Start With A Win - Rome Madison: The One Belief That's Killing Your Growth

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

In this energizing episode of Start With a Win, Adam Contos sits down with powerhouse speaker and futurist Rome Madison for a raw, no-nonsense conversation about stepping boldly into uncertainty. Together, they explore what it truly takes to lead fearlessly, push past the lies we tell ourselves, and break free from the comfort zones that quietly hold us back. Rome brings his trademark fire - mixing story, strategy, and spirit - to challenge listeners to rethink confidence, reframe failure, and reconnect with the deeper power they already possess. This is a conversation that shakes you awake, stretches how you see yourself, and leaves you hungry to grow.Rome Madison is a dynamic speaker, author, and podcaster who helps people boost self-confidence, face fears, embrace uncertainty, and cut through chaos to achieve bold, ambitious goals. Known for his high-energy delivery and inspiring message, he empowers audiences to take risks and pursue success with fearless determination. A pioneer in the precision medicine industry, Rome draws from extensive sales management and executive leadership experience, sharing powerful lessons from leading massively successful start-ups to navigating the challenges of corporate collapse and restructuring. A futurist with a Specialty in Business Strategy from Harvard Business School Online, he blends forward-thinking insight with real-world expertise. Featured on more than 50 TV and radio programs nationwide, Rome has spoken on global stages, including the Consumer Electronics Show, where he shared his expertise on the Future of Healthcare. His mission is simple yet profound: inspire people to crush their goals, no matter the obstacles.00:00 Intro01:50 When you are uncertain?04:50 The statement that is the arrow thru the heart!07:05 One of the great Jim Rohn quotes… 10:20 How to get your mindset correct or kick yourself in the rear?14:02 How to get over the failures? One of the best statements…17:14 One of the lines you tell yourself…  18:27 If you ground yourself in this status, you can be this for the good!23:55 Can’t put into words how amazing the last five mins were, go back and listen.27:10 A moment of what!https://romemadison.com/https://iwantmorenow.com/ ===========================Subscribe and Listen to the Start With a Win Podcast HERE:📱 ===========================YT ➡︎ https://www.youtube.com/@AdamContosCEOApple ➡︎ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/start-with-a-win/id1438598347Spotify ➡︎ https://open.spotify.com/show/4w1qmb90KZOKoisbwj6cqT===========================Connect with Adam:===========================Website ➡︎ https://adamcontos.com/Facebook  ➡︎ https://facebook.com/AdamContosCEOTwitter  ➡︎ https://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOInstagram  ➡︎ https://instagram.com/adamcontosceo/#adamcontos #startwithawin #leadershipfactory

But we can't get to the point where we look at someone and assign a meaning as to why I'm not successful. In life, you're either green and you're growing or you're ripe and you're rotting. Nothing stays the same. Welcome to Start with a Win, where we unpack leadership, personal growth and development, and how to build a better business. Let's go. Coming to you from Area 15 Ventures and Start With a Win headquarters, it's Adam Contos with Start with a Win. Let me ask you this. What would you do if fear wasn't in your?

your way. If you could step straight into uncertainty and own it. We're going there with someone who lives that message every single day, Rome Madison. Rome is a powerhouse speaker, author, and futurist who helps people crush self-doubt, face chaos head on, and build the confidence to chase bold goals. He's led major startups, advised top executives, and even brought his insight to global stages like CES, all while helping others unlock their everyday superstar. We're diving into what it really means to lead fearlessly, think bigger, and turn challenges into fuel. Rome Madison, welcome to start with a wind. Adam, it's a pleasure and a privilege to be here, man.

Thanks for all you doing, and I really appreciate the opportunity to rock with you this morning. Thanks. Well, I'm excited about today. You know, you're a big coach, consultant, author in, you know, sales, leadership, business growth and development, things like that. So we've got a lot of fun things we can jump into here. being early on in 2026. And a lot of people have some things they need to reflect on, I think, as a result of that. So let's dive right into this. You know, we've been through a lot of, you know,

fear and chaos. And I think most of that is in everybody's heads, you know, the fear down and overwhelmed that just happens on a daily basis in business. Let's jump into the first steps leaders should take when people are feeling uncertain. You know, you come from the space of sales. that you wrote a great sales book, but you have to get people over them, you know, over themselves in order to find success. So take us through,

how do we deal with feared out and overwhelm? Well, that's a big one. You know, I do have a kind of a framework that I work from. And in my subject matter, is confidence. And confidence from not only an individual perspective, but also an organizational perspective.

