The Execution Trap: What’s Really Blocking Your Progress – Business Execution in Edmonton
Business Execution and the 4E Method: Why Entrepreneurs Get Stuck Between Dreaming and Doing
Let me guess. Your whiteboard is full. Your schedule’s packed, but your business still feels stuck. This episode cuts through the noise about the hustle and hacks and gets real about the difference between dreaming and doing.
Bruce Baker joins us to break down the 4E method of results, a system built for entrepreneurs who are tired of spinning their wheels and want aligned, sustainable growth.
I have a quote from Jeff Bezos. Execution is the only strategy the customer sees. Well, isn’t that true?
That is very, very true. Yeah. Execution. It’s all about executing, which we’re going to talk about today.
I think I’m going to share a quick statistic with you guys today. According to McKenzie’s 2025 entrepreneur performance report, entrepreneurs who tie daily action to emotional commitment are 3.2 times more likely to report sustained business growth and reduced burnout.
Okay, I’m going to jump into some questions here for you, Bruce.
Absolutely.
Let’s start right here. What do you see as the most common reason service-based business owners stall out even when they have a solid plan?
Yeah, it’s a great question. the biggest issue is that you know whether it’s service based but we’ll stick to service base for today but generally people get emotionally invested into something. We all do we react emotionally first and then after it’s done and so-called executed we think back logically and rationally and saying well should I have done it that way? Maybe I didn’t do it the right way.
The issue here is that we get overly emotionally involved or invested in something and we get ready to execute and then we find that we don’t execute whether it’s efficiently or we don’t execute at all. So we tend to fall back into that back to that same part again where we say you know what I’m just not executing. I know I need to do it. I’ve read this book. I’ve spoken to this person, but nothing’s happening. And I’m just getting to that point where, you know what, I’m going to give up because I’m just not getting things moving forward.
And the big reason for that is expectation setting or that reality check. No one really wants to have their bubbles burst.
Right. Right.
And you know, they say the great leaders, the great business owners are the ones that are truly surrounded more by naysayers than they are by yaysers. And those naysayers are so important because you get emotionally invested with something. And no one’s saying you shouldn’t get emotionally invested, but you get emotionally invested in something, but you’ve still got to see what the reality looks like relative to getting whatever you want to get going.
Once you align yourself and you get comfortable with that reality or the practical nature of something you’re about to embark on, then you are far more likely to execute. Because when it comes to that day or you know 2 days or 3 days before we’re going to launch or we’re going to do whatever we want to do to make it a reality, we’re not basing it purely on the initial emotional investment we made. We’re basing it on the emotional investment which is the key to start but we’re basing it on the practical reality, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Now you’ve got a very strong base that allows you to execute and achieve the results based on what you expect to happen both positive or negative and deal with it effectively.
Okay. No, that’s really good insight. You know a lot of people they start their business and you know they’re very excited.
Oh yeah.
In the very beginning and you know then reality hits and you’re like oh I’m not as excited about this. So this could be a good talk especially if you’re an entrepreneur and you’re looking to get unstuck and get to the next level.
So the next question I have for you Bruce is you say that strategy isn’t the issue, execution is. Now why do you think we confuse planning with progress?
Well, it’s another great question Trevor. When we unpack strategy, we try to define strategy. It’s the plan of actions or a bunch of actions that you’re going to take in sequence. And the sequence is the important thing in order to achieve the outcome, achieve the objective.
Now we can sit, you and I can sit here all day long and think about how we’re going to take over the world, right? With our strategy or sequence of actions.
Sure. Talk is always easiest to do, right? With ideas, right? And that’s the easiest part. I mean, that’s and that’s kind of, you know, one of the fun parts about thinking and dreaming about business.
100%. Yeah. And the key piece over there is that, you know, we’re working on the strategy. You know, we might end the strategy off by saying, “Man, do we have a solid plan of action and we’re going to really crush this thing, right?”
But that plan or that strategy is not, how do I put it? It’s not built in reality. It’s not built in. You know, I’ve always said to business owners on a regular basis, whether it’s a startup or whether it’s just a plan of action to re-enter or rebrand or do whatever they need to do in their businesses, is plan for the worst.
