My friend Blake is an IBM sales leader. Absolutely crushing it, making $800,000 a year, recently got married, looks like he’s got a good thing going. But he’s completely miserable. They gave him a $200,000 budget to hire a team. It’s sitting there, untouched, Because “nobody can do it as well as me.” He’s working 20-hour days, his year-and-a-half marriage is falling apart, and he’s trapped in this prison he built himself.

This is exactly what I see happening with MSP owners all the time. Every time I speak at an event, I ask how many people started as solopreneurs. Almost every hand goes up. We all started the same way. We’re amazing at the tech stuff. Clients love us because we solve their problems. Then we start our own business, and suddenly we’re not just technicians anymore. We need to be leaders, salespeople, marketers, managers – but we’re still thinking like that technician who has to do everything themselves.

Dan Martell said something in his book, Buy Back Your Time, that changed my perspective completely. He said, “80% of NOT ME is freaking awesome.” Someone else doing a task at 80% of your capability isn’t a downgrade – it’s actually fantastic. But man, that’s a hard pill to swallow when you’re used to doing everything yourself.

Just last week, one of our Inner Circle Elite members – brilliant tech guy – confessed that he’s been “helping out too many friends or friends of friends.” He was barely making any margin, which meant he couldn’t hire help, which meant he was stuck doing everything himself.

Another owner – she’s been in the business for 15 years – told me she struggles with “people pleasing and not doing the investments back in my business when I know I should.” We’ve all been there, right? We know we should raise our prices, or invest in that new tool, or hire that person, but something holds us back.

Imposter syndrome. I work with MSP owners who speak at major industry events, who run million-dollar businesses, and they still come to me saying, “Chris, what the hell do I know?” Then they get on stage and realize they know more than 99% of the people in the room. That voice in our head never completely goes away. We just learn to push through it.

One of our most successful members told me, “I struggle with tying too much of my self-worth to doing stuff in my business instead of delegating it to other people.”

How about “keeping bad employees too long” syndrome? We’ve all done it. We keep investing time and energy, hoping they’ll improve, while our business suffers. Because we’re afraid of making a change, afraid of admitting we made a bad hire, afraid of the unknown.

One of the most common fears I hear about is public speaking. “There’s no way in the world I will ever get on a stage.” I get it. The thought of standing up there, all eyes on you – it’s terrifying. But getting on stage is one of the fastest ways to build trust. You can’t grow beyond a certain point without it. Sure, you might survive without ever speaking publicly, but you’ll hit a ceiling. I guarantee it.

Same thing with sales and marketing. I see so many technical people get uncomfortable the moment we start talking about selling. But the MSP owners in our community who follow our systems and processes are miles ahead of those who are still winging it.

I can summarize the lesson of this article in two words. “I can.” That’s it. What’s that saying? “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right”.

One of our members was terrified of losing their biggest client, a whale who represented 40% of their revenue. They were so afraid of losing them they let them walk all over them, ignored their standard procedures, made special exceptions. It made things worse. The client became more demanding, the team got frustrated, and the business suffered.

When this same owner finally decided to treat their biggest client the same as their smallest – enforcing all their standards and processes – something amazing happened. Not only did they keep the client, but they gained their respect. And their business started to grow because they weren’t bending over backwards anymore.

Time management is another big one. I used to identify as one of the “late kids”? Always running behind, always apologizing for being late. Then I decided to start showing up up five minutes early to everything. People’s perception of you completely changes. Your relationship dynamic shifts.

How about your health? One of our members recently shared how he lost 45 pounds, and man, you should have seen the difference it made. Not just in how he felt, but in how he showed up as a leader. When you take care of yourself, it radiates through your whole business. Your team notices. Your clients notice.

I’m going to be really honest with you here – I struggled with this myself. We all know we should be taking care of ourselves, but when you’re caught up in the day-to-day firefighting of running an MSP, it’s the first thing that goes out the window. But what I’ve learned is the times when you think you can’t afford to focus on your health are exactly the times when you can’t afford not to.

That’s one of the best things about peer groups. I remember one member who was really hesitant to open up about his struggles. He thought he was the only one dealing with these issues. You know what happened when he finally started talking? He realized we’re all fighting the same battles.

One of our members was agonizing over raising his prices. He’d been putting it off for months, scared of losing clients. In one of our group sessions, he found out that five other owners had successfully raised their prices in the last quarter. Not only did they keep most of their clients, but they were finally making the margins they deserved. He implemented the same changes the next week.

Fear of failure is another one. People spending six months trying to perfect a plan they could have started executing in week one. It’s paralysis by analysis.

One of our most successful members told me once, “Success isn’t about avoiding problems – it’s about how quickly you solve them.” We’re all going to face challenges. We’re all going to make mistakes. The difference is how fast you bounce back.

So many MSP owners put in 60-80 hour weeks, grinding themselves into dust. But the breakthrough never comes from adding more hours. It comes when they change how they approach those hours.

One of our veteran members said, “It took me fifteen years to become an overnight success.” That’s the reality nobody talks about.

Here are my top 10 mindset shifts that I’ve seen transform businesses over and over again:

1. First, you’ve got to revisit your ‘why’ regularly. One of our members was feeling stuck until he went back to why he started his business in the first place – to create something bigger than himself. That clarity changed everything.
2. Second – and this is huge – consistency beats intensity every time. One of our members started doing daily team huddles. Nothing fancy, just 15 minutes every morning. Within months, his team’s productivity went through the roof. Small, regular actions compound over time.
3. Third, and this might be tough to hear, but you need to rethink who you’re spending time with. There’s this saying: you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Take a hard look at your circle. Are they pushing you to grow, or keeping you comfortable?
4. Fourth, you’ve got to embrace failure. One of our members went through a failed merger. Painful? Absolutely. But he learned more about due diligence from that experience than any course could have taught him.
5. Fifth is all about discipline. The most successful MSP owners I know have non-negotiable routines. Morning routines, weekly planning sessions, monthly reviews – they stick to these no matter what.
6. Sixth – and this was a major breakthrough for me – surround yourself with people smarter than you. Stop being the smartest person in the room. It’s killing your growth.
7. Seventh, invest in yourself even when money’s tight. Especially when money’s tight. The owners who keep pushing forward during tough times are the ones who break through.
8. Eighth, write down your goals and visualize them daily. Sounds simple, right? But I can’t tell you how many breakthrough moments started with this basic practice.
9. Ninth, push through that impostor syndrome. You know that voice that says “who am I to do this?” Everyone has it. Even the seven-figure MSP owners in our community still hear it sometimes. The difference is they act anyway.
10. And tenth – this one’s really important – give yourself some grace. You’re going to mess up. You’re going to have bad days. The key is how quickly you get back on track.

Once you get your head right, everything else starts falling into place.

Here’s what I know for sure: cash flow solves most problems. But your mindset determines whether you’ll generate that cash flow in the first place.

Oh, and by the way, after you go from “I can’t” to “I can”, the next level-up is “I will”.

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