The Middle Is Gone: 5 Leadership Moves Top Experts Are Making in 2026

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The Business Owner's Journey Podcast host: Nick Berry
Production Company: FCG

[Image Gallery: American Entrepreneur Nick Berry]

Episode Transcript for: The Middle Is Gone: 5 Leadership Moves Top Experts Are Making in 2026

00:00 Mid-Year 2026 Business Recap

01:46 Joe Gannon: The Middle Is Gone and AI's Impact on Expert Businesses

02:36 Five Leadership Moves for Expert Business Owners

03:06 Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Tell Yourself the Truth

04:31 Why Working Harder Won't Move You Up

05:05 Katelyn Bourgoin: Build an Ownable Idea

09:37 Natasha Walstra: Stop Hiding and Stand Out as an Expert

11:07 Debbie Oster: Decide Who You Are Not For

14:13 Jordan DiPietro: Don't Go It Alone

17:25 One Shift, Five Moves, What's Next

Nick Berry (00:12)

This is the Business Owner's Journey and I'm Nick Berry.

Being halfway through 2026, I wanted to put together something special for you. It seems like 2025 was years ago. Season three started with the interview with Anthony Trucks, and then the Dr. Benjamin Hardy interview that blew up, and then here we are. In that six months, it seems like so much has changed. And I think that some of that feeling comes from the pace that AI has given us. But more than that, it's that we're figuring out how to use it. If AI is able to do twice as much now as it could do six months ago,

Then we've figured out ten times as many use cases or more. There's a lot more value-adding functions and a lot less of us just being high and excited thinking that we'd found the magic.

A much clearer path forward has emerged in the last few months, and I think all of my guest conversations have really reinforced that. I went back through the conversations I had this season and I pulled six specific clips from guests that tell the story perfectly about what's changed for businesses this year and what adjustments we need to be making as leaders. The short version is that the middle's gone, the bar is higher, being good is not quite good enough anymore, because if you don't adapt, it's gonna be harder for the people who don't know about you.

to ever tell if you are top tier or middle of the pack. So here's one of the themes that I'm carrying into the second half of the year. One shift, five leadership moves, each one coming from a guest and a conversation from our show.

We'll start with Joe Gannon, the personal brand strategist who's helped build the brands of Chris Williamson, Sahel Bloom, Ali Abdahl, a long list of other people who you've heard of who have personal brands that are known around the world. Here's the shift that every business and personal brand needs to be aware of right now.

Joe Gannon (01:46)

I think with AI, the middle's gone. So one of my favorite phrases about what's happening right now in terms of commentary is like, like average, average is wiped out. Like you need to be either the thought leader in your space sharing true original thought, or you could be the, the, on the other side of things, you're, you're documenting, you're showing what you're building. You're curious, you're learning and you're, sharing that in public. But what used to be the middle was people parroting.

advice that wasn't theirs or sharing average takes. And that's been wiped out now.

Nick Berry (02:11)

Yeah.

Average can be

AI can handle average now.

Joe Gannon (02:17)

100%. Like AI didn't replace creators. It's exposed the weaker creators, essentially. So whilst it feels like the whole world has changed around us in many ways, what great content always was hasn't changed at all. Share from lived experience, share your expertise, have an opinion. That is how anyone has grown online. There's more noise than ever, but that still stands to be true.

Nick Berry (02:21)

Mm-hmm.

Nick Berry (02:36)

That's the surface level shift that we have to adapt to. The middle's gone. AI handles average now, so that means the middle 60% really has nowhere to hide. So then what? Most people in the middle do not know that they're in the middle. They probably think that they're above the line. So that brings us to the first of the five leadership moves. You've got to be honest with yourself. Tell yourself the truth about where you actually stand. Dr. Benjamin Hardy made this one really land for me.

In this clip, the book that we're discussing is his book, The Science of Scaling.

Nick Berry (03:04)

here's when I knew I had a winner in my hand.

It's like, I don't know, 15 pages in or something like that. And it says the primary reason why companies don't scale is the same reason people don't scale because they're lying to themselves. And I'm like, we're keeping it real. I like this. So let's talk about that. Now you guys, you've you've had people coming into your program. You've had to see or been able to see a lot of people go through this epiphany. It's probably not something that everybody takes the same way.

