls progress, but developing decisiveness as a leadership skill can transform how you operate. Learn how to break free from decision paralysis using the 3D filter: Delay it, Decide it, or Delegate it.

In this episode we will learn how to:

• Identify what business decisions you're currently overthinking

• Learn from Jennifer Barnes who launched a new business within days after being forced out of her company

• Understand why high-achievers hesitate to make decisions (fear, perfectionism, pressure)

• Use the 3D filter to overcome decision paralysis

• Determine when to strategically delay decisions vs. when you're just procrastinating

• Ask key questions to identify what's behind your hesitation

• Recognize when delegation is the best decision-making approach

• Build your decision-making confidence through practice

If today's insight inspired you, leave a review and let me know what stood out, and be sure to follow Elite Achievements so you never miss an episode. Keep showing up with the effort, mindset and habits that lead to elite achievement.

Interested in 1:1 Coaching?

Kristin partners with high-performing financial advisors, leaders, and business owners who are ready to lead with more clarity, focus, and intention.

Clients often come to her with a strong vision, but they aren’t sure how to close the gap between where they are now and where they want to go. Many are navigating a season of growth, stepping into expanded leadership, or realizing they’ve outgrown their current systems and ways of working.

They know they’re capable of more and want a strategic thought partner to help them get there; someone who will ask the tough questions, create space to think deeply, and offer a proven process for turning ambition into meaningful progress.

If this sounds like the kind of partnership you’ve been craving, email meet@kristinburke.com to learn more and connect.

Connect with Kristin

LinkedIn

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Website

Goal Setting Success Course

Breakout Plan

Jennifer Barnes kicks off our Think Like a CEO series with a remarkable story of resilience that will inspire anyone who's faced career setbacks. After being fired just six weeks before her wedding, Jennifer watched as 12 of her 15 clients chose to follow her – essentially handing her a business overnight. She grew that first venture to $6 million in revenue over six years, only to face another devastating blow when her business partners pushed her out of the very company she built.

Most people would have taken time to regroup after such a betrayal, but Jennifer launched Optima Office just three days later. Nearly 30 employees followed her, and despite facing a lawsuit from her former partners, her new company generated $3.5 million in its first year. Today, Optima has grown to 110 employees and established itself as a leading outsourced accounting and HR firm.

Throughout our conversation, Jennifer shares the leadership principles that guided her through these challenges. She emphasizes the power of quick decision-making, explaining that CEOs can't afford analysis paralysis – make decisions quickly and course-correct as needed. She discusses how true CEOs must rise above day-to-day operations by delegating effectively and hiring people who complement their skills.

What stands out most about Jennifer's approach is her commitment to creating a company culture where people genuinely want to work. From comprehensive benefits to mentorship programs and regular team events, her philosophy centers on taking care of her people first. She's built Optima to function smoothly without her constant presence, allowing her to maintain work-life balance while running a successful business.

Whether you're an entrepreneur facing setbacks or a leader looking to elevate your decision-making, Jennifer's journey demonstrates how resilience and strategic thinking can transform challenges into opportunities for even greater success.

In this podcast you will learn how Jennifer:

• Built a business from scratch after being fired and having 12 of 15 clients follow her

• Dealt with challenging business partnerships and being escorted out of her own company

• Launched Optima Office just three days after being pushed out and growing it to $3.5 million in the first year

• How to make quick decisions as a CEO and not letting perfectionism slow growth

• How to step into the CEO role and learning to delegate effectively

• Developing comprehensive hiring processes to find the right cultural fits

• Creating an employee-friendly culture with benefits, events, and development opportunities

• Maintaining work-life balance while running a successful company

• Becoming comfortable with discomfort during the change process

• Reframing hard work as strategic thinking rather than constant busyness

Highlights:

0:00

Jennifer Barnes' Entrepreneurial Journey

7:38

Fired and Starting Over

12:10

Partnership Gone Wrong

19:30

Speed of Decision Making

22:56

Stepping into the CEO Role

26:34

Hiring and Building a Strong Team

30:08

Creating an Employee-Friendly Culture

33:10

Work-Life Balance for Success

Interested in 1:1 Coaching?

Kristin partners with high-performing financial advisors, leaders, and business owners who are ready to lead with more clarity, focus, and intention.

Clients often come to her with a strong vision, but they aren’t sure how to close the gap between where they are now and where they want to go. Many are navigating a season of growth, stepping into expanded leadership, or realizing they’ve outgrown their current systems and ways of working.

They know they’re capable of more and want a strategic thought partner to help them get there, someone who will ask the tough questions, create space to think deeply, and offer a...

