The star of the show - A Case Study
A common execution friction story and a simple reframe that changed everything.
I've noticed a pattern with my clients.
They know what they need to do. They're not short on ideas or ambition. But somewhere between knowing and doing, something gets in the way.
That's what I call execution friction. And it's rarely about capability.
Let me show you what it looks like in practice.
The Client Who Knew She Needed Instagram
(But Didn't Want to Be On It)
I was working with a new business owner who had relocated an existing service to a new area. She was starting from scratch with clients - a new town, a new audience, no existing word of mouth to lean on yet.
She knew she needed social media. Specifically Instagram. She knew that's where her potential clients were spending time.
But she had a problem: she didn't want to make videos of herself. Didn't want her face on camera at all. Every time she sat down to think about content, she hit a wall.
She thought she had a social media problem.
She didn't. She had an execution friction problem - a mindset block sitting between her and the action she needed to take.
The Reframe That Changed Everything
The first question I asked was simple: if you don't want to be the star of your business, what could be?
We didn't need to look far.
She runs a glass coating service: she cleans your glass and applies a protective treatment that keeps it clear and clean for longer. The results are visible. Dramatic, even. Before-and-after photos tell the whole story without a single word, let alone a face on camera.
The product, the result, became the star.
This is the thing about execution friction. It often looks like a practical problem when it's actually a perception problem. She'd locked herself into one idea of what Instagram had to look like: someone confident on camera, talking to their audience, and couldn't see past it.
Once that idea shifted, the path forward was obvious.
Setting a Goal Worth Moving Toward
With the content approach sorted, we set a clear initial goal: book five clients in a month.
Specific. Achievable. Something to move toward.
She got to work. Before-and-after shots of the glass. The transformation, front and centre. No face required.
The Current Situation
I caught up with her recently. She was excited and rightly so.
She'd booked five clients in a week.
Not a month. A week.
She went from stuck to executing, and the results followed quickly once the friction was removed.
The Lesson
Execution friction isn't always about procrastination or lack of discipline. Sometimes it's a single belief, “I have to do it this way”, that's quietly blocking everything else.
The work is finding that belief and questioning it.
You don't have to be the face of your business. You don't have to do it the way everyone else does. You just have to find the version that works for you and then actually do it.
That's where the momentum lives.
Feeling the friction between knowing what to do and actually doing it?
A Clarity Call is a good place to start untangling it.