A scaling CEO starts to see friction where there used to be momentum. Decisions take longer. Hiring stalls. Execution slows. Nothing obvious explains it. Strategy is intact. The team is capable. The market hasn’t shifted in a way that justifies the change in pace.
The instinct is to look outward—refine the plan, adjust positioning, push for more output. But the constraint often sits inside the decision-making system itself. It shows up as hesitation, second-guessing, and a growing effort required to move things forward that previously felt routine.
Rochelle Carrington’s performance drag framework reframes the issue. Decision quality is not only a function of logic or information. It is shaped by accumulated internal load that most CEOs do not actively track.
In earlier stages, speed masks inefficiency. A CEO makes decisions quickly, absorbs the consequences, and moves on. The organization benefits from momentum more than precision.
Over time, that pattern compounds. High-performing CEOs are conditioned to push through. When something doesn’t resolve cleanly—a lost deal, a difficult conversation, a hiring mistake—they move forward without fully processing it. The next decision takes priority.
That accumulation rarely announces itself directly. It presents as mental noise, reduced clarity, and a subtle drag on decision speed. What looks like increased complexity is often a system under load.
“Performance drag is the hidden accumulated stress and pressure that happens to CEOs.”
The cost of misreading this is significant. If the constraint is internal, external adjustments—more analysis, tighter plans, increased pressure—do not resolve it. They add to the load already affecting judgment.
Carrington’s framework begins with a shift in how performance is understood. Traditional models assume that better thinking leads to better outcomes. Her work challenges that assumption at the sequence level.
“Emotions will always override logic.”
In practice, this means decisions are not driven purely by reasoning. Emotional responses occur first, shaping how situations are interpreted before logic is applied. The explanation follows the response.
“Your nervous system is driving 95 % of your results.”
Performance drag develops when those emotional responses are not resolved. Each unresolved moment—pressure from a missed target, frustration with a team issue, tension from a negotiation—remains active. Over time, they accumulate.
The result is not a single point of failure but a system operating with reduced capacity. Perception narrows. Processing slows. Certain options feel less accessible, even if they remain logically sound.
This is what makes the framework diagnostic. It explains why capable CEOs, operating with sufficient information, begin to experience degraded decision quality without a clear external cause.
The effects of performance drag are most visible in decisions that require commitment under uncertainty.
Consider hiring. A CEO knows a function—often sales—needs to be delegated. The logic is clear. The business cannot scale indefinitely with the founder as the primary operator. Yet the decision stalls.
The stated reasons are rational: concern about hiring the wrong person, time required to train them, risk of losing control over a critical function. Each is valid.
Underneath, the decision is filtered through accumulated internal pressure. Continuing to handle the function personally feels more controlled, even if it limits growth. The alternative introduces variability into a system that already feels constrained.
The same pattern appears in growth investments. Decisions that previously would have been made quickly begin to stretch. Additional data is requested. Scenarios are revisited. The organization waits for clarity that does not arrive through analysis alone.
Carrington describes the underlying dynamic directly:
“You don’t get rid of it. You just move to the next one.”
That accumulation changes how decisions feel. Tradeoffs that should be manageable begin to carry disproportionate weight. The CEO experiences this as increased complexity. In practice, it is the effect of unresolved load shaping perception.
The consequence is not only slower decisions, but different ones. When capacity is constrained, decisions tend to favor control, delay, and incrementalism—regardless of what the situation demands.
Recognizing performance drag shifts how a CEO interprets their own decision-making.
First, decision quality cannot be evaluated on logic alone. A well-reasoned decision made under significant internal load may still be constrained by what the CEO is able to see or consider in that moment.
Second, common performance tools—discipline, focus, cognitive reframing—operate at the level of thought. They can improve output temporarily, but they do not remove the underlying load that is shaping decisions.
Third, the CEO’s internal state does not remain contained.
“The nervous system state of the CEO leaks into the rest of the team.”
Teams calibrate to leadership. When the CEO’s decision speed slows, so does the organization’s. When hesitation increases, risk tolerance decreases. Execution reflects the same constraints present at the top.
Removing performance drag does not change the external environment. It changes how the CEO engages with it. Decisions that required effort return to a more natural cadence. Clarity improves without new inputs. The system regains capacity.
The shift is not visible as a new strategy. It appears as restored execution.