And a lot of response I get is, well, I want to be positive about this, Bruce, and I want to really, you’re bursting my bubble here. I said, plan for the worst because the likelihood of the worst happening is very small, but if it does happen, you know, you’re covered for the most part, but if it doesn’t happen, you’ve got a killer plan of action and so many contingencies that are built in.
So, planning is one thing. Strategic thinking and exe and planning is another thing. the the execution of that needs to be bound in reality. And we find over and over again that people have got phenomenal strategies in place.
Mhm.
But guess what doesn’t happen? It’s the actual results, the actual execution that doesn’t occur.
Yeah. I mean, it’s so easy to get excited about a project or a plan, but when the rubber hits the road, it’s kind of like when somebody is wanting to, you know, shed a few pounds, let’s say, right? it always seems good until you start doing the plan. Then you’re like, “Oh, this super sucks. I don’t like this.” and then it’s easy to not execute on those ideals that you know are going to bring the results, but you just you still don’t do it.
So, it’s kind of, you know, learning how to do hard things.
Yeah.
And even if you don’t like it.
Yeah.
Even in spite of you not liking it, you still do those hard things and building that muscle.
Yeah.
Emotional Investment and Expectation Setting
Why Reality Checks Protect Business Owners From Burnout
So, the next question that we’ve got here is in the 4E pyramid, emotional investment is the base. How can a business owner know if they’re disconnected from what they’re building?
Yeah, great question. It’s that that emotional investment, as you say, is the base. The second part of that pyramid or the second piece of that pyramid is the reality of setting those expectations every single time without fail. business owners that get to a point of execution and they find that they’re spiraling. They find that they’re exhausted. They find that they’re, you know, the classical word burnout, right? is there primarily because they start with that emotional investment piece which everybody will do naturally. So that’s a given in the pyramid, right?
But they skip the reality section and the expectation settings or the reality of establishing your expectations is not there. Now the problem is the contrast and humans don’t deal very well with the contrast. If you want to you know we talk about pattern interrupted we talk about trying to persuade people. We want to show contrast because it’s something completely different. They’re not expecting it and you know assuming that it’s for a good reason that’s fine but in this case that pattern interrupt is too abrupt and what happens is that people skip that reality piece the second level of the pyramid and then they don’t execute right and the reason they don’t execute is because now like you said earlier on suddenly I find myself in this very uncomfortable place.
I was told I had to lose 20 pounds But I didn’t realize that it had to do with this. I didn’t realize I was going to feel like this. So what happens is actually once you start to desensitize yourself through some reality checks. Interestingly enough, when it gets to the point that you actually do it, it’s not that uncomfortable, right?
And the mind is a phenomenal thing. We desensitize ourselves to something through proper planning, but also the reality checks. And when you get to that plan, when you get to that execution, it’s far less saying, I didn’t expect this. I’m not too sure I can deal with this anymore.
Instead, it is, I knew this was coming. I prepared myself for it, and I’m not going to give up. I’m going to do this. And this is where a lot of resilience, which by the way, resilience is the probably another one competency for all business owners, right? that resiliency kicks in and say and doesn’t put you down a spiral of saying, you know what, I’m not going to do this. I’m giving up.
And then what happens? It puts you right back to the bottom of the pyramid again.
Yeah. What I found in just doing business because, you know, I’m a doer. I like to get stuff going and my expectation is, you know, I want it to happen faster.
Yes.
I want it to happen right now. I want things, you know, to occur quickly. impatience was the the big thing that I had to deal with and I had to learn over time in my business things take a lot longer than you expect them to.
Absolutely.
And that’s probably one of the big sticking points with the execution. you still have to be able to execute even when things are taking longer than you think they should. I don’t know what are your thoughts on that?
Oh, it’s a wonderful point a wonderful point of insight for everybody. we we find ourselves in a world where you know instant gratification is always there. with that instant gratification reduces patience and when patience start to reduce we become a lot more anxious quicker because we’re not getting what we emotionally invested in.
Mhm.
And that patience is also results in superficial thinking and super superficial critical thinking. The planning is the actual part of getting to that execution. So you know I’m sitting here and I’m doing this. I’ve tried this for at least the last 10 days and nothing has happened. No one’s calling. No one’s doing anything right.
And it’s because of the misinterpretation or the misunderstanding you’ve established for yourself by not going into the reality checkpoint.
Yeah.