Celebrating five years of Elite Achievement, I share the five biggest growth lessons I've learned as a podcaster that apply to leadership, business, and personal development. These insights, built around my Four C's framework—clarity, consistency, courage, and confidence—provide actionable wisdom for anyone striving to achieve meaningful goals.

In this episode you will learn how:

• Reconnecting to your why keeps you going when challenges arise (Clarity)

• Small promises compound into growth that builds credibility with others and yourself (Consistency)

• Start before you're ready—courage isn't the absence of fear but moving forward despite it

• Confidence grows through action, not contemplation—take the step first and let belief follow

• Relationships are the real ROI—genuine connections often lead to unexpected opportunities

• The podcast has evolved from focusing solely on goal-setting to exploring the mindset and values behind elite success

If this podcast has inspired or supported you, please take a moment to leave a review. It's a small way to say thank you and helps more high-performing leaders find the show. Cheers to Elite Achievement and to continuing to grow together.

Interested in 1:1 Coaching?

Kristin partners with high-performing financial advisors, leaders, and business owners who are ready to lead with more clarity, focus, and intention.

Clients often come to her with a strong vision—but they aren’t sure how to close the gap between where they are now and where they want to go. Many are navigating a season of growth, stepping into expanded leadership, or realizing they’ve outgrown their current systems and ways of working.

They know they’re capable of more and want a strategic thought partner to help them get there—someone who will ask the tough questions, create space to think deeply, and offer a proven process for turning ambition into meaningful progress.

If this sounds like the kind of partnership you’ve been craving, email meet@kristinburke.com to learn more and connect.

Connect with Kristin

LinkedIn

Instagram

Website

Goal Setting Success Course

Breakout Plan

Ever find yourself trapped in the paradox of success? You've built something impressive, yet somehow you're still grinding harder than ever. That's exactly where Heidi Hoium found herself seven years into running her thriving consultancy.

"Hard work doesn't need to equal grind," Heidi shares in our conversation. "Some of the hardest work we can do is to stop and think and to have white space." As an Enneagram 3 achiever who built Ironworks Consulting into a respected firm helping over 130 advisory businesses grow with clarity, Heidi's journey reveals the counterintuitive truth many high-performers miss: sometimes slowing down is the fastest route to meaningful growth.

What makes Heidi's story particularly powerful is how she transformed her business without sacrificing results. In twelve years, she's only had one year that wasn't her "best year ever", while implementing a four-day work week and creating sacred "white space" every Monday for strategic thinking. She shares exactly how she made this transition, from quarterly personal retreats to building what she calls a "personal growth team" who challenged her limiting beliefs.

For high-achieving business owners who secretly worry they've just created another version of the corporate grind they were trying to escape, this conversation offers something rare: a practical roadmap for doing things differently without losing your edge. We dig into the mindset shifts required, how to get comfortable with the discomfort of change, and why creating boundaries around your time might be the most important business decision you'll ever make.

Ready to reimagine what success looks like on your own terms? In this episode, you’ll learn how to create a business that thrives without revolving around you, so you can experience the freedom, flexibility, and fulfillment you’ve been working toward. Subscribe now and join the conversation about elevating your achievement without sacrificing what matters most.

In this podcast you will learn how:

• Defining elite success as doing more with less while focusing on relationships

• Identifying when your business has become "just another grind"

• Why white space and reflection are crucial for high achievers

• How to reimagine your business by breaking through limiting paradigms

• Building a personal growth team to challenge your thinking

• The power of quarterly getaways for vision and clarity

• Implementing a four-day work week without sacrificing results

• Creating hard boundaries to protect your most valuable time

• Becoming comfortable with discomfort during the change process

• Reframing hard work as strategic thinking rather than constant busyness

Highlights:

0:00

Hard Work Without the Grind

3:30

Defining Elite Success

7:58

Building Freedom Without Sacrificing Growth

15:02

Breaking the Busy Paradigm

21:46

Creating Vision Through White Space

27:37

Building Your Personal Growth Team

31:09

Four-Day Work Week and Elite Balance

Interested in 1:1 Coaching?

Kristin partners with high-performing financial advisors, leaders, and business owners who are ready to lead with more clarity, focus, and intention.

Clients often come to her with a strong vision, but they aren’t sure how to close the gap between where they are now and where they want to go. Many are navigating a season of growth, stepping into expanded leadership, or realizing they’ve outgrown their current systems and ways of working.

They know they’re capable of more and want a strategic thought partner to help them get there, someone who will ask the tough questions, create space to think deeply, and offer a proven process for turning ambition into meaningful progress.

If this sounds like the kind of partnership you’ve been craving, email...

High achievers often rush into execution mode before clearly defining desired outcomes, leading to misaligned results and wasted resources. Slowing down to clarify what success actually looks like becomes a force multiplier for your time and effort.

