CONNECT with Sheila Botelho Podcast

Which Founder Archetype Are You (And How To Grow No Matter Your Style) | EP 489

• Sheila Botelho

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🔗 Mentioned on this Episode: Show Notes 👈



When it feels like you're stuck between the business you have and the impact you’re meant to create, it’s rarely about needing more strategy. It's usually about noticing the way you approach growth. In today’s episode, I reveal the three founder archetypes sI see repeatedly in high-achieving entrepreneurs—and how identifying yours can be the key to unlocking your next level with more ease.


You'll hear real stories of how seasoned founders unknowingly slowed their expansion—and how subtle shifts helped them reclaim momentum without burning out. From the hyper-implementer to the good student to the anxious avoider, I show how each style holds its own unique wisdom (and its own blind spots).


If you’re ready to move from survival-driven scaling to soul-led success, this conversation will offer a mirror—and a map. Plus, I share one simple but game-changing practice that will help you lead your growth from a place of trust, not pressure.


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Sheila:

If you're finding yourself stuck between where you are and where you want to be, it's not because you're not working hard enough. It's because your natural growth style, the way you instinctively approach expansion, might be holding you in patterns you don't even realize. Today, I'll walk you through three founder archetypes. I see again and again the quiet patterns that come with each, and how awareness can help you break free and step into a more aligned version of success. Hi, welcome to the Connect with Sheila Botelho podcast. I'm committed to helping you reconnect to your purpose, elevate your wellbeing and build your version of a happy, successful life. On today's solo chat, we're exploring something that could completely change the way you approach your next chapter of growth. Over years of entrepreneurship and through supporting many founders, I've noticed a pattern Despite all the uniqueness we each bring into our work, the way we respond to growth often falls into three very familiar archetypes, and I'll be the first to say that I've lived inside of each of them at different points of my own evolution, not because I wasn't capable, but because growth always invites up our deepest patterns for review. And the three growth types I'm going to be talking about today are the just tell me what to do implementer. The good student, who thrives with feedback. And the anxious or avoidant founder, who needs gentle momentum who needs gentle momentum. And each style has its own internal dialogue, its own comfort zones, and if left unchecked, it can quietly slow our expansion. So let's start with the just tell me what to do. Implementer. These founders are high energy action takers. Give them a plan and they will execute it with military precision.

Sheila:

I remember embodying this archetype during the season when I first expanded into the online business space. After years in wellness and personal development, I was already comfortable with leadership, but the digital world felt new and I didn't want to waste time, so I approached it with a mindset of give me the exact blueprint and I'll make it happen. I became hyper-focused on finding the right system, the perfect strategy, and for a while that helped me move really fast. But eventually I realized I had outsourced my discernment. I was so focused on doing things the right way or so-called right way that I hadn't really left room to ask if it was the right way for me, and I recently saw this mirrored in a brilliant author that I've been supporting. She had so much to say, so much brilliance to share, but in building her brand around her writing. Her inner voice was saying just tell me exactly what to do and I'll do it. So one of these traps that we fall into in this regard could be outsourcing your knowing to external strategies, saying I'll just follow someone else's playbook, and when I do that, that'll that'll mean I'll be safe.

Sheila:

The danger here is that even the best strategy in the world won't work if it's not built for your season of life, your energy or your bigger vision, when you're constantly trying to squeeze yourself into someone else's plan. When you're constantly trying to squeeze yourself into someone else's plan, you start disconnecting from your own intuition and eventually from your business altogether. This can happen, and I've also seen people feeling like failures when a plan doesn't work perfectly right. Is there perfection? Come on now, they say to themselves. If it didn't work, something must be wrong with me.

Sheila:

Instead of questioning the method, implementers often turn the blame inward, and this can chip away at confidence quietly. Over time, I also see them overloading themselves with tasks without pausing for deeper alignment, and it becomes about doing more instead of becoming more. So the checklist never ends, and eventually exhaustion creeps in, not just physically, but creatively and emotionally too. So why, in this regard. Does shifting matter for these archetypes? Well, it's because when you slow down just enough to reconnect with your instincts, your actions become so much more potent. So, instead of throwing energy at a million tasks, you start moving deliberately, where every step is a reflection of who you're becoming, not just what you're accomplishing. And when you learn to trust your own instincts, your actions become intentional, not just mechanical. You create results that actually feel like you.

Sheila:

The second archetype is the good student, needing feedback and structure. So this good student these are founders who are attentive, thoughtful and thorough. They seek validation not out of weakness, but because they genuinely care about doing excellent work, and I can clearly remember when this part of me was most alive, early on, when I started speaking publicly in teaching groups, I would rehearse, prepare and triple check everything, and it's really valuable to do this. Of course, I really craved feedback as well, though, to do this. Of course I really craved feedback as well, though, and I thought, if I can just collect enough positive reinforcement, then I'll know it's safe to go bigger. But the truth was no amount of external approval could fill the space where I needed to really validate myself, and a real estate investor I coached recently showed this pattern on point.

Sheila:

They were really smart, strategic, incredibly capable, but she would constantly question herself, caught in this cycle of saying to herself am I ready enough? Should I wait until everything is perfectly mapped out? And certainly, when you're investing, when you're doing these big moves, you want to make sure that you are in alignment with what you're doing. You want to make sure that it makes sense on paper as well. But it was very interesting because everything was really mapped out and at some point just taking that step becomes the next thing to do, and that is how we move forward.

