I was on a call this week with a very sharp shop owner couple. Husband's a former tech. They're in a small town—less than 20,000 people. A few years ago, they hit what felt like a wall. They were doing just over $1 million. And the wife said something that stuck with me: "I thought we had hit the pinnacle." That was it. That was the ceiling. Small town. Limited population. Can't grow past this. Makes sense, right? Then they joined a coaching program (you probably know the one, the headline of this post is the tip off). And here's where it gets interesting. They didn't learn some secret marketing hack. They didn't find a magical recruiting source. They didn't suddenly discover a pool of hidden A-techs in their area. What they discovered was that they were the problem. The wife put it simply: "Their whole big thing is fix the owner, fix the shop. And that's truly what ended up happening. We had to get fixed before we could fix the shop." This year? They're on track to more than double revenues. Same small town. Same people. Same market. The only thing that changed was them. Here's the lesson: The gap between where you are and where you want to be is rarely a strategy gap. It's an identity gap. You can't build something bigger than your current self-concept allows. These two had accidentally built a culture where everything came back to them. The staff would ask permission for things they were already empowered to decide. They called it the "What Would [Owners] Do" problem. Every decision, every question—back to mom and dad. And why? Because the owners hadn't done the internal work to trust their team. To let go. To see themselves as something other than the smartest person in the room who had to approve everything. The moment they fixed that—the revenue followed. So here's my question for you this weekend: Where might YOU be the ceiling? Not the market. Not the tech shortage. Not your town's population. Not the economy. You. What belief about yourself or your shop is keeping the lid on?

Most shop owners interview for skills. The best ones interview for scars. Here's my favorite question that cuts through the rehearsed answers: "What's a piece of criticism you received in the past that has stuck with you? What was the criticism, and why was it significant?" Why this works: People who grow remember their turning points. They can name the moment. They felt it. They changed because of it. What I'm listening for isn't the criticism itself—it's ownership. Did they take it seriously? Did they understand it? Did they change something? Or do they get defensive? Blame someone else? Minimize it? The best techs I've ever placed weren't the ones with the cleanest records. They were the ones who could point to a specific moment when someone told them something hard—and they listened. Coachability isn't a skill. It's a posture. And this question reveals it in 60 seconds. What about you? What's a piece of criticism you've received that changed how you lead or run your shop? 👇 Drop it below. I'll share mine in the comments.