Ending the Long Winter with Travis Townsend

Written by Clay Stelzer

A lot of the leaders I work with have a voice in their head that sounds a lot like responsibility. It tells them to get in early, skip the workout, check the email one more time. It feels like caring, and sometimes it is, but sometimes it’s fear wearing a very convincing disguise.

Travis Townsend is a client of mine. In our very first conversation, before he ever hired me, he said something I haven’t forgotten: “Clay, I want to end the long winter.” The business had been growing at 50% a year, from a $6 million merger to $35 million, and then the wheels came off. The culture slipped. The credit line was maxed. And Travis felt like he was living in a season that would never change.

Fourteen years ago, Travis was an HVAC service tech, the only employee, driving a used van with roll-down windows. Today he’s president of Northstar Refrigeration, a family-owned commercial and industrial HVAC company in Plymouth, Massachusetts, with more than 100 employees and $45 million in revenue this year. He’s passionate, direct, and intensely driven. Nothing about him reads as fearful. Which is exactly why I wanted him on the show.


About six weeks into our work together, we met someone new. We started calling him Scared Travis.

In This Episode, We Talk About:

  • The “long winter” and what it took to start moving toward summer

  • Who Scared Travis is and the job he believes he has

  • The shift from fixing every problem himself to developing his leaders

  • Why Travis refuses to tune out the fear

  • The lists, conversations, and compromises that help him lead with intention

  • What it will take for Travis to call himself a CEO

My Key Takeaways from Travis Townsend: 

1. Your scared part is a protector, not an enemy.

Scared Travis lives in worst case scenario land. He looks for every vulnerability in the business, and he’s brilliant at it. Travis was clear that this part helped get them out of a real bind. The work was never about getting rid of him. It was about building a better relationship with him.

2. Fear starts at the bottom of the flow chart.

Travis put this better than I could. As a service tech, it drove him crazy when people jumped straight to “everything’s broken, replace it” instead of working through the ladder diagram. When Scared Travis takes over, he skips every step and breaks out the fire hoses for a smoldering twig. And every time that happens, the developing leaders around him have to step back.

3. Don’t shut it off. Listen to it.

When I asked Travis if he’d ever tried just tuning out the negative voices, he didn’t hesitate. Why would you shut off valuable information? If you’re not hearing the fear, you’re not getting the full picture of your business. In my experience, the voice we sweep under the rug just gets louder.

4. Make the list. Make the deal.

On a tough Friday, Travis sat down and asked Scared Travis to name every fear on his mind, then worked through the list one by one. By the afternoon, he described it like armor coming off. On a road trip with his wife, he negotiated: handle the emails and the customer call in the morning, and then enjoy the day. Scared parts mostly want to be heard.

5. What got you here won’t get you there.

Travis believes Scared Travis got Northstar to $35 million. Partnering with him, along with a strong leadership team, is what’s taking them to $45 million and beyond. His next step is to stop staring at the gauges and spend more time looking out the windshield.

We all have some version of Scared Travis. The question isn’t whether you feel fear. It’s whether you’re the one deciding what to do with it.

Listen to the full episode: 

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Resources Mentioned:

Clay Stelzer
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