Performance drag introduces a layer beneath strategy and execution that is often present but rarely examined. It explains why decision quality can degrade without a clear external cause, and why additional analysis does not always produce clarity.
For a scaling CEO, this reframes familiar problems. Slower growth, delayed hiring, and stalled initiatives may not originate in the market or the plan. They may reflect accumulated internal load shaping how decisions are made.
Removing that load does not guarantee better outcomes. It restores the conditions under which sound judgment is more likely to occur.
At scale, that distinction becomes operational.
Rochelle Carrington is the founder of EmotionalBP, where she works with CEOs to diagnose and remove hidden performance constraints using a neuroscience-based framework. Her work focuses on leaders experiencing stalled growth, decision fatigue, and internal bottlenecks that are often misattributed to external factors.
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Jeff Holman is a CEO advisor, legal strategist, and founder of Intellectual Strategies. With years of experience guiding leaders through complex business and legal challenges, Jeff equips CEOs to scale with confidence by blending legal expertise with strategic foresight. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
Intellectual Strategies provides innovative legal solutions for CEOs and founders through its fractional legal team model. By offering proactive, integrated legal support at predictable costs, the firm helps leaders protect their businesses, manage risk, and focus on growth with confidence.
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The Breakout CEO podcast brings you inside the pivotal moments of scaling leaders. Each week, host Jeff Holman spotlights breakout stories of scaling CEOs—showing how resilience, insight, and strategy create pivotal inflection points and lasting growth.
Listen and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform:
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Want to be a guest—or know a scaling CEO with a breakout story to share? A
TRANSCRIPT SUMMARY:
00:00 – Intro: Scaling Beyond the Selling CEO
01:05 – Rochelle’s Journey to Building a 7-Figure Business
02:00 – Success on Paper but Feeling Dread Internally
03:15 – Discovering Neuroscience & Performance Drag
04:20 – The Hidden Struggle of High-Performing CEOs
06:40 – What Is Performance Drag?
08:00 – Emotion vs Mindset: The Neuroscience Shift
10:30 – Why CEOs Push Through Instead of Resolving Stress
13:00 – Emotional Selling vs Logical Decision-Making
16:15 – How Performance Drag Creates Business Bottlenecks
19:00 – Using Emotion Intentionally for Better Execution
24:50 – How a CEO’s Emotional State Impacts Team Culture
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jeff Holman, Host (00:01.066)
Welcome back everybody to the Breakout CEO Podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Holman. I help try to bring some perspective to CEOs out there to get behind the scenes insights with other CEOs and people who work with CEOs to make their businesses better. And today we've got Rochelle Carrington with us. Rochelle, thanks for joining us.
Rochelle Carrington (00:21.496)
Thank you, very happy to be here, excited to talk to you and your listeners today.
Jeff Holman, Host (00:25.77)
Yeah, it's going to be a good conversation. You're part of a three, I think it's going to be three, maybe four, four episodes all dedicated to the concept of scaling beyond the selling CEO. So, many, so many CEOs in early stage companies, you know, either call it founder startup, whatever you want, or growth stage scaling, again, venture back those, these, these CEOs can find themselves. I don't want to say stuck, but in a sense, stuck, right? Like they're
They're trying to grow, but sometimes they are maybe even the obstacle or the bottleneck as to why the company can't grow. So I'm happy to talk with you about that today. And we're to get into something that you've, you've called the performance drag. I'm really interested to hear the details about that. But before we do that, give us, give us a little flavor about your background and what, you know, what qualifies you to be, to be working with scaling CEOs.
Rochelle Carrington (01:25.784)
Well, I guess what qualifies me is that I have been one, still am one. And so I understand a lot of the things that scaling CEOs go through. But the way that I landed here with Performance Drag was just through my own story of building up a sales training company to a seven figure business, which was my intention and my goal.
And when I got there, you know, everything on paper looked amazing. I had the custom house and the fancy cars and the great business and the, and you know, the high income. And yet I was happy about it, but I started to wake up in the morning with this feeling of dread. And it was really disorienting because, you know, we get taught that when you hit that ultimate goal that you have, that when you get that success, that you're going to be happy and everything's going to become easier.
Jeff Holman, Host (02:17.004)
you
Rochelle Carrington (02:17.024)
And I was feeling the opposite of that. I was feeling dread. was feeling like things were just getting harder, even though I knew what it is that I needed to do. And so I did all the things that, you know, scaling CEOs get taught to do when you feel a little bit stuck. And so I did all the mindset hacks. I did journaling and positive affirmations and meditation. And I would feel a little bit better, but then that feeling of dread would come back.
