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Dr. Sharon Spano Shows Founders What Their Recurring Business Problems Are Really Pointing To

US Business News Staff US Business News Staff on October 7, 2026

By: Kate Sarmiento

The hard truth about building a business is that it will show a founder who they are, whether they’ve asked to know or not. Dr. Sharon Spano, PhD, is the founder of Spano & Company and a business strategist who does executive coaching with an emphasis on human development. She has spent more than 25 years working with entrepreneurs, executives, and family businesses, and her work rests on the idea that the business is one of the clearest places to see the person running it.

The reveal usually comes disguised as a business problem. Delegation stalls, an investment keeps getting postponed, or a new team never quite earns full trust, and each one tends to get handled as its own separate issue. A better process gets built, a new tool gets bought, or a different person gets hired, and the founder moves on until the problem returns in a different form.

A problem that keeps returning after it has been fixed deserves a second look, because the fix may have been aimed at the wrong target. Dr. Spano’s approach reads recurring problems as clues about the person behind the business, and it asks founders to get curious about what sits underneath them. This one is for the founder who keeps fixing the business and keeps finding the same problem waiting.

The Task You Won’t Hand Off Is Telling On You

Delegation is usually where a founder’s relationship with control becomes visible, since handing something off means letting another person make the call. It is easy to file that under scheduling, and the research on founders suggests it runs deeper.

Interviews with 30 founders and co-founders of Canadian technology startups, all of whom had recently brought in professional managers, found that handing over decision-making was hard and unsettling for many of them, and frightening for some, because holding those decisions was tied to feeling that the company belonged to them (Source: Applied Psychology, 2023). Most of those founders found a way through it. Many put regular meetings and reporting in place so they still knew what was happening in the business, and they gave up control of decisions while still feeling the company was theirs (Source: Applied Psychology, 2023).

That finding has a practical edge. Giving up control and staying attached to the company can happen together, though it took those founders deliberate adjustments to get there.

Money and trust follow the same route. In Dr. Spano’s experience, a founder’s relationship with money tends to surface when it is time to invest or take a risk, and the ability to trust tends to surface once a team is being built. A postponed hire or a delayed investment can be sound strategy, and it can also be an old pattern wearing a strategy costume. Telling the two apart takes honesty about which one is actually happening.

When the Business Wobbles, the Founder Feels It Personally

Control, money, and trust tend to show up in daily decisions. Identity tends to show up when the results come in. In Dr. Spano’s experience, it gets tested when a business struggles, when it succeeds, and when it no longer needs the founder in quite the same way, and each of those moments raises the same question of who a founder is once the company stops confirming it.

A 15-month study in the North of England, built with later-stage entrepreneurs as research partners, found that a founder’s sense of self can become closely tied to the venture. When what an entrepreneur expected from the business in terms of purpose, autonomy, and achievement fails to match what the business actually delivers, the gaps add up to a weaker sense of control, direction, and worth, which feeds anxiety, isolation, shame, and guilt (Source: Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 2023). In the authors’ data, the gaps set off the negative feelings, and the hours worked did not.

That matters because it points to the founder’s expectations as the place to look. A founder who expected the business to deliver a certain kind of freedom or meaning and got something else is carrying a mismatch that no new process will close.

Dr. Spano calls one form of this the Emptiness of Success, where the results are all there, and something still feels missing. She treats it as separate from burnout, since a high achiever can feel empty without being worn out.

Get Curious Before You Hire Another Consultant

Once a pattern is visible, the next move matters. Curiosity sounds soft, and it is more specific than it sounds. It starts with tracking which problems repeat, because a frustration that shows up across different projects, hires, and years carries more information than a one-time mistake.

From there, a founder can ask when the feeling first showed up, what the behavior is protecting, and what handing off the task, spending the money, or trusting the person would say about them if it went badly. Those questions are easier to answer with someone trained to spot the patterns. Founders who take them seriously give themselves a real chance at ending the problem for good.

Ready to Read What Your Business Keeps Telling You?

Some of the patterns a founder carries were there before the business existed, and the business simply gave them a very visible place to show up. Reading them takes honesty and a good map. Dr. Spano’s private Systemic Mapping sessions are built for that purpose, using a systemic approach grounded in a scientific framework to help leaders identify the hidden obstacles that keep them from reaching the next level. Founders who are ready to look at the person behind the business can book a private Systemic Mapping session with Dr. Sharon Spano at Spano & Company.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical, psychological, or mental health advice. Executive coaching and systemic mapping are not substitutes for diagnosis, psychotherapy, or treatment from a licensed healthcare or mental health professional. Individual experiences and outcomes may vary.

