Robert was a charismatic, intelligent founder with a rare ability to inspire people and generate bold ideas. He launched company after company, attracting talent and investor confidence with ease. Yet despite repeated opportunities, his ventures failed to produce lasting financial success. Robert’s blindspot wasn’t skill, intelligence, or effort—it was motive. He was driven by achievement and affiliation, not money or power. That misalignment quietly shaped his decisions and outcomes. Awareness revealed the pattern, but change required something deeper: a willingness to prioritize what truly mattered.
Robert commanded almost any room he entered.
He was tall, confident, and warm, with exceptional storytelling ability and strong business instincts. Investors were drawn to him. Teams rallied around him. New ventures formed quickly and enthusiastically around his ideas.
Over the years, Robert launched nearly twenty companies.
Each began with excitement and promise—innovative products, energized teams, early traction. From the outside, he looked like the archetype of a successful entrepreneur: creative, ambitious, and endlessly driven.
But a pattern emerged. The companies rarely endured. Financial returns were consistently modest or nonexistent. Investors were disappointed. And despite his visibility and repeated chances, Robert never built sustained financial success.
What made this especially puzzling was that Robert appeared to care about money.
He spoke fluently about cap tables, balance sheets, and financial projections. He understood the mechanics of business and could convincingly articulate financial goals. To investors, it sounded like alignment.
But Robert’s behavior told a different story. He woke up energized by solving problems and building something new. He thrived in rooms full of talented people working toward ambitious ideas. He loved strategy sessions, all-hands meetings, and audacious visions.
When financial discipline conflicted with innovation or team harmony, money quietly lost.
Robert’s blindspot was motive.
Motives are the deepest drivers of behavior—the internal forces that shape how we act, often without our awareness. Because they feel natural and self-evident, they’re easy to miss.
Robert was driven primarily by achievement and affiliation.
He wanted to create something meaningful and novel. He wanted to work closely with gifted people in environments that felt energizing and rewarding.
Those motives powered his creativity and made his companies exciting places to work. But they also created a blindspot.
Despite believing that financial success mattered to him, Robert’s decisions consistently revealed that it didn’t drive him. When tradeoffs arose—between profitability and product perfection, between financial rigor and team experience—he defaulted to what energized him most.
He wasn’t unaware of finance. He wasn’t incapable of discipline. He simply wasn’t motivated enough by money to let it lead.
His intention was success. His impact was instability. And because this misalignment lived beneath his awareness, it repeated—venture after venture.
Read more about the Motive Blindspot here.
Blindspotting Coaching didn’t focus on Robert’s failures. It focused on patterns.
Through reflection, Robert examined:
The picture became clear.
Robert loved launching companies—but not sustaining them. He loved innovation—but not the constraints required to monetize it. He loved people—but avoided decisions that threatened harmony.
Once named, the blindspot was undeniable.
But awareness doesn’t force change. It creates choice.
Robert recognized that adjusting his behavior to prioritize financial outcomes would require sacrificing parts of his work life he genuinely loved. And he wasn’t sure he wanted that.
Robert continued doing what energized him.
He launched new ventures. He built inspiring teams. He pursued ambitious ideas.
And the pattern continued.
His companies remained exciting but financially fragile. Investors learned—sometimes painfully—that Robert’s internal drivers didn’t align with their expectations.
Robert wasn’t a failure. He lived a life full of creativity, stimulation, and meaningful connection. But his blindspot had consequences—not just for him, but for those who depended on him to lead with different priorities.
Leadership doesn’t fail because of a lack of talent. It fails when leaders don’t see what’s driving them.
Robert’s story highlights a core Blindspotting truth:
Leadership effectiveness depends on motive alignment, not just capability.
Motive blindspots don’t always show up as conflict or chaos. Sometimes they appear as charisma, excitement, and endless new beginnings, without lasting results.
When motives don’t match the role, patterns repeat.
Awareness gives leaders the opportunity to:
But without awareness, the same outcomes return, again and again.
Read more about the Behavior blindspot.
Ask yourself:
If the same problems keep showing up in different forms, your motive may be leading the way.
Your motives don’t disappear under pressure — they get louder.
Motive awareness turns instinct into intention.
→ Explore Blindspotting Coaching for Leaders & Teams
Blindspotting →Identity →Behaviors →Traits → Intellect → Emotion → Motive →
