I’ve designed funnels for A-listers that converted at 60%. I was the go-to girl for companies and startups drowning in funnel hell – they’d call me in to rescue campaigns that were bleeding money, and I’d walk away with accolades for turning their disasters into profit machines.
It felt incredible. Until I tried to build my own stuff.
Suddenly, I was the one in paralysis with funnel overwhelm. I rebuilt the same funnel five times. I abandoned projects because something shinier caught my attention. I couldn’t grasp what I wanted to offer, who I wanted to serve, or how to make any of it actually happen.
How can you be brilliant for someone else but absolutely suck at your own business?
So I did what any overwhelmed entrepreneur does – I learned more. I researched deeper. I did AI deep-dives until my brain hurt. But here’s the kicker: the more knowledge I consumed, the more confused I became.
It wasn’t until I flipped the script and let AI start asking ME questions that I discovered the secret to why smart people create confusing funnels…
Picture this: You’re a web designer who decides to expand into helping clients get seen, not just have pretty websites. Sounds logical, right?
So I started gobbling up digital marketing information like my business depended on it (because it did). First, I followed Guru A’s advice about sales funnels. Made perfect sense. Started building.
Then I discovered Guru B, whose approach seemed to contradict everything Guru A taught. But wait – Guru B had better results! Another “aha moment.” Time to rebuild.
Enter Guru C with a completely different strategy. More aha moments. More excitement. More rebuilding.
Soon I had this mental folder stuffed with contradictory advice:
Each new guru brought another platform recommendation. ClickFunnels would save me time! Actually, Kajabi was better! Wait, this new platform would change everything!
I became a platform-switching addict. Every migration promised to be “the one” that would finally make my life easier and save me brain power. Instead, each switch meant learning new systems, rebuilding everything, and mixing strategies that were never meant to work together.
Here’s the kicker: I kept getting clients from these different platforms. I was still doing what I did best – building systems for OTHER people. But my own? Still a mess.
The more I studied these gurus, the more convinced I became that their success came down to personality and fake marketing tactics I was unwilling to use. The manufactured urgency, the inflated income claims, the “act now or miss out forever” manipulation – I couldn’t stomach it.
The result? A tangled ball of string that would make a cat jealous. I had so many different ways I could go that I didn’t know which one was the RIGHT way. Analysis paralysis doesn’t even begin to describe it.
I had to stop. Everything.
The platform switching, the guru chasing, the endless rebuilding – it was killing my business and my sanity. I was drowning in my own expertise, which sounds ridiculous but felt very real.
So I did what I always did when things got overwhelming: I went back to what was comfortable. I found a retainer client who paid me well, and I just… did what I did. Built systems for them. Got paid. Felt safe.
The whole time, I knew I should be working on my own stuff. But I avoided it like the plague. Why struggle with my own messy business when I could get paid handsomely to fix someone else’s?
Then I lost that client.
Suddenly, I had two choices: find another client to hide behind, or do what I should’ve been doing all along. But now rent was due, and I was in serious financial straits. This wasn’t theoretical anymore – this was make-or-break time.
That’s when something shifted. Maybe it was desperation, maybe it was divine intervention, but I found myself employing what I can only describe as psychological survival techniques.
I started asking myself a brutally simple question: “If I can’t have anything else, what do I HAVE to have?”
Not what would be nice. Not what Guru A recommended. Not what looked impressive. What was absolutely essential for survival?
I grabbed a whiteboard and started drawing. Literally. A stick figure.
Then I asked: “If my clients can’t have anything else, what do they HAVE to have?”
Another stick figure.
I stopped the spiral of “want versus necessity” and put everything that was “nice to have” in a separate bucket to save for later.
The stick figure approach forced me to build from absolute necessity, then add muscle, then clothes, then features, then shading – but only when the foundation could support it.
But here’s the thing most people miss: it’s not as simple as just drawing a stick figure. You have to decide whether that stick figure is standing there, crouching, running, or jumping. The posture matters because it determines everything else.