Every Leader Knows the Plan. Almost Nobody Knows Why It Didn’t Happen.

US Business News Staff US Business News Staff on October 7, 2026

The hardest problem in business isn’t deciding what to do. It’s getting an organization to actually do it, and to learn something when it doesn’t.

There is a particular silence that falls over a leadership team when a quarter closes short. Everyone in the room agreed on the plan. Everyone worked. Nobody can say, with any precision, where it went wrong. So the group does what most groups do. It sets a new plan and moves on, carrying every unexamined assumption from the last one straight into the next.

This is not a strategy problem. Most companies have more strategy than they can use. It is an execution problem, and it is remarkably consistent across industries, company sizes and management styles. Afterburner has spent thirty years working on it, and the diagnosis it offers has not changed much in that time because the failure hasn’t either.

Three Ways Good Plans Die

The first is saturation. Fighter pilots use the term for the moment when the inputs coming at a person exceed their capacity to process them. The pilot isn’t careless. There is simply too much, and the defining feature of the condition is that the person inside it is the last to know. Any executive who has watched a capable manager quietly stop making decisions because every priority was labeled urgent has seen the business version. Attention is a finite resource, and most organizations spend it like it isn’t.

The second is drift. A plan leaves the executive session clear. It arrives on the factory floor, or in the regional office, or in the engineering team, as something slightly different. Each group fills in the gaps with its own reading of what leadership meant. None of them is wrong. None of them is aligned either, and the gap between them is invisible until it shows up in the numbers.

The third is the one companies are least likely to admit: they don’t learn. Projects end. Meetings end. The team turns to what’s next, and whatever the last effort could have taught them leaves with the momentum. Six months later, the same mistake shows up wearing a different name.

What A Squadron Does About It

Afterburner’s founder, James D. “Murph” Murphy, flew and instructed in the F-15 for the U.S. Air Force before starting the company in 1996. What he brought out of that experience was not a set of leadership slogans. It was an operating cycle so routine that pilots barely think of it as a method: plan, brief, execute, debrief. Every flight, without exception.

Each step exists to kill one of the failures above. Planning forces a team to name the objective and the threats to it, which is how saturation gets managed before it starts. The brief puts everyone in the same room, before the work, to hear how their piece fits the whole, which is how drift gets caught while it can still be corrected. And the debrief, the step business skips most reliably, is how an organization learns. What was the objective? What happened? Why? What changes next time? Rank comes off at the door, results are separated from ego, and the point is never to find someone to blame. The point is to make the next mission better than the last one.

Murphy called the framework Flawless Execution. Afterburner has since put it in front of 2.2 million leaders across more than 3,500 organizations, including 85 percent of the Fortune 500. The pitch has always been the same, and it is more of a challenge than a promise. “I built Afterburner to prove that flawless execution isn’t a talent you’re born with; it’s a discipline, and it can be taught,” Murphy said.

Proof Outside The Classroom

Skeptical executives are right to ask whether a method born in a cockpit survives contact with a P&L. Afterburner’s best answer is the man who now runs it.

Rob “Rocko” Ceravolo, named chief executive on August 24, spent 14 years as a U.S. Navy fighter aviator and TOPGUN graduate before founding Tropic Ocean Airways in 2009 with a single aircraft and a single employee. What he did as the airline grew is the interesting part, because it is precisely what most founders don’t do. He built the standards before he built the scale, designing the company’s pilot development program to mirror U.S. Naval flight procedures, convinced a business can only grow as fast as its training and operating discipline can carry it.

That is a slow, unfashionable way to build a company. It also produced an airline that Tropic Ocean and Afterburner describe as the world’s largest amphibious carrier, and a team that, in the 10 days after Hurricane Dorian, evacuated more than 900 people and delivered 200,000 pounds of aid. No one plans for that mission. What holds is whether the people executing it share a clear enough picture of the objective to make good decisions at speed without waiting for instructions. That is what all the discipline had been for.

“Taking the lead at Afterburner isn’t a career move for me; it’s a homecoming to the ideas that built everything I have,” Ceravolo said.

The Question For Business Leaders

Thirty years is a long time to keep saying the same thing to business leaders, and Afterburner’s persistence says something about the problem rather than the company. Every generation of executives arrives convinced that better strategy, better tools or better talent will close the gap between what they decided and what actually happened. The gap persists because the causes are human and structural, not technological. People get saturated. Plans drift. Lessons evaporate.

The organizations that outperform are rarely the ones with the most elegant plan. They are the ones that have made preparation, alignment, and honest review into habits rather than events. A fighter squadron does that because the cost of not doing it is measured in aircraft and lives. Business gets to learn the same discipline at a discount. The only question is whether leaders will pick it up before the next quiet silence in the boardroom.