And I talk to sales leaders and executives around not only how you activate your own personal power, but how you use that personal power to inspire confidence in others and the difference that makes in your organization. But the grounding place, and this may be a little counterintuitive to a lot of folks out there, is really humility. Okay. It is self-acceptance. You have to believe that you are enough. You have to believe that, you know, we look at our fingerprints here. Like, we have ten fingerprints. I don't know if you listen to this on audio, you might not be able to see my, My fingers laid in front of my face. But every single one of us, you think about this, Adam,

every single one of us has 10 fingerprints that have never existed in the world before. I mean, what's the world population? Right. Right. Out of all of those things, you can, all these people, you can travel the world, touch a dish, touch a cup, touch a door, and leave your fingerprint. And that is because you were meant to make your mark in this world. So a lot of leaders, a lot of people get caught up in fear, anxiety about things that are unknown.

They get overwhelmed about not being the individual who can accomplish those dreams and those goals. They don't necessarily believe it with integrity today. But where you have to ground yourself on a daily basis is that I am enough, that I am perfectly and wonderfully made. You know, one of the greatest college coaches, we can say the greatest, Nick Saban. Right. He used to say this all the time when sports reporters would write about how great his teams were at the University of Alabama. And he told his team that's rat poison. Don't read your own press.

Where you have to ground yourself is whether you've had great achievements or not. And we can talk about it. Imposter syndrome in a minute. That's a big one for high achievers. and many folks that are out there who have things. But really every day you have to ground yourself in the fact that you are positioned exactly where you need to be to accomplish anything you need to. And if you can start there and accept that, it takes your mind off of what's not

and focuses on what it is. And that's where we start with building our confidence, activating our personal power, and moving beyond your fears and your anxieties. I love that. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of just the action of acceptance, I suppose. It is. You know, out of, out of all the five minutes I've been talking at him, like that, that statement is probably, um, the most the arrow through the heart. It really is around accepting yourself, um, not putting yourselves, matching yourselves. Now, we do this. We're humans, right? We have certain people that we, we notch ourselves in terms of, you know, our bar of comparing. and how we want to grow and achieve things in life, that's natural.

But we can't get to the point where we look at someone and assign a meaning as to why I'm not successful. And that's the important thing to remember. Focus on you. Yes, grow. Be aware of your strengths, weaknesses, fears, anxieties, and all those things. But you've got to come back to center that you are perfect as God intended you to be. And that positions you to activate your personal power to do it. anything you want to do. I like that. And I want to unpack this a little bit more because you

mentioned it a couple times and that's grow. Because a lot of people are like, okay, good enough is good enough. And I'm there. I'm good enough. But it seems like if, you know, if you're not trying to grow and I, you know, I have above me here, stay hungry, stay humble. You got to stay hungry. And we have to continue to grow or we just get worse. We deteriorate over life. If we're not trying to get better. Tell me how do you help, you know, or what advice do you have for people who are like, all right, yeah, I'm great. But they're not, you know, maybe they're 20 or 30 pounds overweight. You know, that happened the number one New Year's resolution or maybe they're not willing to make the extra prospecting phone calls or, you know, work a little bit harder on their closing dialogues or

something like that. You know, how do we continue to grow and still accept ourselves, you know, good enough right now but not good enough tomorrow. How do we get that in our heads? Well, that acceptance piece goes into understanding, drawing awareness to your comfort zone, right? Right. More specifically, you know, the great speaker, Jim Rohn, I don't know if anybody's old enough to know. I know. I know all about Jim Rohn, yes.

But I love Jim Rhone. He's one of my favorite speakers. And I always quote what he said about growth. He says in life, you're either green and you're growing or you're ripe and you're rotting. Nothing stays the same. Every cell in our body is evolving. The old cells that are outlived their usefulness die off because new cells come and regenerate you to give you life on a new day.

If that's true on our molecular level, the very DNA of our being, if that's true in the inherent making of us, then it has to be true in how we approach life and how we grow through life. Every day, and you've got to think about this, if you want to start with a win, if you do today what others don't, you'll have tomorrow what others won't. If you think that you're good and I think that good is the enemy of great, that you resting on your laurels, that you're reading your press, that you're kicking your feet up, and you're not continuing to some way challenge yourself to recognize what your comfort zone is and to shake things up.

