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The Secret Sauce Podcast
Helping people build big businesses & live big lives - one ingredient at a time. That's our mission. Welcome to the Secret Sauce Podcast.
The Secret Sauce Podcast
Let Go to Grow: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
What if the very mindset and drive that made you successful in your early career is the same thing holding you back now?
In this episode of The Secret Sauce Podcast, Chad and Lacey unpack one of the most emotional — and liberating — transitions in any high performer’s journey: the pivot from achievement to fulfillment.
Whether you're feeling a subtle nudge or a full-on identity crisis, this episode explores what it looks like to climb your “second mountain,” drawing inspiration from the book From Strength to Strength, personal experiences, and even a bit of Darwin.
In this episode, we cover:
-The two types of intelligence (fluid vs. crystallized) and why your value shifts with time
-The emotional signs that you’ve outgrown your first mountain
-How clinging to past success can block your next evolution
-Why mentorship, coaching, and teaching can be more fulfilling than achievement
-Three reflection questions to help you identify your next mountain
Ask yourself:
-What am I clinging to that’s no longer working?
-Who could benefit from my hard-earned wisdom?
-What part of my life could be richer if I stopped chasing and started teaching?
This isn’t just for entrepreneurs or mortgage pros — it’s for anyone who’s been grinding for a while and quietly wondering, “What’s next?”
🎯 Share this episode with someone who’s ready to grow — or who might not even know they need to hear it yet.
🔁 Subscribe for more ingredients to build your secret sauce.
#podcast #mindset #business #entrepreneur #secretsauce #growth
What if the very thing that made you successful in your early years is what's holding you back right now? This is the Secret Sauce Podcast with Chad Treece and Lacey Moores, where we want to help people build big businesses and live big lives. We think every episode is going to maybe give you one ingredient that you can add to your recipe to create your own secret sauce. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2:This episode is about why your second mountain might just be the one that really matters.
Speaker 1:I love this topic. I'm super excited and I know everybody's going to get a lot of this. No, not necessarily everybody. I think that there's a lot of people that this episode is for, and that's the ones that have been going at it for a while in a certain field, any field.
Speaker 1:In any field yeah, this applies to everybody but is starting to feel like they're moving into their second act of their career maybe. So if you are brand new to an industry and just kind of grinding and getting your feet wet, I would say this may not go. Let's do a different episode of ours, but save this one for later because you will hit it sooner or later. You will hit the time period where this becomes really.
Speaker 2:I almost don't say don't listen. This is going to be one of those things like when you're younger and your parent tells you something and you don't listen, but you hear it and then later on in life you're like oh, this is what they were talking about, Right, Right.
Speaker 1:Okay. So if you can remember this for a long enough time that you can recall it or save it for the time, save it on your desktop that says open this when you're done grinding and wondering what to do next.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do one of those delayed emails you know 10 years. Yeah, yeah, I love that. Send it to yourself in 10 years, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, let's, let's dive in because, uh, I think this is an awesome topic and I can't wait to talk a little bit about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you know. So I want to do a little framework here on how this came about. Um, and I'm in the middle of this journey and learning about this and it's like this is something I'll probably do over and over and over again, because the mentor that's having me go through this has done it multiple times and there is a book that started him on this and then he went farther. It's called Strength of Strength. But what it really is about is, you know, as you've done something for so long or you've been in a career for so long, you start having some emotional tension, and you and I both can really attest to this. But things like fear of being irrelevant or clinging to past achievements, you know, things that made us super successful in the beginning, those aren't things that really fulfill you anymore.
Speaker 2:They're not things that bring the same enjoyment, and there's nothing wrong with like that in the beginning, right, like because you're building something and you chase it, yeah, and the build is important yeah, and you chase achievements and I mean, you know I have a stand in my office with all of the awards and stuff I've won and they all mean something to me and I'm very thankful for them. But when people come in and they're like, oh, look at all these, I'm like, just like you know, you're not chasing trophies right now. Yeah, anymore. Now it doesn't mean I still love them.
