The Hidden Roadblock in Your Business Isn't Technical Skill — It's Mindset

The Mindset Mastery Memo is for ambitious professionals who want to lead with clarity, calm, and confidence. Each edition offers practical tools, mindset shifts, and real-world examples to help you navigate pressure, build stronger teams, and break free from patterns that no longer serve you—so you can lead with intention, not reaction.

When I launched my solo career as an executive coach and team facilitator back in 2001, my first order of business was, well, getting business. The internet was becoming all the rage, so I learned how to make a website and drive traffic.

My early clients were often more interested in how I marketed myself online than in what I wanted to coach them on. Soon, digital marketing became my specialty, so much so, the For Dummies people asked me to write AdWords For Dummies in 2006.

And selling the concrete skills of marketing was so easy. Nobody was confused about the benefits of having more prospects and sales. And in the Wild West days of the early aughts, there were fortunes to be made simply by doing a few clever things well.

As we marketers say, I was selling dollars for dimes.

Plot Twist!

But here's the twist: Once my clients learned the concrete skills—analyzing markets, writing ads and landing pages, running split tests—they still struggled.

The real bottleneck wasn’t technical competence; it was mindset, communication, and leadership.

They would set up dashboards and not check them, because they didn't really want to know how they were doing.

They would buy keyword research tools and not use them, because they were so overwhelmed with daily crises that they never took the time to be strategic.

They would hire young guns to do their marketing for them, and fail to communicate expectations or implement consequences when accountability broke down.

Ironically, what I'd set out to do from the beginning—coaching people to master their mindset, improve communication, and lead effectively—was what they actually needed to take advantage of my technical expertise.

History Repeats Itself

Today, almost 25 years later, I see history repeating itself. Organizations are scrambling to adapt to disruptions—AI, literal and geopolitical earthquakes, climate chaos—and rushing to equip their workforces with skills like AI collaboration, strategic scenario planning, and complexity navigation.

Yet without the human foundations—emotional intelligence, mindset mastery, effective communication, and productive conflict resolution—organizations inevitably hit the same roadblocks I observed decades ago.

So here’s something to ponder and share in the comments:

What's your organization's most critical strategic objective for the next 18–24 months, and what human skills must your people develop to achieve it?

Need a thought partner? Let’s talk about how to equip your organization with the foundational skills needed for sustained success in the decade of disruption.

You can schedule a discovery call at howiejacobson.com.