Even in a workout, right, even people who are fit, after a certain point, your body will get resistant to the workout that you're doing, and you have to change things up to shock your system into growth. That is just a fact of life. That is how the universe works. And if you don't accept that, you will soon be. be passed up by others. I like that.

It sounds like you have a little less brown influence in there, too. Listen, man, I'm a keynote speaker. I'm a fan of speakers. You know, I've got quips and quotes, you know, for days. You know, I think it got my own too sometimes. But I'll tell you, it's those sound bites that keep you moving. I mean, the reason why you have that in the background, stay hungry, stay humble, it's because we need these reminders.

Because left to our own devices, we just get numb, right? In the world that we live in, we can get locked into, you know, social media, locked into our things, our luxuries, our creature comforts in life. And it just lulls you to sleep. It'll low you to sleep. And so our challenge in life is to continue to stay in a pattern of growth, to challenge ourselves to keep our minds and ourselves alive because that's when cancer happens. The old cells don't die.

And they just keep growing and growing, growing. You have to know when things have outlived their usefulness in your habits, your daily patterns, the things that you listen to, even the people that you're around. You have to stay in a constant state of growth if you want to continue to break new boundaries and do things. Now, if you don't, that's fine. Now, I wouldn't imagine that people listening to your podcast aren't of that ilk. And I'm not here to judge those who don't. But for those who really want to win, who really want to set out at the beginning of this year and set themselves on a course for victory, that's important for us.

What do you think is most important for people to realize when they're laying out that plan for the year and doing like quarterly reviews or even monthly reviews, things like that? I mean, what's a good mindset to have about that? Because I know you talk a lot about vulnerability and humility, things like that. I mean, obviously that's key to it. But how do we kick ourselves in the rear when we really need to in order to take the action to accomplish those things? So there's a few things there. The first thing is when we set our goals out, we have to understand that this is a, it is a journey, right? The Super Bowl winner, and we're at the beginning of the NFL playoff.

I'm an athlete, right? So the Super Bowl winner is never who the favorite is usually. Right. Right. When the start of the playoffs happened, you know, who would have thought Patrick Mahomes wouldn't be in the playoffs. Yeah. I'm a Broncos person, so, you know.

There you go. You had your time, Patrick. Thank you. Okay. So that's a good analogy. I don't know how many folks are out there in NFL fans. But if you look at this, okay, I'm going to get deep in some football because I'm an athlete. If you look at Patrick Mahomes' Division, right?

Patrick Mahomes won a division. I don't know, the last eight, seven, eight years. Yeah. the guy's a machine. He's a machine. Who's the thing that someone's going to unseat them with a second year quarterback and a new head coach? I mean, this is what I mean by making sure that you have people around you that sharpen you, that challenge you, that will speak to you in a way that you need to hear and not what you want to hear. And so back to the how we stay on track, it's a journey.

You can't say that who I am today, I'm the person who can do that. You have to see the future state of yourself. And the one question that I give executive, team leaders, entrepreneurs is how would the person I would like to be do the things that I need to do today? By asking that question, you put yourself in the future mindset of the person that you're, you need to grow into B to accomplish the things that you need to accomplish. You may not be that person today. There's some growth that needs to take place. There's some maturity that needs to take place.

There's some battles that you need to be in that you need to take losses in because that's where you will learn the most about yourself. But if you continue to ask that question on a daily basis, as you set your goals, knowing that this is a journey throughout the year, continue to ask yourself that question so you can see yourself more clearly and as you see yourself doing those things that you're not yet doing today, having the accomplishments that you don't yet have today, you will grow into that person and start to think, walk, and talk like that person and the universe will respond to you. I love that. It takes me back to this coaching question that I've been asked and I've asked myself and that's, you know, what needs to occur and then what needs to happen to. day to help that occur. And, you know, life is a daily journey. It's not a, you know,

weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual situation, which is why, frankly, I'm not a huge fan of annual goals. I like short-term goals. And, uh, and those micro wins to make the macro wins. So, um, that's, that's really interesting. Uh, but people, people are going to face failures in this. They're going to, they're going to fail at things. Say, you know, you have an exercise plan and let's say you get a cold or you know you go get your knee worked on or something like that and you can't work at achieving these goals. So how do we get over our failures in order to help actually get to those successes? Do you have any recommendations? Because a lot of times failures are just an off-rent for people and they never get back on. It is. Once you set the goal

or once you set out on the course of a journey, you've got, again, ground ourselves in acceptance. You've got to accept that failure is just a part of it. Yeah. Now, there's, there's, there's, you know, small failures and there's big failures. Those failures that you can get over quickly, and there's failures that really hurt, right? It's all a part of the journey,

and it feeds into making you the person that you need to be to accomplish that big vision or that dream that you've got. It's just a part of it. So you accept the failures because failure is not final. Failure is merely feedback on your journey. That's good. Failure is not final. Failure is feedback.