Speaker 2:Like you know, I'm competitive as anybody else and I love winning, but that's not the purpose anymore. It's not what brings the deep joy in a career. So that's what this episode really more is about is is you know when? When to make that transition or when to really start looking at how am I feeling in my career? Am I loving it? Am I burnout? What does that look like? And what if we don't change things? Will our second act be better? Will that second mountain that we climb be impactful?
Speaker 1:I don't think it'll be a second act. If you don't change anything, then you're going to be. You have a really long first act and it's going to get really monotonous and not fulfilling. The things that brought you the most joy early on were the build, the creation, the like every time that you did a little bit more than previous month or the previous year.
Speaker 1:Like that brings a lot of fulfillment early on and, um, I, I never would have thought that I'd hit a point where that wouldn't bring fulfillment. And now I'm like that is not. Like you talk about the trophies or whatever being still you're really proud of, I would say I see those and, like I, they might as well not be there. I don't give them any, I don't give them any value in my yeah, I just like cool. Yeah, they're cool. There. There's a thing that's in the background of my office. If I happen to do like a webcam or something, you might see something, but other than that, like I don't give them any thought.
Speaker 2:Yep. Well, so this book has and I'm going to reference this for a minute and read it just because it's important for us to go a little bit deeper on this but there are two curves of intelligence, okay. So curve one is what's called the fluid intelligence and curve two is the crystallized intelligence. So the fluid curve one is your rise as a builder and an innovator. So you are a disruptor. This is your first.
Speaker 2:You know you're this journey that you're going through as you're building something and innovating something and creating something, and that is where all of the, the achievements and, and the, the rush and the adrenaline and I mean all of that lives. You know and and you build and you keep going and it's a great place of fun. I mean it's a great time and it's a fun place and it's a hard work but it feels good. But the crystallized intelligence is your rise as a mentor and your rise as a teacher, and so you know, being high performers, the experience like, if you don't change and you only stay in that fluid intelligence, you'll lose all the drive, you lose all the excitement. Climbing one mountain only to discover the real journey begins on that second one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that You're kind of speaking my language too, talking about fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence. I feel like you're stealing my thunder a little bit.
Speaker 2:Well, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1:You know how I know that Chad GPT was involved in or that you're quoting a book, right? What do you mean by that? You know how I know that Chad GPT was involved in or that you're quoting a book, right? Yeah, Is because, like, um, like this is normally a space where my head goes and you're kind of like you know Chad's nerd now a little bit, right, yeah, um, but I love that you are too. Uh, see that, um, it's, it's super, super cool. Yeah, I mean I, I heard I took what I found was most high performers stumble until they pivot when this happens. So, like you've been performing for years and years and years, you'll hit a point where you start to stumble, and I've experienced that. I think I don't know if you have or not You've kind of always been growing, growing, growing. One year is better than the next. There was a point at which I started to stumble and I started to lose my drive, but also the numbers started to fall because I just wasn't, I didn't care as much, so it was time to pivot.
Speaker 2:You didn't love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that was when I did kind of grasp onto okay, I want to be a coach, I want to be more of a mentor role. Even just meeting with our realtor partners, like sitting down and talking about more than just how I can help them, but how we can help each other or how they can help me I think early on it's all about me, me, me Like what can I extract from you versus what can I inject into this relationship?
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah, I mean, it does bring a whole different level. So you know, when we were doing this, when we were talking about this, there's a story of Charles Darwin, and so he wrote. You know, he wrote a book in his 40s about the origin of a species.
Speaker 1:The origin. That's the book. It is the book.
