Stay Focused on the Right Target: Interview with Brixton Albert, Founder and CEO of Performance Golf

I recently went one-on-one with Brixton Albert, founder and CEO of Performance Golf.

Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?

Brixton: It started with passion. It turned into obsession. I was 10 years old when I watched Tiger Woods win the Masters in 1997. From that moment on, golf was it. My dad worked three jobs to give me the chance to play. That drive carried me to a Division I scholarship and, eventually, to a +3 handicap. Over the next five years, I practiced harder than I ever had. Strangely enough, I got five shots worse. I was doing all that I thought I was supposed to do. Yet, the game was slipping away from me. Then I met JT Thomas, an elite swing instructor. He showed me I’d been grinding away at the visible flaws in my swing instead of the one root cause driving the other issues. I shifted my focus, fixed that one root flaw, and got all five shots back almost instantly. That moment cracked open a realization. Most golfers are stuck in the exact same loop, working hard on the wrong issues. I became obsessed with how to pull everyday golfers out of that cycle and help them reach their full potential.

Around that same time, I spent 10 years in digital marketing and grew a software company from $2 million to $100 million. I could see the intersection between my obsession with golf and the marketing skills I was developing. I launched Performance Golf in 2016 with zero outside funding while still working a full-time sales job. I grew it to $30 million before I went all-in. I had sat on that idea for three years before I took the plunge.  The biggest takeaway from all of that is that real acceleration comes from identifying and addressing the root cause, rather than fixing the symptoms.

Adam: How did you come up with your business idea? What advice do you have for others on how to come up with great ideas?

Brixton: The best ideas come from creating more space, rather than processing more input. I’ve found that what makes the biggest difference is sitting in a room, turning off your phone, closing all those tabs, and letting your mind wander. Jeff Bezos schedules two to three thinking sessions every week. I’ve followed the same playbook. It works because there’s so much noise coming at us every day that real ideation gets buried in the clutter.

The other piece is honesty with yourself. What are you passionate about? What are you actually good at? Where do those two variables overlap? That intersection is usually where the idea worth betting on is hiding. You just need to give yourself the space to see it.

Adam: How did you know your business idea was worth pursuing? What advice do you have on how to best test a business idea?

Brixton: Before I ever launched Performance Golf, I turned my life into a 10-year social experiment on golf, nutrition, fitness, human improvement, and more. I set out to prove that I could compress into a decade what takes most people 50 years to do. I documented every insight along the way. That’s how I knew the idea had legs. I’d already lived the proof. When it comes to testing, I believe in adopting an approach that involves emphasizing the minimum viable product. The more MVP-focused it is, the better the outcomes.

What I’ve seen trip people up is that many new entrepreneurs try to polish the business plan until it gleams. I did a little of that myself. But the most successful people I know take the leap when they’re about 40% ready. Everyone else is still perfecting a plan that’s going to change the second it touches reality anyway. I recommend launching your business when you’re partially ready. You don’t learn the real lessons until what you created goes live. After that, you zero in on that one idea that’s going to make the biggest difference. And then, you run at it.

Adam: What are the key steps you have taken to grow your business? What advice do you have for others on how to take their businesses to the next level?

Brixton: It’s about focusing on one idea, one pattern, or one solution that moves the needle more than multiple variables combined. My business was stuck at $40,000 a month for 16 months. I was straddling a dozen different ideas, convinced that each one would unlock growth. There was no movement. Then I paid a mentor $12,500 for a single day, and his advice was simple: work on one idea. I applied that principle to the company. The business scaled from $40,000 to $80,000 to $160,000 to $320,000 to $650,000 to $1 million to $2 million a month, back-to-back. Today, Performance Golf generates over $125 million in annual revenue. The lesson is to work on the right area, rather than working harder. Refusing to let go of everything else can stall one’s growth. 

Adam: What are your best sales and marketing tips?

Brixton: Marketing is about identifying the real pain points, modeling what’s already working in the market, and then presenting your product in a way that makes the customer say, “Oh, that’s the one solution I haven’t tried yet. That’s the one that’s actually going to work.” That’s the whole game at the highest level. Then you back it with bulletproof evidence and an argument no one can poke a hole in. When the pain is real, the positioning is sharp, and the proof is undeniable, you don’t have to sell. Buyers convince themselves to make the purchase.

Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?

Brixton: One of the strongest qualities is leading by example. Everything else is downstream of that. When I started a new department at Performance Golf, I took the first 35 sales calls myself. I didn’t want to ask anyone on my team to do what I wasn’t willing to do first. You set the standard by living it in front of everyone rather than writing it on a wall.  People watch not only what you say, but also what you do. If you want a team that holds the bar high, you must hold it higher than anyone else in the room. That’s the job.

Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?

Brixton: Fail often, learn fast, and keep moving. Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx, tells a great story about that. Every night at the dinner table, her dad would ask her how she’d failed that day. Not if she’d failed. How she’d failed. Because you’re not pushing your edges if you’re not failing. You’re not testing ideas. You’re not growing. That approach is baked into the culture at Performance Golf: fail, fail fast, learn, and make the next iteration better. The teams that win are the ones that aren’t afraid to be wrong.

Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?

Brixton: My advice is to stay focused on the right target and keep refining your ideas. Every time you fall short, remember how far you’ve come. Imagine you’re swimming out in the ocean, nine miles from the shore. Most people never get that far. They turn back at the first hit of cold water. But the lessons worth having are out there in the deep waters. Those are the lessons that have the biggest impact, and you can get there only if you’re willing to continue swimming when everyone else is beelining for the shore.  

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Brixton: What if you had a solid idea to cure cancer, but never pushed yourself hard enough to find the cure? Think about how many people you’d be letting down. That was how a teacher framed it to me once. It’s an extreme example, but the crux of it is hard to shake. If we’re not chasing our highest self, we’ll never meet the people we were supposed to meet. We’ll never say the one sentence that unlocks someone else. And that person might have gone on to change 50 other lives. So, the question I ask myself every day is whether I’m reaching for my full potential or settling for comfortable. That question has shaped more of my life than any other.

Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share? 

Brixton: Time is the one asset you can’t buy back. Life is short. Spend it going after the things that matter, lifting other people up along the way, and making the world a little better than you found it. That’s the whole game.