I really like that one. All right. Well, in your experience, you know, we talked a little bit about goal setting and achievement and things like that, but people start lying to themselves about certain things in life. What are the biggest lies that you see people telling themselves, both in business or personally, when it comes to trying to achieving? Adam, that's a great question. That's a great question. So maybe a couple of here. There's two sides of a coin. One lie is that I am not good enough, right? And, you know, what we believe, what we think, and thoughts are just like bubbles, right? They appear in our head. But we have a choice of what we seize on to. And so when we start that negative self-talk, those are all lies because from your inception in this world, you've been an achiever, you've been growing, you've been overcoming. Winning, conquering is in your very DNA.

no matter what your plight in life is. So you have an opportunity to grow and overcome every single day. And when you start to tell to yourself, that negative self-talk, it's, I guess I'll put it like this. It is a deposit in your spirit. Just like a bank, when you put dollars in the bank, hopefully those dollars will stay there or grow, let's say it's a bank. with interest, but you want to make deposits of power in your spirit. So the lies that you tell

yourself around the negativity, around things like that, I mean, we know that that's fear, false evidence appearing real. But another lie that people tell themselves is that I've arrived that I'm there because of that accomplishment, because of the material things, the money that I make, the status, the respect that I get today. And they don't continue to work. They forget the things that got them there won't be the things that will keep them there. And so those are two sides of the same coin.

And the power is in the middle, right? Not to get, you know, all biblical on you, but my favorite book says, you know, if you are faithful and responsible for small things, I'll make you ruler over many. It's the same mindset. It's the same, it's the same state of our being that needs to be when we start out. And when we get those wins, we don't forget that. Now, the growth comes. in our skills, our ability, our maturity, because we're going to be responsible for a lot more things. But in the center of us, we have to stay connected in grounding ourselves in self-acceptance and gratitude every day to understand that you are not your things. You are not your title. You are not your

income. You know, you are a person who's meant to make an impact in the world in the time that you live. And if you ground yourself in that, in that state of gratitude, in self-acceptance, you stop listening to the lies, the thought bubbles that come in that you seize onto, and you can ground yourself in a way that you can be used as a vessel for the maximum good for those around you. That's an amazing definition of that. And you had mentioned imposter syndrome earlier. And obviously, that's a lot of what you're talking about right now is that, you know, should I be here? Am I the right one? Things of that nature. But you're also giving us very good perspective on how to overcome that with confidence and, you know, work our way into it.

Speaking of confidence, let me ask you this. So we have confidence. We have ego. Break those apart for us. Because I think people, People confuse ego for confidence sometimes when we, you know, we need to understand the difference. So tell us about that. Adam, I tell you, man, this is the best conversation. I've had it a long time. Thank you. I really appreciate it.

So, okay, so keep me honest here. So ego, everyone has ego. Right. Ego is not necessarily bad. Correct. Okay. You have an ego problem. There we go.

when you don't allow people to speak into your life. Now, this is the core of confidence. So our ego won't allow us to receive information from certain people because we don't feel that they can give us anything of value. Just based off of whatever, comparing ourselves to them, their status versus our status, their title versus our title, how they look, how they live versus how we look. That's ego problem. Right. You can also have, you know, egotamania where you believe that your view of the world is the only view of the world that should exist. And you are so egotistical that you try to push your view of the world.

And we all live life as an end of one, by the way, right? No one's having my experience. I'm the only one having my experience. So the confidence comes in with understanding that people have value. And that's what we say when we, when we, when we, when we, around ourselves in acceptance, right? And we create that moment of humility in ourselves every day. We realize as valuable as we are is as valuable as other people are. And you can learn something from anybody if you have the right heart and state of mind. So confidence is saying that I'm

willing to listen to you. And you know what? I can take, you know, a few chunks of meat and throw away the bones. I can listen to you long enough to know that you're a damn fool. Or I can listen to you and say, wow, you've got some really deep wisdom, right, that I might be able to benefit from a recommendation, a quote, an experience that someone has had. That's confidence. Knowing that you are competent in accepting of yourself that you're not threatened by outside information, individuals, and you can get better if you put yourself in that state of self-acceptance and build

your confidence that you're not threatened by anyone. You will take what you need and keep it moving because it builds you. I love this. So I like to summarize in my head here. And here's what Rome is telling me that we need to have ego. but confidence is ego with humility. Let me put this. So,

so what's the phrase I want to use here? So it is humility conditions your spirit to listen. Yes. Right. Humility keeps your ego in check. Yes. Right. So we all need to build that true.