In today’s episode you will learn about:

• Our natural instinct as high achievers is to jump straight into building mode when improving processes or programs

• Planning feels slow while execution gives us the satisfaction of immediate progress

• A critical question before any initiative: "What result do I actually want this to create?"

• Case study of an executive revamping a leadership program by first defining desired outcomes

• Defining impact before building prevents misaligned decisions and team confusion

• Clarity upfront becomes a "force multiplier" for your time and resources

• Apply this principle when rebuilding processes, restructuring teams, or launching new services

• When leading others, ask "what outcomes do we want to achieve together?"

If today's insight resonated and you're ready for more clarity, structure and progress in your business, let's connect. I partner with high performing leaders and business owners who are navigating growth and want a strategic thought partner to help them follow through on what matters most. You'll find details about one-on-one coaching in the show notes.

Interested in 1:1 Coaching?

Kristin partners with high-performing financial advisors, leaders, and business owners who are ready to lead with more clarity, focus, and intention.

Clients often come to her with a strong vision—but they aren’t sure how to close the gap between where they are now and where they want to go. Many are navigating a season of growth, stepping into expanded leadership, or realizing they’ve outgrown their current systems and ways of working.

They know they’re capable of more and want a strategic thought partner to help them get there—someone who will ask the tough questions, create space to think deeply, and offer a proven process for turning ambition into meaningful progress.

If this sounds like the kind of partnership you’ve been craving, email meet@kristinburke.com to learn more and connect.

Connect with Kristin

LinkedIn

Instagram

Website

Goal Setting Success Course

Breakout Plan

Every driven professional eventually reaches a crossroads where working harder no longer produces the desired growth. Mark Kull found himself at this junction after achieving Northwestern Mutual's prestigious Forum recognition in consecutive years, only to realize he was trapped in an unsustainable cycle of effort.

What followed was a transformative journey from frantic producer to strategic business builder. Mark shares the counterintuitive wisdom that reshaped his approach: "You often have to slow down to speed up." This perspective shift led him to create what he considers more valuable than any to-do list – a comprehensive "don't-do list" that freed him to focus on his highest-impact activities.

The conversation explores Mark's deeply personal definition of success: being "front door famous" – showing up as the same authentic person whether with family, clients, or strangers. This consistency of character guides his leadership and life choices more powerfully than traditional financial metrics ever could.

Mark reveals the practical strategies that supported his transition, from calculating the true hourly value of his client-facing time to intentionally hiring team members with complementary strengths rather than similar personalities. He candidly discusses the challenges of letting go, acknowledging that "in our desperation to want to be everything to everybody, we don't really become much of anything to anybody."

Perhaps most surprisingly, Mark credits consistent sleep and wake times as his most important habit – a discipline that builds self-trust and reinforces his capacity for follow-through in every area of life. His approach demonstrates how elite achievement often comes not from doing more, but from doing the right things with remarkable consistency.

Ready to rethink your approach to growth? Connect with Mark at mark.kull@nm.com or visit https://cpp.nm.com/ to learn how strategic delegation and intentional habits might transform your personal and professional trajectory.

In this podcast you will learn:

• Redefining success as being "front door famous" – maintaining consistency of character across all environments

• Creating a strategic "don't-do list" rather than just focusing on to-do lists

• Calculating the hourly value of client-facing time to determine what tasks to delegate

• Hiring people with complementary skill sets rather than similar personalities

• Making the shift from "producing forum" to "being a forum producer" through systems and processes

• Building in non-negotiable growth opportunities like mastermind groups and industry conferences

• Using flexible growth methods like reading that can be done at various times without rigid scheduling

• Celebrating wins intentionally rather than constantly moving goalposts

• Maintaining consistent habits like regular sleep and wake times to build self-discipline

• Finding team members who genuinely enjoy the tasks on your don't-do list

Highlights:

0:00

Self-Actualization and Introduction

7:12

Defining Elite Success Personally

11:40

The Journey from Forum Producer

20:24

Building a Strategic Business

30:24

Creating Space for Growth

39:06

The Power of Consistency

42:50

Celebration and Final Thoughts

Interested in 1:1 Coaching?

Kristin partners with high-performing financial advisors, leaders, and business owners who are ready to lead with more clarity, focus, and intention.

Clients often come to her with a strong vision—but they aren’t sure how to close the gap between where they are now and where they want to go. Many are navigating a season of growth, stepping into expanded leadership, or realizing they’ve outgrown their current systems and ways of...

The tension between achieving immediate goals and building for the future offers valuable insights on managing competing priorities with limited capacity. Mini-episodes of Elite Insights deliver actionable ideas to help leaders stay focused and make meaningful progress.