And what happens is that you sit with this reality that you’ve just created for yourself being false and being very inaccurate because life doesn’t present an immediate fix most of the time. It’s some good work, consistency of that work and making sure that you stick with it.
Yeah.
And this is something where a lot of unfortunately a lot of businesses within their first 12 months die because of that impatience or lack of patience as you mentioned. And you know we talk about setting expectations sometimes people said unrealistic expectations which we we we need to manage.
Yeah. Yeah.
So the next question we have here is let’s talk about tradeoffs. what are the red flags that someone is skipping the expectation setting layer?
Yeah. lots of red flags, but the biggest red flag is, you know, I spoke to a client when was it about 2, three days ago, and the first comment she made to me is that I’m sick to my stomach. And I said, “What’s going on?” She says, “I just don’t know if I can deal with this anymore.”
And I had shown her and demonstrated to her that she was going to try to get her business out of trouble, and this is a well-established business, five, six years old.
Sure.
but has significant financial constraints. And I had said to her that you got to remember that money is an outcome of effort. In this case, you’re struggling with cash. If you’re struggling with cash, cash is not the issue. There are things that you’re not doing. And you’ve got to start actioning on those things. No matter how scary it may seem to you and seem to you is the, you know, the the key over there, right?
And trying to get her and thank goodness she’s starting to move in a different direction now, but trying to get someone to realize that, you know, I can I have to move from this point to that point if I want something to become better or get better. The red flag is someone that is I just I’ve tried everything. I’m doing everything I can. I wasn’t meant to succeed in life. My business is going to absolutely fail. And regardless of what I do at this stage, nothing’s going to help, right?
You are clearly moving toward a burnout situation. And I lose I use the word burnout very loosely because there’s so many definitions, but you are moving to a point where you absolutely paralyze yourself. And as the leader, if you are paralyzed or there’s signs of paralysis, guess what happens to the rest of your leaders and the rest of your business? It tends to snowball.
Yeah. it’s almost like you become infectious. You’re infecting your your team with that negativity and it can become like a self-fulfilling prophecy that everything’s going to go poorly for you. So you got to turn that around pretty quickly.
Yeah. And the big the other important thing there as well is that you don’t even realize that you’re infectious, right? Not in a good way.
Not in a good way. Yeah.
Absolutely. And you want to know why your team behaves that way. Well, comes from the leader all the time.
Yeah. Everything goes from the top down.
You betcha. Yeah. You can’t get around it.
No, definitely. So, let’s go to the next question.
Business Execution vs Hustle Energy
How Owners Create Results Instead of Busy Work
What’s the difference between hustle energy and real energy? And how do you help owners fuel themselves sustainably?
Yeah, it’s a great question. Hustle hustle energy is something that most business owners are proud of and I don’t like to do this but this is where I burst the bubble a lot of the times where you know so how things going in the business Trevor, and Trevor says you know oh just so busy and blah blah blah blah blah right and hustle, hustle, hustle and but deep down inside you feel you feel good about saying that but then I ask the question simply, so what results have you achieved the last week as a result of this hustle?
And he says, well, now that you say that, Bruce, they think back, they reflect, and then they realize that, well, I managed to go out for lunch with a customer on Friday.
No, no, no. But what have you actually achieved in the business with all this hustle going on?
Mhm.
And so, and I’m sure our listeners, and I’m sure you’ve heard of this as well, is people are busy. Well, that’s great that you’re busy and that you’re hustling, but with that energy, did you actually create a result?
And you know, when when you think about why you do business in the first place, it’s to create something. It’s to create something of value for the end user. If you’re not creating something of value for yourself first within your business, you’re definitely going to struggle adding value to your end user.
Change that hustle energy. And it’s not, you can have the hustle energy. There’s nothing negative about hustle. But as long as it’s giving you some type of return on investment where you actually execute and you create a result and I can promise you that that result will be far more rewarding and liberating than saying I’m busy or I was busy.
Yeah. That’s, you know, one of the one of the things that really bothers me with some of my clients is, you know, oh, I’m so busy. I’m so busy, yet I’m so broke. Like, that those two things don’t make any sense to me. Like, how can you be busy and broke at the same time? you’re obviously busy doing things that don’t move the needle for your business. They don’t move the right KPIs for your business. so no that’s that’s a great point that you make and I think you know people if they direct their energy towards doing things that actually create a result for their end end user or their client then they’ll feel more fulfilled doing that than just you know creating busy work.
