The Right Room

The Simple Newsletter - Issue # 082

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Adam’s Thoughts

Being in the room is absolutely incredible.

Tom and I have been fortunate throughout our careers to find ourselves in some amazing rooms with unbelievable people.

And now, we get to create some of those rooms ourselves.

Every quarter, we bring together groups of CEOs and founders for our CEO Masterminds.

We ask three simple questions:

• What’s going right?

  
  

• What’s going wrong?

  
  

• What do you need help with?

And what happens next is the magic.

You get to hear completely different perspectives on the same basic problems.

How someone dealt with it.

What made it difficult.

What worked.

What didn’t.

What they learned.

And we’re doing this regularly. Right now, I believe we have five different groups meeting quarterly.

The environment itself is incredible.

Picture a private room in a great steakhouse.

Twenty-one-year-old Scotch.

Old Fashioneds.

Appetizers.

Entrées.

Dessert.

Usually four or five courses.

But the food isn’t what makes the room special.

It’s the people.

Someone may be 19 years old.

Someone else may be in their 70s.

One person may be working toward their first million.

Another may be preparing to sell a company for $100 million.

And somehow, they’re dealing with many of the exact same things.

Just at different levels.

That’s what makes these rooms so powerful.

Everyone looks around and realizes:

These are my people.

It has become one of my favorite places to be.

And judging by the reactions afterward, I’m not alone.

People shake our hands and ask when we’re doing it again.

Guests who meet us for the first time tell us this is exactly what they’ve been looking for.

Members keep validating that this is the right room for them.

I wish I could bring this experience to everyone.

But this isn’t really our business.

It’s just one of the meaningful things we do.

And yes, many clients have come from these rooms, and many of our clients now participate in them.

But they aren’t scalable.

They’re intentional.

They’re meaningful.

They’re exclusive.

And honestly, that may be exactly why they work.

For those of you who are already part of one, I’m happy for you.

And I’m grateful you’re there.

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Adam’s Lessons

Here’s the lesson:

You have to listen.

Not hear.

Listen.

Because when you’re in a room like this, people are handing you decades of experience.

They’re potentially saving you years of mistakes.

They’re saving you money.

They’re showing you new ways to think.

They’re giving you perspectives you might never have reached on your own.

And maybe most importantly, they’re reminding you that you’re not on an island.

We’re all dealing with versions of the same things.

The younger founders can inspire someone who’s been doing this for 30 years and remind them what that original hunger felt like.

The people who have already crushed it in business and life can show the newer people what’s possible.

And when they look across the table, they often see pieces of themselves in each other.

But none of that matters if you’re only waiting for your turn to speak.

You have to be willing to receive.

To process.

To sit with what someone is telling you.

Tom and I may be naturally wired for this. Maybe that’s one of the reasons these rooms have worked so well.

But the more people who enter these rooms and develop that same ability to truly listen…

The better everyone gets.

So congratulations to you.

To me.

To all of us lucky enough to find ourselves in the right rooms.

I’m already looking forward to the next one.

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So here’s my question for you this week:

Are you spending enough time in rooms where the people around you can challenge your thinking, expand your perspective, and show you what’s possible?

That’s all for this week.

See you next Saturday.