How does that typically go?

Benjamin Hardy (03:32)

Yeah, you know, it fits really well with the concept of raising the floor and just acknowledging that so much of what we're spending our time doing or not doing is the wrong thing. And we have our justifications and our excuses for it, but the beautiful part when you start going for scale rather than linear growth is that it just forces you to reckon with that stuff today. It forces you to look in the mirror. And that's really what raising the floor is all about.

Yeah, it's constant humility training. That's the fact of it. Even the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset is that a growth mindset means you're exposing yourself. Rather than hiding, which is what the fixed mindset does and pretends everything's okay, it's like the growth mindset says, crap, I'm looking in the mirror and I see it all, and that's the whole point. so it's good, because then we can start to deal with it, right? All progress starts by telling the truth.

as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Nick Berry (04:30)

So all progress starts by telling the truth.

I think that's probably worth sitting with for any and all of us. And once you do, the next question is going to show up pretty fast. Now what? Working harder might be the easy answer, but it's probably not the right one. Marketing strategist Katelyn Bourgoin says if you're already an expert, gaining more expertise isn't the answer. More credentials isn't going to do it. You have to become unignorable. And you do that with my second leadership move standing for something.

Katelyn came on this spring and she workshopped my own framework on the fly to make that point.

Nick Berry (05:02)

my example might the parallel process my thesis is that an expertise business to grow the founder has to grow as a leader alongside the business having to grow. Like it's developed.

Katelyn Bourgoin (05:13)

I like that. Now, here's my question

is, I think that that's absolutely true. I don't know that I've not heard that before. So this is where there's the opportunity to keep shaping it, right? Because like when I think about the key ingredients to an ownable idea, one of them is it needs to be relevatory which is much easier to write than to say, but like it needs to be something where somebody goes, I haven't thought about it that way before.

So let me kind of share an example. Everybody wants to, like, you know, in all of history, humans want to be able to have, like, to be financially secure, do work that they care about, not have to work too much. Like, that's all true. We've all wanted that, right? Lots and lots of people have made a lot of money by meeting that desire with a new message. So you look at somebody like Justin Welsh, right? Justin Welsh didn't create the word solopreneur.

but he completely reframed it and made it a movement. And the way that he came about it is he shared something kind of revelatory. Before Justin started talking about solopreneurship, most people thought that the way to build wealth and success was to start a big company, raise a bunch of money, become the next unicorn tech company. That was like what success looked like for a lot of ambitious people. Or it was keep moving up the corporate ladder, get the biggest title you can get, be part of the C-suite. There was paths to success.

But work by yourself as a solopreneur was not a path that people saw as quote unquote successful until Justin reframed it. And he reframed it and said that actually being a solopreneur wasn't about building a small business because you couldn't build something bigger. It was because you chose to build small because you wanted the freedom that came with that path. And you could still make a lot of money on that path. I mean, how many people out there were selling make money on the internet before Justin?

Everybody, so many people, right? But Justin was able to offer a new lens on how to go about it and create an identity people could step into that didn't sound like anything they'd heard before. Small used to be bad. Justin made small actually an intentional, thoughtful choice and gave people an identity they could step into. So I'd say when it comes to figuring out the ownable idea, there needs to be like a revelatory component.

And I think that yours is there. I think that there's an element to shape it where it becomes more like a, like I didn't think about it that way before, because that's what makes people pause and go, because a lot of times like we might give advice that's good, but it's good and they already know it. So it's not going to have the stickiness.

Nick Berry (07:33)

And I think what you're, what you were just saying was that like, I know it, I know it inside and out. Knowing it better is not good. That's not the missing ingredient, right?

Katelyn Bourgoin (07:40)

Mm-hmm.

I think

maybe, this is like, this is the, as I think through yours now, like I would, we have a whole process running through this with our clients, but like on the, the jump, what I like about the parallel process from a visual perspective and like what I, where I think the revelatory statement is, is like they, like most people think, they probably think that the reason their business isn't growing is business related, right? It's like, you know, I don't have the right team. I'm struggling with pipeline.

