What I Learned in a 5-Day Dark Retreat About Limiting Beliefs

Sean Weisbrot: Matthew Stafford is the managing partner at Build Scale Grow, who shows you how to stop sucking at sales by actually solving customer problems, not spamming discount popups. We get into AI powered CRO, why Simplicity converts and how we can total darkness rewired his brain. If you care about profit, personal growth, or just want to sound smart at parties, this one's for you. Let's roast your mental blocks and your landing page. What makes you excited about the idea of conversion rate optimization? Why we're in

Matthew Stafford: business is to make money and profit's not a dirty word. And really what CRO does for you is it optimizes. Your website in order to make it more profitable from the same amount of traffic.

Sean Weisbrot: So you love the idea of making people more money?

Matthew Stafford: Yes, I do. And, and, and for us as well. You know, I think, um, I. Business in general is the ultimate inner game, and it's always forcing us to level up and get better and improve as our business grows. And in order to do that, um, obviously the way that our business interacts with, uh, your potential clients or your existing customers matters. And so, yeah, I would, I would put that at the top of the list for me.

Sean Weisbrot: If you're constantly being forced to improve yourself, what are some things that you're working on now to improve yourself, to keep your, your business running and to keep your clients growing?

Matthew Stafford: I've started writing every day, so I am trying to take a topic and write about it in order to clarify my thoughts and get down to a simpler way to explain it. And so that's one thing that I'm working on right now. I think that communication in. All the different forms is literally how we get anything done. Whether it's communicating with our customers, uh, internally understanding what we're feeling or even trying to lead a team. All of it comes down to the how effective we are at communicating.

Sean Weisbrot: Do you have any specific examples of things that you're writing down to Flesh Out? Just got back

Matthew Stafford: from a, a dark retreat, which is where I spent. Um, several days in the dark and silent and it's just you and your thoughts. And so yeah, I had a, I had, um, the last two days to basically journal what I experienced and the lessons that I learned. And so now I'm trying to break down some of those lessons and actually figure out. Uh, how I would apply 'em to my life rather than just gaining more knowledge, but how does it actually affect, uh, how I live differently?

Sean Weisbrot: Are you willing to share some of the things you learned from being in the dark for several days?

Matthew Stafford: If I learned new lessons and then kept 'em to myself, that, that was pretty selfish. And against my own personal ethos, which is, uh, I went through a lot of trauma and experiences as a child, and then that essentially created a lot of limiting beliefs for the first 40 years of my life. And so going through this journey, as I've continued to heal and become more whole, I thought, you know what a what? Better gift than to help other people learn the lesson sooner. If I can help someone learn it when they're 20 or 30 instead of when they're in their late forties and save them 20 years of life, uh, that there couldn't be a better gift and it kind of be from pain to purpose. So from my pain, I would able, if I can learn how to distill these ideas of what I've learned through the process to make it simpler. It's kind of very similar to what I do for a website. Most people's websites are very complicated, and we go through them and figure out how to simplify it so that the person can find what they're looking for, and the message is really clear. So again, going back to our communication, uh, it, it really is just a metaphor for the larger picture of, you know, how we function as humans.

