Confessions of a Recruiter
The show is hosted by Blake Thompson and Declan Kluver who respectively own Vendito Consulting and Blended Employment. Both have been in Sales & Marketing Recruitment for over 5 years. The podcast is about opening the door to the recruitment world and creating a community of recruiters who can share funny stories, educate and have honest conversations about the industry and their experience. All episodes are powered by xrecruiter.
Confessions of a Recruiter
Taking The Big Leap | Recruiter Real Talk - with Declan Kluver - Episode #2
We explore the Upper Limit Problem—an invisible ceiling that holds recruiters back from sustained success and causes self-sabotage just when things start going well. This framework helps identify and break through the subconscious barriers preventing you from reaching your full potential in recruitment.
• Four hidden barriers keeping recruiters from success: feeling fundamentally flawed, fear of abandonment, believing success is a burden, and fear of outshining others
• Most recruiters get stuck in the "Zone of Excellence"—skilled but not truly fulfilled
• Your "Zone of Genius" is where you dominate effortlessly and time disappears while delivering exceptional value
• Breaking through requires recognizing when you're self-sabotaging and identifying what aspects of recruitment truly energize you
• Success isn't just about you—colleagues, clients, candidates and loved ones benefit when you operate at your highest level
• The industry loses 50-60% of new recruiters within six months because they never break through their upper limits
Are you willing to take the big leap or are you going to stay where it's safe? Send me a DM on LinkedIn or Instagram (@decxrec) and let me know what area you're ready to break through.
· Our Website is: xrecruiter.io
All right, welcome back to literally the first episode of Recruiter Real Talk. And the reason why I've done this episode is because what I've learned from Confessions is no matter what time horizon we all get to, everyone's going to go back and listen to this episode first when they find out about it. So that's why I wanted to make sure that, after almost a decade in the industry, I wanted to find something that most impactful needle moving, something you can actually right now walk away with insane value. So that's why I've structured this conversation to be about the big leap, and this is about breaking through your zone of genius. It's raw and ready because we've recorded the episode, everything looked a million bucks and then the audio didn't go through. So this is me doing it again, so I hope you walk away with definitely some value. So, all right, recruit a real talk. Let's get real for a second.
Speaker 1:How many of you feel like you're right there? You're on the edge of breakthrough the cusp of greatness and somehow something keeps pulling you back. You start crushing it. You have an amazing first month. You just can't string a quarter together. You're making placements, winning clients. Then, bam, you get sick, you lose focus, life happens and suddenly you start overcomplicating things. Well, that's not just bad luck. That is called the upper limit problem, the ULP, and that is an invisible ceiling that is holding you back and stopping you from leveling up. So my personal mission is to be able an e-book. It's a game changer. It's a book that's not just about success, though it's got nothing to do with success. It's about how you can stop self-sabotaging yourself and unlock your full potential. Like everything we say at work, you've got to become the person before you can have the business. You've got to become the person before you can get the finances, the relationships, everything that you want, the health that you want. So many of you are sitting there and you go Dec. What is actually the upper limit problem? Well, this is something I suffered with for years. I didn't know why. I kept being that kid that said you've got potential, you've got potential, but I'd never see it out. It frustrated me through my whole life, and now I understand why. So what is the upper limit problem?
Speaker 1:Picture this we all have an internal thermostat for success, happiness and money. They're three major areas which it gets highlighted most. If things get too good beyond what we subconsciously believe we deserve, then we unconsciously sabotage ourselves to bring them back to where we think we need to be. Sound familiar, you've probably experienced this. You're having a killer month. You're getting sick, you're signing new clients, then you start procrastinating. You've hit your best relationship in life, you're having an amazing time and then all of a sudden, you start a fight with your partner just completely out of the blue and derail all the good work you've done for three to six months. We hit our limit and we sabotage.
Speaker 1:Crazy things happen when we hit our limiting beliefs, and this happens in recruitment literally all the time to recruiters across the country. A recruiter starts gaining momentum, then suddenly stops doing the things that made them successful Less prospecting, avoiding the follow-up and starts getting too busy the ones that get the results that they really want. Whether you're a candidate manager, a 360 consultant, a senior recruiter, a recruitment director, a business owner, it doesn't matter. We all suffer from this, and that's why I want to show you guys a framework that you can implement to the point where you can understand it about yourself and then also highlight it in other areas with other people. But why is this important? Because we fear breaking past our comfort zone. Everyone says they want to be successful, but being successful actually scares the absolute shit out of everyone. So here's the truth your next level of success. It's not about working harder anymore. We know you can graft, we know you can do the reps. It's about pushing your self-imposed limits that you have created for yourself, that, unfortunately or fortunately, your parents have also created in you. They've passed their limiting beliefs onto you. You've instilled them as a child and now that we need to de-shackle them and change them so you can get to where you want to go, what are the four hidden barriers holding you back? So why do we have this upper limit? Why do we hit it?
Speaker 1:Gay Hendricks says there is four hidden barriers, deep rooted beliefs that keep us playing small. So let's run through them really quick, feeling fundamentally flawed. What that means is there's a voice in your head saying I don't deserve this. Maybe you think you're not experienced enough, you're not smart enough, talent enough. That's a lie. It's like saying, oh, a CEO wouldn't want to pick up my call because I'm not a CEO Shit like that.
