Last September, author and marketing expert Perry Marshall invited me to speak at a meeting of 20 business owners and professionals. These meetings tend to take on a life of their own, and this particular meeting went in a direction I never expected.
The theme of the meeting quickly turned into "transition" and "change". Whether this was a post-pandemic response or not wasn't clear at the time, but I became super impressed at the courage of many people who let their guard down and admitted to each other that their business was no longer "fun", "stimulating", "fulfilling" or "edifying".
With their shields and armor dropped, some in this room of achievers were brave enough to admit that their business was literally killing them from the inside - despite the fact that they were generating 6, 7, even 8 figures. They were being pulled towards something new and more exciting, but couldn't begin to express what it was.
Many expressed regret that they had no time for things that mattered to them - family, art, romance. Some were tired of dealing with apathetic employees, never-satisfied customers and "dancing on airplane wings" to make everything run smoothly.
I was sitting there during that meeting and two words came to my consciousness. "FIT AROUND" I wrote this down in my journal and thought about it during lunch.
Post-lunch, Perry turned the floor over to me and instead of working through my prepared material, I picked up the marker and opened up the giant pad of paper and drew this:
I flushed out FIT AROUND with them in real time and challenged the room to start fitting their lives around who they were and who they wanted to be.
I had no clue how they would react - it was a new topic I never spoke about - and I was proposing something quite radical, but instead of apathy, I got confirmation. I'm wondering how this resonates with you?