Yeah.
Right.
You’re right and and you remind me of you know even you know let’s leave the client or the end user out just for a second and think about what is it that I want to produce or I want to create or achieve this week. If there’s anything I want to achieve, right, and I’m dealing with a client right now that’s in a lot of trouble, and we’re getting them out of trouble, but if there’s one thing that the two of you as partners want to achieve this week that’s going to take your business to the next level next week, and we do this in small little spurts, right? And next level doesn’t necessarily mean to stratospheric levels.
Yeah, next level means what can we do that’s more innovative and more effective at the end of the week that builds us for next week. The joy and the liberation, the feeling of accomplishment is just as large, right? Because they’ve done it for themselves. They made their business better. and where people can start to, you know, think a little bit more or or maybe invest a little bit more time in and saying at the end of the week, did I accomplish it? And if I did accomplish it, what’s the impact of that accomplishment?
And it’s just it takes the business owner to the next level.
It definitely does. Yeah. You know, just like in professional sports, a lot of it is playing the mental game.
Yeah.
Right. like doing the hard things regardless of the circumstance.
Absolutely.
Yeah, that’s awesome. I love it.
The next question we have is when execution feels hard, chaotic or inconsistent, what’s usually broken in the pyramid?
It’s it goes back it goes back to that expectation setting and the reason why that reality is so important and consequently why people see inconsistency is that not everything has been thought out okay right now I know that a lot of people will say Bruce we can’t think of everything yes but you can think of most things right that Inconsistency is, you know, it’s like an old car that just sputters along. It gets to a certain point, then it stops. wow. We got to go check. Open up the hood of the car and we look and we try to fix a few things up. We, you know, put a band-aid over it. And we’re just doing this to eventually get to the to to to the mechanic, right, to finally fix our vehicle.
Yeah, when we sputter, when we do things inconsistently, it either means because we really didn’t prepare in the beginning, right? That emotional to reality setting also because the inconsistencies are people getting burnt out, people getting, you know, disengaged by something that’s not working.
And it’s interesting because as you go through the process of trying it out based on the plan, trying it out, executing, it doesn’t work. I say, “Okay, I better do it again. Try it out. Doesn’t work.”
And what people do is they say, similar to what you said earlier on, they stay stuck in that cycle.
Yeah.
And I’ll go to them and say, “Well, are you doing what we discussed we would do?” and they’d say, “Yeah, like verbatim exactly what I’m what you had mentioned and what we discussed. If it’s not working, why is it not working? Maybe we should go back and do something a little different.”
Which tells me, and we should tell us all that even though you’re going through this process of emotional going up the pyramid as we as we talk about, there’s going to be a point where reality just says, “Hey, man, I want to do this a little differently.”
Mhm.
And if you’re not going to do this a little differently, regardless of what you planned and you you worked through the model and all that type of good stuff, this is not going to work.
And people need to realize that you may have to do little things differently. And just because you went through the model and you did all those things, great. There’s going to have to be a little bit of pivoting as you work through the process. So don’t get stuck in that inconsistency if something’s not working.
Yeah. And you know, you always have to be ready to to change plans, change direction. especially when you’re noticing like the results aren’t coming through. So, okay, let’s rejig the plan.
Absolutely.
And you know, get going in this different direction because you, you know, you’re going to continually beat your head against the wall, you know, doing the same thing. It’s like the definition of insanity. You do the same thing and expect a different result. Well, if if things need to change, then just go ahead and be open to that.
Absolutely. And don’t see, you know, it’s a completely different topic that we will discuss eventually, but this thing of failure.
Mhm.
Right. When something doesn’t work, did you fail? Of course, you did.
But failure is not there to bring you down. Failure is there to say, hey, some feedback to you that X is not working. Let’s try Y.
Yeah. And you know, being a marketing expert yourself, Jeb, you you know that at the end of the day, it’s trying, testing, retesting. Does the market respond? Does the market not respond? the same thing in a business. A business is a system, and a system requires testing before it continues to work sustainably.
Yes.
And we’ve got to keep it going in small little increments to get it working eventually. Don’t give up. Failure is great. It’s the best teacher in the world.
