Letter 15/21: “The Prison We Built in Our Own Minds” – What COVID Taught Me About Self-Imposed Limitations
Yesterday I told you about losing 150 events to COVID and pivoting the business to survive. That’s the story everyone tells about 2020 – the external transformation, the business model changes, the rapid innovation. Today I want to tell you the story underneath that story, the one about what COVID revealed that had nothing to do with webinars or online platforms or any of the tactical pivots we made.
For 16 years before the pandemic, I believed I had to spend 2 or 3 nights a week away from home. Away from my kids. Away from my wife. Away from my own bed. Because “that’s how business needed to be done.” I told myself this story so many times I believed it was a fact, as fundamental to running a successful business as having an accountant or paying taxes.
Then COVID locked down the country, and I discovered it was a lie. Not a malicious lie – nobody was deliberately deceiving me. Just a belief I’d never questioned, a limitation that existed nowhere except in my own mind.
THE REAL LESSON
Yesterday’s lesson was about the pivot – the 150 events to zero, the business transformation, how we moved everything online and not only survived but thrived. Today’s lesson is about something deeper, something that goes beyond business strategy and into the very foundations of how we think about what’s possible in our lives.
This is about the prisons we build in our own minds, about the limitations we accept as reality that are actually just beliefs we’ve never challenged, and about what becomes possible when we’re forced to question everything we thought was true.
THE BELIEFS I NEVER QUESTIONED
Before March 2020, I had constructed an entire operating system for my business based on beliefs I’d never examined. Looking back now, I can see them clearly, but at the time they were invisible – not beliefs at all, but simply “the way things are.”
I believed I needed to be in the office to run the business. For 16 years, I was in that office – first in Carlow a 40 minute commute away and then in Ferns a 10 minute commute away. That’s where the business happened, where the decisions were made, where the work got done. The idea of running the business from anywhere else seemed absurd, like trying to be a pilot without a cockpit.
I believed clients needed me physically present to trust me. I drove to their offices, sat across from them, looked them in the eye. That’s how you built relationships in professional services – face to face, in person, with a firm handshake and the ability to read body language. Virtual relationships seemed shallow by comparison, insufficient for the kind of trust required in advisory work.
I believed training had to be in-person to be effective. You needed the room, the energy, the eye contact, the connection. Online couldn’t replicate that magic that happens when you get accountants in a room together, when they’re learning from each other during breaks, when the real value happens in the conversations between sessions. The thought of moving our training business online felt like a massive compromise, like offering a photograph when people wanted the real thing.
I believed business development required travel. Two, three nights a week sometimes – Dublin, Cork, Galway, Belfast. That’s how you grow a national business when you’re based in a small town. You go to where the clients are, you show up to the networking events, you build relationships over dinner. The cost of travel wasn’t just financial – it was the nights away, the missed bedtimes, the phone calls home to say goodnight to kids who were already half asleep. But that cost seemed necessary, unavoidable, just part of what it takes to build something significant.
I believed my team needed me physically present to be productive. How could they possibly do their best work without me there to guide them, to answer questions, to make decisions, to provide direction? The office wasn’t just where I worked – it was where I led, where I coached, where I kept everything moving forward.
I didn’t question any of these beliefs. They weren’t beliefs at all in my mind – they were facts, as solid and undeniable as gravity. Or so I thought.
WHAT COVID ACTUALLY REVEALED
March 20th, 2020. National lockdown. Suddenly, every single one of those “facts” became impossible. I couldn’t be in the office because there was no office to be in. I couldn’t visit clients because their offices were closed. I couldn’t run in-person training because gatherings were illegal. I couldn’t travel for business development because travel was banned. I couldn’t be physically present with my team because everyone was locked in their own homes.
And here’s what I discovered in those first few weeks of crisis: none of them were actually limitations. They were beliefs. Self-imposed prisons built from habit, comfort, and the most dangerous phrase in business – “that’s how we’ve always done it.”
When the crisis forced me to challenge every assumption, I learned something that still stuns me when I really sit with it: most of what I thought was necessary was actually just comfortable. I wasn’t spending nights away from home because the business required it – I was spending nights away because that’s what I’d always done, and changing it would have required questioning the entire way I’d structured my professional life.