UltimateTax Delivers the Technology Tax Preparers Need to Run Stronger Practices

US Business News Staff US Business News Staff on October 7, 2026

Technology Built Around the Business of Taxes

Running a successful tax preparation practice requires more than knowledge of tax codes. It also requires efficient systems, reliable software, and support that extends beyond filing season. Founded in 2006 in Muscatine, Iowa, UltimateTax provides professional tax software designed to serve tax preparers across a range of practice sizes and business models.

UltimateTax’s product lineup includes online and desktop options, giving tax professionals a choice based on how they work, how many users need access, and whether they prepare individual returns, business returns, or both. Features such as Interview Mode, Smart Diagnostics, context-sensitive help, and unlimited e-filing on qualifying packages are designed to keep the preparation process organized and efficient.

A Platform for Different Practice Models

Professional tax practices vary in size, structure, and workflow. A solo preparer may prioritize accessibility and a low-cost entry point. A larger office may need unlimited user access and support for corporate returns. UltimateTax offers several packages to accommodate those differences.

Web-based professional tax software like UltimateTax’s Online 1040 allows preparers to work in a web browser without installing or updating software locally. Online 1040 works on Macs, Windows PCs, Chromebooks, and tablets. The package includes access for up to 10 users, coverage for all states, and unlimited e-filing. It also features Interview Mode, Smart Diagnostics, prior-year data conversion, and Form-Linking.

Bank products are another option available through UltimateTax. These products allow clients to pay preparation fees directly from their refunds rather than paying them up front. Preparers can also qualify for bank-product rebates based on funding volume.

For practices that prefer locally installed software, Desktop 1040 provides unlimited user access, unlimited e-filing, and support for all states. UltimateTax also offers a 1040 + Corporate package for practices that need corporate return capabilities. The corporate packages use Windows installation, while the online and pay-per-return options provide Mac compatibility.

Supporting Larger and Multi-Office Operations

UltimateTax’s service bureau tax software can serve a different purpose for businesses that want to build a tax operation beyond a single office. The platform offers a reseller program that allows tax professionals to operate under their own brand while UltimateTax provides the software infrastructure behind the service.

Resellers can establish their own business name and logo, set their own pricing, and use a branded tax software portal. That model gives tax professionals another way to expand their businesses without developing their own tax preparation software.

UltimateTax also offers free data conversions for customers moving from other tax programs. For practices switching systems, converting existing data can reduce the amount of information that has to be re-entered manually and make the transition more manageable.

Interview-Style Workflow That Saves Time

UltimateTax includes Interview Mode as an alternative to traditional form-based data entry. Instead of requiring preparers to navigate through tax forms, the interview process uses prompts to guide them through the information needed to complete a return.

That approach can be especially useful for newer preparers who are still learning the workflow. More experienced professionals can also switch between Interview Mode and regular Data Entry Mode based on the type of return they are preparing.

Smart Diagnostics provides another layer of review before a return is submitted. Context-sensitive help gives preparers access to information related to the field or task they are working on, without requiring them to leave the software to find an answer. Form-Linking can also move information between related forms, reducing repetitive data entry.

Together, these features support a more streamlined approach to preparing and reviewing returns.

Understanding the Cost Structure

Tax preparer software costs depend on the type of package a practice needs and how it plans to use the software. UltimateTax offers a Pay-Per-Return option as well as annual packages for online and desktop users. The available packages differ in areas such as user access, corporate return capabilities, e-filing, and bank-product options.

The company also offers renewal pricing that can reduce costs for returning customers, with discounts influenced by renewal timing and, for certain offers, by bank-product funding. That gives established practices another factor to consider when comparing the long-term cost of tax preparation software.

Year-Round Support for Tax Professionals

The company says its software is used by more than 50,000 preparers each year. For those evaluating the platform, UltimateTax software reviews can offer insight into more than the software itself, including the support available to users. UltimateTax’s 365 Service provides year-round assistance via phone, chat, and email, so tax professionals can access support every day of the year.

The company also provides a knowledge base and other support resources that allow preparers to find answers to questions as they arise. For tax professionals who rely on their software year-round, access to ongoing support is an important factor in evaluating a platform’s overall value.

UltimateTax combines multiple software options with features designed to simplify tax preparation, support various office structures, and provide preparers with year-round support. For a practice evaluating professional tax software, the right package ultimately depends on its return mix, user requirements, preferred workflow, and approach to e-filing and bank products. For details on its software and services, visit UltimateTax.com or call 866-686-7211.