Yeah. I couldn’t agree more. Yeah.
Applying the 4E Method in Business
Startups, Scaleups, Turnarounds, and Aligned Execution
All right. So, you’ve worked with startups, scaleups, and turnarounds. Now, which of each of those types of founders typically get stuck?
Every single one of them for different reasons.
Sure.
And I’ll unpack that a little bit for you. So, in terms of startups, it’s very easy probably for them the most because they haven’t experienced what it means to start a business up and to scale that business, right? they haven’t necessarily experienced what it means to be a leader. We we have a lot of professionals out there trades professionals any any professional for that reason that says I want to start up the business because I think I can do it better or I want to start up a business because I love to be involved in that or whatever the the reason is and they get going for the first couple of months and they realize that man my dream has just been popped.
This is harder than it looks. This is much harder than it looks. And they’re changing occupations. They don’t realize I can’t be just because I’m an outstanding heavy duty equipment tech doesn’t mean I’m a great business owner, right?
So that talk about contrast, as we discussed early, that complete contrast is a kick in the pants. And a lot of them fail or stop or give up because it wasn’t based in reality, the initial planning.
Yeah.
from a scaleup standpoint and this is where people a lot of businesses that are moving up get to a point where they say okay I’m going to take my business to the next level. I just had a client the other day construction client is moving or not is in is building operations in Calgary as well which is fantastic news.
Yeah.
But they get to a point they set their expectations without really doing it correctly and bound in reality and they think more profit. They think more revenue. They think a bigger business at the end of the day. And what happens is that profitability is just not there. In actual fact, profitability goes down. And well, I didn’t sign up for this. Now this thing’s becoming a cash suck. Well, it’s going to be a cash suck for a little bit until you create and you gain maintain efficiencies.
Yeah, you have to expect that.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, when that happens, what do people typically do? Talk about that in, you know, immediate gratification or impatience. They scrap the whole thing. And then they scrap the whole thing, goes back to where their business was. And guess what happens? They still don’t see profitability. they can’t rebound based on that.
That creates that ripple effect through a business that was once prosperous and as a result has grown but unfortunately that reality expectation piece wasn’t done correctly. So it doesn’t only take away the expansion of the business or the scale of the business, it takes away the very foundation that was once fantastic that supported that growth initiative.
And then of course we’ve got, you know, those businesses that are challenged and we want to get them out of trouble. This is probably the most challenging from an emotional standpoint for both the business owner and anybody that’s helping them, right?
But in this case, you know, I’ve been working with a business right now, a service business for the last 3 months and pretty much, you know, and got to a point where the CRA, froze their accounts and a lot of debt and, finally we got them out of that, but one of the very first things I said to one of the owners was, “You’ve got to expect that you’re going to have to sacrifice quite a bit as we go through this process, but I can tell you right now, we’ll get you back to where you were.”
And the first thing she said was, “I’m prepared to do that.” What I didn’t do at the time was I said, “Do you understand what that sacrifice looks like?”
Yeah.
And at that point, three months later, she says, “You know, I remember you and I talking about the sacrifice.” And I was so quick to say, “I’m I’ve got this, Bruce. I’m gonna do this, Bruce. I didn’t realize this is what the sacrifice meant.”
Now, thank goodness she’s a very resilient lady and a great leader. She pivoted very quickly and redefined it for herself. and we got that desensitizing piece going in terms of the of the sacrifice and the reality of it all and that’s what’s moved her forward and you know happy to say that they’ve got some really good traction at the moment so we’re looking forward to that.
That’s great. Yeah, I love it. So let’s talk about the 4s. Let’s say somebody is listening to this video watching this video. How can they start implementing the 4E they’re at a place of, you know, maybe burnout or, you know, things aren’t aren’t going so great?
Yeah, it reminds me maybe I can just preface it by talking about where I was many years ago where I was burnt out. I was almost bankrupt and I needed to go through a process like the 4E but I struggled to get there because I was always under the impression that I’ve read all the books. I know all these things. Gosh, I’m the business guy. I should be successful at these things. No one else is going to help me. Right?
until someone eventually did and got me to a point where like I said, the kick in the pants where I moved from nothing else is going to help me to okay, you know what, I’ve got no other choice. Let me give this a try. But this is just so silly, but let me give it a try regardless. Right? You’ve got to get to the point where you actually give yourself the opportunity to try and tinker with something, a way of thinking that is likely going to make a big difference in your life.