Running the business from home turned out to be more productive, not less. Without the commute, without the casual interruptions, without the theatre of being present in an office, I could focus on the work that actually moved things forward. Virtual client meetings proved more efficient, not less – higher attendance because there was no travel time, easier scheduling, and the quality of the conversation remained exactly the same. Online training had wider reach and better retention because clients could re-watch recordings and the barriers to participation dropped dramatically.
And zero business travel? I saw my kids every single morning and every single night for the first time in 16 years. Not occasionally. Not when the schedule allowed. Every morning. Every night. And the business didn’t just survive – it thrived.
THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH
Here’s what I had to face once the initial crisis subsided and I had time to really think about what had happened: For 16 years, I’d missed bedtime stories, school events, weekend mornings with my kids. I’d spent hundreds of nights in hotel rooms across Ireland, telling myself I “had to” because “that’s how business needed to be done.” I’d believed those nights away from home were necessary, that they were the price you paid for building something significant.
They weren’t. I was choosing to be away. That’s the truth I had to confront, and it wasn’t comfortable. I was using “business necessity” as an excuse for a habit I’d never questioned, for a way of working I’d inherited from mentors and peers and the general culture of “serious business people travel for business.”
COVID didn’t change what was possible in my business. COVID revealed what had always been possible. I just hadn’t been willing to question my beliefs because questioning them would have meant admitting I’d been making choices rather than accepting necessities, and that those choices had real costs that I’d been unwilling to fully acknowledge.
THE DADDY TAX
Now, if you want to get me out of my own house and away from my own bed overnight, you pay the Daddy Tax. It’s a premium fee that is levied if you take me away from home. Come see me anytime in the office but if I go to you, you pay the Daddy Tax It’s become my standard, my non-negotiable line in the sand. Not because I can’t travel – I absolutely can. Not because the business can’t handle it – it absolutely can. But because I learned during COVID that most of the travel I was doing wasn’t necessary at all.
It was habit. It was comfort. It was the way I’d always done things and therefore the way I assumed things needed to be done. It was me accepting a story about how professional services businesses work without ever testing whether that story was true.
And I’m not going back to that prison. I’ve seen what’s possible when you question your beliefs, when you test your assumptions, when you’re willing to challenge “that’s how we’ve always done it.” The daddy tax isn’t about being difficult or demanding – it’s about protecting what matters most, about refusing to go back to accepting limitations that were never real in the first place.
THE PATTERN I SEE EVERYWHERE
For five years now, I’ve watched accounting firms navigate post-COVID reality, and here’s what breaks my heart: so many have already forgotten what they learned. They’ve quietly slipped back into old habits, rebuilding the very prisons they escaped in 2020 or in some cases building new prisons.
Back to the office five days a week – because “that’s how business is done,” even though they proved remote work was effective. Back to in-person-only client meetings – because “that’s how relationships are built,” even though virtual meetings worked perfectly well. Back to geographical limitations – because “our clients need us local,” even though they successfully served clients remotely for months or years.
They’re putting themselves back in the prisons they escaped in 2020. Not because they have to, but because it’s comfortable. Because questioning beliefs is uncomfortable. Because “we’ve always done it this way” is easier than asking “what if we didn’t?” Because maintaining the status quo requires no courage, while creating something new demands that we question everything we think we know.
THE REAL LESSON
COVID didn’t teach us that remote work is possible – we already knew that. COVID didn’t teach us that virtual meetings can work – we already knew that too. Here’s what COVID actually taught us, the lesson that most people have already forgotten: most of our limitations exist only in our minds. The beliefs we accept as reality are often just habits we’ve never questioned. And when we’re forced to challenge those beliefs, we discover capabilities we never knew we had.
This isn’t about COVID anymore. COVID was just the catalyst, the crisis that forced us to question assumptions we’d been carrying for years or decades. The real question is what we do with what we learned. Do we treat it as a temporary aberration, something to survive until we can “get back to normal”? Or do we recognise it as a gift, a forced experiment that revealed truths about what’s actually necessary versus what’s simply comfortable?
THE THREE QUESTIONS
So here’s what I’m asking you, and what I keep asking myself, because this isn’t something you answer once and then move on from – it’s an ongoing practice of questioning and testing and challenging:
Question 1: What are you doing out of habit, not necessity?
