Kind Folks Finish First

Chapter 5The Next Right Step

One of the reasons people find long‐term thinking challenging is that they don't know what to do now to make that long‐term plan possible. It can seem abstract and overwhelming to always have your sights set on the horizon. While you may know deep down something will pay off in the future, how do you pay your bills today?

I get it. Instant gratification is so ingrained in our culture, it's hard to see another way. But playing the long game doesn't mean you do nothing in the short term. All you need to do is take the next right step.

There are lots of heads of strategy out there. And it's true that some business decisions are incredibly complicated.

But fundamentally business, as with life, is not about having a specific plan for every eventuality but having a set of principles and values and then taking the appropriate next step when presented.

My original goal for Revenue Collective was 2,000 total Members by the end of 2020. Instead, at the end of 2020, we had close to 4,000 Members.

In 2016, we were effectively an email group with quarterly dinners. In 2019 we became a dinner group with a vibrant Slack community. In 2020, when we grew fivefold during a global pandemic, we began programming over 25 digital events every single week. In 2021, we rebranded to Pavilion and opened the doors to more than 7,000 Members.

This is not because I'm a genius. This is because we used core values to inform our decision making and leveraged a rough plan. We then ...