And then I thought, well, okay, if that's not working, maybe I'll go do therapy. And I did that and got to relive all my, you know, childhood stories, which is not that fun. And got a little understanding of things, but it didn't get rid of it. And so that sort of got me on an obsession with trying to figure out what was going on. What was the problem? Was it me? Was it something else?
Jeff Holman, Host (02:54.892)
Probably helpful to a degree, but you know.
Rochelle Carrington (03:10.39)
And so I stumbled into really doing some research into neuroscience and what really impacts performance. And what I found was a couple of neuroscientists. Sure.
Jeff Holman, Host (03:20.78)
Can I pause you there? this is like we're right on the edge here and I don't wanna delay it, but I know we're gonna kind of dive deep here. So I don't wanna skip the opportunity. Like what you've just described, if we're talking about problem solution statements or whatever, what you just described is a problem, right? And that's, so many people feel that and...
I think this show exists. I know it exists. It is intended to exist because I created it to exist in part because of this exact problem. Did you find it hard to be the person that's like, people are hiring you to train them and then you're saying, wait a second, I've got some like why I'm like, I'm teaching people how to be CEOs or how to get through their own struggles. And yet I'm running into my own roadblocks. Is that a confusing place to be at all?
And I ask that because as an attorney, you know, people come to me and they're like, help me solve my problems, not, not therapy, not at least not usually, but you know, help me solve my problems. And then, and then I turn around in my business, my own business, my law firm. I, and I say, man, I'm helping people solve problems all day. And I think I'm pretty good at it, you know, but I'm running into my own obstacles or maybe sometimes I, I am my own obstacle perhaps. So is that.
Rochelle Carrington (04:22.817)
Alright.
Jeff Holman, Host (04:40.775)
Is there kind of contradiction, not contradiction, but is there maybe a tension there between being the trainer versus how to get past your own roadblocks?
Rochelle Carrington (04:51.234)
Well, it certainly can be. think that's the whole story about the cobbler whose family has no shoes. but the difference here was that as I was going through, you know, what I was experiencing, I found the solution and in the neuroscience of what was going on and what really impacts performance, I fixed it within myself and developed the methodology before I ever used it with any clients. And so I became a product of the product.
before I went out and said, hey, now, you know, there must be thousands of other CEOs and founders who are experiencing the exact same thing I am. I can't be the only one, or at least that's what I was hoping. And so I became a product of the methodology and built the thing to help me that then became the thing that is helping, you know, a lot of other CEOs and founders out.
Jeff Holman, Host (05:34.495)
Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (05:47.723)
Yeah, and that makes sense because you know, you are the trainer. So when you when you learn the new skill or you figure out how to how to overcome something, you're probably like, next step is just naturally, well, let me show you how to do it, too.
Rochelle Carrington (06:00.652)
Right, right. I believe that it's very important to be a product of the product. And it doesn't mean I'm perfect. Believe me, nobody is. We all still have things that, you know, roadblocks that come up, but to be able to say, Hey, this is what I went through and I figured out a solution and now I can help you through it as well. You know, says a lot that we basically eat our own dog food here.
Jeff Holman, Host (06:24.492)
For sure, yep, for sure. And sometimes you don't have to be light years ahead of the people you're training. You gotta be a few steps ahead at least so you can, you've seen around the next corner at a minimum or as we might say in Utah, you've seen over the next ridge, right? So.
Rochelle Carrington (06:38.766)
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
Jeff Holman, Host (06:41.684)
So tell me a little bit about what performance drag means then. I can guess, but I want to hear your explanation.
Rochelle Carrington (06:49.026)
Yeah, performance drag is basically the hidden accumulated stress and pressure that happens to CEOs. And it really starts to affect their execution. They get more mental noise. It affects their decision speed. It affects the clarity and their focus. And eventually that will result in stagnant or stalled revenue. And so it's just that hidden accumulated stress that most people don't know is there.
Jeff Holman, Host (07:15.104)
Mm-hmm.
Rochelle Carrington (07:19.03)
And they believe it's just how it feels when you build a business. This is just what's going to happen. And the answer is that's actually not true. It doesn't have to happen,
Jeff Holman, Host (07:30.89)
Is this an external thing or an internal thing or some combination of the two?