What part of “how you’ve always done it” is actually serving you, and what part is just comfortable? What would you do differently if you were starting from scratch today, with no history to constrain you, no established patterns to follow? This is one of the most valuable questions you can ask yourself, because habit masquerades as necessity so effectively that we often can’t tell the difference without deliberate examination.
Question 2: What limitations have you accepted as reality that are actually just beliefs?
“Clients won’t accept virtual meetings.” “My team needs to be in the office.” “I have to be available 24/7.” “I need to serve everyone in my geographical area.” “This won’t work in my industry.” Which are actual limitations, real constraints imposed by the nature of the work or the needs of clients? And which are just beliefs you haven’t tested, assumptions you’ve inherited from others or extrapolated from limited experience? What limiting beliefs do you currently have?
Question 3: What would you do if you had no choice?
If you couldn’t go back to the office, what would you figure out? If you couldn’t travel, what would you innovate? If you couldn’t rely on “how it’s always been done,” what would you discover? COVID gave us no choice, and we discovered we were capable of so much more than we believed. But why wait for another crisis? Why not ask yourself this question now, while you still have the luxury of choice? What is possible from where you are right now? What can you let go of? What can you make your new normal?
THE DEEPER TRUTH
Here’s what I’ve learned in 21 years of building businesses, but learned most clearly and undeniably in 2020: success in business comes down to three things – mindset, belief, and action. Not strategy, not tactics, not systems. Those matter, absolutely they matter, but they come after. They’re the how, not the what or the why.
First comes mindset: how you think about what’s possible. Do you approach problems with a fixed mindset – “this is how it is, this is how it has to be” – or a growth mindset – “this is how it is now, but what if it could be different?” Do you see constraints as immovable realities or as hypotheses to be tested?
Then comes belief: what you accept as limitation versus what you challenge. Every business owner has beliefs about what’s necessary for success in their industry, about what clients will and won’t accept, about what’s required to build something significant. Most of these beliefs are inherited rather than examined, accepted rather than tested. And most of them are wrong, or at least not as universally true as we assume.
Finally comes action: your willingness to do what’s uncomfortable, to test your assumptions rather than accept them. All the mindset shifts and belief changes in the world don’t matter if you don’t actually try something different, if you don’t take action on the insights you’ve gained.
Most business owners I know don’t consciously consider their mindset, limiting beliefs, and are waiting for certainty before they take action. They’re building prisons in their own minds and calling them reality. They’re accepting limitations that don’t exist, following rules that aren’t actually rules, conforming to expectations that aren’t actually expectations.
THE MINDSET SHIFT
Before COVID, my mindset was simple and seemingly practical: “This is how business needs to be done.” After COVID, my mindset became a question: “What if everything I think is necessary actually isn’t?” That shift changed everything – not just in my business, but in my entire life.
Before COVID, I believed I needed to travel for business development. After COVID, I asked: what if I can build better relationships virtually and still see my kids every night? Before COVID, I believed the office was essential for productivity. After COVID, I wondered: what if the office is actually a productivity drain for deep work? Before COVID, I believed clients needed me physically present. After COVID, I questioned: what if clients just need my expertise, not my physical presence?
Every limitation I challenged turned out to be a belief, not a reality. Every assumption I tested revealed itself to be habit, not necessity. And the business didn’t suffer from this questioning – it flourished. It turned out that challenging my beliefs about what was necessary freed up energy, time, and resources to focus on what actually mattered.
THE BELIEF CHANGE
Old belief: “This won’t work in my industry.” New belief: “I haven’t figured out how to make it work yet, but that doesn’t mean it can’t work.” The difference between these two beliefs is profound. One closes down possibility, the other opens it up. One ends the conversation, the other begins it.
Old belief: “Clients won’t accept change.” New belief: “Clients will accept change if I make it better for them.” Again, the distinction matters enormously. The first belief puts the power outside of me, in the hands of clients who won’t accept something. The second belief puts the power in my hands – it’s my job to make the change valuable enough that clients welcome it.
Old belief: “I have to sacrifice family for business success.” New belief: “The best business decisions actually protect family time.” This was perhaps the most important belief change of all, because it reframed success itself. If success requires sacrificing what matters most, is it really success? Or is it just another form of failure dressed up in revenue numbers?
Changed beliefs create changed outcomes. This isn’t wishful thinking or positive affirmations – it’s about replacing beliefs that limit you with beliefs that serve you, and then testing whether those new beliefs are true.