Sean Weisbrot: What are some specific lessons

Matthew Stafford: that you learned during the retreat? Our limitations are not concrete barriers, but they're consensual hallucinations maintained by our agreement to believe in them. So in other words, many times we assume that these limitations that we have are real, but it's not real. It's just this agreement that we have. Ourselves that this is what we believe and the way that our mind protects us is by not letting us see what we don't believe is true. So it's constantly looking for things to confirm or give us confirmation bias. And in that process it creates this illusion. And part of the way that I realized that is. I've, I've went to the dark two times now. One time I did it for five days. Second time, a little over four days. And both times on the third day, my mind started literally creating an image of something that would create comfort. Like it turned the lights on in the room in the first experience, and I was like, oh, wow. My brain literally. Is tired of being in the dark. And so it created this whole reality to feel better. And so I, like, I got up off the bed and walked, was got up to walk over to the bench to sit on it, and I literally walked right into the wall and I'm like, oh, okay. It didn't recreate it, recreated it, but not where it's actually at. It just made this to make me feel better. And then in the second experience, uh, I was literally laying in bed and I'm sitting there scrolling on my phone and reading messages and looking at different things. And all of a sudden I realized like, oh, I'm just laying here in bed. My phone is. Hundreds of yards away in a different building. But my mind had literally created this scenario where I was, I literally thought I was going through my phone, and it took a second for me to realize that it was all made up in my head. And so I, I think how many times in life are we walking around these different walls that we've constructed that, uh, we need to walk into it and realize that it's actually not true. You know what we see?

Sean Weisbrot: So it's interesting you say that 'cause I just interviewed a guy who runs a psilocybin mushroom supplement brand, and I've microdosed, and he's microdosed, but he's microdosed and I have not. And so he was telling me about his experience where basically it allows you to break through those walls. And, and I had said, I, I don't feel comfortable with the idea of a macro dose because I am. Afraid of not what I would see, but I'm afraid of letting go and having the hallucination stick over. And he is like, but if you're afraid of that, that's just your ego protecting you from experiencing the other 50% of the universe that you're never going to allow yourself to experience if you don't. So it's just your ego protecting you from seeing the reality and dealing with the demons. Everything

Matthew Stafford: that we want is on the other side of what we're avoiding, and so. Taking the chant and making peace with your thoughts gives you the ability to do the hard thing and experience the joy that's on the other side of that. Um, and I think that that's another metaphor for life as well. When you look at, uh, the people that challenge themselves. Again, and again and again. Why would they do that if there wasn't some payoff on the other side of that pain? Uh, but there is, and similar to this darkroom experience, uh, you have to make peace where you don't have to do anything, but you end up making peace over time with the thought and the beliefs that you've created. Because there's no distraction. There's nothing else but you and your thought. And so it allows you to go much deeper than we do in this, you know, reality where there's light. Because, uh, the moment that I feel uncomfortable, I can go get a drink or I can, uh, scroll my phone or I can go look at something else and distract myself. And there, there's none of that. And so I truly believe that. Mental toughness is a skill, and you develop that by, you know, facing the things that you're afraid of. Have you ever tried a fasted dark room? Uh, yeah. I actually, I was in there the first one. I was in there 121 hours and I fasted 71 of 'em. What

Sean Weisbrot: made you stop at 71 hours? That was the end of my experience. Part of the way in. You decided to stop eating?

Matthew Stafford: Yeah. After the first day.

Sean Weisbrot: What was it that made you wanna stop eating at that point?

Matthew Stafford: Um, I had thought about doing it before, um, 'cause it's supposed to intensify the experience and it did. And uh, but I will tell you, I've fasted a lot of times. Even in, you know, in regular daily life. In fact, for a couple years I intermittent fast for, uh, I wouldn't eat till one o'clock, and I've done that for a long time too. So I'm familiar with fasting. Uh, I would say that of all the fasts I've ever done, that was by far the easiest one

Sean Weisbrot: because you can't see the food.

Matthew Stafford: The food's really good when you eat in the dark because you feel it, you taste it. You actually, um, are very, very present with the food. It's a totally different experience, but I would say that, um, it, it, most of the time that we're eating, we're eating to distract ourselves from something else. Most people don't eat the right amount of food. They eat more than what they need. And a lot of times I think it's comfort or it's, it's an emotional avoidance of feeling, a feeling and or we're eating to get back to our body. So have kinda went to a very, um, philosophical, uh, point of view here. But I, I really do believe it ties into, again, our communication and, and us knowing ourselves, actually understanding how our customers are. And then creating websites that, uh, communicate to those people.

Sean Weisbrot: How much of the psychology do you use from these experiences in the implementation of your work?

