Day 1 – Breakout Session 2 – 11:15-11:45 AM
Room: Affectiv
The People Around You Don’t Need Your Strategy. They Need the Best Version of You.
Troy Bell · RizeCon 2026 · Pocatello
Troy Bell runs 23 companies and employs over 700 people in Pocatello, Idaho — a city he’s refused to leave despite repeated pressure to move his operations somewhere bigger. He opened his session by saying he has imposter syndrome, that he wasn’t sure he was qualified to be on stage, and that he was there because putting himself in uncomfortable positions is how he grows. He then spent 25 minutes making the case that the most important infrastructure a leader can build isn’t a business system or a team structure. It’s themselves.
He’s not a motivational speaker. He said that clearly. He can’t motivate you. You have to do that.
What he covered
You asked for this. Troy played a clip of Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla responding to a question about whether Jayson Tatum faces unfair criticism. Mazzulla’s answer: he “gets to deal with it.” When you ask for greatness, you’re signing up for the fine print — the late nights, the pressure, the public scrutiny, the weight of 700 families expecting you to make the right call. That’s what you signed up for when you said you wanted to grow, lead, build. Don’t run from it. Lean in and say “I get to do this.”
Power requires humility. Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher who, at the peak of his reign, started losing himself to status and ego. His solution: he enlisted a servant to follow him everywhere and whisper in his ear while crowds knelt before him — “Marcus, you are just a man.” Troy’s lesson: the days he’s most effective are the days he remembers that. Ego is the enemy of good judgment. Discipline matters more than title. His net worth, as he described it, comes from providing jobs for single mothers and health insurance for a young family just off their parents’ plan. Not from the CEO label on his business card. You are not special by default. You become special through discipline and humility.
Pillar One: Own your body. About ten years ago, Troy was overstressed, his cortisol was high, and he was a mess. He made a deliberate decision to change his physical and mental health. He opened a CrossFit gym. He changed what he ate, how he moved, and how he thought. He’s not perfect at it. He still has love handles. He does the cold plunge, the early workouts, all the things that look a little dumb until they’re working. His point: self-care equals success in leadership. When his self-care is at its worst, his self-talk is at its worst, and his leadership reflects it. If you can’t lead yourself physically, you can’t lead others professionally. Find your routine — not his, yours — and build it around sleep, movement, and food that supports you.
Pillar Two: Define your personal mission and values. Troy’s current mission statement: to create opportunities for the people he loves and the people he serves so they can find joy in their journey, because that brings him joy. His values include three Ps — protect, provide, and preside over his family — plus a growth mindset and a faith orientation. He posts them and reviews them. He adjusts them when he’s not living them. The values aren’t there to project. They’re there to answer a recurring question he asks himself: who am I becoming? A mission statement built on who you want to become gives you a decision-making frame that works when policies don’t cover the situation.
Pillar Three: Build real confidence. Confidence isn’t something you feel. It’s something you prove — to yourself, through repeated action. When his COO calls with a crisis, Troy sometimes has to fake it initially, giving himself time to think and pray and come back with something solid. But the more he follows his routine, lives by his values, and pushes himself into uncomfortable situations like speaking on stage, the more confident he actually is. The advice: keep promises to yourself. Do hard things repeatedly. Show up when it’s inconvenient. Own your behavior and your mind, and you’ll know who you are and what you can do. That’s where real confidence lives.
Pillar Four: (covered as part of the personal mission work — the mission statement, values, and clarity about what you will and won’t tolerate.)
Pillar Five: Lead by standard and action. Personal culture equals repetitive behavior. Your culture — personal and organizational — is not what you say it is. It’s what you do over and over. His line: move your feet, not your mouth. Your people don’t listen to what you say. They watch what you do. If you’re disciplined, they elevate their discipline. If you slack, they watch and then they slack. If you don’t care about yourself, they model that. If you talk badly about yourself, they internalize it. The most powerful leadership tool isn’t a strategy. It’s the example you set with your own behavior, every single day.
Your time is now. Troy is 47. He watches people his age die. He watches people who may have missed their time. He’s watching fewer of his kids play sports — the ones who used to roll their eyes when he yelled “let’s go!” are grown now, and when they complain or whine, his response is still: “Let’s go.” And then he walks out of the room. The mantra is the same. Stop complaining. If you want something, your time is now. Go do it.
One story that landed
The servant who whispered in Marcus Aurelius’s ear. Troy built the whole session around the image of someone at the height of their power, surrounded by people kneeling and throwing coins, being reminded daily: you are just a man. He made it personal — he described days when Heritage or Tanabe is doing well and he’s feeling good, and then the very next day something happens and he gets his head handed to him. He needs the whisper. He needs to remember that status means nothing, that his people are what matter, and that the day he starts believing his own press is the day his judgment fails. The question he came back to at the end: if we are just a man or just a woman, why not become the best version of that person — one worth following, and one you actually love?
“You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your habits and discipline.” — Troy Bell
“Your people don’t listen to what you say. They watch what you do.” — Troy Bell
About the speaker
Troy Bell is a Pocatello, Idaho native and entrepreneur who has built and operates 23 companies with over 700 employees, with a concentration in healthcare. He is a graduate of Highland High School and Idaho State University, an ISU Bengal who bleeds orange and black. He has been repeatedly asked to move his businesses to Boise or other larger markets and has declined each time, choosing to invest in Southeast Idaho. His companies include Heritage Home Health and Hospice. He is the father of six children — four of his own and two in-laws — all involved in college sports.