THE ACTION REQUIREMENT
But here’s the critical part that nobody wants to hear: none of this matters without action. I can shift my mindset all day long, I can change my beliefs all I want, but if I don’t actually try running a webinar, it stays theoretical. If I don’t actually attempt virtual consulting, it stays an idea. If I don’t actually test whether clients will accept change, I’ll never know if my new beliefs are true or just different stories I’m telling myself.
Action is where mindset and beliefs either prove true or reveal themselves as prisons of a different kind. COVID forced us to take action – we had no choice. And that action revealed that most of our limitations were self-imposed, most of our necessities were actually preferences, most of our constraints were actually habits.
As a child I was fascinated by Daley Thompson the Olympic Decathlon champion. He was the first person I ever heard talk about positive mental attitude. Positive mental attitude is the first step but it is nothing without action.
But here’s the opportunity: you don’t need another pandemic to test your beliefs. You can choose to take action now, to run the experiment, to challenge the assumption, to try the thing you’ve been telling yourself won’t work. The difference is that when you choose to do it, you get to do it on your terms, in your way, at your pace. When a crisis forces you to do it, you’re scrambling to survive.
THE AMNESIA PROBLEM
Here’s what terrifies me five years later: we’re forgetting. The innovations are being abandoned, the lessons are being unlearned, the prisons are being rebuilt brick by brick. Not because we have to, but because comfort is seductive. It’s easier to go back to “how we’ve always done it” than to keep challenging our beliefs. It’s more comfortable to accept limitations than to keep testing them. It’s safer to build the prison back than to stay in the discomfort of freedom.
But COVID gave us a gift, one we didn’t ask for and didn’t want: it showed us what we’re capable of when we have no choice. The tragedy isn’t what happened in 2020 – the tragedy is wasting that gift by choosing comfort over capability, by returning to old patterns simply because we can, by forgetting what we learned about ourselves and what’s actually possible.
WHAT IF
What if you approached your business with the mindset that every limitation is just a belief waiting to be tested? What if you challenged every “this is how it has to be” and asked “does it really?” What if you took action on the uncomfortable things before a crisis forced you to?
What would become possible? What would you discover about yourself and your business? What prison would you escape that you don’t even realise you’re in right now?
These aren’t rhetorical questions. They’re the questions that separate business owners who are truly building something remarkable from those who are just maintaining the status quo while calling it growth. They’re the questions that separate those who are designing their lives deliberately from those who are accepting whatever life happens to give them.
MY CHALLENGE TO YOU
I’m not asking you to do anything specific. I am not asking you to work remotely if in-person works better for you. I’m not asking you to run virtual events if in-person creates more value. I’m not prescribing a specific solution or telling you that my way is the right way for everyone. None of that is the real point.
I’m asking you to question your beliefs. To challenge what you accept as limitation. To test what you assume is necessary. Because here’s what I know after 21 years of building businesses: the beliefs you don’t question become the limitations that define your life. And most of those beliefs aren’t serving you – they’re imprisoning you in patterns that worked for someone else, in a different time, under different circumstances.
Tell me: What belief are you accepting as reality that might actually just be a habit you’ve never challenged? What limitation exists only in your mind? And more importantly, what are you going to do about it?
Because knowledge without action is just entertainment. Insight without change is just intellectual exercise. You can read this entire letter, nod along with every point, and then go back to doing exactly what you’ve always done. Or you can pick one belief, one limitation, one assumption, and test it. Run the experiment. Try the thing you’ve been telling yourself won’t work. Challenge the story you’ve been accepting as truth.
That’s how you discover what’s actually possible. Not by thinking about it, not by planning it, not by waiting for perfect conditions – by doing it, by testing it, by challenging the beliefs that have been running your business and your life without your conscious permission.
Tomorrow: Lesson 16 – “Go Big or Go Home” – The C-Suite Dream and Why WHO Not HOW Has Limits
When I finally had the resources to hire the dream team, I learned the hardest lesson about delegation: You can delegate everything except ultimate responsibility. Hire people smarter than you? Yes. Let them tell you that you don’t know your own business? Never.
This is Letter 15 of 21 from my series: 21 Years, 21 Lessons. Every day until December 21st, I’m sharing one hard-earned lesson from building the OmniPro Group.