Matthew Stafford: I believe it's a lot heavier than what people would, um, understand. And the reason why I say that, uh, we're very, very data driven, but in the end, uh, the way that we view this is. No matter what trick or tactic or hack that's working right now, people are still people. And so the way that they consume information or the way that they, uh, you know, gather information for them to make a decision is pretty pattern. It's filled with patterns. And so I think that the more that we understand the human dynamics and how our brains work. It makes us much better at our job as far as, uh, creating things that people want to experience and have a, have a good experience and, and then know, like, and trust the brand.

Sean Weisbrot: Is AI changing the way CRO happens and if so, how? A hundred percent,

Matthew Stafford: yes. Um. In, in many ways, I, I really believe the surface level, um, CRO will be completely handled by ai. Um, as far as the ux, ui, the things that I think that. AI is giving us a huge advantage and a lift with right now is how to analyze the data. And so we're putting in like an entire, you know, two, three years of reviews. Um, the Google analytics of how people are browsing the site, what they're clicking on, uh, what's converting, what's not converting, what elements get the most clicks, and then asking AI to use all of that data. To give us a roadmap to increase conversions or increase average order value over the next 90 days. And the more that we interact with it, the better we get at, uh, asking it questions and, and telling it what our end result is, that we're looking for the better information it's giving us. And we're starting to, I would say, come up with new principles that are working very well. Um, in an industry that's really based off of user behavior. I.

Sean Weisbrot: So are you connecting this information to something like chat tv t or are you developing your own custom models that are trained on this data? So it specifically focuses on them?

Matthew Stafford: We're using like deep research. Uh, we're using Gemini because Google shopping is inside of their, Google has the entire ecosystem for shopping. Um, we're, we're playing with both of them and, and the way I look at it right now, a AI is moving so fast that what we learn right now. Honestly, it might be a hundred percent outdated, not even used six months from now. 'cause something better will be along. But if we wait for the very best thing to come along before we start getting good at it, I don't think that we'll be able to maximize. Um, the, I don't think we'll be able to maximize the tools the way that, uh, we want to in order to provide a world class experience for our clients.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm also concerned about the speed at which things are moving, but I. I think the most interesting thing for me is seeing how businesses are leaning so heavily on ai and I. That AI is moving so fast that some of them aren't even thinking about using their own custom models because these core models like Claude and, and, uh, Chatt BT are creating these new functionalities every day so that anything you wanna do is just gobbling it up before an industry can grow up around that idea.

Matthew Stafford: I believe that the largest transfer of wealth is gonna happen now, very similar to when the internet was created. In this place where AI isn't going to replace all the jobs, it's going just like Photoshop didn't get rid of people that take photos and do creative. It made them better and uh, gave them tools to optimize what they do. I believe there will be certain industries that go away, um, that we just won't need, like, um, accountants. Um. You know, probably even a lot of the medical field, uh, just because, uh, it's so good at analyzing your blood work and a bunch of other things, um, it's gonna require people to be more specialized rather than generalists. And that's really what we're trying to do. We're trying to use it to make us the very best at what we do, not replace us,

Sean Weisbrot: but if anyone can use AI to do this kind of work. Why would they come to

Matthew Stafford: you to do it for them? I can go to YouTube and find anything I, you know, find tutorials on anything I wanna learn, but doesn't mean I wanna actually do it and or that I have the bandwidth or the time to do it. So many times we'll give people the exact information they need to make the improvements. They'll be like, yeah, that's great. I never thought about that. Um, can you just do it for me? 'cause I'm not gonna, I don't have the time to implement it. So for us, we would rather. Give all of our very best information, which we do. We share it on podcasts, on, you know, our blog and our, on our website. And then when the people need help with it, they'll ask us to help help them. So I don't think that's gonna go away. I think the information itself has become very commoditized, commoditized, but getting the work done, um, is still gonna require someone with the skill and understanding to get it done.