And they the revelatory way of framing that is like your business isn't your like isn't your bottleneck. You are right. And that becomes like a bit of a different thing. That's not the right language. You'd have to sit down and like really think with the narrative. But it's like your business has probably grown in spite of you. That might be relative revelatory. Like you've gotten to the success you've gotten to in spite of yourself. And people are going to what? Like I wanted to take you know, I want to take credit for where I've gotten to. Like I've worked my ass off to get here.

Nick Berry (08:30)

Mm-hmm.

Katelyn Bourgoin (08:36)

And it's like, no, you probably got lucky. You probably had some things that worked out because if you've not been growing in parallel with your business, then like, you you're not going to keep growing. like, yeah. Yeah. And that's

Nick Berry (08:46)

It's not going to outgrow you. It's doing what you designed it to do. yeah, and you can kind of

feel the dissonance

Nick Berry (08:55)

Groan in spite of you. Katelyn's point is that expertise alone isn't the differentiator anymore. You need an ownable idea, something that people will associate with you. Hers is to be unignorable. Mine are the five stages of the business owner's journey in the parallel process. And here's the next layer to this. Even if you have the idea, most experts are still hiding. Their trophies are in a closet, their case studies are buried.

The wins are not on their profile because we imagine the worst when we think about how we're perceived.

Natasha Wastra is a LinkedIn strategist and the founder of Near Point Strategies. And she called me on this one directly and I'm the case study again.

Here's leadership move number three, stop hiding.

Nick Berry (09:33)

now I remember the headline that I used when I wrote about you in my newsletter was you unhid me because I had been hiding. My profile was such that it was going to be hard to find and it was definitely going to be hard to choose me if that's what you were looking for based off my profile. So just getting it cleaned up.

Natasha Walstra (09:41)

that's so funny.

Yeah.

Nick Berry (09:55)

Help me unhide.

Natasha Walstra (09:56)

Yeah,

that's amazing. Well, and you have so much experience and so much expertise behind you, but we didn't see any of that, right? And not people don't necessarily, not everybody knows who you are, obviously, but when they go to your profile, if we see, you the Inc 5000, if we see these brand names behind you, there's that instant credibility by association. So like, I don't know who Nick is, but I know what this means. And that's a big deal.

Nick Berry (10:03)

Yeah.

Natasha Walstra (10:19)

I mean, you've got the trophies behind you to prove it even, but we didn't see any of that on your profile. It's showing off without showing off because it's just the facts here. And so we needed to put that front and center for you.

Nick Berry (10:30)

Yeah. And so I've had, I always had this aversion to being forward with those things. but, but using that as the humility as an excuse to not do it.

Nick Berry (10:39)

We say we want to stand out and then we do so many things to blend in. But you cannot be top tier if no one can see who you are. You have to be responsible for changing that. the way that you unhide yourself is by making the more difficult decisions, in particular as they relate to who you're trying to reach. Debbie Oster is a messaging and marketing strategist and a former business partner of mine.

She said something on the show that I've heard her say many times, and she makes this point so well. Here's your leadership move number four: decide who you are not for.

Debbie (11:07)

I think that in any business, when you're trying to get very clear on what tactics you should be doing, what kind of channels to be using, ⁓ it all is gonna go back to some really important core decisions that have to be made at the executive level. And that kind of starts with like, what are our business goals? What are we trying to accomplish in the business? Whether that's, you know,

your revenue growth or customer retention or, you know, launching a new product, you know, what are the core things that the business is trying to accomplish over the course of the next one to three years? And then from there, you can, that'll help, you you to align your marketing efforts to that. So what are you trying to accomplish? Who's going to help you do that? what are the marketing things that you need to be?

focusing on in order to do that and that kind of leads to a bunch of other decisions you need to make from a marketing perspective. So that's what I mean when I say that. It really it starts with decisions, important decisions that have to be made versus just jumping into the tactics.

Nick Berry (12:14)

seems like those are decisions that are made maybe really poorly a lot of times, answers that are just not that good of answers. They're really not good enough to do everything else well.

Debbie (12:26)

I think what I've learned over the years is the decisions are often, they're poorly made due to fear. if you're gonna make, if you're gonna be very clear on a really important decision, like who are you for? Who are you targeting? Who are you gonna spend all of your marketing effort on? You've got to also decide who are we not targeting? Who are we

not going to go after, what are we not going to spend time and money and effort on? And it's very difficult for any business owner or executive to make a decision like that because it's an opportunity cost. You know, they have to weigh it okay, is this the way to go or is this the way to go? Because we can't go all the ways, And that's scary for people. That's scary as a business owner, as an executive whose job

Nick Berry (13:04)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Debbie (13:11)

is based off of it being successful or not, you know?