Built for Men: Inside Maverick Men’s Health in West Lake Hills

US Business News Staff US Business News Staff on October 7, 2026

From the team behind Auveau, a boutique clinic on Bee Caves Road is betting that men want credentialed care, lab-backed plans, and a provider who actually remembers them.

Brain fog. Low energy. A drive that isn’t what it used to be. Weight that won’t shift no matter how many mornings you spend at the gym. For a lot of men, these are the problems they notice, quietly worry about, and then put off dealing with, often because bringing them up feels awkward.

Maverick Men’s Health Austin was built around that hesitation. Located at 4238 Bee Caves Road in West Lake Hills, the clinic describes itself as a boutique wellness, aesthetics, and men’s health practice, one that promises “fast answers, real solutions, no awkward conversations.” Its central claim is simple: find the root problem instead of chasing symptoms.

A decade of roots in West Lake Hills

Maverick isn’t starting from scratch. Its lead provider, Chrissy Gray Lim, PA-C, founded Auveau, a high-end boutique medical spa focused on aesthetics and wellness, with her husband, Gerald Lim, MD, about ten years ago. Over that decade, Auveau built a reputation in West Lake Hills for results that don’t look overdone, and for a practice where wellness has grown into as big a focus as aesthetics.

“We pride ourselves on staying current with the latest and greatest medical and aesthetic treatments, while making sure everything we offer is high quality and medically sound,” says Lim. “We’re known for amazing results that still keep people looking natural.”

That track record is what she hopes will set Maverick apart in a crowded market. Where many clinics lead with promotions, Maverick leads with credentials: medical providers with many years of experience and a broad range of treatments under one roof.

Listen first, treat thoughtfully

Lim leads a team that includes nurse practitioner Keena Chung, FNP-C, aesthetic nurse specialist Patty Belisle, RN, CANS, and medical assistant Justin Ford. Dr. Nicholas Gentry, who founded Maverick, serves as its national wellness director. The team sums up its shared philosophy in four words: listen first, treat thoughtfully.

That philosophy shows up in how the practice structures care. Rather than a one-size protocol, every plan begins with a conversation about the patient’s goals, comfort level, and timeline. The clinic’s standard of care rests on four pillars: provider-led treatment, comprehensive lab testing, individualized plans, and ongoing monitoring. Holistic care, as the team frames it, means combining objective lab data with how a patient actually feels and what kind of treatment he’s comfortable with, then layering in medication, hormone optimization, or lifestyle changes as needed.

“We want people to look and feel good on the inside and the outside,” Lim says. “That’s why wellness has become such a big part of what we do.”

Three steps, no guesswork

The process is deliberately uncomplicated. It starts with a consultation, where the team listens, runs tests, and works to identify what’s really going on. From there comes a custom plan designed around the patient’s goals. The third step is the one patients are there for: results, which the clinic describes as more energy, better performance, and greater confidence.

The practice is equally clear about what patients won’t get. No guesswork, no sales pressure, and no generic protocols. In a market crowded with quick-fix promises, that’s a pointed stance, and one the clinic repeats throughout its messaging: “This is not a trend mill. This is the care that compounds.”

What they treat

Maverick’s services span both medical and aesthetic care. On the medical side, the clinic offers testosterone replacement therapy for men dealing with low testosterone, medical weight loss and body composition programs, peptide therapy, and holistic wellness assessments. On the aesthetic side, it offers PRP hair restoration and injectables for men.

The aesthetic work carries the same “enhance, don’t erase” philosophy that Auveau is known for. “You weren’t made in a lab, so why look like it?” the clinic asks. The team would “rather hear ‘you look great’ than ‘you look different.'”

Care that remembers you

What Maverick emphasizes most isn’t a device or a treatment. It’s the relationship. The clinic uses gold-standard devices, medical-grade products, and evidence-based protocols, but says the real difference is a team that knows a patient’s history, remembers his preferences, and adjusts his plan as his needs evolve. The environment is designed to match: private, discreet, and professional. The clinic also describes itself as LGBTQ+ friendly, a notable and welcome signal for potential patients.

Invested in the community

The Lims’ ties to West Lake Hills run deeper than business. They’re active in the local Chamber of Commerce and support area schools and philanthropies, including the Eanes Education Foundation.

Serving Central Texas

While the clinic sits in West Lake Hills, its reach extends well beyond. Patients come from Austin, Bee Cave, Lakeway, Dripping Springs, Cedar Park, Round Rock, Georgetown, Pflugerville, Kyle, San Marcos, and Marble Falls.

Maverick Men’s Health Austin is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 4238 Bee Caves Rd, Suite B. Consultations can be booked online, by phone at (512) 520-5262, or by email at austin@maverick-menshealth.com. The clinic is also on Instagram at @maverickmenshealth_austin.