Rethinking Growth How Complexity Holds You Back

Ryan Haylett

There’s this thing most business owners never admit, at least not out loud. Growth feels harder than it ever has. Even when you’re not cutting corners, even when you’re following all the so-called best practices, it just… doesn’t move the way it used to. A decade ago, you could put your shoulder to the wheel and, with enough effort, actually see things shift a bit. It wasn’t easy. But it felt fair. Put in the hours, see the reward. Simple equation, right?

Ryan Haylett

But now? More and more, I hear from folks who have been disciplined their whole career, done the late nights, tracked the KPIs, read every book, joined all the right masterminds… and still feel like they’re pushing against glass. The traction’s not there. And most of them don’t even talk about it, because it sounds like complaining. They look around and think, “Maybe I’m missing something obvious. Maybe I’m just not keeping up. Maybe I don’t want it badly enough anymore.” That doubt starts to creep in. And I’ll be honest, it’s a familiar feeling.

Ryan Haylett

The world we came up in told us that friction was a personal failure. That hustle makes growth inevitable, and, if you’re stuck, it’s your fault. That’s the myth. And it’s a powerful one, because it teaches you—subtly—to question yourself before you ever question the environment. Thing is, the environment has changed. Quietly, but dramatically. And that’s where the trouble starts.

Ryan Haylett

See, the most dangerous part of getting stuck isn’t the pain itself, it’s the stories your brain starts telling. Over time, effort stops correlating with progress, and instead of stepping back and asking what’s shifted, you start rewriting your self-worth. You think maybe you’re just not cut out for it anymore. Or you “grew soft.” That’s not what’s happening. And if you feel it too, you’re not alone.

Ryan Haylett

What’s really changed? We got more tools, more opportunities, sure. But with every tool, came another obligation. Slack, email, analytics dashboards, social media, all those productivity apps—think about it. Each of them promised to save time and create leverage. But now you find yourself checking five inboxes before lunch, fielding notifications from Slack, DMs, texts, all while trying to stay on top of Zoom calls, weekly metrics, and publishing three pieces of content a week. It’s not broken tech. These things do work, on their own. But together? They add up to a sort of invisible drag.

Ryan Haylett

And it’s sneaky, because for a long time, having more tools really did mean more power. Now, it’s like you’re running a marathon carrying a backpack full of rocks. There’s power under the hood, but the parking brake’s still on. You might feel busy, all that context switching, the constant mental cycling, but somehow, you end up staring at the same revenue numbers month after month. Even the simplest task is now three systems deep. Slack message turns into an email, turns into a meeting, turns into an entire week gone before anything ships.

Ryan Haylett

The very stuff that was supposed to create leverage (letting you do more with less) has flipped. Now you’re doing more just to stay even. You used to be able to choose one or two high-impact moves and see real results. Now it feels like you’re spinning a thousand tiny plates, and if you stop, everything crashes. That’s not leverage anymore. That’s just fragmentation.

Ryan Haylett

Real talk, sometimes it feels absurd. I mean, I’ll catch myself thinking, “Wait, wasn’t this supposed to free up my time?” Instead, it’s a parade of meetings, notifications, spreadsheet audits, and more decisions, most of which don’t matter. But they demand your mental bandwidth anyway.

Ryan Haylett

Here’s where things get interesting. When you start to peel some of this back, you notice something: the businesses that are actually moving forward, especially right now, aren’t hustling harder than everyone else. They’re just not as busy, at least not in the same way. They’re brutally clear on what needs to happen. Fewer decisions. Fewer distractions. Systems that remove friction, not just automate the noise.

Ryan Haylett

This isn’t the glamorous stuff. It’s not the 100-hour workweek, hero-on-a-grind-mission narrative we’ve all been sold. It’s quiet. It’s about subtracting more than adding. It’s seeing how much you can remove before anything breaks. That’s where clarity and structure show up, replacing all those scattered actions with a handful of routines that actually get results.

Ryan Haylett

There’s a kind of relief in that simplicity. You don’t have to manufacture discipline out of thin air every morning. It’s built into the bones of the business. You can actually see what’s happening and why, instead of just feeling like you’re at the mercy of the daily flood.

Ryan Haylett

Right now, structure and simplicity outperform raw hustle. That’s what creates lasting growth. It’s almost boring, until you realize boring is what works.

Ryan Haylett

So if it feels like you’re stuck, and all those hours aren’t moving the needle, it’s not you. It’s the nature of the system. Growth in this environment doesn’t reward heroics, it rewards clarity. The folks who seem to “still make it work” aren’t doing everything. They’ve stopped mistaking activity for progress. They make fewer decisions, not more. They strip out anything that doesn’t help the business breathe.

Ryan Haylett

Feeling stuck isn’t a character flaw. I’ll say that again, feeling stuck isn’t a character flaw. It’s just feedback that what you’re up against isn’t personal, it’s systemic.

Ryan Haylett

The biggest frustration usually comes from trying to win by old rules. We keep thinking the game is about more effort, more hustle, outworking the next person. That game’s changed. The environment changed. So if you take one thing away from this, it’s that before you go hunting for the next hack or the shiniest tool, ask yourself if you’re playing the right game, with the right rules. Most of the struggle isn’t about working harder. It’s about understanding exactly what you’re up against.

Ryan Haylett

Maybe that’s where progress really starts, not with more movement, but with naming what’s actually holding you back. The rest is just… noise.