How One Simple Word Is Destroying Your Company
My conversation with Natalyn Lewis
What if I told you that one simple word is quietly sabotaging your company's growth, killing your team's momentum, and keeping your best strategies trapped in endless cycles of resistance?
That word is "but."
In this week's episode of Finding Peak, I sat down with performance coach Natalyn Lewis to unpack one of the most insidious productivity killers in business: the "Yes, But" trap.
Listen to the Podcast
What started as a conversation about my transition from investor to CEO of an AI startup with just seven months of runway left became a masterclass in understanding why teams get stuck—and more importantly, how to get them unstuck.
Connect with Natalyn Lewis
Natalyn Lewis is a performance coach and founder of AscendEQ.
You can find her on LinkedIn or visit ascendeq.com to learn more about her approach to turning resistant teams into high-performing ones.
The Moment Everything Clicked
Picture this: You're in a strategy meeting.
Everyone agrees on the direction.
The data is clear. The opportunity is obvious.
Then someone says, "Yes, that sounds great, but what about..." and suddenly you're spiraling into analysis paralysis.
Sound familiar?
Natalyn introduced me to a concept that immediately changed how I think about team dynamics.
When your team defaults to "Yes, but," they're not being thorough or strategic—they're being human. And that humanity, while understandable, is killing your momentum.
The Neuroscience Behind the Resistance
Here's what's really happening in those frustrating meetings where nothing gets decided:
Your brain operates on a simple principle: safety equals survival. And do you know what feels safe to your brain? The known. The past. The things you've already done before.
When you propose focusing on one product, one strategy, one clear direction, your team's brains immediately start scanning for threats.
They've never done this exact thing before, so their neural alarm system starts firing: "But what if we lose revenue from our other products? But what if this doesn't work? But what if, but what if, but what if..."
This isn't weakness—it's biology. But understanding it is the first step to overcoming it.
The "Yes, And" Solution
Natalyn shared a game-changing exercise that I immediately implemented with my team. Instead of fighting the "buts," you capture them.
Here's how it works:
When your team says, "Yes, we should focus on one product, but..." you respond with: "Perfect. What exactly is your concern? Let's write it down."
Then you do something most leaders never do—you acknowledge every single concern and show how your action plan addresses it.
When people see their fears acknowledged and systematically addressed, something magical happens: their brains stop barking at them.
The resistance melts away because you've transformed the unknown future into something that feels manageable and safe.
Performance Coaching vs. Therapy: A Critical Distinction
One of the most provocative aspects of our conversation centered on a topic that has become increasingly controversial in business circles: the distinction between performance coaching and therapy.
Natalyn made a distinction that every leader needs to understand.
Therapy asks, "What happened in your past that's causing this behavior?"
Performance coaching asks, "What can we control right now to create the future we want?"
Both have their place, but in business, we've swung too far toward rumination and not far enough toward action.
When your team member boots a ground ball (to use my baseball coaching analogy), the question isn't "What childhood trauma caused you to miss that ball?"
It's "What's the next play?"
This isn't about being callous—it's about being effective. Your body doesn't know the difference between experiencing trauma and reliving it through endless analysis.
Every time you rehash past failures in excruciating detail, you're literally putting your nervous system through the stress all over again.
The Leadership Lesson from Little League
I shared a story from coaching my sons' baseball team that perfectly illustrates this principle.
When kids make mistakes, they have two choices: crumble inward with self-pity or focus on the next opportunity.
I told Natalyn about a parent who asked me how to stop her kid from crying every time something didn't go his way.
My response was blunt: "Tell him to suck it up."
Not because I'm heartless, but because that crying performance isn't for me—it's not helping the team, and it's certainly not helping him get better.
The kids who learn to move from mistake to next opportunity become the kids who thrive under pressure. The same principle applies to your team members.
The Real Cost of Mental Softness
Here's where this conversation gets uncomfortable but necessary: we've created a business culture where any form of discomfort is treated as a red flag requiring immediate intervention.
Feeling uncertain about a new strategy? That must mean it's wrong. Experiencing anxiety about a big decision? Better pause everything and process those feelings. Uncomfortable with risk? Let's find a safer option.
But discomfort isn't always a warning sign—sometimes it's a growth signal.
Your brain makes you uncomfortable when you're doing something new precisely because it wants you to be more aware, more careful, more engaged.
The companies that are winning right now are the ones that have learned to distinguish between productive discomfort (the kind that comes with growth) and destructive discomfort (the kind that signals real problems).
From Investor to CEO: Lessons in Crisis Leadership
My own transition from investor to CEO of a struggling AI company provided the perfect case study for these principles.
When you have seven months of runway and a team that wants to pursue four different strategies, you don't have the luxury of endless "Yes, but" conversations.
The thought experiment I used with my team was simple: "If an investor would give us $2 million tomorrow, but we could only pursue one strategy, what would it be?"
Suddenly, all the "buts" disappeared. When the stakes are clear and the constraints are real, teams find clarity fast.
The Path Forward
If you recognize your team in this description, here's your action plan:
Capture the "buts" - Don't fight resistance; document it
Address concerns systematically - Show how your plan accounts for their fears
Focus on controllable actions - What can we do right now?
Distinguish between growth discomfort and warning signals - Not all anxiety is bad.
Create clear constraints - Unlimited options create unlimited paralysis
The goal isn't to eliminate all uncertainty—it's to move forward despite it.
This is the way.
Hanley
P.S. What's your biggest "Yes, But" challenge?