Sean Weisbrot: I agree that humans have not become less lazy in the last six months or a year. Um, 'cause I often talk about certain things like cost cutting and I just find people are like, yeah, I don't care. Just do it. Like, I could do it, I could have my team do it, but like I just, I don't wanna deal with it. You just, you do it and I'll pay you to do it.

Matthew Stafford: In all reality, that is where our society has gone to it's pay to not do something. Um. I have Uber Eats. Well, that's to pay so that I don't have to go get food or Instacart so I don't have to go shop in the cart or Uber so I don't have to drive and park my car somewhere. Like we're paying for an enormous amount of services now that we don't feel like doing or we don't want to spend our time taking care of and. I think AI is just going to increase the amount of services that people pay to choose to avoid.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, well this is a lower tech example. It's still an interesting one. Nonetheless. I was with a friend the other day and we were waiting for some other friends to come to a place where we normally play board games, and it turned out that another group of our friends decided to go to another place to play board games at the same time, but we weren't like in the same group. So we didn't hear it. Um, except for another friend who was supposed to come and said she was coming, said, yeah, I changed my mind. I'm going to meet this other group, but like, you can come and join us if you want. Well, it's like a 20 ish minute walk, or it's like three minutes on a, an electric scooter. So my friend was like, oh, let's just take the scooter. I'm like, why don't we walk? She's like, well, we could get there much faster if we just take the scooter. And I'm like. But why don't we just walk? And she's like, no, we'll take the scooter. I was like, okay. But like, I don't know. What if I just get a taxi? It'd be, it'd be even faster than the scooter. She's like, I don't wanna pay for the taxi. I was like, I'll pay for the taxi. No, no, no, let's just take the scooter. I like, okay, fine. So we, it was like, it took us five minutes to figure out how we were going to get there, and inevitably we took the scooter, but it, it was, uh, like a burden of decision. You know, there's three ways to get there.

Matthew Stafford: Yeah, paradox of choice. That's actually, uh, one of the main principles that we teach in our CRO is more options, does not create higher conversions because it creates this paradox of, oh, I like this, I like this, I like this. I'll just come back later, or I'll just decide later. And so, giving people too many options. Actually hurts your sales. Doesn't help your sales.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. It's something I noticed when I, I had come back from China. It was my first time. I'd been in China for two years without ever coming back to the us and I came back and I was in a supermarket and I just saw the rows and rows and rows of options that you don't have in China. And I was like. Why is it, why are there, so, like, why is there 50 brands selling cereal? This is completely unnecessary,

Matthew Stafford: become very, um, entitled, spoiled lazy. Uh, I traveled to, I did the, I did my darker treat in Mexico at the very southern tip of it. Very, very. Um, simple life like where, you know, the area and the neighborhood that I was in. It's a very simple life. I've been to India six times and traveled all over that country. Um, and those people are many, many of the people that I've met during these experiences of traveling where they have far fewer options, they're much happier. Uh, I don't think more options creates. Ease and flow. I think it literally creates chaos and a, a lack of importance on what the things really actually mean to us. Instead, we're distracted by so many options that then we become, or we think that those options are necessary in order to be happy and they're not.

Sean Weisbrot: People in those countries also earn a lot less money, but they also are much more fulfilled because they're not pursuing money. They're pursuing the time that they have available to be with friends and family and to do the hobbies that they enjoy. But everything is cheaper so they can afford to do those things

Matthew Stafford: For me, and you know, I'm, I'm, I'm certainly enjoy business and like to make money and think that money is required in this world. So it gives us options, but I don't think that it's. It's a tool. It's not, uh, it's not gonna make you happy or unhappy. It's gonna amplify, uh, who you are.