Rochelle Carrington (07:37.43)
It's an internal thing. So if we go back to just the quick neuroscience behind it, in the 90s, two neuroscientists, Antonio DeMacio and Joseph Ledoux discovered that emotion fires before thought and then a result happens. Now, before that, we were always told that thought drives emotion, which drives results. And so that's why everybody would really focus on things like mindset hacks, because those are all logical mind.
tools, right? So if I change the way I think, then I'll change my results. But the problem is people have found that like it doesn't work and it doesn't hold and it's not really like so they start to think there's must be something wrong with me because those things aren't working for me. Well, there's nothing wrong with you. It's that you're using the wrong tool for the job. And so when we understand that emotion drives thought, your emotion actually happens.
Jeff Holman, Host (08:07.414)
Mm-hmm.
Rochelle Carrington (08:34.606)
250 milliseconds before a thought comes in to make sense of that emotion and then you take an action and get a result if you understand that then it makes all the sense in the world to go. Okay. Well, where are our emotions? They're held in our nervous system. Your nervous system is driving 95 % of your results. And so it's that internal load that happens over time. And the interesting thing, Jeff, with
CEOs and founders is that they have an ability as you continue to grow your business and you have all sorts of different roadblocks that come up as you're doing that. What we get told as high performers as CEOs is when a roadblock comes up, what are you supposed to do? You're supposed to push through it. And so even though, yeah, yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (09:24.682)
Yeah, persist, grind, whatever it might be.
Rochelle Carrington (09:28.398)
Exactly. Get more discipline, have more grit, have more resilience. There's no pain, you with it. You can't get gain without pain. And so we've all been taught this for years and years. But the problem is that that emotion. So for high performing people, they never resolve an emotion. So something happens, especially if you're a founder and you're doing a lot of your own selling. You don't get a deal that you thought you were going to get. You instantly feel like, oh, no.
Jeff Holman, Host (09:36.007)
Right, right.
Rochelle Carrington (09:58.296)
but you don't have time to resolve that emotion fully because you've got to go to the next thing. There's another deal that's waiting. There's somebody you need to hire. There's somebody knocking at your door that wants help with something. And so we never resolve things. We just move to the next one. And so you can kind of think of it like having, you know, your nervous system has all of these filing cabinet drawers in it and each drawer is an emotion, anger, frustration, annoyance, guilt, et cetera.
Well, when you don't resolve that emotion, that drawer stays open. And high performing founders and CEOs are constantly jumping to the next thing, the next thing, ignore it, move on, ignore it, move on. And that is what builds up and that is what becomes performance.
Jeff Holman, Host (10:33.709)
You
Jeff Holman, Host (10:46.933)
Interesting. so going back to the first part of what you said there, know, mindset, and I think a lot of people feel this way, right? Mindset or your thoughts dictate your behavior.
But what you're really saying is, a sense, emotion precedes the mindset. So if we skip the emotional part of it, then the behavior and the mindset are really not under as much control as we want them to be because we're totally overlooking the emotional connection that drives those two things. Is that right?
Rochelle Carrington (11:27.416)
Yes, absolutely. And it's the neuroscience that has figured that out. Now before the 1990s, we did believe that thought preceded everything. so mindset made sense. Now knowing what we know, we need to start changing the way we think about performance. Because emotions will always override logic.
And we know that because we've all had situations where we've done or said something that logically we knew we shouldn't and yet we did it anyway because we were super happy or super mad or super nervous or whatever it happens to be. And so it's not to say that mindset tools aren't good, but they don't help. They manage a situation. They manage the symptoms of performance drag. They don't get rid of them. And what we're really focused on is removing
performance drag, not managing stress and pressure and anxiety and all of those, those emotions. If you remove them, it's like taking a virus out of a computer before the, you know, the, before the virus, the computer works incredibly well. The virus comes along, it gets glitchy, it gets slow. Well, you don't just try to manage your computer differently. You pull the virus out and then the computer goes back online. So when you pull out the performance drag,
Jeff Holman, Host (12:32.535)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (12:45.495)
Great.
Rochelle Carrington (12:50.666)
then you're using the mindset tools. Now you're taking off because now your emotional state and your logical mind are working together rather than beating each other up.