Speaker 2:And he was no longer contributing to cutting edge research as he got older. So, rather than burning out because there were younger scientists that had a lot more technology and they were able to do so much more so faster, like are we speaking language to anybody here, you know, like that is where that fear piece and that fear of irrelevance comes in. And so he pivoted to writing and mentoring and family life, to writing and mentoring and family life, and he will tell you, like he explained, like that was the most enjoyable time of his life is that second part is when he made that shift and started doing the mentoring and started doing the writing and the really enjoying the family, and it changed everything for him. So it allowed him to enjoy still the first part but to be able to teach it to others.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it makes the first part even better because you see the differentiation of where you're at. So you can really look fondly back on that time. Right, Because it was a different chapter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, yeah, and you know, and like for me, I got into coaching and was coached for several years five, seven, that was seven years and at seven years is when I started coaching and starting coaching became a job, you know, because it's a lot. I'm still a high performer and still trying to run a team and still trying to do all this and coach. And when you coach you take on all those people's burdens and trying to help them and solve those things. And in the beginning it's a lot and it doesn't just instantly fulfill, right, like in the beginning, it's something added on, it's a chore.
Speaker 1:It's a chore, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a chore, but eventually, once you start seeing people listening and growing and doing what you told them and excelling, like now, I get it. When, like I hope, my goal is that people that I've coached beat my numbers, I don't want them to do it today.
Speaker 1:You got to be gone first.
Speaker 2:No, I don't have to be gone, but in a few more years. I'm not out of gas yet, but I want them to crush it. You know, and I so, and it makes sense right, like when your kids do so well, like it's something inside of you that you just can't explain, and when you're coaching and you're teaching people and then they crush it or even do better than you. Um, it is very gratifying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh, a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:It just fills the cup.
Speaker 1:There's something that's almost more fulfilling than you doing it yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because it's the whole concept of just like leaving somebody better than you found them. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Sure. Or, like you know, people say being a grandparent so much better than being a parent, you know you don't realize that until you get there.
Speaker 2:So, again, this is something that you'll be like oh, they talked about this and it is so true. It is so true, but I want to leave. You know, I want to talk about how can like some quick questions, or three to reflect on. Am I at this point and how do I make that transition? Or how do I start to analyze when I move on to the second piece in life? Um, the first question is what am I clinging to that's no longer working?
Speaker 1:I like that, so that, just looking, do you have any? Do you have an example? Like for you?
Speaker 2:let's let's talk about some examples in our industry and or real estate right. Like what? What are some? What are we clinging to? That's no longer working.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've talked about it before, you know when what wasn't working was just like dialing on Mondays just trying to call agents, um, just picking up the phone and trying to come up every week with some new item of value, some new unique value proposition, like the grind wasn't working anymore. Um, like would it work from a number standpoint? If you do enough maybe, but if your heart's not in it and my heart wasn't in it anymore because my heart was shifting to a different place- yeah, yeah, um.
Speaker 2:The second question is who could benefit from my hard earned wisdom?
Speaker 1:That's, I think, the the even better question. Yeah, is because most people don't think about that. They're just thinking about like, how do I, how do I climb higher? You know, how do I keep going, how do I keep grinding, how do I beat last month's numbers? Yeah, all of that.
Speaker 2:How do I keep grinding? How do I beat last month's numbers? All of that? How do I chase accolades versus um? Yeah, who can benefit from? Well, and you know, this is even part of, if it's the second, the second act. But even in the building stage, you know, um, you and I both started, as one man shows right, like we did it all, um, from all the way to the beginning, to all the way to the end, and then we started learning. We need help and it was hard to let people do that because we have control issues and they won't ever do it as good as we do it. But then we start teaching them right, and this is in any position, like when you are at your absolute max, you got to teach that person and then they learn. But what's really fun with it is when they start doing it really really well and when they do it almost do it better than you, right?
Speaker 1:I would say, yeah, they do. There's definitely instances where they're going to do it better than you. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that's the one, like it's really defined skillset that they're working on. And so I think that question right there of who could benefit from my hard-e heart and wisdom, that can be at any point really in your life because it could be in that building stage and it can be in that second stage, but it's really really good here. And then the third one is what part of my life could be richer if I stopped chasing and started teaching?
