This week's book: "[TITLE]" by [AUTHOR].
"This week's book: "Beyond Belief" by Nir Eyal and Julie Li.
"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."
Anaïs Nin
I'm about a third of the way through this week's book, and chapter four has been my favorite so far.
It tells the story of Anne Mahlum, who used to run past a homeless shelter in Philadelphia every morning. Plenty of people ran that same route. She's the one who saw something in it. She started a running club with the men at the shelter, grew it into a national nonprofit called Back on My Feet, and years later founded a fitness company called solidcore with her own savings. She sold it in 2023 for about $88 million.
The argument Eyal and Li make is that our beliefs don't just shape how we think. They shape what we actually see. If you believe opportunities are out there, you tend to spot them. If you don't, you walk right past them.
That one landed on me, because I've done both.
Starting a commodity brokerage firm was hardly a new idea. But I saw that the real bottleneck was leads, and I built a way to feed our brokers a nearly endless supply of qualified ones. That's what took us to the top. That part I saw.
And then there's the one I didn't.
Years ago some friends and I started the Chicago Co-Ed Flag Football League. Just a bunch of twenty-somethings who wanted to keep a great weekend going. I negotiated for the fields, wrote the rules, bought the flags and the orange cones. What I never saw was the business sitting right in front of me. Someone else did. She took the concept, built it into a company running leagues in cities around the country, and it eventually landed on national morning television.
I walked right past it. And genuine congratulations to her for seeing what I couldn't.
One thing to try today
Think of one area of your life where you've decided the opportunities just aren't there. Your work, your town, your stage of life. Then ask yourself honestly: is that true, or is it just what you believe? Look again, this time assuming something is there.
What's an opportunity you suspect you've been walking past? Hit reply, I read every one.
I'll go first: for years I believed the meaningful work would have to come after I got the money. All Star Mentors is me finally seeing it was available the whole time.
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Talk tomorrow,
Mike
Practical wisdom for the life you're building