center of confidence. And I'm not here to say that you are going to be confident in all things at all times. Just as, you know, Adam, we've been talking about this is a daily battle. The journal, the journey that we're talking about of the visions that we have, the goals that we have, you're right. It really is a daily battle. You know, so it's okay to have, you know, big overarching goals of where you want to go because those are your North Stars. But you got to break that down into quarters, segments, you know, weeks, days, hours. You have, you have to constantly be honest with yourself about are you growing or are you stagnant or are you shrinking? I love it. That's awesome. This has been a really deep conversation and a very, I mean.

I wasn't expecting that, Adam. I got to tell you. You have a great podcast, but I got to This is a great conversation. Thank you. I want to unpack things that people can walk away with and go, I can use that today. And I think we've hit a lot of gold here today. You know, you've talked about in the past. You know, you're growing up in a pig farm and things like that and finding gold where no one notices it. And, you know, you have a lot of great wisdom in the things that you've put out.

So keep doing that, by the way. You know, thank you for doing that. and sharing your thoughts and direction to everybody. By the way, you're a great storyteller as well, which I think is, that's a huge, huge talent. So, Rome, this has been a fantastic conversation with you. Where can people find you online if they want to learn more about you? Well, you can go to Rome-Madison.com. And from there, you can connect to it on all of my social media platforms.

But for those who are listening still to the podcast, I want you to go to I want more Now.com. And for there, I've got two books for you. One is an audio book called Everyday Star Power, the 12-step Confidence Algorithm. You know, it is a process every day to instill that, you know, to enact that personal power, to be assertive, to expand our influence, to become more influential. The second book is Claim Your Star Power. And Claim Your Star Power is my memoir that I wrote when I first started speaking and coaching. And when we talk about imposter syndrome and growing up on a pig farm, that is my story. I talk about imposter syndrome because I knew it very well.

I talk about confidence in how to activate your confidence and stay in an energy state that is influential and that is powerful because I've had to work on that myself. You know, today I'm fortunate to have a consulting firm for the life science industry, and that is, you know, genetic testing, that is cancer treatment. I've been in there in that field for over two decades. And now I help early to midstage companies launch and enter the market, create, you know, leadership, key opinion leadership in their field or their product segment. But I don't have a Ph.D. I don't have an MD. I don't have a medical background. I'm self-taught.

And, you know, claim your star power is really all about that. You know, the four ways that you can, you know, step into your greatness and activate your star power to do things, quite frankly, that you might not be able to imagine today. So I Wantmorenow.com. Go there and get those books, audiobooks, and I think it'll serve you well. Awesome. And make sure you check out Rome at roamedison.com.

Rome, this has been a very insightful conversation. I love how deep we dove into, you know, this human psyche of success and growth and things of that nature. I do have a question. I ask all the great leaders on the show. And that's how do you start your day with a win? So, you know, I might sound like a broken record, but I start my day with a win with a moment of silence. You know, if you're like me, you know, my phone is my alarm clock, right? And we have to guard against that temptation to grab the phone and you've got notifications

already from your favorite news sources, sports, politics, things that upset you. You've got to resist the urge to allow those things to get in your mind and your spirit from the beginning of the day. And I take that moment to have peace and gratitude. to really be thankful for another day because, quite frankly, this day is not promised. And so when I take that moment of silence and have that moment of gratitude, I usually try to ask myself that daily question, how would the person that I would like to be do the things that I've got to do today? And I know I'm on the right track and I've started with a win because that

person would first give thanks and center himself and not let anything else come into my mind and my spirit to affect my energy to give to those things that I want to do today. Amazing answer. And I'll tell you that, that is a winning way to start today. That's for sure. So thanks for sharing that with us. Real Madison, we appreciate all that you do. You've enlightened us quite a bit today. Keep going after that cancer research, my friend. That's God's calling right there. You're saving lives, brother. So anyhow, we appreciate what you do. And thanks for starting with a win. Adam, it's a great privilege. Thank you so much.