The Dude Abides - But Should He?

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The Dude Abides

If you are a human being, older than 25, I think it is a moral and social imperative that one should watch The Big Lebowski. The whacky kidnapping plot woven by the Coen brothers aside, Jeff Bridges delivers an iconic performance as The Dude. He is a professional bowler who is part Stoic, part Taoist, part Zen Buddhist, part American Transcendentalist & really funny. He approaches life with equanimity, tolerance & appreciation for the joy of being alive. The character even spurred its own quasi-religion, Dudeism.

Lots of Agency Owners “Abide”

They get comfortable. They get comfortable with their clients, they get comfortable with their team, and they just sort of go along. For the most part, abiding, & not getting too high or too low, is a fantastic way to walk through your day.

Abiding can keep your stress low. It can help you navigate difficult emotional circumstances. It can even help you have a longer-term perspective. Because a big part of dudeism, or any of the tenets that comprise this alloy of eastern and western philosophies, are based on the idea that one is part of the world and not trying to impose one’s will on its environment. If you are something of a bystander while the world happens around you, you have the opportunity to be a little detached. You get to observe and experience.

But if you are an agency owner that isn't actively seeking to adjust, change, constrain, transform, expand, or otherwise transmogrify your environment, you aren't really doing the job that you signed up for.

This is entrepreneurial malpractice.

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Yes. I Just Said That. And I Mean It.

I had a conversation earlier this week with an agency owner who really has been stuck. They have two clients that generate more than 90% of their revenue. They haven't landed a new client in over five years. They haven't updated their website since 2021. They've never published on LinkedIn, and they came to me wondering how they could double their revenue in 2026.

I am down for all sorts of challenges. I have five kids. That's been a challenge every day for the last 23 years. I've run five marathons. That is a challenge that brings out some of the best parts of you (and, tbh, some of the worst.) I have built multiple businesses, which, as most of you reading this, know that being an entrepreneur the opposite of dudeism. make order out of chaos. An entrepreneur is trying to fight the universe's drive towards entropy. That mission demands a very small amount of abiding.

in our second conversation, I laid out the things that I thought this agency owner needed to do. It wasn't anything radical. It was all the stuff that I talk about all the time. VVV, social first content development, team-wide content repurposing, an effective sales process, clear ICP, clear permission gates, everything that you've been reading about in this newsletter for the past couple of years

The agency owner said “Geez, that’s a lot. I was hoping it would be simpler.”

I Tried My Level Set Best To “Abide”

This entrepreneur talked about their challenges - how busy they were, how much work they, themselves, had to do to satisfy the needs of their clients, and how difficult it has been to support their team since they won’t really step up and take responsibility for their work.

I asked questions about defining goals (why 2x revenue?), why did they feel this way about their team, what have they tried to work on to diversify revenue…

The entrepreneur kept returning to the same well-traveled ground about being so busy, about being overwhelmed, about being frustrated. So I asked the $64,000 question: "What do they think they need to do in order to change their current circumstances?"

They said that their team really needed to take more responsibility, and they were in this circumstance because their team would not take responsibility. I was nothing short of dismayed by their response.

When I start learning about a prospect, I really do try to come at them with a Dude-like ethos. There is nothing to be done about what did happen, or the reasons why circumstances evolved into the present condition. I do not judge.

But this was pushing my buttons a little bit…

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There Was No More Abiding Left In Me

After hearing this agency owner blame their team repeatedly, I asked them what their title was.
They said, “CEO”. I asked them how long they had been feeling this way about their team. “Since the beginning…everyone has been here since I started this agency 11 years ago.”

I gasped & asked to speak bluntly. They nodded.

I expressed that the it is the CEO who is responsible for the performance of the agency & the employees were responsible for executing the jobs in service of the goals the agreed to reach.

They started to fidget on the Zoom call.

Continuing, I said that they were very lucky that their team had stayed so long and continued to serve the clients well.

Smiling, they said, “Well, we do a great job.”

I didn’t return the smile, but leaned in to my Zoom camera and wondered why the switch? The employees had been the reason for lack of growth and all of the extra responsibility on their shoulders, but now, reflecting on something that felt like success, it’s “WE” doing a great job?

Tolerant & Toleration Aren’t The Same Thing

Being tolerant is good. That means that you're open and understanding, it means that you're accepting of other people as they are, and it means that you have a very dude-like equanimity.

But as an entrepreneur, if you tolerate things that aren't working, or you find yourself in an ongoing state of toleration, you just aren't doing your fucking job. 

This agency owner was so lucky that the clients treated their team so well and often gave the team tokens of appreciation. This entrepreneur was lucky that they had wonderful clients because this agency didn't have a wonderful leader.

This agency owner tolerated their own lack of leadership and blamed thei team for their stagnant state.

Don’t let your dudeism ever turn into “toleration”.

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2026 Should Be The Year of Intolerance

(of personal and professional growth that doesn’t match or serve your goals…)

So I am going to host a 90 minute workshop in January. Date is TBD. But I only want to do this if some people are REALLY interested. Check out the page below, submit your interest & if I get enough people (15-20?), I’ll pick a date and get it done. (And I’ll record it and all that stuff…)

Hopefully, you won’t be abiding anything except for growth and positive challenges in 2026….