Step 1: Define Your Stick Figure’s Posture
My Stick Figure Was Crouching – I needed to build trust before I could sell anything, so:
Adding Muscle (Still Crouching): Once people consumed the guide and raised their hands for more help
Standing Up: After proving the system worked with individuals
Running: Only after everything else was working consistently
The breakthrough wasn’t just the simplicity – it was getting clear on what posture my business needed to be in RIGHT NOW, not where I wanted it to be someday.
It was like learning to pack for a backpacking trip. When you’re running, you need to be very specific about what you’re carrying in your pack. When you’re at camp, you can have a few things that make life easier and better. When you’ve built a home, then you can have all the things you desire around you.
But entrepreneurs in beginning stages cannot pretend they are Chalene Johnson.
The breakthrough wasn’t just the simplicity – it was realizing that my ADHD brain, which had been my enemy in the complexity game, was actually my superpower in the simplicity game.
My mind naturally chases all the possible failure points and bottlenecks before they happen. What I thought was scattered thinking was actually systems thinking. I could see inefficiencies others missed because I had to – my brain literally couldn’t handle unnecessary complexity.
Those “aha moments” that led nowhere? They weren’t useless. They were my brain’s way of collecting a treasure trove of creative ideas I could draw from later, instead of losing them to the void.
Here’s what I discovered through my own painful journey and working with hundreds of overwhelmed entrepreneurs: it’s not about intelligence, work ethic, or even technical skills.
The real problem is that most marketing advice is designed for neurotypical brains that can handle complexity without breaking down.
But here’s the thing – a lot of us entrepreneurs have brains that work differently. We’re the people who were told we were “highly intelligent but just not applying ourselves.” We’re the ones who can solve complex problems for others but somehow can’t figure out our own simple business tasks.
We think in systems and see all the connections, which means we also see all the potential failure points. Our minds chase multiple tabs simultaneously, which everyone calls “scattered thinking” but is actually pattern recognition on steroids.
When we encounter traditional marketing advice, our brains do what they do best – they see ALL the possibilities. Every “what if” scenario. Every potential optimization. Every way it could go wrong.
So we try to build funnels that account for everything. We add complexity to handle edge cases that may never happen. We create elaborate nurture sequences because we can imagine 47 different customer journeys.
The result? Analysis paralysis disguised as thoroughness.
Meanwhile, we’re beating ourselves up thinking we’re lazy or inconsistent. We watch other entrepreneurs seem to “just do it” while we’re stuck in planning mode, convinced there’s something fundamentally wrong with our character.
But what if I told you that failing is just part of the process? What can you learn from those five abandoned funnels? Where can we go from here?
Because here’s the truth: our failures don’t make us unworthy of our futures. They make us qualified to help others avoid the same pitfalls.
Nothing is wasted when you know how to extract the lessons.
If you’re reading this and thinking “Holy crap, that’s exactly me,” then you’re ready to try a different approach.
Stop trying to build Chalene Johnson’s empire when you haven’t even figured out your stick figure’s posture yet.
Stop adding complexity when what you need is clarity.
Stop beating yourself up for being “inconsistent” when you might just be using systems designed for someone else’s brain.
Here’s what I want you to do right now:
Grab a piece of paper (or open a notes app) and answer these three questions:
Notice I didn’t ask you to be the world’s greatest expert. I didn’t ask you to have it all figured out. I just asked what you naturally do anyway.
That’s it. Don’t overthink it. Don’t research more. Don’t switch platforms.
Just get clear on your stick figure first.
If you’re sitting there thinking “But I don’t know what I’m naturally good at” or “What if I’m not the best at anything?” – congratulations, you’ve just identified the REAL first step.
If you want help working through this process, I’ve created a free Clarity Guide that walks you through the exact framework I used to break free from funnel overwhelm. It’s the same approach I now use with clients who come to me saying “I’ve tried everything but nothing works.”
Because here’s what I’ve learned after building multimillion-dollar campaigns for industry legends and rescuing countless businesses from funnel hell:
The most sophisticated strategy in the world won’t work if you don’t know what posture your business needs to be in right now.
Start with your stick figure. Everything else can wait.
