This week I was in Fort Collins, Colorado.
I spent a few days with a group of writers, speakers, coaches & business builders. They came from all over the world. A couple NY Times bestselling authors. A tech exec who's had a big exit. A lot of people doing work I admire.
On the first night, they asked us what we wanted to get out of it.
I said what I always say. I don't know yet.
I'm not dodging the question. Something unexpected comes out of these rooms every time. A conversation you didn't plan. A person you didn't know you needed. A way to help someone you couldn't have seen coming.
So I try to show up open. Ready to give. Just as ready to receive.
I do a lot of virtual calls now, and I'm grateful for them. But I take every chance I get to be in a room like this. There's nothing like being with real people in the same space.
One idea from the week has stuck with me more than any other. Chris Taylor brought it up, and I haven't stopped thinking about it.
Picture a donut.
It's a closed circle. Now picture three people at an event, talking in a tight little ring. Someone walks up and stands just outside it. Nobody means to shut them out. But the circle is closed. They hover for a minute. Then they drift away.
Now picture a croissant.
It's open on one side. Same three people, but they leave a gap. When someone walks up, there's room. A half step back. A "hey, come join us." And the circle gets bigger.
Be a croissant, not a donut.
I love it because it's so simple. And because it's not really about events.
Think about your next team meeting. Your leadership team. The people who've worked together for years and finish each other's sentences. Somebody new is probably standing just outside that ring right now. Nobody chose to close it. It just closed.
Leading with intention means making room on purpose.
I'm a big notetaker in rooms like this. It helps me think. (And yes, they gave us notebooks with our initials on them. I loved it.) Here are a few other things I wrote down.
Write everything in pencil. Amanda Northcutt talked about this, and it landed hard for me. Hold your plans loosely. Treat them like experiments. As I build this business, I'm learning to pivot every single day, and pencil makes that a lot easier.
Be willing to take help. Giving is the easy part for most of us. Receiving takes more courage. One speaker handed us coins to use over the weekend. Give one when you can offer something. Spend one when you need to ask. Having that coin in my pocket made the ask easier.
Confident and vulnerable aren't opposites. The strongest people in the room were both.
And here's the one I want to leave you with.
Josh Kaufman, who wrote The Personal MBA, had us journal for ten minutes. Before we started, he told us we'd throw the pages away when we were done.
That changed everything for me.
Journaling can start to feel heavy. Like every page has to be profound. But when I knew no one would ever read it, not even me, I wrote freely. I was more honest than I usually am on paper.
So, here's your one thing for this week.
Set a timer for ten minutes. Ask yourself one question. Here's one to try: where am I closing the circle without meaning to? Then write without stopping. When the timer goes off, throw it away.
You don't have to keep the page. You just have to keep what you found on it.
Thanks for reading!
Jon