Lead Better - Grow Your Practice. Live Your Purpose.

The growth paradox (or why you always feel like you're starting and never actually growing)

Nicole Harlow: Brand and Marketing Strategist for Health-Based Businesses

If you feel like you’re always “building,” but never truly expanding—this episode is your reframe. Nicole breaks down the Growth Paradox through the lens of the clinician CEO: why constant launching, tweaking, and chasing the next strategy can keep your practice stuck in perpetual start-up mode. You’ll learn how to shift from dopamine-fueled initiation into compounding, sustainable growth—by building systems your nervous system can actually sustain.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn

  • Why “busy” doesn’t equal stable (and what stability actually looks like in a practice)
  • The difference between goals vs. systems (and why goals can keep you stuck)
  • How novelty and dopamine fuel shiny object syndrome—and why optimization feels “boring”
  • The real cost of decision fatigue for clinician CEOs (and why it drains leadership capacity)
  • How fear shows up as “starting over”:
    • fear of commitment
    • fear of success
    • fear of being seen clearly
  • The CEO identity shift: stop being the machine → start building the machines
  • Why “boringly stable” leadership is a growth strategy (and a nervous-system upgrade)
  • How to create growth that compounds: slow, intelligent, sustainable scaling

Key Quotes / Soundbites

  • “You don’t need a new goal. You need better systems.”
  • “Wanting predictable patient flow doesn’t equal having it.”
  • “Every decision you don’t systematize taxes your nervous system.”
  • “You’re not meant to be the emotional shock absorber for your business—your systems are.”
  • “Boring systems create extraordinary freedom.”

Welcome!


I run three award-winning marketing / automations, branding & podcast production agencies for wellness brands, health-based businesses, health clinics and clinician entrepreneurs

Follow on Instagram @brandbetterco.

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