No One Mentioned Their Business

Last Wednesday, a group of people boarded the River Queen in Newport, Kentucky, for a day on the Ohio River. As the boat moved north with the Cincinnati skyline outside the windows, they spent the next several hours thinking, writing and deciding where they wanted their own lives to go over the next ten years.

There were about 60 people on board, including regional owners, operating principals, team leaders and assistant team leaders from the Keller Williams Ohio Valley Region, along with several sponsors. These are people responsible for businesses, numbers, teams and other people’s livelihoods. Many are navigating a tough real estate market. Some are carrying major things in their personal lives too.

What makes this story even more meaningful to me is that Ryan Allen was the person standing at the front of the room. Last Wednesday, Ryan took The 10-Year Letter Workshop somewhere we had never taken it before: onto a riverboat on the Ohio River. Afterward, she shared the stories, moments and conversations from the day with me, and I haven't stopped thinking about one thing someone said before they left the boat.

A week earlier, the day was supposed to look very different. The region had several speakers planned, but after a conversation with Ryan, the leadership team decided to scrap the original agenda and go all in on The 10-Year Letter Workshop. They felt their leaders needed something deeper than another conversation about metrics, rankings and business planning. They wanted to create space for a different conversation about what owning and building a business can actually make possible in our lives.

At 9:00 that morning, everyone found a 10-Year Letter Workbook waiting at their seat, the River Queen pulled away from Newport, and Ryan opened with one question: “Who is ready to be ten years older?”

People laughed. People sighed. And Ryan said the energy in the room immediately changed. Ten years sounds exciting when we think about everything we might accomplish. It feels a little different when someone reminds us that we will also be ten years older.

From there, the room started going deeper. People wrote about the whispers they carry around with them, the quiet things we tell ourselves that most people never hear. As they shared, several realized they were carrying the exact same whisper: “I am not good enough.” Different people. Different lives. Different businesses. Same whisper.

They wrote about challenges that had shaped them and began looking at some of those experiences through the lens of gratitude. One woman shared how losing her mother created an opportunity for her to grow closer to her father during the short time he still had left. One man was sitting in the room exactly one year after a car accident that had left him wondering whether he would ever walk again. A year later, he was on a riverboat writing about the next ten years of his life.

They wrote about identity, faith, family, purpose, the people they loved, who they wanted to become and what they wanted their lives to mean. Then they began reading their letters out loud.

That's why this day means so much to me. Yes, it was our first 10-Year Letter Workshop on a riverboat, which is pretty freaking cool. But what excites me most is knowing that while I was hundreds of miles away, Ryan was standing in that room helping people do exactly what this process was created to do: stop long enough to decide what they actually want their lives to look like.

It makes me think about how many other rooms need this conversation. Leadership teams. Companies. Market centers. Regions. Organizations. What could happen if we gave people a few hours to stop thinking about the next quarter and start thinking about the next ten years?

That is what The 10-Year Letter Workshop is built to do. It creates the space, questions and process for people to get clear about the life they want, write the future they are excited to live, and come back to today with a clearer understanding of what matters most.

So if you're reading this and thinking, My people need this, you're probably right.

Bring The 10-Year Letter Workshop to your company, leadership team, organization, region or community. We'll create the space. We'll guide the process. And your people will do the most important part: write the future only they can write.

Life first. Goals second.

Write a future you're excited to live.

Bring The 10-Year Letter Workshop to Your Team


Cheers,
Craig