In this episode you will learn how:

• Quarterly reviews provide essential space to reflect on goals, priorities, and how time and energy are being allocated

• High achievers often default to working harder when faced with challenges, rather than being strategic about capacity

• Competing priorities like revenue goals and strategic expansion can create tension when approached with the same intensity

• Intensity doesn't create instant results - dividing focus across too many priorities leads to overwhelm and feeling defeated

• Some leaders over-rotate on new strategies while unintentionally stopping activities that generate immediate results

• Consistency in both immediate priorities and future investments compounds over time

• Four key questions to clarify priorities: What drives revenue now? What sets up future positioning? What can you sustainably commit to? Where are you spreading too thin?

If you're feeling the pull between short-term goals and long-term growth and want a clear strategy to move forward with focus, let's talk. I partner with high-performing leaders and business owners who are ready to align their priorities, protect their time and follow through on what matters most. You'll find details about one-on-one coaching in the show notes.

Interested in 1:1 Coaching?

Kristin partners with high-performing financial advisors, leaders, and business owners who are ready to lead with more clarity, focus, and intention.

Clients often come to her with a strong vision—but they aren’t sure how to close the gap between where they are now and where they want to go. Many are navigating a season of growth, stepping into expanded leadership, or realizing they’ve outgrown their current systems and ways of working.

They know they’re capable of more and want a strategic thought partner to help them get there—someone who will ask the tough questions, create space to think deeply, and offer a proven process for turning ambition into meaningful progress.

If this sounds like the kind of partnership you’ve been craving, email meet@kristinburke.com to learn more and connect.

Connect with Kristin

LinkedIn

Instagram

Website

Goal Setting Success Course

Breakout Plan

Imagine building your business around what naturally energizes you instead of constantly trying to fix your weaknesses. What if that's actually the secret to sustainable success?

In this illuminating conversation with Lindsay Schmit, Gallup-certified strengths coach and founder of Right Hand Consultants, we explore how self-awareness transforms from a personal development exercise into a powerful business strategy. Lindsay shares how the CliftonStrengths framework helps high-performing leaders identify their natural talents and leverage them for greater impact.

We take a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at my own strengths profile, examining how talents like Relator, Significance, Focus, Achiever, and Futuristic shape my coaching approach and business decisions. Lindsay explains why certain strengths appear prominently in entrepreneurs and leaders and how they influence everything from goal-setting to scaling strategies.

The research is compelling: people who focus on developing their strengths are three times more likely to report excellent quality of life and six times more likely to be engaged at work. Yet, many ambitious professionals continue pouring energy into fixing weaknesses, missing opportunities for exponential growth in areas of natural talent.

Whether you're leading a team, scaling a business, or seeking more sustainable success, this conversation offers practical wisdom for aligning your strengths with your strategy. Discover why the best leaders don't try to become well-rounded individuals—they build well-rounded teams, creating championship rosters where diverse talents complement each other perfectly.

Ready to lead with greater clarity and purpose? Email me at meet@kristinburke.com to learn about my fall leadership planning days, where we'll help you and your team step out of the day-to-day and create an actionable plan aligned with your natural strengths and vision.

In this episode you will learn how:

• Conventional development focuses on fixing weaknesses, while strengths-based development focuses on what you do best
• People who develop their strengths are three times more likely to report excellent quality of life and six times more likely to be engaged at work
• The CliftonStrengths assessment identifies 34 talent themes grouped into four leadership domains: strategic thinking, influencing, executing, and relationship building
• Successful people are highly aware of their weaknesses but don't try to master what doesn't come naturally to them
• When you know your strengths, goal setting becomes more strategic and aligned with your vision, based on what energizes you
• Business owners can scale more efficiently by aligning their business model with their energy and natural style
• Movement, mindfulness, self-awareness, intentional reflection, surrounding yourself with complementary thinkers, and staying curious are key habits for achievement

Highlights:

0:00

Understanding Strengths for Strategic Goal Setting

5:49

Self-Awareness as a Strategic Advantage

9:07

The CliftonStrengths Framework Explained

16:09

How Strengths Impact Goal Achievement

21:44

Kristen's Strengths Profile Revealed

31:07

Scaling Your Business Using Strengths

34:20

Key Takeaways and Moving Forward

Fall Leadership Planning Day

Align your team around what matters most in 2026 with the clarity, focus, and commitment needed to drive results.

A Fall Leadership Planning Day is a customized strategy session designed to create the space for strategic dialogue and critical leadership discussions so your team leaves aligned, accountable, and ready to execute.

Using a proven framework of visioning, reflecting, brainstorming, and planning, the day is structured to:

• Reconnect to your...