Sean Weisbrot: What's another principle that you teach your clients

Matthew Stafford: Hierarchy of focus, which is, uh, each page should have, uh, the next clearest, you know, the next most important action should be very clear. So if you have a, a buy now or not buy now, but, um. Add to cart or see more or learn more button. That button should stand out so that when they're on this page, if the next most important action, if it's on a product page. Is add to cart, then the add to cart button doesn't match anything else on the page. It stands out. So if your theme is, uh, black and yellow, you don't have black and yellow buttons. You'd have green or blue or something else so that when they look at this page, that button is very clear what the next most important action to do is. And. That would be true anywhere that we would be on the site. Each page has one thing that you want them to do, and then once they do that, go to the next page, not have multiple options and a whole bunch of different things to do.

Sean Weisbrot: It's interesting you say that because there are, like, I, I build websites with lovable now, and Lovable does a pretty good job of making websites from scratch, but it loves to have two buttons side by side. I always remove one of the buttons. I'm like, I don't know why you're trying to give people more option than one. Like, I just want them to do one thing, like exactly what you were saying. So why do you think these ais they're trained to do the right thing, are doing the wrong thing? By, by defacto,

Matthew Stafford: probably. There's a lot of, uh, people that don't actually understand the psychology behind a website that are getting to do that right now. And, and they still believe more is better. Until enough people do it properly, uh, it's probably gonna believe that more is better if that's what people are telling it. Most people think more is better.

Sean Weisbrot: It's just not, you do the research, right, and then you could say, Hey, this is the plan, we wanna do it. And then they say, okay, fine. Go ahead and just. Edit my website to make these changes. Do does anyone actually have you do that? And if they do, do you have it hooked into an AI to be able to very quickly make those changes for them?

Matthew Stafford: We do have several clients that have us take care of all their dev work and, uh, the tools that our developers use, um, they certainly use AI as well. I think it's more of, um. Checking their code and bug checking it and things like that. I don't think it's writing their code. Uh, but I could be wrong about that. Um, that's not my skill level. My skill level is the UX ui and then, um, understanding what the data's saying about how the people are interacting with it, and then we assign to the dev what we want and test it. So how they do that, uh, honestly, I couldn't, couldn't answer it with complete clarity.

Sean Weisbrot: If someone is starting out with an e-commerce brand right now, and let's say they can't afford a service like yours yet, what are the three things that they need to do to create a stable foundation for people to be willing to convert? Obviously, ignoring the have a product people want, that kind of stuff. I just mean specific CRO principles.

Matthew Stafford: Yeah, I would say there's all kinds of free resources on our site. That, uh, the entire intention is that, so that when people are building their site, that uh, they start with a good foundation and eventually can grow to the point where they would be able to use a service like ours or somebody else. 'cause there's other people that do it too. And. I believe that, uh, simplicity is the easiest way to scale. And so again, going back to the paradox of choice and these many things, the majority of wins that we get for websites early on is removing stuff from the website. Making it much easier to navigate, much easier to understand the main thing and not all of the little side tangents that the owner has added to the site because of doing their own customer service and thinking, because one person couldn't figure out, uh, what the menu button meant that they had to do a whole bunch of other things. And so most of the time. The website owners are very reactive rather than strategic, and in that reaction, they end up adding a lot of stuff to their website. That just makes it bloated and confusing.

Sean Weisbrot: I've just made three websites for things that I'm working on, but right after this I'm gonna go review them and try to remove at least one or two things.

Matthew Stafford: Yeah, I always tell people. When you're building the website, you're looking at it from the standpoint of the owner as to how do I sell more stuff? And when you're going to a website as a consumer, you're going as, how do I find what I'm looking for to solve my problem? And those are two different. Paradigms. And so the reason why most websites don't convert very well is because they're trying to sell more stuff instead of solve the problem or make it easy to find the solution to the problem, which is actually why your customer would ever come to your website anyways. It doesn't matter if you sell hoses or dresses or, or belts, um, they have a problem. They're coming there to find a solution, and if your website is laid out in a way for them to find an answer to their solution easily, it's gonna be way better than coming to a site that's just trying to sell me a bunch of stuff.