Speaker 1:You need to get rid of Fear of abandonment. You worry that if you become too successful, you'll outgrow the people around you, maybe your family, your friends or even your colleagues won't even be able to relate to you anymore and you fear losing that relationship. Believing success is a burden. You've had a sniff of it and you think if I increase this I worked hard, it was this, that and the other I'll be yet too successful. I'll be overwhelmed, I'll be burnt out and maybe I'll have no life. That is a mindset problem, not a success problem.
Speaker 1:The last one is fear of outshining others. We're in a room of high performers, we want to be the best, but really this is an area where maybe you grew up being told a kid that not to be too much. So you dim your light, you hold yourself back and you stay at the 80 when you really need to be playing at the 100. Now be honest with yourself. I want you to sit there, think about moments, think about times just in the last week, where one of these four areas has opened itself up to you. So four areas has opened itself up to you. So which one of these is the biggest limiter for you? There's always one. Mine is fundamentally flawed. I've never thought I'm good enough for anything until now.
Speaker 1:Now we need to break through and step into your zone of genius. All right, so you've done what we. This is how we break through the upper limit and step into what Hendrix calls our zone of genius. So first let's define actually what our zone of genius is. The easy thing is that there's four areas for this as well. So, doing what you love. When you do it, you operate effortlessly. You just feel like you're gliding through life. You bring massive value to your clients and candidates. Time disappears when you work. You get to the end of the day and go, wow, that was the easiest day ever. Strung a bunch of deals together, booked heaps of client meetings, like I am a g.
Speaker 1:Most recruiters get stuck, though, in the zone of excellence. Now you can all appreciate this. You're really good at what you do, but it doesn't light you up. That's where you're like hey, I'm a great recruiter, but I just don't feel like I'm getting the fulfillment out. It's the number one reason that causes recruiters to leave recruitment agencies and make a change. It pays the bills, but it doesn't actually fuel your soul, and I think that's what ensures that 50 60 percent of our industry leave within the first six months of trying out this game that we're all in.
Speaker 1:But your zone of genius. This is where you absolutely dominate. This is like that feeling when we've done it, when you've had your 100K month, or you absolutely blitz it and you're just gliding through life. So here's how you make the leap. First is obviously recognizing the problem. Notice when you start sabotaging, whether it's avoiding calls, second guessing yourself, getting too busy for the basics. Identify what lights you up. It's really important you do this as the next step. So ask yourself what's the one thing I love doing in recruitment that doesn't feel like work. That is your zone of genius. It could be different for all of us. It could be winning new clients, building relationships, getting return clients, building relationships with the best candidates in the market. It could be getting them their dream job. It could be hearing of the impact and the ROI that those candidates you place make a difference in your client's business. But it's really important you find yours. What works for me is not going to work for you, but do the work and find yours.
Speaker 1:Commit to playing a bigger game. Stop coasting in your zone of excellence and lean into what makes you unique. Just fucking own it. I know it's scary. I know you need to lean into it. I'm trying to do it at the same time. So if you can do it with me, we'll be able to help each other much better, and that's why I'm on a personal mission to help 1,000 recruiters play a bigger game. The last one is expand your success tolerance. When things get going good and things happen, don't question them. Lean into them and say I expand in success, love and happiness every day and I inspire those around me to do the same.
Speaker 1:The reason why self-talk is so important, it's everything. So make sure you tell that little voice in your head to shut up. I know not everyone's got it, but if you're listening to this and you know you've got it, you've got to tell it to shut up. How you do that? Give it a name, get personal with it. Mine's called Helen and Helen left my head months ago and I ain't letting that lady back. So if they come back, david Goggins is an extreme, extreme version of this. He'll be sitting there going who's going to carry the boats? You mother? And he's going off. That's him talking to the voice in his head. That's how aggressive that voice in his head is telling him to quit. He's like I ain't fucking listening. So make sure you sit there and that's what he's doing. So it's really important.
Speaker 1:He took the big leap and he put it into his life, and you're seeing prime examples how he made that happen. Because, guess what? You're not doing this for yourself anymore. You're growing up. You get into a point in your life where it's not about you. So this is where you need to give permission to yourself and permission to everyone around you to level up to. If you don't owe it to yourself, you owe it to everyone around you. I'm talking to your colleagues, I'm talking to your friends, I'm talking to your kids, I'm talking to your partner, your parents, everyone, your boss. They are relying on you to level up. So it's time you do it. There's no better reason than today, on Wednesday morning, to just level the fuck up and fucking do it. So this is the closing statement and essentially, here's the bottom line. Sorry to get personal, sorry to get passionate, but this is really important. You learn this Most recruiters never actually make the big leap, not because they lack skill, but because they let their hidden barriers keep them playing small.
Speaker 1:That's why 50% of the industry leave. That's why 76% of small businesses never get over three staff, never turn over more than two mil. It's not because service-based businesses are hard to scale. It's because they don't believe they can. So you can see, three out of four people never believe they can achieve more than average.
Speaker 1:But if you're listening to this right now and you've followed me all the way through, I know you're ready for more. So I'll leave you with this question. There's one question, one action item. Are you willing to take the big leap or are you going to stay where it's safe? Send me a DM on LinkedIn orin or on instagram, deck x rec, because I want to know what's your one area you're ready to break through. Hit me up. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of recruiter real talk. As you can tell, I'm fired up and I can't wait to transform the lives of a thousand recruiters me and the entire team here at x recruiter bringing you this for a reason because the change needs to happen and we want you to be a part of the change too.