#38: Your Conviction Might Kill Your Company

Chip Royce, Flywheel Advisors

Have you ever watched an entrepreneur pitch their business?

Their eyes light up, and their voice takes on a new tone. They’re overflowing with conviction, and it’s infectious.

But there’s a flip side to this magnetic force: it can also repel the opportunities you need to survive.

The Passion Paradox

When you’re all in on a new venture, you need complete confidence. The market demands it, investors expect it, and your team relies on it. But this unshakeable faith can also have a hidden cost: it can make your thinking rigid. Most founders don’t realize this until it’s too late.

The warning signs are subtle. You start dismissing feedback that doesn’t fit your vision, interpreting data through a narrow lens, and your pitch becomes more scripted and less genuine. Before you know it, you’ve crossed the line from confidence to inflexibility without even noticing.

The Hidden Cost of Certainty

Imagine you have a crystal-clear vision of where you’re headed – your North Star. But what if that star is a planet, a satellite, or something else entirely? Or what if you’re so focused on it that you miss the meteor hurtling toward your ship?

Every market shift, new competitor, and change in customer behavior presents a choice. You can see it as a threat to your vision or as a chance to refine it. Most people choose the former, but success demands the latter.

The Bezos Breakthrough

Jeff Bezos gave us a formula that stops conviction from becoming concrete: “Strong beliefs, loosely held.”

Simple to say. Hard to embrace. But it marks the difference between companies that adapt and companies that die.

The Language of Experimentation

Want to put this into practice? Start with your language—the words you use to shape your reality and your team’s approach to challenges.

The traditional language sounds like: “Our target market is CEOs at enterprise companies” or “We’re all in on this product feature.” This approach boxes you in.

Try reframing these statements as experiments: “We’re testing our message with enterprise CEOs to see if it resonates” and “Initial data suggests this feature solves a key pain point – we’re running a pilot to confirm.” Notice how this creates space for evolution without sacrificing conviction.

Experimentation Is Your New Edge

When you frame your moves as experiments, you open yourself up to new possibilities. Your team becomes more agile, spotting opportunities others miss. Stakeholders gain confidence in your judgment because you show both conviction and wisdom. You create space for smart pivots without losing face or team trust.

This mindset shift transforms how you approach everything. Customer feedback becomes data, not criticism. Competitor moves become market insights, not threats. Failed initiatives become valuable lessons, not embarrassing mistakes.

Building a Culture of Experimentation

The real power comes when this approach spreads through your organization. Teams start testing assumptions before building solutions. Meetings shift from defending positions to exploring possibilities. Decision-making becomes faster because everyone understands that perfect information isn’t the goal—learning is.

The Bottom Line

Your passion got you here. Your openness will get you there. Plant your flag, but be ready to move it.

That’s not a weakness – it’s the ultimate strength in a market that punishes rigidity and rewards adaptation.

Remember: The best entrepreneurs don’t believe in their vision – they believe in their ability to adapt it. They understand that conviction without flexibility is a recipe for disaster.

The next time you feel certain about something, pause. Ask yourself: What would make me wrong? What experiment could test this belief? What data would change my mind?

In the end, the market doesn’t care about your conviction. It cares about value. And value comes from matching reality, not forcing reality to match you.