High Performer or Highly Performative? 5 Hard Truths for Agency Owners Who Can't Switch Off

Hey folks. Quick reality check for anyone running an agency: MoneySuperMarket data shows 2.4 million UK small business owners felt burnt out at the end of last year (opens in a new tab). Among owners of businesses with 10 to 49 employees, which covers plenty of boutique recruitment firms, the figure was nearly six in 10. Separately, Simply Business found that 47% of small business owners have experienced poor mental health in the last 12 months (opens in a new tab). On the latest RecTalk, Nitin Sharma sat down with Adam Smith and Adam Mayhew, co-founders of A-Game Consultancy, to ask an awkward question: are you actually a high performer, or are you just highly performative?

The 5am ice bath isn't the flex you think it is

A-Game coaches mostly successful men, but don't expect alarm-clock heroics: "It's not guru wake up at 5:00 a.m. kind of coaching. We don't believe in that at all."

One of the Adams nailed the episode's big idea: "Are you a high performer or are you highly performative? Because if you couldn't record the ice bath and the Hyrox with your top off, would you still do those things?"

Turning over millions and still miserable

The pair have coached plenty of people who've ticked every box. Here's how one of the Adams described some of them: "They're turning over millions. Profit is really high. But they're overweight, on the verge of divorce. Kids don't see them. What is that? Success?"

Smith says the real driver is usually validation. Plenty of men in their 40s grew up with a dad who provided but didn't talk. When they're honest, he says, the chase comes down to "so dad will say, 'Well done, son.'"

He calls it "destination language": "When I get the big house, then I'll feel enough." Picture the founder on a sun lounger in Barbados, knee bouncing, desperate to check his email.

No, you don't have imposter syndrome

This bit might sting. Smith doesn't buy the label at all: "I can't grow my agency from 3 mil to 6 mil. I've got imposter syndrome. No, you've got low self-esteem."

That isn't him being harsh. You can work on low self-esteem. The label just gets carried around "like a dead weight".

Lonely at the top of a five-person agency

Nitin has heard the same thing from loads of small agency owners: "I can't tell them that I'm having an off day. I can't tell them that I'm struggling."

Smith felt it when he left a 14-year hospitality career to coach on his own: "All the wins just felt like a sense of relief and all the losses were taken really hard."

Which dial would you turn down to hit the bigger number?

A-Game has turned over nearly a couple of million in the last few years. "We probably could have done five if we worked 18-hour days," one of the Adams admitted. "But at what cost?"

So they ask clients blunt questions. Would you take a hit to your health for the bigger number? Would you miss your kids for six months? They told the story of one client who felt guilty reading his five-year-old a bedtime story, because his head was on invoices the whole time. As the pair put it: "He's there, but he's not there."

Nitin lives this one. He takes school holidays off, and when three proposals came back signed in early July, he told them nothing would happen till September: "I'm not onboarding you guys and taking your money off you and then being on holiday for six weeks. That's not right."

The boring basics that actually work

Mayhew quit alcohol in Dubai in 2020 and went from couch to 5k to ultramarathons. He's honest that most of what they teach isn't rocket science: "It's amazing how many people aren't doing the basics."

His list:

• Drink around 3 litres of water a day
• Aim for 8 to 9 hours of sleep a night
• Get the phone out of the bedroom
• Get outside regularly
• Watch what you consume, because "you become what you consume"
• Learn to regulate your emotions with breathwork, meditation or journaling

A-Game also uses DNA and blood testing, and Mayhew points out that some people are natural night owls. Forcing yourself to be "Mr 5:00 a.m." can work against you.

Why A-Game only coaches men

Men struggle too, and they're less likely to get help. Bupa reports that half of UK men (50%) have suffered with poor mental health at one time or another (opens in a new tab), yet only 36% of referrals to NHS talking therapies are for men (opens in a new tab).

The pair say the men-only focus is about marketing positioning, not about turning women away. They've coached women too. And as one of the Adams put it: "It's not that men are scared to speak up. It's that they're punished when they do."

Real talk: what are you actually chasing?

The episode closes with the old parable of the banker and the Mexican fisherman. The banker's grand plan ends with the fisherman retiring to do exactly what he's already doing. Nitin said that's exactly where he is now in his own life.

Nobody here is anti-ambition, and A-Game wants to grow too. Just "not at the expense of ourselves."

Watch or listen to the full episode with Adam Smith and Adam Mayhew on rectalk.co.uk (opens in a new tab), and check out A-Game on rectools®.