When Mindset Isn’t Enough: How to Vet Business Support That Actually Works
A consistent theme has been coming up in conversation with peers, friends, and clients: We’re overwhelmed by global whiplash (rising costs, crises we’re complicit in, and the toll of simply being alive) and underwhelmed by the support structures we’re paying top dollar to access.
Take my recent call with a painter who nets six figures in sales yet still drives 700 miles delivering canvases and spends Sundays buried in invoices. “I could hit seven figures if someone would just help me get my shit together. I feel like I’m walking through mud.”
Her $25K-a-year coach’s advice? “Just believe you can.”
No guidance towards a strategic lever to pull. No system recommendations. Instead, mindset served up cold and labeled “piping-hot strategy.”
Don’t get me wrong—I’m a true lover of coaching, therapy, and growth mindset. They’ve saved me more than once over the past 15 years. But that’s exactly why I refuse to perpetuate the extractive bits.
Too often, the industry delivers pep-talks in place of strategy, selling mindset that can feel more gaslighting than grounding when what you actually need is structural support.
So if you’re wondering whether the next offer will actually help? Run it through this:
Mini “Regenerative ROI” Checklist
Before you swipe your card on the next course, mastermind, or shiny tool—here’s the lens I use with clients when we’re vetting a hire, a system, or a new investment.
☐ Buyback time: Will this free up at least one hour a week within 30 days?
☐ Reduce the load: Does it replace manual work or redistribute labor—rather than stack more on your plate?
☐ System-ready: Can the benefit be turned into an SOP, workflow, or automation you could hand off?
☐ Tangible pricing: Is the cost tied to real deliverables—not vibes or promise-math?
☐ Real bottleneck: Does it address the true constraint (ops, capacity, strategy)—or just pump mindset?
☐ Explainable ROI: In 90 days, could you justify the return to a skeptical peer without squirming?
How to use it
Tick the boxes before you say yes.
Fewer than four checks? Redirect that budget into an ops fix—bookkeeping clean-up, Zapier flow, documented SOP—anything that helps your system move.
Revisit quarterly; anything still unchecked becomes a savings fund for tools that actually move the needle.
Because the goal isn’t growth for growth’s sake—it’s a business that functions without you overfunctioning.
Across industries, I hear the same chorus:
Folks grappling with decision fatigue they’ve been told is a cluster of “mindset blocks.”
Drowning in operational debt, where they’re taught to focus on top line revenue and cashflow while profit drains to ineffective operations.
Exhaustion once seven-figure masterminds ghost at implementation and blame “entitlement” and “not believing/trying enough.”
And pricing confusion, thanks to the advice to “charge your worth.” Instead, price for costs, equity, and sustainability.
What if coaching worked like engineering—diagnose → design → iterate—so the mud could be refined into business systems that function?
Work in Practice is my answer: a forthcoming strategy studio where clarity is leadership, structure is liberation, and we build regeneration into the business model (not just the marketing copy).
What if the metric isn’t perpetual growth and revenue for revenue’s sake, but regenerative capacity? What if clarity is something we build in motion, not buy in a bundle, only to get trapped in fine print and vague deliverables?
A peek at Work in Practice
Work in Practice (my new strategy studio and name for my body of work) is the banner for everything I’m building next: frameworks field-tested inside client companies, swipe-able SOPs, and live labs where we stress-test systems together. Think: practical operations meets liberatory strategy—all grounded in the messy, gorgeous reality of doing business as a human first.
This isn’t about burning it all down. It’s about building something better—with systems that actually hold us. If that’s what you’re hungry for, I want to know how to serve it.
Grateful for the read,
Brittany