Jeff Holman, Host (13:03.937)
That's funny. I mean, not funny. That's really interesting. Well, I was thinking ahead a little bit too much and I apologize for that because there is, I think, maybe a really stark irony here in that we're talking about helping CEOs get beyond being the seller in their own business, like being maybe that sales or revenue bottleneck in their business. And as I think about that function, have a lot of CEOs know...
Rochelle Carrington (13:05.614)
Hahaha!
Jeff Holman, Host (13:32.406)
You know, they know academically exactly what you're saying because they use the sales tactics of sell with emotion, you know, and justify with logic. How many in my MBA program, we talked about that a lot. A lot of you probably trained that in your sales training earlier. You people make sales or purchase decisions based on emotion first and justify with logic. We can all think back to how many things we've, we've tried to tell our spouse or partner or family.
Rochelle Carrington (13:43.202)
Yeah, absolutely.
Jeff Holman, Host (14:01.089)
This was a great purchase decision, even though that has nothing to do with why we actually bought it. And so the fact that CEOs selling CEOs in particular and other salespeople understand and use this often as part of their sales, you know, process, but yet at the same time can get stuck with the drag by not, not applying it to their own.
Rochelle Carrington (14:02.574)
Hahaha
Rochelle Carrington (14:07.233)
Right.
Jeff Holman, Host (14:31.073)
to themselves in a way. Is there a tension there? do you think that, does that exist the way that I've described it or am I off, do you think?
Rochelle Carrington (14:39.136)
Yes. No, I think you described that really well. That's an insight that most people haven't pulled together. But I think a lot of times the reason why CEOs and founders stay in the sales position is because they've got performance drag, but they're not aware of it. And therefore they just think it's something else. They've got the fear of handing the sale to somebody else because they may not be as good at it.
or now I'm gonna have to take time, maybe I have to put money into training you. It's easier for me to do. There's a lot of that drag, I can do it faster. So there's a lot of that drag that will impact that decision to hand it to someone else or teach it to someone else or hire someone else to do that. And I think the other thing is that we have been taught for so long that everything is mindset.
Jeff Holman, Host (15:16.737)
Yeah.
Rochelle Carrington (15:32.618)
And now it just is coming to the forefront. Even though again, we've known this for 35 years, people are just starting to talk about how the nervous system is running everything and your emotions are more in charge than your logical mind. Your logic drives you about 5%. Your emotions drive about 95 % of your results. So this is becoming part of the conversation.
Jeff Holman, Host (15:54.859)
Wow.
Rochelle Carrington (15:58.902)
And so that I think that people will start to recognize that a lot more, but it just hasn't really been talked about that much. And the idea of selling emotionally, buying intellectually has been talked about a lot more than how do we apply it to ourselves. So I think that's a little bit.
Jeff Holman, Host (16:17.197)
So how do we get there? Let's say I'm a CEO and I do this emotional intellectual sales process and then I turn around and I just, you know, I get stuck in my logic of I can do it faster. What would you say are kind of the steps that a CEO should start to think about to unwind themselves from their own, you know, their own mess?
Rochelle Carrington (16:40.344)
Well, I think you've got to really go back to what are the emotions driving that particular decision. If when you're seeing symptoms of performance drag, things like revenue is starting to stagnate. Your mind is constantly going because there's so many things to do and that mental noise becomes so high that you just feel like you can't really make a decision. You've been thinking about hiring somebody, but you haven't really pulled the trigger on it.
for a variety of reasons. Those are all signs that performance drag is prevalent. And so, you know, the decision then has to be, do I get rid of it or do I keep it? Do I just continue to hobble along like this, knowing that I can only grow so much when I am the bottleneck? And CEOs and founders that are the number one salesperson, at some point, you're going to hit a level where you just can't do it anymore.
where you cannot grow the business to the level that you want to as that number one salesperson. And so you got to make the decision that, yes, it's going to be messy and dirty and hard to get someone else to do it. However, if you remove the drag, it's going to make it a lot easier, a lot easier. Because the things that happen when the performance drag is gone is all of a sudden you see very clearly
Of course I need to hire someone. Here's where I'm going to go do it. These are the steps that I'm going to take to train this person so that they can sell in their own way and to understand that I'm not hiring a mini me because there's no such thing. I think that's the other danger that a lot of times CEOs and founders fall into is they want someone who sells like they do. And that is not going to happen because no one is ever going to be as vested in the product and the company as you are ever.
