Me in a room with people smarter than me.
Pre. S.: The Conspiracy is open for newcomers! I hope you’ll consider joining if you’d like to do something that matters, or make a ruckus, or do a reset, or change things up, or unlock your greatness in 2025. You’ll find kindred spirits in The Conspiracy and, as you’ll read below, that can make all the difference.)
My time in the hot seat
One reason Charleston, SC is so pretty is that a city ordinance declares no building can be higher than the tallest church steeple.
There are some hefty churches in town, but still—it means that four or maybe five stories are as high as things go. It keeps things charming and with a historic vibe.
But I wasn’t in Charleston for the museums or the food scene. I was there because of Stu.
Stu McLaren (who is a bit of a legend in the world of community memberships) invited me down “for a mastermind.”
I jumped at the opportunity without at all knowing what I was saying yes to. I just admired his energy, and his shared commitment with his wife Amy to do good in the world.
This, of course, is the same Unthinking Yes that had found me climbing a volcano in Ecuador earlier this year. That nearly killed me.
So I’d spent the weeks leading up to this mastermind questioning my sanity.
I didn’t know who was coming, I didn’t know why I was going, and there was no clear agenda for the mastermind. (When the agenda was sent through a week before, it literally had “mastermind, 9am-5pm” as the entirety of its description.)
Get brilliant people in your corner
It turned out to be a gathering mostly of marketing thinkers, influencers, and do-ers. That did nothing to calm my nerves. Amy Porterfield is a legend in the space, as is Ryan Levesque. If you’re into gardening, you probably know Nicole behind @gardenaryco. If you’re on Instagram, you might know the sultry tones of lawyer Jefferson Fisher who teaches communication skills from his car.
The two days would culminate in a telethon-style webinar, raising money for Village Impact, who, for more than a decade, have been building sustainable schools in Kenya. (I know many of you signed up for it, and I hope you found it useful. We raised $250k, which means another school built in 2025.)
But before that, we had two days masterminding, including small group “hot seats.”
25 minutes per person. You bring a challenge. You then have four other people giving you their best coaching and guidance.
My challenge was this: I want The Coaching Habit book to become a useful tool for parents of teenagers. And I have felt pretty stuck about it.
On the one hand, I’ve heard from many parents that it’s been a useful tool for them, and that makes sense. Teens are having a hard time of it, but are also biologically designed to resist all advice. Parents of teens are worried for them, and are desperate to give them advice. Helping parents stay curious longer is probably a good thing.
On the other hand, I’m child-free. So, who am I to suggest anything to parents?
So for a year, I’ve been going back and forth, and not doing much about it.
And in 25 minutes I was shaken up, unstuck, motivated, encouraged, provoked, challenged, and given some fire in my belly.
I have wind in my sails.
Artificial limits
Church steeples might be fine for preserving the historic vibes of a town.
But we can too easily put artificial limits on our own ambition.
I want you (and me, and us) to be ambitious for ourselves and for the world.
You get to define what that ambition means for you, of course. This is your call to figure out what your particular combination of thrilling, important, and daunting might make for a Worthy Goal for you.
But know this: it’s hard to transcend your own limits by yourself.
Self-made is BS
My friend Jayson Gaignardwas at the gathering, and he said something that truly struck a chord. Here’s my paraphrase (because I can’t quite read my own handwriting when I wrote it down):
“People talk about being a self-made success all the time. And that’s utter BS. We are all community-made.”
What my hot seat companions made utterly clear to me was that other people can see what’s possible for me, see who I am at my best, remind me of what I’m capable of, more easily than I can do it myself.
Don’t do it alone
If you’re ready for something that requires you to be brave, try something new, and take on something daunting—don’t do it alone.
It doesn’t have to be The Conspiracy. There are other ways you might find your people.
But if you’re not sure where to begin with that, consider The Conspiracy. There are 300 people taking on all sorts of fantastic projects of all shapes and sizes.
Every now and then I slightly forget the power of what we’ve created in The Conspiracy.
Because I’m part of the team that’s coaching and curating and shaping what’s going on, I don’t get to fully experience the participant experience. I’m too busy with Emma, Ainsley, and Tugba trying to create something extraordinary.
But when I get The Conspiracy experience somewhere else, as I did this weekend, I realize …
Oh. This is special.
I hope I’ll see you in there.
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