And for those that are in this position, I want to encourage them to give it a try. Try it out. And what they’ll experience is that the 4E is a very natural process that all of us have the ability to do except we don’t do it for all the reasons that we’ve just discussed like the instant gratification, the lack of patience, etc.
But the very first thing to do is put that in front of you. Put that pyramid in front of you and discipline yourself to say, “Okay, do I want to get out of trouble? Do I want to scale my business or do I want to start this business up or whatever the initiative is? And how does that make you feel? Well, I’m super excited not necessarily about the process I’m going to go through cuz I don’t know what that looks like yet, but I’m super excited to, because I see that end reality, that end goal vision.
be excited. Get yourself jazzed up. Right? Once you’re done with that and you can actually articulate your end vision or end reality, then I want you to stop and I want you to take a piece of paper and I want you to pretty much write out all the things that can go wrong. All the negatives, right?
And again, people are going to say, “Well, I don’t want to feel negative. I’ve been so negative for the last couple of months anyway. So now you’re making me feel negative again.” I want you to do that for yourself. And then once you’ve established that, then I want you to think about, okay, I’ve I’ve I’ve put the worst case scenario in front of me. I know what that reality looks like. Now, I’m going to set expectations that actually energize me. Right?
Once I am energized, not just by excitement, but through the reality that I’m going to go through, then establish that plan based on that. Right? Energize yourself based on that plan. And I can guarantee you, and not everybody can’t guarantee things, but I’m telling everybody that I can guarantee you that if you follow those steps, watch your execution, you’re going to experience things are going right for the first time. Not all of them are going to go right, but more often they’re going to be right than wrong.
Right? That feeling of acknowledgement and the experience of something that has gone right after a while is just the pendulum. It gets, you know, gets swinging. And the more you get right, the more it’s going to continue to go right. You may have something that knocks you off your feet for a little bit, get right back on because the path that you’re on is the right one. And then you’ll start seeing momentum and results coming your way. It never fails.
Okay, Bruce. So what does it look like when somebody is actually you know executing in alignment like what what shifts and and what does that look like for them?
Yeah, it’s, you know, the one picture that comes to mind when I think about that and what I’ve experienced is it’s like a baseline, right? this is the average of the line and people, you know, you look at a second little wavy line, people are going to go up and down, up and down.
When people get it right, they’re going up and down but are remaining within that baseline, right?
When people are not getting it right, they have these huge spikes. They live in a tick-tock fashion, right?
Okay.
And we find that there’s great success and then there’s an absolute fall from grace, right?
The people that are in there, is that inconsistency that you mentioned earlier on. They’re inconsistent because they haven’t followed. They’ve skipped. It’s very easy to skip those stages, right?
But when people are moving or humming along, it’s the bunny hop pattern as opposed to the tick tock pattern. When they’re humming along, they’re taking the successes or the achievements in stride just as they are going to not be as successful at certain points, but ultimately everything averages out to momentum or traction.
Mhm.
And that traction is what’s what we look for. Why? Because the traction, not in extremes, but the traction that they experience is what keeps them going. is that fuel that keeps them going. They realize that they didn’t have the best week this week, but hey, I know I’ve got next week, right? But I’ve also learned something this week that’s going to make the next week even better.
Yeah.
So we want to see that flow. We don’t want to see extremes. So don’t get over excited by things and don’t absolutely demean yourself if things don’t work out, right?
No, that’s excellent advice. I think that’s that’s great for everybody who is in business or wanting to get in business should, you know, really think about you know, when I when you’re just describing that that there I’m thinking about, you know, you’re stacking up small wins. You’re stacking up small wins over time incrementally. Sometimes you’re going to have a fall back, a little bit of a pullback, but as long as you’re, you know, consistently gaining some wins, that can give you the fuel to continue and keep going.
Yeah.
even if you have a setback, Yeah. Right. Yeah. so, yeah. No, thanks so much for taking the time to share your knowledge and expertise in the business consulting world. Guys, if you’re looking for a business consultant who can help you get to the next level and set those expectations and realities, talk to Bruce at Workplaces.
And we’ll leave a link to his ebook in the description so you can go ahead and get it there. See you next time. Thanks.