Jeff Holman, Host (18:29.354)
you
Rochelle Carrington (18:37.078)
So you've got to understand that part too.
Jeff Holman, Host (18:37.301)
Yeah, ironically, I yeah, that makes sense. I've often wondered, and I've come to the conclusion I might be my own worst employee if I hired another one of me. but, but okay, so, so we've got a CEO, they sit back and they say, listen, I do want to make a change. I'm going to implement implement a gratitude practice or I'm going to like, I'm to start to try to bring emotion into, you know, the forefront. And I want to be, I want to be
Rochelle Carrington (18:47.118)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (19:06.987)
conscious and proactive about creating emotion. Is that what you would do? would say, hey, like start your day with your emotions rather than your actions? Or how does a CEO take this and begin to implement it?
Rochelle Carrington (19:22.776)
Yeah, emotions are always going to drive your behavior either in a positive way or a negative way. the first thing is, know, when, when you have, think of having a splinter in your finger. When you have a splinter, you can do a couple of things. One is you could just take some aspirin or take some painkillers and then you don't feel the splinter. That's managing it. Or what most people would do is you just pull the splinter out and now your finger feels fine. It heals. It feels fine.
And so the first thing for people to do is really you've got to remove the root cause because when you get the virus out, when you get the performance drag removed, then having the gratitude practice and focusing on your emotions, your emotions are going to feel better and therefore all of your actions are going to be better. Your clarity comes back. Your decision speed comes back. I mean, we've had some amazing stories of
people that have built some businesses that have gone a little stagnant. And then all of a sudden they come back online and they're like, I found the person that I needed to find. It was so easy. I looked for two years to find somebody and all of a sudden they show up practically in my backyard. So you've got to remove the interference first and then also focus on the emotion. And so what we tell a lot of our clients is,
Jeff Holman, Host (20:34.977)
Yeah.
Rochelle Carrington (20:46.834)
when you are going to take an action. So let's pretend you still are, you you are the founder and you are still selling. If you're going to go prospect by phone, which nobody ever likes to do, and many people can argue it doesn't work anymore. But if you're going to go just make a cold call, everybody understands how that works. You've got to think about what is the emotion I need to feel in order to make this call as successful as possible. And if you think about what is the emotion,
It would be something like confidence or abundance or something around that. Not that feeling of like, my gosh, let me just get this over with. my gosh, I just have to be disciplined and get it done. no, I hope the person doesn't answer the phone because I really don't want to have a conversation. The, you know, the fear that will have check it off. Right. So if you can. Sorry.
Jeff Holman, Host (21:32.315)
Or check this off. I just want I just want to check it off. I just So so does this mean that? go ahead
Rochelle Carrington (21:40.596)
If you can get into that emotion and then go do your cold call, I guarantee you it will go better. It doesn't always mean that you're going to get a deal or a meeting, but it will go better when you get the right emotion first. And the same thing happens with hiring. So many people are afraid of hiring because they've had mis-hires, they can't find people, they're afraid that the person, they're going to train them and then they're going to leave, et cetera, et cetera. So if you're hiring under an emotion of
fear or lack or scarcity, then yes, it's going to be a very difficult. What's the emotion you need to have to get the best hire? Do that, then go try to find people, then go do the interview, then go figure out how you need to onboard somebody to become a great salesperson in your.
Jeff Holman, Host (22:31.746)
Yeah, this is fascinating. It seems to me as I think through some people that I work with, clients, other people, there's a retraining that probably has to happen here to go from, you know, persistent, driven, grinding, logical, intellectual, whatever you call yourself to. I got to add an emotional layer to this. At least be mindful of the emotion I'm entering into this transaction with. Like that's not going to come, I mean,
It's not gonna come naturally at this point to people who have created entire systems that don't include that, right? So that's a whole retraining for many people, I would guess. Is that what you see when you're working with people?
Rochelle Carrington (23:15.468)
Yeah, it's a different focus because the reality is the emotion is there. You're just not paying attention to it. So you think you're just going in and taking action and doing the things and executing and pushing and being disciplined. But I guarantee you before you do any of that, you're feeling something first. So whether it's feeling like I just got to get it done, feeling like, Hey, I'm strong. Now I can go do this, whatever it is, there is a feeling that precedes it. That's just what neuroscience teaches us.
