Why You Know What to Do But Still Don't Do It

Oct 23, 2025

Itamar Marani, a former Israeli special forces operative and elite performance coach, helps entrepreneurs tackle their mental barriers. He reveals the internal conflict between the business owner and the hobbyist, discussing three evolutionary success killers: avoiding uncertainty, seeking approval, and validating actions. Itamar provides insights into why course creators hesitate to market effectively and shares a practical framework for overcoming these blocks. Expect strategies for identifying beliefs, setting clear goals, and maintaining momentum for lasting change.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Survival Wiring Creates Internal Conflict

Our brains are wired to survive, not to thrive, which makes discomfort feel like danger.
That survival wiring creates an internal conflict between ambition and comfort.

ADVICE

Combine Accountability With Psychological Safety

Create both high accountability and high psychological safety to maximize execution.
Hold yourself to elite standards while neutralizing fear so pressure helps rather than hinders performance.

INSIGHT

The Pressure Bell Curve

Too much pressure triggers anxiety and avoidance, while too little causes apathy.
There's a bell curve for pressure; the sweet spot boosts performance without overwhelming you.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Send us a text

🔥 Work With Me - https://datadrivenmarketing.co/done-for-you

You know exactly what you should be doing to grow your online course business. You've listened to hundreds of podcast episodes, read all the blog posts, maybe even bought a few courses on marketing. You KNOW you should be sending email promotions every month. You KNOW you should be optimizing your sales pages. Yet somehow, you find yourself building just one more course instead.

Sound familiar?

In this episode, I sit down with Itamar Marani, a former Israeli special forces operative turned elite performance coach. Itamar has coached hundreds of six to nine-figure entrepreneurs to break through their mental barriers, and he's here to explain exactly why your brain sabotages your best business moves.

We dive deep into what Itamar calls "the war within" - the battle between the business owner in you who knows what needs to be done, and the hobbyist who keeps retreating to their comfort zone. Itamar breaks down the three "success killers" that are hardwired into our brains from 100,000 years of evolution: avoiding uncertainty, optimizing for approval, and seeking validation.

What makes this conversation different is that we don't just identify the problem - we walk through the exact process to overcome it. Itamar shares his framework for identifying your mental blocks, challenging false beliefs, and most importantly, understanding what emotional payoff you're getting from NOT doing what you know you should do.

We also discuss performance anchors - the people and habits in your life that drain your energy and keep you stuck. Itamar shares a powerful story about a client who went from $5-10k months to building a company with a nine-figure valuation, all because he had the courage to cut out a heavy performance anchor that was keeping him small.

If you've ever caught yourself saying "I know I should be doing this, but..." then this episode is going to hit home. Hard. Itamar doesn't do motivational fluff - this is practical, actionable advice forged in Israeli counterterrorism and refined through years of coaching high performers.

📖 Itamar's book "Elite Performance" is available on Amazon and at https://itamarmarani.com/book.
🔗 Check out Itamar's website: https://itamarmarani.com/