Sheila:

And so some patterns here that become traps are accumulating more knowledge but not translating it into action, thinking if I just learn one more thing, I'll feel ready. And the truth is, more information doesn't automatically equal more transformation. At some point you have to move from learning into embodying, and that happens through doing, not only studying. Another trap that happens is waiting for readiness that never truly arrives. It's easy to believe that one more certification, one more class, one more coaching call will finally deliver the perfect green light. But readiness isn't a feeling that taps you on the shoulder. It is a decision that you make before you feel fully prepared.

Sheila:

Another trap is missing opportunities while waiting for permission. Now, opportunities aren't always wrapped in neat little packages. Have you noticed that? Sometimes they just show up messy and unexpected, and I've found many of life's most wonderful opportunities have been unexpected. As much as I'm open to opportunity, they come packaged differently than I expect, and if you're stuck waiting for someone else to validate your next step, you will miss the magic that was meant for you. Now, why is it important to shift here? I've found it's because leadership isn't about doing everything perfectly. It's about trusting your capacity to figure things out as you go, and when you stop waiting for someone else to tell you you're ready, you step into the self-trust that allows growth to happen through you, not to you, no course. No coach, no mentor can ever replace your own inner leadership, and your next level requires you to trust yourself before the world validates you.

Sheila:

The third archetype I'm going to talk about is the anxious or avoidant founder, and this style is a little subtler but just as impactful. The anxious or avoidant founder often dreams vividly. They see their future so clearly, but when the time comes to step into that expansion of who they're meant to be, an invisible wall goes up. Now. I slipped into this pattern after a season of approaching burnout, and it was a time where I knew what to do. I had the vision, but every step forward felt so heavy, almost like I was carrying an invisible backpack full of resistance, and small decisions would feel overwhelming and visibility felt so vulnerable in a way that it never had before, and I just didn't wanna show up online.

Sheila:

One spa owner that I worked with mirrored this experience. She would get so lit up planning her next series of offerings and then just as quickly disappear into fixing small details or postponing the big moves with thoughts like maybe it's just not the right time yet, maybe I should wait until it's less chaotic, because serving existing clients and doing all the background parts of business can really take a lot of bandwidth. However, even though she had support in that area with her team, she was not allowing herself to go bigger. She wanted it to be perfect. So these types of traps Okay, so we're talking about overcomplicating small actions as a way to avoid big visibility, saying things like I can't do this now because my website's not perfect, or I'll post when my offer is a hundred percent dialed in. I'll post when my offer is 100% dialed in. These are protective patterns. They feel productive, but really they're just sophisticated ways of staying hidden.

Sheila:

Another trap is believing that they need to fix themselves before moving forward, thinking once I'm more confident, more healed, more experienced, then I'll go bigger. But growth doesn't wait for perfection. Confidence doesn't magically appear. It is built in the doing. That was a really, really hard lesson for me to learn years ago. Also, and it's one that sometimes rears its head when I'm starting something new. We always have work to do, and I guess that's part of the beautiful journey of life. We get to keep growing and challenging ourselves and realizing that the there that we're trying to get to. Once we get there, there's still another there, there's another place to go next, another place to go next.

Sheila:

Another trap with this archetype is feeling stuck in cycles of momentum crash retreat. So they'll go into that cycle momentum crash, retreat, momentum crash retreat. It's exhilarating when the momentum kicks in, but without gentle, sustainable support, it often triggers a crash and after enough crashes, it's tempting to just retreat altogether, convincing yourself maybe you're just not cut out for this, which couldn't be further from the truth If you really are committed to moving forward and building something beautiful and if it's an idea that just will not leave you alone. So why does shifting matter here? Well, because when you nurture momentum with patience and compassion instead of pressure, you teach your nervous system that expansion is safe. And when your body feels safe, your soul can actually lead. That is when growth becomes not just possible but inevitable. So I invite you to breathe into this for a moment.

Sheila:

Where do you recognize yourself most right now? Which of these archetypes? Maybe you're sprinting towards someone else's blueprint? Maybe you're perfecting your readiness on the sidelines. Maybe you're inching forward and then pulling back, without even realizing it. Wherever you are, you are not wrong, you're not behind, you are not broken. You're simply human, and awareness is your superpower. Self-awareness is that bridge. It's the bridge that takes you to self-leadership, and self-leadership is the bridge to aligned, sustainable success.

Sheila:

When you begin noticing these old survival strategies for what they are, when you begin noticing these old survival strategies for what they are survival, not sabotage you can start choosing differently. You stop moving from fear and you start moving from faith, and that's exactly what the embodied success method helps you access that I've created. You can see it in the show notes. Helps you access that I've created. You can see it in the show notes. It's really about repatterning your relationship with growth, not through force, but through deep remembering. You already have everything you need. It's just about making space to hear yourself again.

Sheila:

If you have been loving this podcast, it would mean the world to me if you would tap, follow and leave a quick review. It really helps more incredible entrepreneurs like you find these conversations. And if you're ready to step into this next season of growth in your life with full alignment, I invite you to download the embodied success method and meditation that's linked in the show notes. It is the starting point for the kind of expansion that doesn't cost you your peace. Thank you so much for being here today. I hope you have a beautiful rest of your week and I'll see you on another episode. Big blessings, you.