Nick Berry (13:14)

it does feel like you're, cutting yourself off from.

some of the potential, but that's not the case.

Debbie (13:19)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you're opening yourself to more potential, in my opinion, when you really hone in on who are we going after? you're opening up more opportunity for your business than if you're trying to go after five different segments or people

Nick Berry (13:35)

Deciding who you're not for has got to be one of the toughest calls in business, especially early on. We want to avoid it because it feels like you're giving up opportunity, but that focus is what makes you findable to the people that you actually want to work with. And making a call like that, it's just really hard to do. You have to be willing to be honest with yourself. You have to be able to be objective about the various factors that go into it. And then you have to be accountable to the decision that you make. That's why the best don't do it alone. They build a support system.

Jordan DiPietro is the former CEO of Hampton and the hustle, and now he's an advisor to founders and CEOs. He's seen this many, many times. Here's leadership move number five. Don't go at it alone.

Nick Berry (14:13)

You don't know what you don't know. None of us do. And that's not, that's not the problem. It's when you're not trying to find out what's in those blind spots that it is a problem.

Jordan DiPietro (14:15)

Yeah, right.

Right. And it's funny, I see a very similar pattern with people that will reach out to me and I'll get an email from a founder and it'll say, know, Hey, you know, read your newsletter or I listen to you on a podcast or I saw you on social. Like I'd love to, I, you know, I desperately need you. There'll be something urgent in the email. Like I just lost my three hires or we just crossed 10 million and I don't know what I'm doing. It's usually urgent. Right. And so I emailed them back. Sounds great. Can't wait to learn more about your company. You know,

fill out this 10 second form and set up a call. And then typically there's like some week, two week, month long period where then it goes like crickets. Because what happens is as founders, as busy business owners, like then we go back to putting our heads down and doing all the things that are on fire, crossing things off our to do, you know, like we all just go back into our own worlds. And then I'm like, I just kind of smile. like in a month or two months, I get that same sort of urgent email back. I can't believe this is slipped. many, know, can we, can we find time, you know, tomorrow morning? You know, it's like.

Nick Berry (15:22)

Mm-hmm.

Jordan DiPietro (15:23)

And

sometimes it takes one or two of those. And then we get on and we have our first kind of meeting and they're like, you know, then it, then everything clicks and they realize, but, it's hard. It's hard to take time out of the day to day running our business. Also coaching, whether it's, you know, business coaching, executive coaching, having a personal therapist, anything like that. Like it feels like a luxury, right? Like it's so hard for any of us to be like, am I really like, that's what I'm going to pay for right now for.

a therapy session or coaching session or coaching. It's funny, I just shared a really interesting email last week in my newsletter written by, I forget the gentleman's name, but he's like one of the world's top surgeons. And he had hit a plateau in his career, like I think late 30s, early 40s or something, plateau meaning his error rate in the surgery in the operating room. And then he hired a coach, one of the best surgeons in the world. hired

one of the other best surgeons in world to basically go in to the operating room and watch him do surgery. the point of the article, I think in essence, like everybody needs someone to help them. Again, whether it's a therapist, a good friend, a coach, advisor, whatever, but it's hard for all of us to justify those sorts of things. Cause for some reason we feel like it's a luxury versus it being like an actual business necessity or personal necessity, you know.

Nick Berry (16:43)

So the landscape has shifted, the middle is gone. Now we've got five leadership moves to carry us forward in response. Tell yourself the truth. Stand for something. Stop hiding. Decide who you're not for. Don't do it alone. And if you want the longer version of any of these conversations, the full episodes are going to be linked in the show notes.

You can start with the episode with Dr. Benjamin Hardy next. It's the one that's on your screen right now. We discuss the importance of being honest with yourself, while most founders end up being what holds their businesses back, and how to set proper goals so you can actually scale. It's the most watched episode that we've ever done. You can find my writing on the stages of the business owner's journey, the five ceilings for expertise businesses, and my parallel process at nickberry.info.

Hope you enjoyed the episode. Have a great week.