159. The Filter You Cannot Turn Off

I stopped giving clients what they asked for a long time ago. 

Because what they asked for and what they were ready to build were almost never the same thing. 

This episode is the filter I use to close that gap before it costs you everything. 

I had a client. Twenty years earlier I had built her wellness concept from scratch. It was very unique. Two decades later she came back. Things had become unremarkable and she wanted a wellness offering that was amazing. 

I gave her a stepping stone instead. 

And she was underwhelmed, and expressed that directly to me.  

But I didn't change the proposal. 

Because I knew her property. I knew her team. And I knew that the most amazing concept in the world, placed inside a system not ready to receive it, will eventually become a liability within a few years. 

That moment gave me three questions I now ask every client before a single decision is made. 

In today’s episode, we’ll explore these three questions: 

1.-  Why do you actually want this? 

There are three honest answers. You want to differentiate. You want to fix what is broken. Or you want to escape your current situation. 

The first is valid but not sufficient. The second will fail if the structural problem underneath is not addressed first. The third is the most dangerous; escape energy makes you vulnerable to the bling, and the organisation that cannot handle the current problem will not handle the bling solution either. 

Know which one you are in.  

2.-  Are you willing and able to see this past the finish line? 

The finish line is not the launch. It is ten years in, when the team members who understood the vision have moved on and the return on investment arrived three years later than projected. 

Willing means three things. Financially willing: do you have the money? Energetically willing: are you prepared to protect this every single day when competing priorities need your attention? And people willing: do you have the right people, or are you willing to make the decisions to find them? 

That last one is where most hoteliers stop. Because sometimes the person you trust most becomes the ceiling of what your concept can become. 

3.- Do you have the capacity to steward what you want? 

Having the vision is only part of the equation. Capacity is the other key part. 

The gap between what you want to create and what you can actually sustain is where most wellness concepts die.  

Build the capacity first. The stepping stone is not a compromise. It is the only honest path to the destination. 

By the end of the episode, you will have three questions that cannot be turned off. 

Why do I actually want this? 

Am I willing and able to see it past the finish line? 

Do I have the capacity to steward what I want to create?