There's always a feeling. think what I'm suggesting is that you think about the feeling, you focus on the feeling you want, because you can change the way you feel anytime you want to. You're the only one that can change it. So you can sit down at your desk and feel dread and feel like, my gosh, this is terrible. Or you can sit down at your desk and go, all right, I'm going to have fun putting together this document. I'm going to have fun putting together a hiring process.
Jeff Holman, Host (23:59.097)
Yeah.
Rochelle Carrington (24:13.982)
You decide which way it's going to go. One way is going to be a lot easier. One way is going to be a lot harder. But it's having that forethought before you take the action and understanding that your emotion is going to dictate your result, good or bad, and you're the one in charge of your emotion.
Jeff Holman, Host (24:35.884)
Well, I'm really glad for the added explanation because I probably made a fundamental error in assuming that we do a lot of things without emotion. I'm glad you clarified that we, everything we do is with emotion. We're just perhaps overlooking it, not recognizing it, not acknowledging it. So, well, I want to ask one last question here if I can and then before, you know, then you can, you're welcome to share your information if you want people to get ahold of you. But we're talking about this from a, from a CEO kind of.
Rochelle Carrington (24:45.89)
Yes.
Yes. Right.
Jeff Holman, Host (25:04.75)
I think really individual level. Is there an aspect of this that also applies to team culture? I mean, are you able to take this same neuroscience concept and I don't know if implement is the right word, but at least understand that it's part of your team culture too. Does that apply here?
Rochelle Carrington (25:26.342)
absolutely. Much more than most CEOs really realize because the nervous system state of the CEO, the highest ranking person in the company or in the room leaks into the rest of the team, even though you may not know it because we are emotional beings. We feel the way other people feel. We know when someone's upset, when they're under stress, when they're happy. And we have a tendency to mirror those same
feelings back. when the CEO is under a lot of pressure, a lot of performance drag, stress, whatever it may be, that CEO's emotions are leaking into all of the team and they don't have to be in the room with you in order for that to happen. And you can see that in companies where you see morale decreasing, where you see people becoming more quiet in meetings, people that are not taking risk.
when you see your team executing more slowly, when you see people kind of, you know, taking a lot more pause before a price is raised or when a negotiation is done or when a product is launched. And so you can see that. And so, you know, and as the nervous system of the CEO is impacting the team, that also impacts the speed of the team. And we all know
Jeff Holman, Host (26:51.791)
Hmm.
Rochelle Carrington (26:51.884)
that the speed of the decisions will start to stagnate growth over time. And so it's really, really important for the CEO to be very aware of whether they've got that drag and whether they're, when they are leaking it into their employees and you can't fake it. People know you can go in with a smile, but if you're not feeling it, everyone knows.
Jeff Holman, Host (27:09.954)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (27:17.903)
They see the leakage. I'm have to bring that phrase into one of my team discussions here. Sorry to be leaking all over you. No, this is fascinating, Rochelle. I mean, what I'm taking away from this, in addition to the words you're saying, is there are so many layers to this from personal performance as a CEO to team performance, from...
Rochelle Carrington (27:20.216)
Yes.
I hate it.
Jeff Holman, Host (27:42.103)
you know, making maybe the right decisions or better decisions to making faster decisions that that benefit the team. I love the I love the layering here and we might need to explore this again. It's at some point in the future. But in the meantime, where where could people find you if they want to if they want to hear more about performance drag or if they feel like maybe maybe I've got some performance drag that I need to that I need to address? How would they how would they get in touch with you?
Rochelle Carrington (28:10.03)
Well, the easiest thing we created a free performance drag scorecard. takes about a minute and it will give you an instant result and tell you how much performance drag you have and what you can do about it. And so people can find that by either going to my website, emotionalbp.com. You'll just find a little button on there and click that, or you can go to bit.ly. So it's bit.ly slash.
founder scorecard and that's free. can instantly find out what your level of performance drag is. And then of course you can also find me on LinkedIn and lots of different articles and YouTube videos that you can find on there and learn more about performance drag there as well.
Jeff Holman, Host (28:56.151)
I love it. love it. Well, this has been really insightful Rochelle and just want to say thank you for joining me today and sharing these insights with me. It's been a pleasure having you on.
Rochelle Carrington (29:05.302)
Absolutely, thank you so much.
Jeff Holman, Host (29:07.531)
And thanks to our audience for joining us again on another episode of the breakout CEO podcast.
Jeff Holman, Host (29:15.487)
All right, that'll do that. Sorry for.