Speaker 1:I love that question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, these are things that I hadn't necessarily even thought about until you presented this episode, but I think I've definitely made that shift unintentionally maybe yeah, yeah, unintentionally we can look at our lives and seeing that we're already doing it, but I wish, like I wish, I would have listened to an episode like this earlier and asked those questions of myself, because it is the most fulfilling stage and so like, yeah, if I could go back in time and have shifted into this you know stage a little bit earlier, I think that it would have been very, it would have been a very good move for me. So, yeah, I love that we're putting those questions in people's minds.
Speaker 2:But I also think too that you can't do it like you have to go through the journey first, right Like you got to climb the first mountain first, and that's where you get a lot of the experience, and that's where you get the knowledge to be wise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nobody's going to listen. Nobody's going to listen to your message, nobody's going to listen to your direction on how to climb the mountain if you haven't climbed it yourself, if you haven't climbed it yourself.
Speaker 2:But once you get there, man, that second climb is fun. It's a lot of fun. You can't I want to read this quote really quick chad, you can't be the person you were and the person you're becoming at the same time yeah, very, very true, and something like you don't think about very often, but one one foot in, one foot out, basically, yeah, right, um and and do we spend time thinking about the person we want to become at this stage?
Speaker 2:I thought about it a lot in the beginning, right, Like who I was chasing or what numbers I wanted to hit, like all of those things, but now like sitting down and really like drawing the second part. You know what is, what do I want this to look like and what do I want to become through this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how do I do it?
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:It's. It's going to be very difficult to to put into practice. If you don't ask yourself this stuff, it's not going to just like happen. So, I love that there's a framework for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe the next, maybe the strength you need next isn't climbing faster, but it's climbing differently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, a different way, go in a different way, right all of it, yeah yeah, we just did a podcast on on picking a different path.
Speaker 2:Um, I just think that this one is so relevant for some, definitely for sure, but it's also, um makes you want to like I still got so much time left. I still got so much left to give. And this book is challenging me to really be intentional about how that last I'm acting like I'm not dying but how that second part looks and how I bring fulfillment to it and enjoyment to it and love for it, enjoyment to it and love for it. And I mean I live this out every day and in the coaching. Like I said, I love coaching. Um, I love still being coached, cause I have there's so much I still have to learn. I feel like I'm still a mess.
Speaker 1:Um, but that's good, like actually seeing it for yourself and saying, like continuing to grow so you can continue, like I look at it, like you continue to climb so you can pull others up right, lift others up as you climb yeah, kind of to continue to use the climbing in the mountain metaphor.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:It's like you can't pull people up if you're not continuing to climb right. It's going to be real hard to push somebody up the mountain.
Speaker 2:Right, you know I'm going to say one more thing about that and we can wrap this up Early on climbing, climbing, climbing. Trying to beat everybody, trying to put up the numbers. I had a mentor say hey, getting to the top of the mountain isn't about standing up there and stomping on everybody's fingers as they're trying to climb up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's about you getting up there and now you're bending over and you start pulling people up with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a beautiful visual for sure. It's such a visual and it's so fulfilling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, most definitely.
Speaker 2:It's so fulfilling to still love what you do and stay in and, like you and I are both in production and still love it, but then being able to show others and help others and teach others and that piece is just icing on the cake. I think it's the grandchildren side of of what we do in our industry and not, I mean, it's probably anybody right, Like in any sort of industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is not specific to any industry at all but icing on the cake. It's a beautiful topic. Thanks for bringing it to the forefront. Is there anything that you want to leave everybody with?
Speaker 2:No, I just hope that it. I hope that it's value to somebody Like I hope that this sits some somewhere with somebody who needs it right now. But again, I think that if you don't need it right now, it's something that you'll remember down the road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and in the spirit of this episode, if it spoke to you, uh, and you're already living that life, we'd love it if you'd share it with somebody else, because that's what pulling other people up is all about. So grab something from this, pull somebody up with it and we'll see you next time. Thanks, guys.
Speaker 2:Thanks guys.
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